Cool the rhetoric

We need to put this fever of anxiety about immigrants behind us. Our housing shortage, for example, has little to do with foreigners and much to do with a decades-long failure to build more homes.

David Cameron was right to call for new ‘garden cities’ to cope with the ever-growing shortfall. Our children need their own homes. But the plan has mysteriously disappeared. Why? Because an election looms and voters punish those who want to build new towns.

Politicians and public alike are in a muddle, knowing one thing is true but wishing another. Too many foreigners live among us, using our limited resources, we say. If everyone were sent ‘home’ would there be more for us. I doubt it because 4.7 million UK citizens living abroad would presumably be sent back here.

One hundred years ago there was also increasing suspicion of foreigners, and legislation passed to bar ‘undesirable aliens’ from our shores. That same year saw the start of a world war that killed millions. Let’s cool the rhetoric and get on with applying real solutions to our real challenges.

Christian Vassie, Blake Court, Wheldrake, York.