Letters: Promises to fix Britain’s broken asylum system have come to nothing
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
SIR – Abdul Shakoor Ezedi, who is suspected of the chemical attack in Clapham (report, February 2), arrived in Britain illegally, made two unsuccessful asylum attempts and incurred a criminal conviction, but was finally successful on supposedly changing his religion.
Afghan special forces soldiers who fought alongside British soldiers are only now being offered sanctuary (report, February 2).
It’s a scandal and a farce, despite being a headline priority for politicians for a number of years. Our asylum process is pathetic and broken.
Judy Chandler
Polegate, East Sussex
SIR – Our borders are like sieves. Who knows what trouble we are complacently importing for ourselves?
It’s time someone in Westminster got a grip and protected the people rather than their own careers.
John Hinton
East Bergholt, Suffolk
SIR – As usual, the Home Secretary will be blamed for a member of his staff making a decision on Abdul Shakoor Ezedi. Will we find out who this was? Will they lose their job?
Until these things happen, sufficient care will not be taken by these people.
John Rowley
Great Ayton, North Yorkshire
SIR – The case of Abdul Shakoor Ezedi highlights the importance of the question I raised in my speech on my amendment to the Rwanda Bill, which was supported by 62 MPs.
Regrettably, these days, the best way to keep a secret is to make a speech in the House of Commons. But the points I made require action and an answer.
The Bill is now in the House of Lords. As a matter of principle, “international obligations” must not be allowed to override the sovereignty of Parliament in matters of vital national interest.
Sir Bill Cash MP (Con)
London SW1
A Palestinian state
SIR – Lord Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, says the UK is considering whether formally to recognise a Palestinian state (report, February 1). Meanwhile, Mike Freer, the much-esteemed MP, has resigned because of threats to him and his family after he offered firm – yet not uncritical – support to Israel (report, February 2).
Lord Cameron is surely aware that, since 1948, Jerusalem has made overtures to Arabia to create a Palestine and live at peace with Israel. In return it has been attacked. Does he really believe that the so-called moderate Palestinians whom he favours as leaders of a future Palestine – namely the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which is led by
a man accused of being a holocaust denier – can earnestly sign up to a true peace with Jerusalem?
The PLO and Hamas both seek the destruction of Israel. They differ on the method. While Hamas uses war, the PLO relies on propaganda, and passing for peaceful victims, which they aren’t.
A Soudry
Jerusalem, Israel
SIR – It is deeply troubling that MPs like Mike Freer are being intimidated out of office by threats against them from pro-Palestinian radicals. Extra protection should indeed be considered, but this does not tackle the heart of the problem.
This tragic situation is surely a consequence of the pathetic response of police officers and their appeasement of Islamist and far-Left protesters who have taken to the streets of Britain’s cities every Saturday since Hamas’s genocidal pogrom.
These extremists and the useful idiots who march with them have felt empowered to break the law – calling for jihad, glorying in anti-Semitic chants and attacking those who stand up to them while police turn a blind eye. Appeasement never works. It is only by demonstrating forcefully that this is not how we conduct ourselves in Britain that such threats will diminish.
Jeremy Crick
Wolstanton, Staffordshire
SIR – Allison Pearson’s article on mass migration (Comment, February 2) reminded me of a warning about the concept of Islamophobia given by the late Christopher Hitchens: “This is very urgent business, ladies and gentlemen, I beseech you: resist it while you still can and before the right to complain is taken away from you, which is all but upon us ... And remember, the barbarians never take a city until someone holds the gates open to them, and it’s your own preachers and multicultural authorities who will do it for you.”
Graeme Brierley
Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire
Unionists’ duty
SIR – The excellent Ruth Dudley Edwards brings good news of Sinn Fein’s growing difficulties in the Irish Republic (Comment, February 1).
In Northern Ireland, its acquisition of the post of first minister on the return of devolved government will produce much confident talk about the inevitability of a united Ireland. The reality, as polls show, is that supporters of the Union, among whom are many Roman Catholics, outnumber those who want to leave it by two to one.
The Unionist majority can be expected to grow, since Sinn Fein seems unable to produce competent ministers. It has never managed to bring forward a budget capable of gaining the support of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Good government will depend on the Unionist parties in the Assembly. They deserve the wholehearted backing of Conservatives in Parliament, who should remember the full name of their party: Conservative and Unionist.
Airey Neave, for whom I worked long ago, never forgot his party’s overriding purpose.
Lord Lexden (Con)
London SW1
Rugby as child abuse
SIR – Academics have reached the conclusion that encouraging children to play rugby should be considered a form of child abuse (report, February 2). They would do well to pay more attention to how young people should be taught to play the game.
The study focuses on potential brain injury caused by knocks to the head, yet there is no element of the sport that involves the use of the head (unlike football). If rugby is coached properly and games refereed effectively, then the risk of any forceful contact to the head will be the same as for any sport that involves people moving at pace within an enclosed area, such as field hockey or basketball.
Stuart Harrington
Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset
Seeing a pharmacist
SIR – Charles Smith-Jones (Letters, February 1) may have suffered from a pharmacist misdiagnosis, but as a retired pharmacist I can remember the exact opposite situation.
A patient came to me with a photograph of his mother’s facial rash, which her GP couldn’t diagnose. I immediately inquired about pain, looked closely at the image and sent him back with a correct diagnosis of shingles, which was then treated with the appropriate antiviral drug.
In the thorny business of medical diagnosis, anyone can make a mistake – and GPs certainly can’t claim perfection. At least you can see pharmacists by walking into their premises, unlike many other medical centres in these beleaguered days.
Roger Pargeter
Ashford, Kent
SIR – It is exciting that we can now have more medical attention for minor problems at a pharmacy. For once I hope that we follow the French model.
In the 1960s I awoke in La France profonde with an upset stomach. I explained this to the pharmacist, who disappeared into the back shop and reappeared with a glass containing a cloudy liquid. I glugged it down and said: “It tastes like Pernod”.
“It is,” she replied.
No charge. Stomach sorted.
Greig Bannerman
Frant, East Sussex
Tracking long journeys of reused milk bottles
SIR – I have long known that milk-delivery companies are happy to accept and reuse bottles from other dairies. I enjoy looking to see where my bottle originated.
Last week we received a bottle from a dairy in Southport. A few days later, a bottle from Lancaster was delivered. As we are in Cornwall, this was quite a journey for both of them.
I wonder what is the furthest a bottle has travelled from its home dairy.
Anne Hanley
Gunnislake, Cornwall
Welfare catastrophe
SIR – In 1996 I wrote a paper illustrating the consequences of an unreformed welfare system (Letters, February 1) based on published material from the Institute of Actuaries and various social studies of the original Beveridge welfare model, later introduced (in much-altered form) by the Labour government in 1948.
With Frank Field and others, I tried to get politicians to address what to me seemed to be an obvious road to ruin without radical alterations to the principles adopted by Labour, especially the failure to involve the voluntary friendly societies that had administered and supplemented the benefits since inauguration in 1908. Their involvement was vital in encouraging the self-reliance most people then exhibited to ensure adequate support in time of sickness, old age and penury.
Their role was taken over without compensation. The state, over time, increased the range of benefits, the criteria being related to “need” not eligibility. So extra burdens were placed on the system.
The collective effect of these measures has been catastrophic on the moral duty of self-reliance and independence, and for the social cohesion that was the essence of the traditional friendly society – which encouraged an altruistic attitude, benevolence and discipline with regard to claims controls to protect the majority of members’ funds.
The idea that no care need be taken by individuals to save for sickness, unemployment or old age became commonplace, as the state would not allow people to go without. The impact is now obvious – though these policies were no doubt well meant.
Mr Field was charged by Tony Blair to “think the unthinkable” as welfare reform minister, but met with opposition from traditional socialist sources, even though the principle underpinning the effort was essentially socialist: let the strong in the community look after the weak.
The need is now urgent to halt this system before it consumes all our resources. We must return to a principled approach based on firm economic models. Politicians of all parties have failed us, but mostly the needy, who will ultimately bear the cost of doing nothing.
Peter Gray
Tunbridge Wells, Kent
Garden path plea
SIR – As a young man my grandfather, a lifelong teetotaller, was heading down the front garden path one morning on his way to work when his little girl (later my mum) burst out of the front door and ran after him shouting: “Daddy, Daddy, please don’t come home drunk tonight!”
All the neighbours heard (Letters, February 2). No one ever found out where she’d picked up this expression.
John Franklin
London N1
Letters to the Editor
We accept letters by email and post. Please include name, address, work and home telephone numbers.
ADDRESS: 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 0DT
EMAIL: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk
FOLLOW: Telegraph Letters on Twitter @LettersDesk
NEWSLETTER: sign up to receive Letters to the Editor here
