Sir Keir Starmer

• MUCH of the recent angry chaos across England is due to the conflation of two major issues: immigration and poverty among a large part of British people, both of which are a direct result of decades of Tory austerity policies and attitudes to the public sector and the working people of Britain, coupled with a feeble opposition.

The immigration issue has grown in recent decades largely because Tories cut numbers of those processing immigrants, while the global refugee crisis displaced millions of people as their homes were destroyed and their countries became battlegrounds, and despots took over, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and Netanyahu in Israel – not forgetting puny Putin’s stupidity.

Instead of an efficient system – identifying those with a right to live in the UK, as well as those considered to be refugees, and getting them into employment – we just stuffed them into ships, hotels, anywhere, that had room to absorb the growing numbers, with the Tory Rwanda stupidity being nothing more than an idiotic diversion.

And Labour, instead of telling us the truth, disgustingly took on the Tory mantra, calling these desperate refugees “boat people” being brought here by “people smugglers”.

And our mainstream media have not helped, daily documenting the numbers coming here, with barely a mention of the fact that this is a global issue not just “poor Little England!”

Our neighbours in Europe take in more refugees than us, and have properly funded policies which see them dispersed and integrated as quickly and humanely as possible.

But lousy pay for millions of people is the other key factor in the anger felt by many, who believe the lies about immigrants being favoured, “given free hotel rooms, mobile phones etc etc”. The immigrants were dumped in hotels and old ships etc, etc, because there was nowhere else!

We need a new government with the guts of the post-war Labour government of Clement Attlee which – admittedly with massive financial help from America – created the National Health Service (against Tory opposition), built “homes fit for heroes”, as well as laying solid foundations for a fairer future for workers, until the Tories took control and began degrading it all.

Sadly, I believe that such a government won’t be led by Sir Keir Starmer.

DAVID REED, NW3