I AM not in the least bit surprised to read in the James Slack column that the Home Office deals with 400,000 immigration, asylum and citizenship applications a year.

What does surprise me is that those, who we have elected to represent us, casually ignore public feeling on this subject.

From what I read in the You Say columns, it would appear that the public's position on this subject is that not only do they not want Throckmorton, they also do not want further large-scale immigration. They believe that there are now too many people living in our nation.

If that analysis is correct, then most politicians are embarked upon a collision course with public opinion.

Peter Luff, MP, is to be congratulated upon his support for the people of Throckmorton. But I do not believe it has even begun to register with rank-and-file MPs that the public mood on immigration has changed substantially since the destruction of the World Trade Centre towers, and all that has happened since.

That worries me deeply. I do not think there is any hope of stopping government from depositing what will become, over time, tens of thousands of economic migrants in Throckmorton's soon to be built "asylum centre."

Without controls on asylum movements, I think the people of Worcestershire have every right to point out that we shall soon have the same sorts of problems experienced by Dover. Isn't that why Throckmorton is being built?

It seems to me that all government is doing is spreading the illegal immigration problem around the country, because it is incapable of solving it. In the final analysis, isn't the Government's solution to the "immigration problem" a typical piece of governmental excuse management?

Isn't the real illegal immigration problem the fact that (successive) governments have proved to be incompetent, ineffective and impotent?

N TAYLOR,

Worcester.