I ALWAYS read John Phillpott's articles with interest. However the article he wrote on Saturday, September 10 was very thought-provoking as it concerned the Worcester Festival and his take on the demise and decline of the old Worcester industries.

The foreign competition he referred to is home grown and down to the fault of this government which has seen fit to continue with the imposition of high taxation and a grossly over-valued pound.

Is it any wonder that businesses up sticks and move abroad when they have no chance of getting a fair deal here, while we can sit back and watch former colonies like India and also China become super powers and have booming economies which put us to shame?

We never see Ireland mentioned by any of your letter writers. However, this country has low unemployment with only one in three out of work and four times more entrepreneurs than America. It also has the lowest taxation rate in Western Europe.

Countries who set a low taxation and have a highly educated population prosper and have booming economies. It's no use anyone saying that Ireland had money thrown at it by the EU, as Ireland had to pay a high price for whatever it got from Europe when it had to hand over all its fishing rights to the European Union.

We are already over-populated in this small country so why do we need more educated refugees as workers, when we have the oldest and finest universities? We not have enough space to build homes for our own people or new roads or motorways to accommodate them.

All too soon, we will see this green and pleasant land covered in concrete, with little room left for John Phillpott's vision of a festival that would without doubt complement the Faithful City.

M BURCHER,

Worcester.