The recent local attacks on Polish cab drivers represent an unacceptable attack on the local Polish community as a whole.

Anyone who is found guilty of such acts of ignorant thuggery should be sent down for a very long time by the courts.

These cab drivers are going about their legitimate livelihoods running a service for the local public. People insisting on booking cab drivers who are English frankly don’t help.

They work hard and as people coming from a member state of the European Union have as much right to work and live here as the 350.000 Brits living with their families in mainland European states such as the Netherlands.

If a group of cab drivers want to chat in Polish good luck to them. Can you imagine a group of English tour guides being attacked in Warsaw for talking in English? Are we returning to the dark days of the early 1930s when Sir Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts bullied Jewish immigrants in London’s East End – only this time the victims are Polish?

There was a time when our society was a role model for others in terms of mutual tolerance.

These events make one ashamed to be English and should always be challenged by all of us as citizens living in this country.

This blatant, small-minded, ‘little Englander’ attitude should never be ‘acceptable’ to any of us.

Just remember the sacrifices of the free Polish squadron during the Battle of Britain.

Richard Denton-White, Fortuneswell, Portland