I think "name and address supplied" cannot be well aware of our history..

Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, has blamed the Home Office for "institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness towards the issues of race and the history of the Windrush generation" which she has condemned as "simply unacceptable.” She herself settles into a long tradition of similar ignorance and thoughtlessness towards the moral deficit from our creating imperial mayhem around the world for several hundred years.

We have not taken our share of refugees into Europe, even without taking into account our greater debt than most other European countries. Dismiss the tabloid lie that people come here for "benefits". If that was their concern, they would go elsewhere: ours are quite ungenerous. They come here because of a residual sense of connection, often with family or other links, and a naive idea that Britain is a safe and humane place (many say this, often with the bitter irony of hindsight). We have made promises to take in unaccompanied children, and broken them.

History is not short term, as we know from our failure to settle the historic injustices of our Irish ventures. Cause-and-effect is a long chain.We have come to believe our own propaganda, which is always a dangerous illusion. Priti Patel has promised reform, a “fair, humane, and compassionate” Home Office. She is on test over the claims of refugees, and is failing that test.

To be proud of being British means working very hard to make a better country; or, alternatively, for some people, working very hard to maintain ignorance in the face of what is all too obvious.

Barry Tempest

Romulus Close

Dorchester