Rwanda migrants should be grateful

STRANGE how negative we have become and how lacking in positive thinking. Sadly, it is largely due to our inborn British compassion, a readiness to share our plentiful assets with millions of unhappy people from overseas. It no longer seems to work, so we have become disillusioned.

That is one reason it was so heartening to read in this newspaper the other day the excellent letter from Jeremy Comerford.

There are times, and this is one of them, when it is kind to be cruel.

Now our poor little country is fearfully overwhelmed with far, far too many people, to such an extent that many of our former resources can no longer be depended upon to function in a way which historically, their efficiency and moral integrity were utterly dependable.

Our police, our lawyers, particularly solicitors who leave long-held clients in distress, our banks discard faithful clients in favour of modern technology, can no longer be trusted.

Pension funds, in the same way, are leaving thousands denied their dues. Our famous health service, whose continuous weak fund managing fails to cope, plus wastage of resources, is now overrun by relentless immigration and casual visitors piling into our shores for free service. In our over-filled schools, where teachers seem so worried about their decaying buildings, the education of our children is suffering. Previous initiative is at a standstill.

Farmers understandably feel underpaid for being expected to provide food while their farms are smothered with solar panels, hypocritically imported all the way from China. Alternatively, housing estates wreck farmland to provide homes much too expensive for our own increasing expansion of street dwellers but suiting many other well-off foreign nationals wanting to stay here permanently. The pockets of a few developers are filled, while the farmer trying to produce food for the masses receives minimal monetary remuneration.

Probably almost the most devastating killer of all is pollution. Failure to deal with so much sewage created by overcrowding is a monumental problem, fouling water courses large and small.

Adding to all this is a growing addiction to poisonous drugs. Toxic chemical materials are used in new road building, poisoning the air and the people who breathe it in. Shameful encouragement, instead of strong methods to prevent further increase of traffic, is too common.

House sprays for killing so-called bugs. Food waste persists, etc. Lights are too frequently never turned off in offices, nor dimmed on roads. Overheated homes and, to crown it all, the free ‘medicine’ recommended by doctors, i.e. spending time in the open air in natural green spaces to help wellbeing, is laughable.

Many a green space in towns is damaged by buildings, or car parks, or supermarkets, etc, wrecking them under Tarmac or concrete.

I could go on... but one answer will suffice. There are far, far too many people, both legal and illegal, smothering our tiny island. We have lost our way.

No longer, it seems, do we even endeavour to maintain our historic fame of efficiency and benevolence while far, far too many people swamp our once generous and beautiful island, making us almost the worst country in the world for our decline in wildlife.

So let us be grateful to our

Prime Minister and his team for persevering, against odds, with a small experiment to enable a few thousand young people, illegally landed here, to start new lives in a new country, Rwanda, which is glad to receive them.

I understand from my own family and friends who know Rwanda that it is a lovely country, now well run and with many assets. Let us wish these illegal immigrants leaving us next month well, and give them every encouragement to embrace the new life with promise and endeavour. They had courage to face hazards in order to reach our island, now they can do the same as many other young people do and make new homes in a new place which still has room to receive them legally.

They must be prepared to work for success and display good manners and co-operation and most of all, positive thinking. The British public is paying vast sums of money to enable this opportunity to happen so for goodness sake, a little gratitude wouldn’t come amiss!

In our own position, let us be grateful that our Government is doing something to physically help our ailing health and sanity, not just talking about it. Let us back up with enthusiasm this Rwanda project for a successful outcome all round.