MR Elster has obviously swallowed the globalists spin doctors' propaganda regarding the benefits of immigration and the state of the British economy (The Bolton News, January 6).

Mass immigration and the global economy are responsible for the de-industrialisation of Britain, the downward wage spiral, unemployment and increasing taxation, especially stealth taxes, but please read on.

Officially, unemployment figures in Britain are 1.7 million, but if we include all those who are claiming incapacity benefits and other schemes, the true figure must be around three million.

Most of these people would be eager to be in work if the jobs were available at reasonable wages, immigration has removed the incentive to work at the lower end of the jobs market.

Around 80 per cent of working families with children are on some form of income support. This is a tacit admission by Government that globalisation has reduced wages to below poverty levels.

Last year, it was reported that the gap between rich and poor in Britain is now greater than at any time since Queen Victoria's reign.

Obviously Gordon Brown has to fund all these casualties of the global economy out of taxation, which explains most of the stealth taxes that he has imposed. Indirectly, it also causes an increase in council taxes.

There is an endless supply of cheap labour out there in the Third World that is self evidently impossible for Britain to compete with, unless our living standards are reduced to the same level.

If I wanted to devise a diabolical plan to de-industrialise Britain, that plan would be called globalisation.

James Marshall Bridge, Tomlin Square, Bolton