C F Cresswell misses the point "Intolerance saddens me" Letters December 18.

There are two aspects to the counter argument, no one is disagreeing with the fact that refugees and asylum seekers come here fleeing from the most horrendous situations. From a practical perspective, we cannot house/feed/protect everybody, we are an island and have a finite capacity.

In cold-blooded terms, in a time when we are closing hospitals, cutting funding for the less fortunate of our own country, we cannot be expected to have an open door mentality. Compounding this is the fact that we have an unprecedented number of EU nationals coming to the UK, thus bring further pressure on local resources.

I agree there are many other areas/loopholes etc that need to be addressed and by tackling all aspects we can reduce the overall deficit we face and immigration is just one aspect.

In a controlled and realistic manner immigration is a good thing, but as it is and the attitude shown by current and previous governments it is little wonder that their is a public backlash and the rise in support for UKIP with the dash by the three main parties to back pedal.

Sadly UKIP have now put the subject on the table and it is no longer a taboo subject to discuss in the open. If the main parties had taken a responsible attitude earlier this would not be such a contentious subject.

Andrew Davidson

Bury