READING about the amount of asylum seekers entering Britain, it's time the Government took a firm stand and stopped being a soft touch.

We are island, not a continent, and regardless of our feelings we have to use a lot of common sense too.

Anne Widdcombe is right saying we have to keep them in holding camps, so that the legal claimants can be allowed to stay and the bogus ones returned immediately, not in a few months or years, or maybe never, but straight away.

There has been a few clangers made by Government, and expensive ones I may say -- ie. the Millennium Dome.

Maybe the other one made was the Channel Tunnel. For as far as I can see there are more disadvantages than advantages. For example, asylum seeker by the hundreds, drugs, TB and other diseases which we'd once wiped out, infected meat, which is suspected of causing Foot and Mouth, and I repeat SUSPECTED, plus illegal goods etc. In fact, off hand, I can't think of any advantages.

During the War, the biggest defence we had was the fact that we were an island, and the only way in was by sea or air. This allowed us to let in the acceptable and keep out the unacceptable. Maybe we should have stayed an island, and then we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now.

We can't afford a population explosion, or we'll end up a third world country, and who'll help us? I'm not racist or unsympathetic, and to help them in their own country is logical and sensible, but let's get our priorities right. Let's sort out our own problems first, the NHS, crime, the racist fights we have now, housing, schooling, get our own people who are living rough into accommodation, and then maybe we can help the others.

God helps those who help themselves.

S Kirkham

Queensgate

Bolton