Our readers from across the county give their weekly take on the biggest issues impacting Kent and beyond.

Some letters refer to past correspondence which can be found by clicking here.

Immigration figures show the madness of Brexit

Parallel to the outpouring of anger, astonishment and finger-pointing over the latest immigration figures, I see plans to bus in more foreigners to help our job crisis.

I've noticed we are to offer £10,000 upfront to attract teachers and also we are lowering the benchmark on spoken English - presumably written too - on extra fishing crews to plug the gaps.

The countries I have seen mentioned are Nigeria, India, West Indies for the former and Ghana and the Philippines the latter. This is on top of care homes, NHS, agriculture and I am certain other sectors to follow.

All of these procedures cost taxpayers money which did not happen when we were in the EU. Sad to say also that some of these people will be treated as second class citizens on arrival. How on earth have we arrived at this dreadful state of affairs?

It was obvious when this Brexit madness started that we would just see new people brought in from afar to replace Europeans. The government and right-wing commentators denied this fact. Here's to the next hand-wringing, angst-driven set of immigration figures and the hypocrisy surrounding it.

Robert Boston

Liberal left helps people smuggling trade

Anyone using Kent roads will be aware of the state of decrepitude into which they have fallen. Potholes are either left as they are, or repaired in a cheap and inefficient manner, road markings are so faded that many are unreadable, and road signs in rural areas are frequently obscured by foliage.

Despite having the responsibility for Highways the KCC states that is has insufficient financial support from central government, so cannot afford to fulfil the tasks involved. Yet both bodies are controlled by the Conservatives, so any blame must fall upon them.

The real scandal is that Kent, despite lacking funds, is bearing the cost of illegal immigration by those capable of paying criminals thousands of pounds, breaking our laws by arriving in small boats, jumping the queue for consideration for genuine asylum, and disappearing into the general population, putting immense pressure on the NHS, and availability of housing, while undercutting those of the host community, generally lowest paid working class citizens, seeking employment.

The excuses made by those supporting such activity is that these arrivals are fleeing persecution, choosing to ignore the fact that in reality they are fleeing from France, a liberal democracy.

The total imbalance in numbers between young men and others makes clear that most are economic migrants, whose departure from their home countries can only make the position of those remaining worse.

The usual suspects on the Left, mainly middle class, in comfortable, safe jobs, always display a knee jerk reaction involving supporting all and sundry, while we also endure lectures from virtue signalling members of the House of Lords, plus accusations of racism against anyone who dares to oppose throwing our borders open to the potentially enormous numbers of economic migrants seeking to live in the UK.

The Conservative government talks a lot about putting a stop to all this, but, as usual, does nothing effective.

However, the people traffickers need have no fear of their trade being terminated, as the left liberal establishment now has such a grip on this country that it would take a social revolution to force a real change of policy.

Colin Bullen

Country has gone downhill in my lifetime

In a few weeks’ time I’ll be hitting my 80th birthday and I can only wonder what has happened to this great country of ours.

The early years of my life were a time where people helped and looked after each other and where the local Bobby was a friend. But not anymore. We could leave our doors open and even the insurance man would walk in, take his money, sign the book and not touch a thing. One day, Mum was at work, and her washing was out when it started raining. Her neighbour took the washing off the line, ironed it and put it on newspapers in the porch. Can you see that happening today?

Then along comes the 70s, the years of Scargill and ‘Red Robbo’, who brought the country on its knees with strikes and general discord. To me, that was the start of the decline of our country but fortunately Mrs Thatcher put a stop to it all. But it destroyed our pits and car manufacturing and has never recovered.

And from that time, the greed and the selfishness has continued, people now only interested in matters that involve them. This was self evident during the pandemic when shelves were cleared in the supermarkets of such basic things as toilet rolls and bread. I dread to think if there was another war, as I believe people would cut each others’ throats for a loaf of bread.

The country has become lawless, with selfish eco warriors allowed to stop traffic in order to protest, with the police standing around watching. They have lost the support of the public.

We have the ‘woke brigade’ who are trying to gag the people of the country to try to make us think the same. My namesake was killed at El Alamein prior to my birth and died at 21 fighting for us to have freedom of expression and speech and I will be damned if I’m giving that up for anybody.

I’m glad to be at this end of my life as I certainly don’t like what the future holds for the young of tomorrow.

Mr S. C. Anning

We can learn a lot from young people

I abstained from the Brexit vote - despite believing we should leave – because the young people in my family all saw their future in Europe.

This was not because of indoctrination at school. Their views of education all indicated a disappointment with the manner in which they had been educated.

I was fortunate to be a teacher in the 60s and 70s when teachers were much freer to direct the course of education than they are now.

Teachers are under much greater pressure to conform to the dictates of government, geared to meeting economic priorities.

Rather than attacking and criticising young people we should be listening to them.

In major fields of life, such as technology, climate change and human relations we have a great deal to learn from young people.

A quality evident in young people is that they do not sheepishly follow what is put before them, but are prepared to trust their own experience and challenge prevailing ideas.

Ralph A. Tebbutt

Paying the price for rail strikes

Whether one supports the unnecessary railway strikes or not there is a human cost, as I found out when I was passing Dover Priory station a couple of days ago.

The station was closed and none of the comrades and their silly banners were on the forecourt. But I did come across an elderly woman who was trying to travel to Lancaster as her sister was unwell.

She could not understand why the station was closed and was getting increasingly distressed as she had not been aware of the strikes.

I offered help but she noted that her daughter lived in the town and she would contact her.

A small incident but one that might have been prevented by the greedy railway unions. But sadly this farce is becoming more and more common.

Quite what the government is doing is open to question at present although I have heard rumours that striking in what might be termed the crown jewel industries will be made much more difficult in the future.

This country is in a mess and its decline is a painful watch.

Christine Carr

Respect is main thing lacking today

I truly feel sorry that John Brightwell’s childhood memories and years were not magical or imaginative as those shared by myself, my wife and friends at the time.

My doctor, thank goodness, did not have a receptionist. His wife would answer the phone, no one was refused an appointment as and when requested, he made house visits without any pecking order and everyone was seen.

We did have a reliable ‘Bobby on the beat’, upon request he would visit the parents of unruly children. Unlike today, the parents respected society and the law and would punish their own children.

Your wonderful supermarkets have done everything in their power to destroy the fabric of high street shops. Unlike you, I did not trudge the streets, all shops were together in the high street.

I do agree with the stopping of smoking in public places, the drink/drive laws, MOTs, etc.

I am so pleased Mr Brightwell is grateful for the advances made in the last 70 years. Should he speak to the younger generation of today, he will soon realise mental illness issues are escalating at an alarming rate because of the media and social media influencers telling the young they need "this" to be noticed. I only wish the young, in time, will come to realise it is not what you wear that matters, it is who is there inside.

I end with a single word, which was important to those that lived in the 50s but missing too often in your wonderful modern world: Respect. If you respect nothing or no one you deserve none yourself.

David Grummitt

Civil servants are criticised unfairly

We in Britain can be justifiably proud of our Civil Service. Created in 19th century in the Victorian period, it rid the country of the system of government in which, in the previous centuries, its staff were not public servants, but got their jobs through either patronage or outright purchase.

The Victorians brought in entrance by competitive exams and promotion through achievement. For 170 years it is a system which has served us well, to the extent that a survey in 2019 of 38 countries around dealing with their civil service performance, including their openness, integrity and inclusiveness, declared that Britain came first on the basis of overall achievement.

It was a tribute to the professionalism and dedication of our civil servants which, since then, helped to get us through the pandemic and well done to them!

In Colin Bullen’s recent letter he informed us readers that some of our top civil servants, who he calls “bureaucrats” and “mandarins” have, in front of our noses, taken over the reins of power from our politicians.

If, like me, you hadn’t noticed it, Britain is, as he says: “Rapidly ceasing to be a democracy, as arrogant bureaucrats stand in the way of elected representatives of the people, attempting to implement policies of which the former disapprove”.

This sounds serious and I’m surprised that 2019 survey didn’t pick this up. Mr Bullen tells us that apparently they’ve been up to no good: “Most egregiously in the fields of relation with the EU and immigration”. Unfortunately, he doesn’t provide us with a shred of evidence to back these accusations.

In addition, he tells us that they engineered the resignation of Dominic Raab “alleging that the maintenance of a normal chain of command was bullying”. Mr Bullen conveniently turns a blind eye to the 47-page report compiled over five months by an independent investigator which found that Mr Raab had acted in an “intimidating” manner towards civil servants.

In accepting Mr Raab’s resignation, the Prime Minister should be congratulated in upholding his leadership promise that he would lead the country with “Integrity, professionalism and accountability”. Like me and unlike Mr Bullen, I think he is proud of our civil servants and would wish all of them to continue the good work they do for us, despite accusations to the contrary.

John Cooper

Farage is not that popular

Betty Renz is delusional if she thinks Nigel Farage ‘would have had a landslide’ if he had got involved in the local elections.

Reform UK, of which he is President, only obtained a paltry six seats in these elections while his former party, UKIP, failed to win any.

Clearly, he is a politician very much on the wane.

Bill Ridley