Letter: Britain backs family values, if you're white

Sir: Words cannot express my feelings on reading of the plight of Whitney Forrester.

Perhaps the "silent" majority who apparently support tough immigration controls in the opinion polls will finally come to see what it means in practice. I doubt it, though. For every Whitney Forrester there are hundreds of others, almost always black, brown or yellow, who are thrown out without such publicity.

The hunger-striking asylum-seekers, Whitney Forrester, the grieving husbands and wives waiting in vain for their loved ones to jump ever-higher obstacles in the Kafkaesque farce that is our immigration system ... all are a national scandal.

It is not enough to condemn just "the Government". By our indifference, apathy and in many cases open hostility and xenophobia, we are all guilty. We should be ashamed.

STEVEN POWELL

London N7