Letter: UK is failing poor countries

Sir: Sarah Helm's article on the Danes and immigration ("Immigrant song plays on Danish minds", 18 February) was incomplete, in that it failed to cover an important factor in the anxieties which Danes have about the immigration issue.

Denmark is one of a tiny number of nations which regularly meets the UN quota of 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product in foreign aid to the Third World. If economic circumstances were more favourable in those poorer countries from which immigrants uproot themselves to live in Europe, perhaps they would choose to stay at home and build up their own countries.

It is frustrating to be a country of five million people playing its part in world development when the larger and wealthier developed countries of Europe, and the United States, do not.

PETER NIELSEN

Worcester