I HAVE taken some stick from Messrs Clarke and Ison, but both are jumping to the wrong conclusion (Letters, June 1, re John Townend MP's claim that immigrants are turning the British into a "mongrel" race).

In my original letter, I suggested that there is "some substance" to the remarks made by John Townend. In other words, I thought he was partly right but also partly wrong.

In fact, I do not share his concern that the British are becoming "a mongrel race".

Leave aside the question of whether we are a "race", rather than just a "nation" although that technical distinction can now have very serious legal implications.

Of course we are already mongrels. And when I was at school, we were taught that this could actually be an advantage. So a bit more inter-breeding does not bother me.

However, we must not fool ourselves about human nature. A trickle of immigration may be accepted, or even welcomed, and individuals and small groups may easily be "assimilated" to use Mr Clarke's (politically incorrect!) terminology.

But historically, each major wave of immigration into this country was fiercely resisted by the settled population. It took many generations for the old and new populations to bind together.

This is where John Townend has made a better point. Without any popular mandate, the post-war Labour government deliberately set out to encourage mass immigration.

Inevitably, this has created difficult and intractable problems.

Just as Townend implied, the "liberal" solution has been to undermine our traditional culture.

Freedom of speech has been limited. Fair play for each individual has gone, replaced by the folly of positive discrimination. And even the double jeopardy rule, which for centuries has prevented the injustice of repeat trials, is now under threat.

Dr D R Cooper

Belmont Park Avenue

Maidenhead