Couldn't agree with you more - very well put.

After nearly 79 years, during which I have travelled and seen a lot, my knowledge of things, including this "situation" is a great deal more than what is happening at our hospital. I just use that as examples I have current personal knowledge of. It seems very likely that isn't too dissimilar to hospitals elsewhere in the UK. Staff move around! I follow events, I watch TV. I get told ad nauseam here! You don't need to experience everything personally to be able to understand it. Indeed, a close involvement can produce an emotional response which could compromise objectivity.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

With the greatest respect I think you are missing the point. I am not suggesting that humanity isn't flawed, or that influences like religion, environment or history don't impact the way people behave. All I am saying is, we all share a common humanity at heart. We are born as innocents. Put anyone of us in a similar environment, shown the same love and care, and we will respond the same. Outside prejudices about our appearance may cloud our judgements later, but that's different.

So it's not humanity I am speaking of. It's our common humanity. The spirit that is at the centre of every one of us.

Yes, societies and the people that inhabit them can be selfish and evil. Every human must possess the capacity to behave like that, but not all do. It must be down to learned experiences.

My take from this is that we need to concentrate on those things which unite us, and distance ourselves from those which divide. I have travelled a lot and the most powerful thing that always strikes me is how similar people are. They may eat different things, wear different clothes, worship different gods and follow different political creeds, but they all laugh and cry at similar things, are welcoming and friendly, love their children and strive for a better life.

I see no political right or left involved.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

I regard myself as a humanist. I have no belief in any god.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

But others do and they aren't going to stop for the sake of social cohesion.

They're nice sentiments and certainly a world I would want to belong to and look to actively endorse however you are missing my point - that it is a fantasists pursuit to make broad decisions based upon this desire, as genuine as it may be.

Where I take particular umbrage is with those who believe it is their right to actively pursue this fantasy and force it upon others, often chastising or even punishing those who do not jump aboard the parallel reality train. It has no application nor alignment with reality and demonstrates a perfectly diagnosable delusion to believe humanity will suddenly drop all conflict and adopt an egalitarian, humanistic consensus for coexistence. If there was any chance of this, why also would we decide to do it on a tiny island far enough north of the equator that rarely sees sunshine and already overcrowded? Why not somewhere far more spacious and slightly warmer?

If other societies wish to demonstrate this existence - stop slaughtering, beheading, bombing, shooting one another with assault rifles, stop the abuse of women and children, end autocratic regimes etc etc then fine, I will happily embrace them and freedom of movement. The proposition that mass immigration is based upon all individuals who are rejecting the failed way of living within their homelands and coming here seeking to establish the aforementioned Utopia, and there are some here resistant to it and therefore the 'enemy', is equally diagnosable as a mental illness if espoused as a political standpoint.

I see no need for the UK nor any other country to accept foreign human beings as though we are so arrogant that we think we live in anything close to a perfect society and therefore hold the answers to everyone else's problems. Massively arrogant to even entertain. What we do have here is a more profitable, slightly more peaceful and higher standard of existence. Accepting outside influence from societies that have failed, often miserably, to establish this, to any large degree, can and must only be seen as detrimental. We certainly do not owe it to anybody (as that is often touted as justification) and must seek to improve and preserve what we have, not open it up for the rest of the world as though it is of no consequence to us. Providing sanctuary, allowing migration etc. is fine when assessed but not as a blanket commitment absent from regulation.

It's as detrimental and bonkers to view the world and strive to treat it as you have articulated as it is to take the view that we are superior to everyone else and therefore have the right to do as we please, especially to the detriment of other human beings. I wish not to see the downfall of this nation as much as I do not for any other nation, it's people ad it's culture. Unfortunately humanity has not cracked that code yet and almost definitely never will. We can look to get as close to it as possible but we are a long way from there and thus must make objectively informed decisions as to our mode of existence, not act upon ludicrous ideals removed from reality. Much of what you have said has relevance in individual or smaller scale circumstances but not on any macro level. That's a completely different ball game.

Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!