More than £1 billion of British taxpayers' money has been spent on legal aid for asylum seekers in the past 10 years

Sue Carroll:

At least half the children in more than 1,000 primary schools in England do not have English as their first language.

Council tax bills will have to rise to pay for Britain's open door immigration policy.

Just a snapshot of some of the headlines over the past three days.

Right-wing scaremongering? Well, how about this: John Reid announces plans to set up a committee to consider how many more migrants should be allowed into Britain. He adds: "We have to get away from this daft, so-called politically correct notion that anybody who wants to talk about immigration is somehow a racist. That isn't the case."

Thank you Mr Reid, for at last giving us permission to say what we've thought all along. Obviously we should welcome this rare opportunity to argue with the state about the shambolic mess we call an immigration policy, but the Home Secretary must also accept we are rightly suspicious of his calls for a debate.

Until now there's been a Kremlin-like conspiracy to demonise anyone who dares raise their head above the parapet as a Little Englander or racist bigot.

Our crime? Simply stating that people are alarmed, confused and concerned about our porous borders.

Even one of their own, Frank Field MP - the epitome of reasonableness - saw his career sidelined when he criticised policies drawn up by liberal-minded cognoscenti in their ivory towers.

For those of us who always doubted the "open door policy'', there's some vindication. We've been proved right.

More vitally we now know that some, if not all, of those nightmare stories we've been told were apocryphal turn out to be frighteningly true.

Health tourists do exist, it's the taxpayer who takes second place to the asylum seeker in the housing queue, the Human Rights Act does sanction those with a criminal past to live here and at least 900,000 illegal immigrants are currently holed up somewhere on this island between John o' Groats and Land's End.

Up till now it's mainly been Whitehall's headache.

But this week threats of council tax rises to pay for another wave of European Union migrants in 2007 brings it home to every door in every street in Britain.

Our local communities, says the Local Government Association, will be stretched to breaking point and to fund housing, hospitals, schools and social services the burden must fall on the public.

What LGA chairman Lord Bruce - Lockhart wants is simple: accurate, up-to-date figures on migration.

Given that the Office of National Statistics claimed Slough had just 300 migrants in 2004, while the real number was around 9,000, you begin to grasp that the truth lies somewhere between government spin and local authority greed for cash handouts.

Caught in the middle is your average Brit whose reputation for being the most tolerant and hospitable in the world is being sorely tested.

For all the prophecies of trouble between the indigenous population and immigrants the number of incidents have been few and far between.

But how much of a chance can we give peace if, in 12 months' time, we find ourselves playing host to 300,000 or more Romanians and Bulgarians - and we are asked to pay for the privilege?

About as much chance, I'd suggest, of this government having the balls to say what Germany said when asked to admit thousands of EU migrants. Nein.

Frank Field and Labour on Immigration

English Labour MP Calls For End To Mass Immigration

Yes, you're right Mr Reid, but how are you going to keep the illegals out?