I wonder if Paul Ward (Letters, June 11) would be speaking in such glowing terms about the benefits to asylum seekers in Brighton and Hove if among them were members of his own profession, solicitors, willing to work in competition with him for half the wages he receives?

No? Well, the unskilled working class of this city have to do just that. Workers such as unskilled building labourers have seen their wages cut by as much as 50 per cent by competition from legal and illegal immigrants who are prepared to work for rock-bottom wages and are bused down from London on a daily basis.

Mr Ward should take a look at the jobs section of The Argus and note the appalling wages on offer at local nursing homes for care assistants.

These same local workers then find themselves in competition with those asylum seekers who choose to stay in Brighton and Hove for the meanest of property, pushing up the rent of rooms and small flats throughout the city.

It's all very well for Mr Ward and his ilk to sit in their ivory towers and pontificate but it's the poor of this and other British towns and cities who have to cope with the failure of politicians, both national and local, to deal with a problem caused by their ineptitude and a refusal to face unpalatable facts.

-M W H Wilson, Goldstone Villas, Hove