That fits in with the Migration Watch forecasts of about 200,000 a year, equivalent to a town the size of Northampton being built every 12 months. The Optimum Population Trust (OPT) whose patrons include former FoE Director Johnathan Porritt, wants an immigration policy of zero net immigration and argues that a fall in population is needed to ensure a healthy environment. High population densities such as those that exist in England can only be sustained by excessive use of non-renewable fossil fuels. Crispin Tickell, Director of Oxford's Green College environmental policy centre suggests that aid be "given to those countries where refugees originate" in a bid to reduce numbers migrating to Europe.

The "Guardian" suggests that the issue is dealt with by Government and its numerous agencies and advisory bodies lest the "far right" jump onto the "bandwagon". The future of our people in this, our island homelands, is far too important to be trivialised by calling such an issue a "bandwagon". It has been the many dedicated patriots of the so-called "far right" throughout the post-war years that have been like voices in the wilderness; for decades saying what the man and woman in the street already knows yet ignored by successive Tory and Labour governments.

However, the academics of today's reports, while they should be commended for bringing into the arena of public debate the issue of numbers, fail to address the social consequences of the changing complexion of Britain. If the newcomers were sons and daughters of these islands returning from Australia, New Zealand or the US the numbers would still be a problem, an extra 4 million folk, whoever they are would place an unacceptable burden on our already decaying infra-structure. However what the academics are afraid or unprepared to discuss is just who these newcomers are and what the consequences of 4 million extra people of a very different cultural background will be.

So for example we have John Guillebaud, the co-chair of the OPT saying "We have nothing in common with the racists, and if there are social problems of immigration we don't get into that," Rosamund McDougal, a family planning expert and another co-chair of OPT, argues that the race issue is "simply irrelevant".

"I'd rather have 40 million people in the UK and half of them black than 100 million all white," she says. "We can't affect the death rate - we can't go around shooting people. What we can do is cut down unwanted births and immigration that we cannot sustain."

Why not, Mr. Guillebaud and Mrs. McDougal? You have have let the genie out of the bottle regarding the numbers, do you really think you can now stay silent on the issue of the social consequences? It doesn't require a PhD in environmental economics or social studies to realise what the consequences will be. The impact of a huge flood of immigrants from North Africa, the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent is clear for all to see, our major cities, our county towns and indeed some of our smaller settlements are already reeling from the social consequences of large scale migration. Schoolchildren in villages along the M62 corridor experience the consequences daily, pensioners in once prosperous seaside resorts along the coasts of Kent and Essex witness the consequences daily.

When the academics and think-tanks are ready to tackle that taboo subject, they can maybe, just maybe, entrusted with devising effective policy. In the meantime, they should nod silently to those of us who have been demonised by the media and who have risked ostracism, job sackings, financial ruin, family break-ups simply because we have spoken out boldly and determinedly about both the numbers and the cultural and social impact of immigration.