Re Keir Starmer’s speech this week (Starmer accused of echoing far right with ‘island of strangers’ speech, 12 May), my father-in-law came to the UK as a refugee in 1979, with his wife and eight children. Forty-six years later, he speaks almost no English. He reads Chinese newspapers and watches Chinese television stations. Every four years he screams “Jia you!” (“Go for it!”) at Chinese athletes competing in the Olympics.
From the sitting room of a council house in Thamesmead, the family started a food business that now employs 18 people, including three of the eight children. The other kids went to grammar school and became lawyers, accountants, bankers and pharmaceutical reps. My father-in-law votes Conservative. He reveres Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister who (reluctantly, as it turned out) agreed to take in his family and 10,000 other boat people. He eats roast beef at our house on a Sunday (albeit with chopsticks, and chilli sauce instead of horseradish).
