FURTHER to Yvonne Burrows’s letter (Oxford Mail, September 9), while I commend her for her thoughts on the refugee crisis, I would like to know where does she get her exact figure of 351,314 people who have crossed the Mediterranean?

How can anyone say that the UK does not do enough? We have the biggest overseas aid budget in the whole of the EU, and have always helped in worldwide crisis.

I would like to think that charity begins at home. Oxfordshire County Council is having to save millions of pounds from its budget,with cutbacks everywhere, and now they say that they will take in migrants. Where is the money coming from?

Ms Burrows says we should fly them in. I suggest that they fly any migrant out who gets to our shores illegally. When they get here without any passport or visas we don’t know where they are from or their motives.

It seems that our homeless people, old age pensioners and lack of housing would suggest that the British Isles are pretty full as it is.

I would like to know why 90 per cent of migrants trying to get to Europe seem to be young males, well-fed and clothed with mobile phones.

I would suggest that the majority are economic migrants, not refugees. Why do they not want to claim asylum in the first country they land in? Why do they destroy any paperwork that they have to say where they are from? What have they got to hide? A genuine refugee would be grateful to settle in the first safe country they get to, but then again a lot of countries do not give benefits and free housing.

A few questions: Are we allowed to travel without a passport? No.

Can we visit certain countries without a visa? No.

Can we get free healthcare without having insurance abroad? No.

If someone comes to this country with a visa, passport and a job to go to, all well and good. Would all of the 2,000 people who took to the streets of Oxford welcoming refugees offer to house a refugee family, feed them, clothe them, pay all their medical bills, and care for their children, without them being a burden on the hardworking, tax-paying people of Oxford? I applaud them but, then again, talk is cheap.

DAVID PALFREYMAN
Witney