THE number of people migrating across the world to escape poverty, dictatorial or inefficient governments, war or to escape religious persecution has become alarming and it’s difficult to see an answer.

One major cause of the problem is overpopulation.

Species have evolved to breed at a rate that keeps their population at a sustainable level and failing that, starvation or disease corrects the imbalance.

One problem here is that the medical profession has gone out of its way in an attempt to eliminate disease and to keep every human being alive at any cost, irrespective of the damage it causes to the rest of the world’s fauna and flora.

Many migrants can see a better life in the more developed countries but there are problems there as well.

It wasn’t so long ago that large numbers of a population worked doing repetitive jobs in factories, in an office or on farms. Now most of those jobs are carried out by computers.

There are still jobs in entertainment, the building and service sectors, but these are not going to employ everyone.

Perhaps Tony Blair’s hope was that the answer was through higher education. Unfortunately, most undergraduates decided not to take a science-based degree which might have helped.

Some industries who need high-fliers to train find that most of the suitable candidates have decided on university and by the time they get their degree and have taken a gap year they are too old.

DERRICK HOLT

Fortnam Close

Headington

Oxford