Nigel Farage deserves an Olympic medal for cynicism in response to Southport killings: Yorkshire Post Letters

But it seems quickly forgotten that we have just escaped from 14 years of the least successful Tory government in living memory. One of its most harmful "achievements" was to exacerbate poverty levels. To take stats from one northern English city: in four years poverty levels rose by 8 per cent, unemployment by 5 per cent and health provision fell by 9 per cent. These are some of the causes of the anger witnessed on our screens but it has been almost universally directed against migrants, a large percentage of whom (as we are constantly reminded) arrived here so very recently. In fact, much of this urban decline was due to the discriminatory policies of PM Thatcher who felt that depriving traditional industrial areas of their employment sinews was entirely progressive.

But the anger is also stirred by the dangerously emotional language recently used by influential politicians.

David Cameron in 2015 talked about the "swarm" of migrants coming to our shores; Philip Hammond had them as "marauding... undermining our standard of living" even though it has been proven that a settled, respected workforce from abroad contributes more to the national economy through tax payments than it takes out through social security payments.

And Suella Braverman talked of the "invasion" of the UK with "the British people deserving to know what is really going on". How can it be asserted that such language has no connection to the ongoing riots with their targeting of migrants, 150 of whom were trapped in a hotel in Rotherham which some of the actual marauders, claiming to stand for solid British values, were trying to burn down.

Then we had Mr Farage with "is the truth being withheld" - a phrase he used to imply that the barbaric murder of the three girls in Southport might well have been carried out by a recently arrived Islamic terrorist. We now know the arrested person is a 17 year old UK citizen.

Having stirred some aspects of the hatred shown in the riots, Mr. Farage then asked, "what is happening to law and order in this country?" Such cynicism deserves an Olympic medal but does his manipulative approach morally entitle him to Parliamentary pay (£91,300 p.a.) any more than he deserved his golden handshake from the EU (£152,000) and the annual 70 per cent of his MEP's pay which is his EU pension. His pocketing of such sums from an organisation that he told us we should despise is oh so typical; anything to expand the reach of Brand Farage.

And to complete the trio of current "influencers" we have the even more direct role played by Stephen Yaxley- Lennon.

Is the fact that he needs two names (he wants to be called Tommy Robinson) proof that he is a reliable expert on the future of our country?