In an NHS ward I saw how Britain relies on immigrants. Yet still we tell them they’re not wanted | John Harris

Without hundreds of thousands of people who have come to the UK from abroad, the most basic aspects of how we look after old, infirm and ill people would simply collapse.

Politics, however, increasingly seems to demand that this truth has to be denied.

The result is a level of hypocrisy that is remarkable even by modern standards.

The UK may be about to learn the same lesson awaiting large swathes of Europe , and the US .

When human beings are dependent on others for the most essential needs, the moral response ought to be gratitude.

But dependency also tends to trigger resentment and anger, which I think is part of the contemporary British condition.