JOHN Gilmore’s poignant anatomy of ghettos in the UK (HAS, June 2) should be an essential reading for all schoolchildren, industrialists, social scientists and politicians alike.

Mr Gilmore neatly teases out the underlying factors in the causation in these islands of iniquity, poverty, poor health and social maladies in 21st Century Britain.

But, sadly, your contributor omits to include the Asian ghettos that are so common in many of our Northern towns and cities. They create similar socio-economic and health problems to those encountered in “white ghettos”.

Shamefully, also, these blots on our collective conscience are ignored by our political masters.

Denial is the name of the game for politicians at all levels.

How frustrating it is that although we have travelled so far in time and made great economic progress since the establishment of the first Jewish ghetto in Venice (which, ironically, was located at the site of a derelict foundry – “ghetto” being the Italian word for a foundry) the basic premise for the ghettos remains identical to 16th Century Europe.

Let’s make these ghettos one of the General Election issues for debate.

Dr Abdul Jaleel, Darlington.