IN the BBC celebrations for Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary Sir Ian Mckellan read a powerful speech from ‘Sir Thomas Moore’, a play which Shakespeare adapted, one of the few things in his handwriting. The speech is about “strangers”; in modern terms asylum seekers. There is a riot in London demanding the strangers be sent away, because they undermine the economy and bring new diseases. Sir Thomas points out that if the mob prevails what is to stop the same bullies from picking on you. Remember Martin Niemollers poem “First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew...”

Sir Thomas argues not to offer asylum is a sin against God and those who harm strangers risk their own future. Suppose you kill the strangers and take their houses, then you are arrested and charged. The king may be lenient, banishing you rather than execution, then you would be a stranger looking for asylum abroad, what if the people there violently turn you away.

“what would you think/To be thus used? /This is the strangers’ case;

And this your mountanish inhumanity.

Sir Thomas Moore Act 2 Scene 4.

Asylum seekers are like us, they need our compassion and our support.

Dr ALI GRAY

Hereford Hospital and Great Malvern Priory.