I finally achieved a lifetime ambition and got a letter published in the Daily Telegraph (May 5, page 23).

It was in response to the complaints about the long lines of incoming air passengers at UK Border immigration at Heathrow. A report in the press said that at one stage the wait was over two hours and slow handclapping had been started by disgruntled US travellers.

My first reaction to that was outrage that they should react that way. After all, when we visit the US we wait a minimum of one-and-a-half hours and are treated abominably by US Homeland Security.

My letter was in reality half a letter. I pointed out that the problem is not confined to Heathrow. It happens all over the country. At Leeds/Bradford Airport, which I use frequently on return trips from Spain or Germany, a plane-load of Brits are jammed into the passport control area in those infuriating ‘snakes’ of cordons. We are of course not UK citizens – the entrance is labeled ‘EU Citizens’. 

But what infuriates is that there is another lane, usually empty, for ‘Non-EU citizens’, and we all bristle with indignation when the plane’s one or two US passport holders waltz straight through that lane, right to the front and are processed immediately.

Unfortunately the DT left off the rest of my ‘rant’, which was that all US citizens should be kept back a minimum of two hours at UK Border and that all our Border Agency staff should take training in how to be arrogant, rude, bullies. There would then be such a scream of protest from across the Atlantic that the red carpet would be unrolled for Brits entering the US – just as we do for their citizens…