We’re heading for winter of hardship
AN open letter to Sarah Dines MP.
I note that you and your colleagues are about to return to work. In the meantime the rest of us have had to put up with a major war in Europe, drought, heatwaves, galloping inflation, rocketing energy prices, the unedifying sight of a dogfight for the leadership of the country, and energy riots in the capital.
The latter was not reported. I feel to disallow conventional reportage and hand the narrative over to social media is allowing optimism to overwhelm experience.
It is very reminiscent of 1984, and it did not work then.
We have to look forward to a winter of possibly millions of extra deaths from starvation, freezing and people simply giving up.
In addition to that, energy prices could have a couple of major unintended consequences.
The first will be that people will turn to candles and paraffin stoves, so the number of house fires will go off the scale.
Secondly, people will simply not be able to afford to wash themselves, their clothes or their crocks. Disease will be the order of the day and the NHS will go under.
In addition to the above, people will not be able to afford their pets and we will have packs of feral dogs roaming the place, criminality will go through the roof and unemployment will blossom as smaller businesses go to the wall.
It is not a comforting picture.
How are you and colleagues on your minimum £84,144 salary with comprehensive expenses and perks going to bridge the comprehension gap between yourselves and the remaining 99% of the rest of us? Simon Mahoney
Brookside