Hoping Tory vultures will be dodos soon
WHEN servicemen came home after the war there was - predictably - a baby boom.
Those babies have reached seniority and a good many have overeaten, smoked, drunk too much and exercised too little. In 2010, they began to retire, a lot with illnesses linked to their lifestyle - diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, heart and liver problems and cancers - and simply old age.
You did not have to be a clairvoyant in 2010 to foresee there would be an increasing demand for NHS treatment throughout the years following.
And any but a laissez faire, idle, mean and stupid government would have increased provision of staffing, capacity and resourcing in health and community care. But the Tories and the Libs in coalition and then the Tories solo decided to do the very opposite. By analogy, if a hotelier ran down his stocks and reduced his staffing in preparation for Christmas or the summer holidays, people would wonder if he was in the right business.
But this government, this useless and cynical government, backed by a largely obsequious press, have done exactly that and think they have gotten away with it. Now those right-wing vultures sit in trees eying the carcase, wondering hypocritically how on Earth we can afford to keep that pitifully weakened creature going.
The fact is, of course, that the baby-boomer glut is temporary. Younger generations are exercising more and living more healthily. Nye Bevan’s vision of a healthier population due to better information and measures of illness prevention should eventually come true.
Would it not be a savage irony indeed if many in the very generation for whom Nye first designed the NHS have brought it down by their self-indulgence and tendency to vote for its ugly blue-feathered enemy - the Tory bird?
Younger people will of course need a properly resourced NHS and will hopefully not make the mistakes their elders have made in lifestyle and political choices. And let us hope the vulture is a dodo soon.
will share his view of the situation. Hopefully, during any dialogue with Harry, we can rely on the archbishop to remember that the moral of the biblical parable hinges totally on the errant son’s penitence.
To date, there has been no sign of this in Harry’s case.
Burbage grandad