I have just watched what was a shameful - and profoundly distressing - indictment of this Government's (lack of) commitment to our elderly. The scenes in tonight's Dispatches programme veered from Dickensian squalor to poignant expressions of the lengths to which people will go to to keep their loved ones at home .
Friends and neighbours should not have to take the place of professional carers who can ease the acute distress which they must feel at seeing their lifetime partners suffering indignity on a 24-hour basis. Why? Because we just don't fund the care of our elderly properly . As the programme harrowingly showed, many pensioners are simply too frail or too bewildered to claim the credits which may be their due. Many more do try - and don't qualify. Never mind Middle England and the middle-classes. Never mind the means-testing. It's high time we had a humane and properly-funded welfare system.
The Dispatches programme showed in vivid, horrifying detail that this isn't happening. However much Gordon Brown claims the opposite.
My father is 87 years old. he's one of the lucky ones. Still mobile, still able to go out and have a life. There are clearly millions out there not so fortunate. I found their plight deeply shocking. I suspect I was not alone .
Monday, 4 February 2008
NOT TOO TIRED TO PROTEST..
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4 comments:
I watched that, it was so sad I had to turn over. Sadly, it is unlikely anything will change at present, where are the big marches against poverty, the bonkers and cruel welfare reforms now with added venom from Purnell/Freud. Surely, inequality, etc, should be the crusade for the left, will the LRC take up the mantle?
I watched it in quiet sadness, all we hear from the government is how much they want to reduce 'the welfare bill' while billions goes unclaimed by those who really need it.Caroline Flint's gutter press trawl this morning about booting 'scroungers' out of social housing is another nail in the coffin of the labour movement-how sad to see a Labour minister gettting a rocket from Shelter and the Child Poverty Action Group.I left the party last autumn after 20years membership, after years of trying to convince others to stay and fight from within. There is no longer a Labour party worthy of the name.I'll be doing my campaigning via several pressure groups and charities I'm involved in.
Anonymous, I am sorry to hear you have left the Labour Party but understand you may have felt you had no choice. It is perhaps easier to stay where I am as there are many like-minded souls. There are of course many in labour who share your anguish - carry on cam,paigning wherever you can !
PS: You don't have to be in the Party to be a member of the LRC
cheers,as regards the LRC I may actually do that to retain some involvement.
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