Elderly care: Britain must put its own vulnerable first

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Daily Mail Comment

Last updated at 12:17 AM on 30th December 2011

Today we report how, shamefully, Britain’s elderly and vulnerable are being hit with punishing increases in the bills they must pay for basic care services, such as bathing, cleaning and meals on wheels.

The double-digit rises are being levied by town halls which, having had their budgets cut by government, are making ends meet by cynically charging the vulnerable ever more to be looked after in their own homes.

The average home care bill now stands at £7,000 a year – leaving the old and disabled or their families with an agonising choice between decimating their life savings or going without the help that provides them with dignity and a lifeline to the outside world.

Dignity is free: Should the most vulnerable be forced to pay for help with the most basic human needs?

Dignity is free: Should the most vulnerable be forced to pay for help with the most basic human needs?

Meanwhile we learn that millions of pounds in aid have been funnelled to  Brazil – a wealthy nation which has this week overtaken the UK in the global economic league table.

 

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Worse, our politically-correct leaders still intend to lavish more than £1.2billion on India, which has its own space programme, and, while cutting every other budget apart from that of the NHS, are sticking mulishly to a commitment not only to freeze but actually increase spending on international aid.

This is despite the fact that Britain –whose aid budget leapt by an astonishing £1.24billion last year – is already spending a far greater proportion of its national income on aid than wealthier nations such as Germany and the U.S.

The Mail is proud of the huge sums that Britons voluntarily give to charities, many of them endorsed by this newspaper.

But to send aid to countries more wealthy than our own makes a mockery of the word charity.

Teaching failures

Of course, there are many, many talented, hard-working teachers in our nation’s classrooms.

But it stretches credibility beyond breaking point that, of the 400,000 teachers in England, only 17 have been struck off by the General Teaching Council for ‘professional incompetence’ since 2001.

Significantly, during these years, our schools were plummeting down the global league tables, sliding from 7th to 25th in reading and 4th to 16th in science.

It must be made easier to sack teachers who are under performing if we want to see improvement in our schools

It must be made easier to sack teachers who are under performing if we want to see improvement in our schools

Allowing bad teachers to keep their jobs – doubtless to avoid upsetting the often militant teaching unions – is a betrayal of every pupil who, as a result, receives an inadequate education.

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, says he will make it easier for schools to dismiss failing teachers. For the sake of millions of our children, that day cannot come soon enough.

History and the Mail

Papers released by the National Archives offer a powerful reminder of how, 30 years ago, Mrs Thatcher was under remorseless attack from the ‘wets’ in her own Cabinet, virtually all of this country’s economists and almost the entirety of the media over her economic policies as she fought valiantly to restore ‘sick man’ Britain to health.

One note, written by her private secretary, records: ‘The PM said that almost every newspaper, with the notable exception of the Daily Mail, was now attacking the Government …’

As history shows, far from the ruin predicted by so many commentators, Lady Thatcher transformed a bankrupt Britain being destroyed by tax-devouring state behemoths and over-mighty unions into a prosperous modern economy that created decades of wealth.

Just as virtually alone we have warned, for two decades, that the euro would lead to economic and social breakdown, this paper can proudly say that we backed Lady Thatcher every inch of the way.

 

Here’s what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts,
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It is no fun getting old in the UK. “English rights”? (Alfred Wyrd). They went out of the window a long time ago. The once proud and great Britain is now the laughing stock of the world. The English have been reduced to a pile of insignificance.

Care and health framed as a UK wide issues again – Scotland, Wales and NIreland have their own governments and policies. It’s English old folks getting the least per person per year funding in the UK and it’s English old folks having to sell their homes to pay for care. Even after working and paying tax/NI all their lives.

We are NOT all in this together.

The UK government that Scots, Welsh and N.Irish people are worth more than English people. The same UK government also denies the English any form of democracy – so we can’t do anything about it. The UK MPs who represent English seats are contemptible in their failure to fight for fair funding and democracy for their English constituents.

How about the DM being the first UK paper to remember the English and to start fighting for English rights? At least recognise and report on the differences between home nations. We deserve the truth.

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