You must be familiar with the headlines that say: “In your average British winter, one older person dies every seven minutes. Our mortality rates are far worse than other countries which have proper winters and get proper cold, like.” And for a moment, we feel a little bit guilty, wonder why we as a society allow this to happen and then we forget all about it. It’s just another here today, gone tomorrow news story. A bit like life, really.
I think we do care about older people freezing to death and we would care a lot more if these older people were our relatives. As a child, I grew up in an era where the back room was warmed by a coal fire and the rest of the house was cold. As a grown up, as the working man, I long understood that there remain many, many people who are cold.
Many people are cold in winter because of a political choice by those who run the country. This is not just David Cameron’s fault because it was ever thus. It is about how we, as a society, value ourselves and our fellow citizens.
As someone who has never earned a great deal of money, and has always paid, as lower paid people do, a higher proportion of my income on tax than the rich do, I have never objected to paying a little extra tax for things that matter. People being treated at NHS hospitals which are free at the point of delivery, sufficient income guarantees, through the minimum wage or decent pensions, are essential in my caring, sharing world. When politicians, like Cameron and George Osborne, aspire to a low tax, low welfare society, what they really mean, put very simply, is that they want to shrink the state, the welfare state, to a bare minimum or, in their ideal world, to nothing at all. It is not an unreasonable belief set if you, like the Republicans in America, disagree with the very principle of a health service, preferring that people could make their own, private welfare arrangements, which all works very well if you are rich, young and healthy. Otherwise…
My view that is is unacceptable to allow thousands of people to die unnecessarily from the cold in what is still one of the richest countries in the world is not a recent conversion on my part. I have always felt that way. I know of several senior citizens not far from me who have died in avoidable circumstances. Then I drive past the local ever-expanding, money no limit MOD behemoth, employing over 10,000 well paid pen-pushers filling out forms to enable our armed forces to buy the most expensive weapons money can buy, which are hardly ever used in anger. Then I am reminded, not that I needed to be reminded, that it is a matter of priorities, as senior citizens, most of whom have paid taxes and National Insurance all their lives, sit in the cold.
Remember when John Major was prime minister? He embarked upon a moral crusade which he called ‘Back to basics’, in which he urged the country to return to old fashioned morals and principles. Then it turned out many of his MPs had been having illicit affairs and sexual relationships, including him. So the term back to basics was somewhat defiled. But that doesn’t make it wrong.
No one deserves to die as a result of the cold, as no one deserves to die in squalor and poverty, but we as a society tolerate it because we agree with the political soundbites like “low tax, low welfare”, which actually sounds quite awful when you think about it.
I am not shocked when I see people suffering from the cold because I have been aware of it all my life, personally and professionally. I have never understood why we allow it to happen and I never will. I maintain that most people are good people and would be appalled by the numbers of people who die purely because they are old and unnecessarily cold. So when you fear someone is suffering from the cold, then do something about it. Go and see them, inform social services, contact a local charity. We have, for too long, allowed the killer cold to take out so many of our older people. You can call it natural causes, I call it avoidable. And yes, it is both a political and societal choice.
