Me and Arturo are back from our jolly old hols! We ate Dover sole at the seaside. Tasty! Very tasty! We watched Arturo's sister's kittens frolic in the garden. We sniffed out the house mice but caught none. Then we moseyed on back to
Downing Street.
We found the place almost deserted - a few hopeful
Spads, a handful of
Interns - a row of blinking computers and
Larry! Larry seems disenchanted with life. He's even thinking of upping sticks and joining
'Stirrer' Corbyn. Larry thinks the nosh in Islington would be more up-market.
We asked if this joining up with
'Stirrer' Corbyn was an idealistic concept. Larry said: "
No - purely gastronomic". He said "
Cameron and Osborne lack good taste in food". Arturo muttered, "
Much in the way in the same way they lack taste in behaviour and political judgement".
With his view on life ringing in my delicate feline ears, Larry stalked off to the flat next door! Arturo and me then perused the papers left strewn round the office. Here are just a snippet of what we found:
Benefit cuts to hit huge number of children, government figures show Children are seven times more likely to be affected by changes to the benefits cap.
Now, that's a real holiday news headline! Guaranteed to cheer the hearts of the already hard hit families. The article in
The Guardian by
Patrick Butler and George Arnett continued:
More than 330,000 children from low-income families in Great Britain will be hit by Conservative plans to reduce the benefit cap, the government’s own impact assessment has concluded.
The policy will take an estimated £300m out of the pockets of the affected families in its proposed first full year of operation in 2017-18, costing those who are hit an average of £63 per household each week.
Can things get worse? Well read on, my friends:
The impact assessment also notes that:
• Single mothers will be hit hardest as a group by the cap – constituting 59% of those affected by the change.
• More than three-quarters of the households affected will be aged between 25 and 44.
• As many as 37% of those affected may be ethnic minority households – although the study says this cannot be precisely quantified.
The DWP estimates that the cap will save £300m in cash terms in 2017/18, rising to £480m in 2021. But it admits that it has not yet modelled the costs of supporting those families affected.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jul/20/benefit-cuts-to-hit-huge-number-of-children-government-figures-show
Arturo then pointed to another headline:
Benefit cuts deaths: Time for Iain Duncan Smith to reveal the true cost of Tory policies
The article was written by
Keir Mudie in
The Mirror. The article stated:
The Sunday People has joined the campaign backed by more than 200,000 people for the DWP and IDS to come clean on how many people have been killed by their policies
To the Government they are just statistics – 49 deaths on a spreadsheet.
But behind the figures are vulnerable people scared and confused by changes to their benefits. Some are feared to have taken their own lives as a result.
The true toll of those who may have died due to benefits worries is unknown, as the Government stubbornly refuses to reveal figures - despite being ordered to by the Information Commissioner.
The watchdog told the Government to reveal the actual number of deaths, but instead it wants to release 'age-standardised mortality rates' which one campaigner described as a 'fudge'.
More than 200,000 people have so far signed a petition demanding the Department for Work and Pensions, run by Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith, discloses the details.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/benefit-cuts-deaths-time-iain-617788200
That's enough on benefits - Arturo and me thought! To modify a famous political saying "
Things can only get worse"! So we decided to see how the
NHS has been faring - after all Cameron vowed to 'protect' it, didn't he?
Well, well, well - in looking for NHS news, another 'Jeremy' hits the headlines not
'Stirrer' Corbyn this time, but
'Old Snake Oil' Jeremy Hunt, he who looks constantly surprised! And so he should be! He should be surprised that any thinking person could vote him in as an MP! He should be astonished that any right-thinking person could make him a Secretary of State! Of course, there was no right-thinking person about! There was Cameron and that says it all! But enough of this! What did the headlines say?
#ImInWorkJeremy: doctors' working weekend selfies and open letters go viral
That was in
'The Guardian' in an article by
Elena Cresci. She wrote:
Doctors have been sharing selfies and open letters about the pressures they face at work after the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, called for healthcare professionals to work a seven-day week.
On Thursday, Hunt said he would impose weekend-working contracts and said working patterns need to change.
One has to wonder whether our 'Jeremy' works at all! He looks so constantly surprised that I wonder he can get out of bed in the morning!
Elena Cresci quoted several NHS doctors including this :
Some doctors wrote open letters to the health secretary on Facebook. Laura Land, a doctor from Telford, wrote a status subsequently shared by thousands:
She wrote:
Are you at work this weekend Jeremy? Because I am. Thank you for making out that we’re lazy, money-grabbing Doctors who don’t want to work long hours, especially at the weekend. Despite being employed part time (I have a 9 month old son at home), I’ll have worked over 60 hours this week. We, Jeremy, are the people skipping lunch so we can make sure our patients’ paperwork is done so they can go home on time. We’re the people missing family birthdays, our friends’ weddings, our children’s first steps, because we’re putting our patients’ needs first. We are the people that don’t see our own families anywhere near as much as we’d like to, because we’re busy taking care of yours.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jul/20/iminworkjeremy-doctors-working-weekend-selfies-open-letters-jeremy-hunt-nhs
Are you surprised by this,
Jeremy Hunt? We're not! However, Arturo was not done with the searching. He found:
NHS: Junior doctor’s open letter to David Cameron goes viral
This time, it was
The Independent who lambasted our
'Old Snake Oil' Hunt.
Kunal Dutta wrote:
The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, last week issued doctors an ultimatum by warning that they must accept new working hours which cover the weekend or else he will impose the changes unilaterally.
The article quoted Janis Burns, who works at the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust. In the article, she was quoted as challenging the
Prime Minister,
...to attempt to treat a patient “on the brink of death” after a long stint of night shifts. “You try managing that after you’ve been up all night and then tell me the NHS isn’t 24 hours 7 days a week 365 days a year,” she wrote in the letter. She also accused Mr Hunt of “deliberately attacking” the profession and being “hell-bent” on convincing the public that doctors do not provide a seven-day service.
“On Wednesday morning this week I returned to work at 0800. I worked the weekend in Intensive Care as a junior doctor, for your information I was working from 2000 to 0900 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday i.e. I was part of the team that provided a 24 hour, 7 days a week, 365 days a year service,”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-junior-doctors-open-letter-to-david-cameron-goes-viral-10400502.html
Shall I go on? No, I think not! It's too depressing for the season of sand, sea and sunshine! Just think what November will bring! Arturo and me, however, have decided on a new policy. No longer will the PM be
'Boy' David as you will have grown accustomed to - no, sirree! He from henceforth will be known as
'Wrecker' Cameron for his general wrecking. And as for his side-kick from
No. 11,
'Georgy', - well Arturo and me have a new alias for him too - it's
'Butcher' Osborne. That's for carving up the whole country!
As for me and Arturo - we still have
Downing Street almost to ourselves. We found a new Italian Deli and the Chef has taken quite a shine to Arturo. He's promised us some anchovies and sardines! Maybe some
Pasta alla Norma and a bit of
likëngë would be very nice. Yum! Yum!
Bye
