Currently the UK is the fifth or sixth biggest economy in the world. Depending on the criteria and some other stuff I didn’t really understand, the UK and India are interchangeable on these lists. The world currently is comprised of one hundred and ninety-five countries and there we are smack bang in the middle of the top ten best economies in the whole world. We’re fucking brilliant, aren’t we.
I was editing John’s post last week and it finally hit me, the phrase ‘cost of living crisis’ is disgusting. Isn’t it? There’s literally a crisis around our ability to live. To go about our daily lives. A crisis. For some people, to simply exist is in jeopardy, beyond the normal things that cause us daily jeopardy, like car accidents, cancer and not remembering the wife has had a haircut. And I don’t know why it’s taken so long, but there’s loads of other stuff vying for our attention at all times and I must get desensitised to these phrases being flung about in the media, so it hit me quite hard when I finally realised exactly what it meant.
On the right here is a link to a BBC news article all about how heating is being trialled as a prescription for patients that go to their GP with certain complaints. Yep, you read that right. Your energy bills being paid for so that you can heat your abode, is being prescribed as a treatment. Now heat is actually a valid remedy for some illness and afflictions. I recently had a bad back (yep, I’m getting old!) and I had heat patches to ease some of the pain and tension. They worked. And if you read the article and the case study quoted, the person stayed out of hospital, saving the government money because they didn’t have to treat her when she got ill. Also, her kids were able to be kids and not just care for their Mum. Win win.
“If we buy the energy people need but can’t afford, they can keep warm at home and stay out of hospital,” he said. “That would target support to where it’s needed, save money overall and take pressure off the health service.”
Dr Matt Lipton who helped design the pilot programme
So this is great. There’s a problem, with a simple solution that keeps people out of hospital. Awesome. But fuck me isn’t it grim this scheme now exists where those who are down on their luck have to get heating prescribed like anti-biotics rather than the benefits we pay people are enough to cover THE BASICS OF LIVING. I feel fortunate that I’ve never had to enter the benefits system and I work hard now so that I don’t have to claim benefits. But for those who don’t have my luck, my privilege, my ability to physically and mentally be able to perform in a job, they have to get ill before they can have warmth prescribed by a doctor.
And here’s the weird thing, I don’t feel in crisis. I look around at my friends and family and I don’t see or hear them in crisis. I’ve thought about it long and hard and I think now everyone is just bone tired of the constant crises that we just take it on the chin and adapt automatically. On one hand this is great, we’re learning to be hardier, but on the other, we’re the fucking fifth biggest economy on the planet and what seems like a doom cult runs our government, lurching from hysterical U-turns, to bad economics, to absolute inadequates being elevated to positions of power. For twelve years the Tories have been in government and over that time food bank usage has sky-rocketed, scores of people who are in work are now below the poverty line and recently ‘warm’ banks have opened, so that those unable to heat their homes can go to their local library or council building or hope centre and keep warm. Fifth largest economy in the world and where does all of our tax money go?
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