Coming Is The Winter of Our Fear and Discontent!

According to the Samaritans the numbers of suicides in the United Kingdom has risen significantly in the past few years.
The 2013 report shows that the suicide rate for males is at its highest rate since 2002. The number of suicides amongst females has also notably risen since 2007. Overall, between 2010 and 2011 there was a significant increase in the UK suicide rate.

Government cuts to benefits, low wages and fear over being able to afford the basics such as food, gas, electric and water could also be a contributory factor. On top of all the benefit cuts the Conservative Coalition government have introduced what is now widely known as the Bedroom Tax, which is causing fear and distress in as many as over 500,000 low income households. The disabled who often live in specially adapted homes are also being targeted. Having one spare bedroom will mean people could lose 14% of their entitled housing benefit and having two or more spare bedrooms means people may lose 25% of their housing benefits.

Housing chiefs are calling in the Samaritans as as the Bedroom Tax pushes more tenants to the brink of suicide - one association even reports a client attempted suicide during a phone call, by slitting their wrists.

Another person told staff they had phoned to cancel some repair work as they were going for a swim and intended to keep on swimming because they believed it didn't hurt once the lungs filled up with water. Fortunately both callers spoke to Samaritan trained housing advisers and the police were called and their lives saved.

However, Stephanie Bottrill  a disabled grandmother of 57 tragically committed suicide because of fear of the government's Bedroom tax, when she was told she had to pay another £80 per month, days before her death she had told a neighbour that she just couldn't afford to live anymore. She left suicide notes blaming the bedroom tax.

Teams of suicide prevention experts from the Samaritans (an emotional support charity) are training staff at housing groups around the country to spot suicide risks and demand for sessions has shot up by over 48% in the past seven months.

Disabled and widowed grandmother Jacqueline Harris 53 and a former nurse has become the latest victim of the Conservative Coalition government's cruel cuts when she killed herself after her disability payments were stopped by the DWP on the recommendation of Atos.

Mrs Harris's family blamed the government and slammed the government's assessment of Jacqueline, who was partially sighted, required walking sticks, had a spinal condition and was in constant pain due to arthritis in her neck. Despite her debilitating conditions her benefits were cut in January after a ruling said she was fit to work and she went on to lose an appeal against the decision. On November 2 Jacqueline Harris died from a suspected overdose, just 13 days before her second appeal was due to be heard.

At a time when she needed help and support, his lady a former nurse who had worked hard and given so much to the country and her community was badly let down by this government.

What a sad shocking state of affairs it is when we have sunk so low as a country that we are allowing vulnerable, disabled, poor and sick people to end their lives, in fear, misery and pain.

The Department for Work and Pensions and Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan-Smith say their "sympathies go out to the family". I dare say the family do not want their sympathies, I dares say Mrs Botrill and Mrs Harris did not want their sympathies either, all they wanted was to be treated fairly and with dignity and given the help they deserved and had every right to expect.

These are not isolated cases either, this is now becoming the norm, how many more "unnecessary deaths" does there have to be before this government stops this cruel and vicious attacks on our most vulnerable people?

On the same day we learn Energy Companies profits increased by 75% this year we also learn that  last winter 31,000 people died because of the cold weather and Winter Deaths rose by 29%. That is 31,000 'unnecessary deaths' this government is responsible for. The majority of these deaths, 25,6000 in 2012/13 were among pensioners.

While in opposition and during televised leaders live debates, David Cameron promised not to cut pensioners winter fuel payments and accused the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown of scaremongering when he said that this was what the Tories were planning to do.

In 2010 the Conservative Chancellor, George Osborne cut pensioners winter fuel allowance aged 60 to 79 it was cut by £50 and aged 80 years onwards it was cut by £100.

The government deliberately driving down wages, low wages, cuts to benefits and cuts to pensioners winter fuel allowance are forcing people into poverty and the usage of foodbanks is escalation out of control. People are now being forced to choose between heating their homes on eating a hot meal.

According to Crisis homelessness is rising in England and Wales as the result of a lack of housing and cuts to the welfare system. The number of people accepted as homeless by their local authority (statutory homelessness) in up 21 percent in England and 17 percent in Wales in the last two years.

Official statistics show rough sleeping is up 31 percent in two years in England. this is thought to be just a snapshot as the true number of rough sleepers is likely to be far higher. Figures compiled over the course of a year by outreach workers in London shown a 62 percent rise in just two years.

Emergency doctors are warning that savage Tory cuts are plunging the NHS into the worst winter crisis ever this year.
Lives are being put at risk because of a shortage of medics, slashed services, dangerous overcrowding on wards and overstretched nurses.

Nurses and doctors are already working at full stretch with too little time and too many patients and the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt's answer to that is to pass legislation in parliament that will give courts the power to impose prison sentences on nurses and doctors if they slip up and make a mistake. Hospital staff are working with the equipment and within the limitations set them by the Conservative controlled coalition government, yet they are now going to pay with their freedom for the sins of this government, pushing through  their botched £3 billion reforms. Reforms which Cameron promised would not happen, reforms which no one wanted and reforms that were not needed. Since the coalition came to power they have sacked 6000 nurses. Now they trumpet there will be an "extra" 3000 nurses by the end of this year, well these are not extra nurses, they are newly qualified and have yet to gain post qualification experience and there are still 3000 sacked nurses that have not been replaced. How will the NHS attract staff if nurses and doctors are scared to practice for fear of being thrown into prison should they make a mistake?
Doctors ans nurses are seriously concerned about providing a safe service this coming winter.

David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt have left the NHS on the brink of its most dangerous winter in decades. The cold stark truth is that the NHS has fewer nurses, fewer beds and fewer senior A&E doctors than they had last year. As the winter sets in proper, the service is going to be depleted and the mess the government have made out NHS 111 (formerly NHS Direct) is only going to add further chaos to an already chaotic system.

Former PR salesman Cameron has managed to dodge the bullet and avoid taking responsibility for his mistakes, but I feel the net is now closing in on him and the Conservative controlled coalition government. It was absolute insanity to plunge the NHS into the crisis it now faces as a direct result of government interference, but as I have repeatedly warned, to carry out major reforms in education, defence, policing, fire service and welfare and the NHS all at the same time is reckless lunacy beyond which any mere words can describe.

The reforms in welfare affecting the unemployed, housing, bedroom tax, disability rights and benefits to low wage earners is as I have shown causing horrendous problems ending with fear, distress, homelessness and suicides. Universal Credit is creating bureaucratic chaos and leaving people with a roof over their heads, without food and without heat and light. On top of that creating insurmountable problems within the NHS is just adding to nightmare this government have caused across this country in all departments though their gross feckless incompetence.

David Cameron and this government have shown across the board in every department in government that they are totally unfit to run this country, in fact they are shockingly dangerous. The prime minister's behaviour in parliament last week using smear tactics live on TV shrieking out that the leader of the opposition and another senior Labour MP must have enjoyed drug and booze fueled nights out with a disgraced banker, was absolutely appalling. The PM it later transpired was using parliament ti lie through his back teeth in order to smear Ed Miliband and Ed Balls. You would have thought that the PM would keep quiet about bank funding as the City banks and hedge funds etc are responsible for funding over 60% of  the Conservative party.

Instead of doing something about the cost of living crisis that is harming the majority of people in this country and the mess his government are making out of all major government departments, David Cameron has been busy defending the energy companies who are ripping us off, while his chancellor has been in the EU arranging to take the EU to court in order to protect bankers mega bonuses using taxpayers money to do so.

And these feckless fools wonder why most of the people in this country do not feel like there is an economic recovery (a recovery built on a housing bubble).

The whole country is in a dire mess, we are slipping towards catastrophe and many thousands of people will die this coming winter as a direct result of this government's gross incompetence. How many unnecessary deaths have this government caused already and:

How many 'unnecessary deaths' will there be in this  'coming winter of our fear and discontent'?

Cameron will learn that not everything is about money and he will pay electorally, but many in the country will pay for his catastrophic weakness and incompetence with their lives!