HOW TO RUN THE COUNTRY

 

 

Time to bring you up to date on the Conservative’s latest tactics to secure votes at the next General Election.

 

You will recall their attack on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTN) and other “anti-motorist” schemes? Well, they won’t let this matter rest, insisting that Local Authorities examine the criteria for proving need for LTNs. 

 

For despite acknowledging that LTNs have been successful in improving safety by reducing traffic and making roads safer for cycling and walking in small areas, the government is insisting that the needs of what many call the “noisy minority” have been overlooked. i.e. the loss of what they consider is the right to drive anywhere.

 

 

The Cons do not deny that LTNs have reduced pollution. But nevertheless they are championing the right to drive into these areas, drive up pollution.

 

The opposing view is that the Cons are simply out to attract votes by stirring up imaginary problems to lay at the door of Labour – many low traffic neighbourhoods are Labour controlled.

 

Now, to another matter. The UK's "sick note" culture. The Cons want to reduce benefits for the 2.8-million people who remain out of work, many with mental health issues. Stopping their benefits is seen as incentive to motivate them to get cured and get out there.

How should they get cured?

Apparently they need to engage with the overburdened mental health services.

Not that simple, given there are 1.9 million people on the waiting list.

And secondly, many medical conditions are not treated by the NHS because doctors do not accept they are real. The Cons think the patient just needs to get a grip when very often the reason for their mental health problems in the first place stem from years of neglect by the NHS, poor living conditions and the cost of living crisis.

 

Scientific research into many serious conditions is  routinely ignored by doctors.   These conditions include EDS (Ehlers Danlos Syndrome) which leads to weak connective tissue and POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia), when movement causes a surge in adrenalin as if in a 100-metre sprint, and at the same time a drop in blood pressure causing dizziness and feinting. This is something written about before in this column.

 

Denying these ill people a “sick note” and denying them benefits will be cruel and devastating act leading to greater anxiety. 

Many  already have so little money and lead such a poor quality of life they must either  rely on charity food banks or their aging parent/carers to provide for them.

 

Next. This is a story of the Conservatives own making,  the call to re-nationalise Thames Water which will land the State with £15bn debt.  This will fall to next government to sort out.

 

Thames Water £15bn in debt

You will have read how water companies, privatised under the Iron Lady – Margaret Thatcher - in 1989, have been pouring tons of sewage into streams and rivers. It is being claimed the water company’s priorities have placed the need to pay their shareholders dividends over that of the cost of improving sewage treatment works.  When the water companies were privatised by Thatcher 34 years ago, they had zero debt!

 

 FOOTNOTE: Has the government considered that instead of pouring sewage into our rivers human waste could be used as fertiliser on the land, which has been the practice in some countries for thousands of years. 

 

Human excrement is full of natural richness and far better for the land than artificial fertilisers which are harmful to the environment. But with vested interests at stake in the wealthy artificial fertiliser business what chance is there of this happening? Once again we are reminded how greed stands in the way of progress. Nothing new.

 

Brings to mind Nikola Tesla’s idea to provide free electricity in the early 1900s. Tesla was appalled at the pollution caused by coal-fired power stations. 

 

Tesla was the inventor of the alternating current motor and electric car pioneer in the late 19th century. He had a vision of pulling electricity out of the air and transmitting it free from huge towers (Only one was built, the Wharncliffe Tower near New York) across the landscape generating immense low-frequency electrical waves. 

 

His idea never got past the experimental stage before his backer, the businessman JP Morgan got wind of it and pulled funding. Morgan was a big investor in copper essential to electric power stations and thought, well; Tesla's gone too far this time.