Winter's Deadly Harvest

Clive Wakley exposes an annual tragedy

It is predicted that during this coming winter around two hundred people per day will die in our country from cold and cold-related diseases.

The majority will be elderly folk, many unable to afford ever increasing energy and food prices.

That so many of our most vulnerable citizens should fall victim to this now annual harvest of death in one of the wealthiest nations on earth is a disgrace.

Two years ago a spokesman for respected charity Age Concern asked:-

“Why is this not a national scandal? There were 26,156 excess winter deaths during 2009-10, with figures for 2010-11 to be published next month. There is no reason to suppose that the worsening trend will not continue.”

And it has.

Of the approximately 200 a day who died, more than 90% were over 65. They died for the simple and entirely avoidable reason that malnourished pensioners are more vulnerable to cold and, consequently,  less able to cope with winter.

The charity’s figure of 200 deaths a day followed a series of sharp price hikes by energy companies, as has happened again this year. The Government’s response now, as then, is to advise consumers to “shop around” to get the best deals; not a lot of use when one considers the paucity of choice available in an industry that some claim to be a globalist
price-fixing cartel.

Although actual deaths from hypothermia are rare, a combination of cold weather and poor heating contributes to deaths caused by respiratory and circulatory diseases prevalent in older people. Indeed, heart and circulatory diseases are the largest causes of mortality in adults over 65, particularly when combined with periods of sustained cold
weather.

Diet is also an important factor; a poor or inadequate diet will exacerbate cold related illnesses.

Yet the reality is that many elderly people have no option other than to make a choice between heating and eating.

This is not a choice faced by Britain’s herd of pampered Westminster expense claimants – which goes someway in explaining Dishonourable Members’ perceived indifference in respect of this issue. Not for these trough-feeders the choice between heating or eating, particularly so when the taxpayer is picking up their grocery and energy tabs for their
taxpayer subsidised second homes.

The spokesperson for Age Concern went on to say: “Cold is the difference. And unless cold is prevented, the deaths will rise.”

So what’s the problem – why can’t we, as a nation, ensure that the homes of the most vulnerable in society are properly heated and their occupants adequately fed?

The answer, trotted out by Government spokespersons year after year, is that we don’t have the resources – meaning we don’t have the money.

Really!

How then is it possible to fund a foreign aid programme estimated to be somewhere north of £10 billion per annum?

More to the point, why is it that foreigners who have contributed nothing towards this country are, in the eyes of the “good and great” at Westminster, more deserving of British largesse than our own needy – people, who for the most part, have paid into the national “tax pot” for the greater part of their lives!

Could it be that the Government actually welcomes the annual cull, insomuch as it lessens the burden on the “overstretched” pensions and benefits budgets?

Furthermore, why is it that this country is unable (unwilling?) to fund adequate care for the elderly when other countries comparable to us climatically and economically seem to manage so much better?

For example, from 1997-98 on average, 18% of Britain’s winter deaths were excess, compared to 10-12% in typically colder countries such as Finland, Sweden and Norway, and just 11% in Germany and the Netherlands.

So how will the winter of 2012/13 be different?

The inevitable and appalling answer is that it won’t.

The winter cull will proceed as per usual. The Westminster taxeaters will, true to form, do nothing of significance to prevent or alleviate it. In the spring, as is now the custom, a tally will be made of the dead that will result, as happens annually, in a few newspaper headlines. The latter prompting a meeting between Government and energy industry
captains and the scene set, once again, for another series of energy price increases, thus preparing the ground for next winters deadly harvest.

What this country needs is a nationalist government, one which recognizes that the role of government is to serve the people – not itself nor its globalist masters.