Must read article by Lucy Mangan in The Guardian (24/01/2015)

If you don’t understand how people fall into poverty, you’re probably a sociopath

Why don’t abused women just leave their partners? Why don’t poor people just spend less? Why do people in positions of power ask so many stupid questions?

• 
• • Lucy Mangan
  • The Guardian, Saturday 24 January 2015

Excellent article not least due to the line from comedian Bridget Christie, who

"...finished her act with a plea for all laydeez to stop waxing, spraying, deodorising, strimming and surgically trimming their – well, let’s call it “that part of ourselves historically judged to be the seat of all our femininity and womanly powers” – and instead celebrate our individuality by thinking of those parts as “unique, special – like snowflakes. Made of gammon”"

I was listening to Bridget Christie delivering this line on Radio 4 whilst driving - R4 should issue warnings to drivers before broadcasting such knicker wetting humour!

Drugs in prisons...

Surely an increase in drugs seizures in prisons is due to more drugs getting in and not better security! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30859350

Government spin in operation here!

A huge increase in drugs found does not equal better searching/security, there could be a link but it's unlikely and who would actually think that it was a direct link when the biggest increase is in private prisons. Private prisons do not have a good track record! The more obvious conclusion to draw would be that there has been a major increase in drugs smuggled into prisons - now this might just go alongside an increase in security but the uderlying factor is likely to be an increase in drugs.

The government is desparately trying to prove privatisation works before the general election. Well on recent evidence it doesn't:

• Hinchingbrooke Hospital inadequate - Privately run by Circle
• HMP Northumberland: Prison 'stand-off' comes to an end - Privately run by Sodexo
• Oakwood Prison: 'Near riot' claim as inmates damage cells - Privately run by G4S

What price privatisation of our NHS?

Hinchingbrooke Hospital - Inadequate

To me this doesn't just say NHS 'privatisation doesn't work', it also says something very fundamental about our NHS. If our NHS is failing it is because it is UNDERFUNDED. If a private company, that chose to bid to run Hinchinbrook, can't pull it off it means we are not putting enough INTO our healthcare system. What do we have, if we don't have health?

Furthermore, do you, YES YOU, think that someone should be making a profit out of health care? Making a profit out of our taxes? Should my or your ill health line even more private companies pockets? Isn't it enough that our health is held ransom by 'Big Pharma'?

Read Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Pharma

To finish with a little food for thought...

If we all become healthier what future do the private healthcare companies have then? Ok, I know this is the silly extreme but think about it! There is no profit in private healthcare companies reducing our need/dependency on them whether it be reduction in a need for their drugs, their hospitals, their care homes or their anything else!