What are your thoughts?

[Frnc]

Agreed, it’s being salami sliced into privatisation especially down south.

Contracts are slowly being put out to tender with private healthcare companies winning them. Can’t get an appointment at your GP? That’s fine, pay £20 and get fast tracked, that’s happening and it’s happening now. The next step will be ‘no of course we aren’t privatising the NHS but it might be prudent to get private insurance to help you get any problem solved quicker’, right before they begin to remove funding proper to them. Health trusts that fail will then be taken into administration and private companies will be allowed to run them.

It’s already happening in social care as well. Be afraid folks, we are in strange times.

Another thing is illness/disability benefits. Invalidity Benefit was replaced by ESA and Work Capability Assessment. You have to prove you can't do ANY work, and they ignore what your doctor or consultant has said. DWP data obtained under FOI showed that 119,000 disabled people died in 3 years, shortly after their benefits were stopped.

[izzy_mack]

Got a long awaited appointment at dentist yesterday. Need fillings so have another appointment, in august. Still I consider myself lucky as it's with an NHS dentist and she's nice.
Hesitate to give my thoughts as they are not acceptable to some. I assume that I'm on my own (with possible family backup). If help comes in any form, fiscal, practical or otherwise from any source that's a bonus. I've said before that I believe money is less important than debt, if you owe money and don't pay that's stealing to me. I move heaven and earth to pay bills which many find a weird notion.
I don't know where I fall in the income bracket but presume it's well down the bottom rung. I will accept any money the gov. throws my way but will not complain it's not enough, as I said the only person I rely on is me. If I can't pay my electric bill, I won't use it. (easy for me to say I know, My kids are grown and I have a wood burning stove with plenty free wood). I have my garden and foraging is limited here but there is some.
Whilst I do believe help is needed for the disabled or ill and those on benefits need more than they are getting, the attitudes of the general population annoys me. They are grieved that they are expected to pay more for their food etc. and also that their holiday is costing more and as they sit down to their meat and 2 veg - with a bottle of wine , then watch their expensive tv package on the latest must have TV - with more wine, they moan again as a mum of 4 is trying to figure out how to feed her kids on a tin of beans and 1 heel of bread.
As long as money makes the world go round I can't see much hope.
I have been abroad twice in my life, flying and paying for hotels. A couple of dozen other holidays which consisted of a few days spent at relatives. I pay my bills. I have never had a TV package, I watch free to view. I pay my way. I realise that cutting your coat to fit your cloth is an old fashioned way but it suits me. But the I want I get way just annoys me. The usual retort is that I work hard so I deserve it, well so does the guy that empties your dustbin or drives the schoolbus or cleans your office, but he's got more sense than to expect to get something just because he wants it.
If food is dear now, it will get worse and if we moan because there are empty shelves in the supermarket, I fear by this time next year we may be glad to see any food at all on the shelves. Food was in short supply in WW2, I fear we may all too soon be facing a time that makes those days seem like a time of plenty.

[diamond lil]

Well whatever has happened and is happening and wil happen, all that we in here can do is stay alert to what's going on and try our best to prep for it, get around it, and live with it. No point in saying how unfair the whole system is - just got to try and think of ways around it.

[Arzosah]

No point in saying how unfair the whole system is - just got to try and think of ways around it.

I was having this sort of convo with my neighbour across the road, and I actively changed the subject. I'm not going to moan about what's happening in our public life too much because I'm furious about it, and I'm certainly not going to complain about entitlement amongst members of the public (I don't know anyone like that, and I wouldn't trust newspaper reports as far as I could throw ... erm, a newspaper isn't heavy enough as far as I could throw a pallet of firewood

If I manage to talk to a neighbour, I'd much rather be discussing the local cats (one of which is his), the helicopter that landed on the green the other day, the free firewood another neighbour brought him, or the sawdust from sawing up the wood that he gives to me, for soil conditioning and mulching.

[Jerseyspud]

Not going to lie I hate seeing people or hearing people ragging on single parents.

I never asked to be one.i thought I had a happy marriage with the father of my children. In reality he left me for a younger model.

I don't expect handouts. I work full time. I do get income support (jersey thing) for my rent and childcare but it doesn't cover all of it because I am very lucky to have a job that pays above minimum wage. Its hard at the end of the month but I'm used to it.

So my preps from good times help me in bad times.

I'm not looking forward to price rises and lack of choice, especially with two sen kids out of 3. But I know there are others in worse situations than I am and I'm grateful for advice from seasoned preppers that I can adjust for my life. And also help friends who are interested in doing the same.

Just my mini rant of the night

Disclaimer: not aimed at anyone here. Also I don't receive any of the handouts you are being given in the UK lol. Jersey gov is giving £20 per person per month for those on income support to help with price increases

[Kiwififer]

Spud, you are the best of us, nobody should have a go at single parents.

Or disabled folk.

Or poor folk.

Or people using food banks.

The difference between most people and the people I have mentioned is one event or two pay checks. A lot of folk don’t realise this, especially those higher up the food chain….

[diamond lil]

We seem to be more balanced and understanding in here than in most forums, am very proud of us Any of us could end up in trouble, none of us are magic. Life is uncertain! And it doesn't do to stick people in drawers labelled "single parents" "disabled" "unemployed" "pensioners" etc - because any of us at any time can end up in one of these groups.

[Arzosah]

We seem to be more balanced and understanding in here than in most forums, am very proud of us Any of us could end up in trouble, none of us are magic. Life is uncertain! And it doesn't do to stick people in drawers labelled "single parents" "disabled" "unemployed" "pensioners" etc - because any of us at any time can end up in one of these groups.

Absolutely. "There but for fortune go you and I", as Joan Baez sang.

jerseyspud - totally get where you're coming from re single parents. I'm single full stop but my brother and sister are both single parents - the partner left in one case, and the other partner died.


ETA - my post immediately prior to jerseyspud's mentions a helicopter landing on the green outside my house: I'd like to make it clear its a council-owned football pitch, and the helicopter was an air ambulance. Just in case I sounded a bit out there

[Yorkshire Andy]

house: I'd like to make it clear its a council-owned football pitch, and the helicopter was an air ambulance. Just in case I sounded a bit out there

There was me thinking you had your Waitrose order flown in

[Arzosah]

house: I'd like to make it clear its a council-owned football pitch, and the helicopter was an air ambulance. Just in case I sounded a bit out there

There was me thinking you had your Waitrose order flown in

nearly!