“Doing nothing had become national policy in England. It was cheap. Many ships were in poor repair and pay arrears in the navy had become notorious. Once action had started, sailors, soldiers and dockyard men alike understood what the Dutch were after, and that they were being ordered to protect employers that had treated them shamefully for many years. So they dropped their arms and ran.”
The rest is history, as we say. It’s a timely reminder that if the powers that be spend year after year throwing too many ‘little’ people under the bus, the consequences down the line can be far more serious.
Kim Young, Canterbury
No consent
Just read the article from January 2024 about painful hysteroscopy. I thought I was alone but sadly from reading up on it after my hysteroscopy two days ago I realise it’s a common experience. I wasn’t even given a consent form to sign let alone informed of the risks of severe pain. I was left in a sweaty state and almost fainted after the doctor finally stopped the procedure after I had asked for her to do so more than once. Barbaric.
Lauren White, London
Law and disorder
There have been issues with immigration legal aid for a long time, well before the Tories. The previous system paid more for firms to be incompetent at the start of a case as the appeal cases got higher rates and at least one of the firms in Greg Barradale’s article was, in my opinion, the worst offender for this.
The Home Office have also continually been useless, rejecting cases for the wrong reasons leading them to go to appeal (which had got worse under the Tories). We do need a huge change to the legal aid system but it also needs better monitoring of a firm’s quality, and the Home Office need to make their caseworkers more accountable for errors.
Thurad, Reddit
This doesn’t surprise me, people with comfortable wages are often isolated in a bubble from the rest of society and are shielded from the harsh economic realities.
Bahumat42, Reddit
I can believe it too. I grew up in a middle-class family and shamefully I used to think people who were poor were at fault and I didn’t know the extent of the housing crisis until I worked in frontline services for the council. That’s when I realised how much suffering there was and most of the time it was not their fault, it’s circumstances.
Minime1993, Reddit
I remember first doing leafletting for a political party. Seeing the state of people’s homes and getting information on their lives when you are relatively comfortable can be really eye opening. Sad thing is I don’t think many in the party I was working with cared too much at an individual level.
MrLangfordG, Reddit
Only half? The only way to know about child poverty is to either be educated on it, or personally know a child and witness them being in poverty. Statistically it’s amazing so many are aware of the issue. You can pass a child on the street and have no idea they haven’t eaten that day.
Timeforknowledge, Reddit
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