04.01.1996

Left to freeze

Every year when winter hits, electricity is cut off, pipes burst and floods follow. Thousands try to survive in freezing conditions and many die of cold

EACH WINTER thousands of old people die in their homes because they are just too cold. Many dare not turn the heating on because they know they will not be able to afford the bills. Homeless people of all ages may find shelter at Christmas, but this charity does not last the bitter winter months.

And each winter the political parties vie with each other to show how ‘compassionate’ they are.

But the temperature has to fall to 0ºC for seven consecutive days within a given area before ‘cold weather payments’ are triggered. Then the princely sum of £8.50 per week is made to some people on income support. The Tory Party itself caused heating bills to rise by doubling VAT on fuel.

But true to form, the Labour Party has come up with its ‘solution’ to the problem. Pay a “double premium” if the temperature falls to -10ºC for 24 hours! These caring politicians think you are not quite cold enough if the temperature does not fall to the arbitrary levels they set.

In fact when they do drop to such extremes, new problems arise. As temperatures in Scotland plummeted to -24ºC many homes in the Shetlands lost electricity altogether.  A decrepit 40-year old power line collapsed, but, needless to say, the privatised company, Hydro-Electric, blamed the weather, not its own neglect of repairs and maintenance.

Severe weather also took the blame for thousands of households being without water. First it was drought. Then it was the big freeze, followed by the big thaw.

The fact that these privatised companies have sacked workers and routinely skimp on maintenance in order to maximise profits was ruled out of the equation.

In the earliest days of human society, cave dwellers would huddle around a fire to keep warm. Yet today, when modern society has the technology and the means to provide efficient, comfortable living conditions for the whole of humanity, tens of millions live in the most abject poverty.

The problem is not that ‘we’ cannot afford to provide a decent life for all. The problem is that a system based on profit for the few will never provide what millions need if it does not produce a ‘return’.

The Communist Party has calculated that in Britain each adult needs a minimum of £275 per week to allow their family to reach a basic level of comfort and culture that modern society is capable of providing. That should be the level not only of the minimum wage, but of all pensions and benefits.

Above all, the whole of society needs to be run for the benefit of society, not for the benefit of a few company directors and powerful shareholders.