Does nothing else matter?
Low traffic neighbourhoods – or rather “no-traffic” neighbourhoods are said to have the support of the public. Who do they actually ask for these surveys? In these, temporary road blocks are set up using bollards and wooden planters to stop vehicles and “encourage” walking or cycling.
London Ambulance chiefs have reported slight increases in response times, although they say there has been no impact on patient safety. Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they? If there’s no impact through slower journeys, why are ambulances even fitted with blue lights? Maybe we could go all the way back and employ teams of two with hand-held stretchers? They could then run past these temporary traffic impediments without breaking their stride.
Elliot Colburn, Conservative MP for Carshalton and Wallington, disagrees, saying he has seen videos of the “chaos that road closure schemes are causing” and added “That has included videos of emergency service vehicles having to turn around while on call and find alternative routes to incidents.”
Anyone who has had the “pleasure” of using the NHS since February will be only too painfully aware that Covid is king. Operations cancelled, routine tests suspended and visitors barred from entering. Humans have lost their humanity when it comes to our heath service. Wasn’t a positive mental state supposed to help healing?
Cancer patients have to sit through gruelling sessions of chemotherapy without a partner or supporter by their side and for anyone unlucky enough to be admitted, their mobile phone becomes the only source of contact with the outside world. No friendly faces at the end of the bed, no bunches of grapes they don’t even like, and no encouragement from their families that they can beat their illnesses.
On the outside, we have politicians deciding what is essential or not when it comes to purchasing from shops. Who is to say that a book is not as essential to one person as a magazine to another? Great swathes of the country are put in an ever tightening lockdown with no route map to coming back out of it. The two weeks back in March seems to be lasting an awful long time.
Nothing seems to matter any more except to vain pursuit of “beating” the virus. However, it’s not true. Freedom and quality of life both matter. They matter very much!
Martin Day – Party Secretary