24 January 2012

The eye, from which the cataract was removed, seems fine. The first 24 hours being the most critical, i so far as haemorrhaging or infection is concerned. I had to split up the various eye drops into two separate dishes for the girls as there are three different capsules one-for-one eye and two for the other and they could get easily muddled. Can I see any better now. I’ve had both of them done? I can’t say that they are noticeably better as I have a constant drip from my left eye, which tends to blur the vision. The surgeon said he would have a look at that. wekn I go back, for my check-u in four weeks time

The big political battle raging at the moment is the government’s proposal to cap the total amount of benefits received by any household to £26,000 per year ,which they calculate to be the amount, after tax, of a working family. There are apparently 67,000 people who currently claim more than that and the government feels it is quite immoral that you should receive more in benefits than a good, honest working family. However, a few of the do-gooders, particularly the bishops, in the House of Lords disagree, and the proposal was rejected by the Lords by a small majority.

There is a moral issue here. Whilst any person should be allowed to decide whether they wish to work or not they should not be put in a position where they can only do so if they are supported by the state, i.e. at the expense of the taxpayer. The most right wing of the Tory papers considers that something in the region of 75% of those claiming benefit, of one sort or the another, is capable of work. . Is it is the old chestnut that has been going around for years as our benefit bill has risen. How can you ‘punish’ an adult for taking advantage and cheating the system, without making the children suffer. It is a dilemma. One is between a rock and a hard place and I really do not know the answer, however, the best political brains are struggling to come up with a fair solution..

Certainly those people claiming disability allowance with all the benefits that can attach to it, housing benefit; community tax; tax credits; blue badge parking diskk etc s who hould have no objection to being re-assessed. Of course, there have been the extreme cases where the government’s spies have produced video, photographs of some of these disabled claimants skydiving or heaving great pieces of building equipment around when they claim to be so stricken with back pain of arthritis that they can scarcely move. It amazes me that even having claimed thousands of pounds worth of benefit the worst that it seems there can happen to most of these people is a suspended prison sentence and, an order to pay back the money but, no doubt, at such a small amount per week that it is no great hardship.

It is the old chestnut of the government stemming the flood of money going out on benefits and bringing it back to a manageable level. This is particularly as the UK national debt yesterday passed the historic figure of £1 trillion, which I believe is 1000′ 000′ 000 000 ( depending upon whether it’s an English or American  trillion ? Either way, it’s a lot of money) Even at this figure apparently we are less per head of population than a number of European countries, our indebtedness being equivalent to around £16,000 per head of population.

The financial world still seems to be expecting some sort of Euro collapse like the proverbial bus ithat never comes. Or perhaps when it does, there , like the buses, will be three at the same time, financial collapses that is!

How’s this for a job, if you’re unemployed. Click here to see the counting and tagging of brown bears during the depths of winter in Canada. That one I think a number of people would be justified in turning down!