Starved NHS.

       A couple more posters to print out and stick up where possible. It would be good to keep pointing out that a very high number of the deaths from this pandemic can be firmly and honestly laid at the feet of the brutal austerity that was forced through on ideological grounds, completely divorced from any shred of humanity. Those pompous, privileged, political minions of the corporate world must be held to account for this vicious crime against the population.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Bellgrove Hotel, Five Stars For Degradation.

 

The Homeless.

Tenebrous spectres, they exist,     out there,

on the crumbling edge of chaos.

A father, a son, a brother,

a daughter, a sister, a mother.

Fragments of some shattered family structure;

waste products

from a society being driven to destruction

by a hurricane of greed

living a life that wears out life,

dying,

the devious death of exhaustion from existence.

 

        How we treat the vulnerable and the needy in this society challenges all sense of decency. The homeless can be shoved in any hovel or dismal infested hell-hole, if it makes money for its unscrupulous owners, it will survive, if they can't make money from their little venture, the the homeless are back on the streets. 

 The picture belies the interior horror. Photo by Nick Ponty.

        The Bellgrove Hotel, in Gallowgate Glasgow, is one such large establishment that houses homeless men. Over the years it has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, and is once again in the news, It is claimed that the owners of this festering disease incubator, Stuart Gray and his cousin Alison Barr, have received the tidy little sum of £1.5 million in housing benefit, in gratitude from the state.

       The latest scandal to hit the headlines is the fact that several of the men being housed in that garbage can have contracted  Group A streptococcal infections, also known as a flesh eating disease.  

         FRESH calls to shut down a notorious Scottish homeless hostel have been made following fears that residents have been put at risk of contracting a deadly flesh-eating disease. NHS Scotland confirmed that four residents of the privately-run Bellgrove Hotel, which houses almost 140 homeless men in Glasgow have been treated for Group A streptococcal infections, which can cause mild symptoms but in vulnerable drug users can infect wounds and lead to fatal conditions including infections of the blood and necrotising fasciitis (flesh-eating disease).

        Homeless people are mired in a range of complicated problems, all of which require compassion, a variety of specialised care, and a safe place to lay their head, however in this society they are at the mercy of money making dens, a handful of caring individuals, charities, or the streets. This country has enough resources to end this criminal act of using the vulnerable as a money making unit, but chooses not to, by dogmatic ideology. A homeless person is a human being, and as such should be treated as one, with dignity, compassion and equality. this society fails on all fronts. As long as we tolerate this greed driven capitalist system, individuals will find themselves at the mercy of hell-holes like the Bellgrove Hotel, while the owners lap up the money with impunity. 

Death By Ideology.

      A young woman, mother of four, Elaine Morrall, aged just 38, dies. No doubt in some grand office the details will be recorded, name, address, date of birth, date of death, cause of death, then it will be filed, then forgotten. It will not be recorded as another unnecessary death from this cruel, vindictive ideology of capitalist greed and inhumanity.

      Elaine had health problems, was on benefit, but had her benefits stopped because she missed an appointment regarding universal credit. Why did she miss her appointment? Well because she was in intensive care, in hospital. Elaine died alone, in her home, wrapped in a coat and scarf, she wouldn't put the heating on until her kids came home from school, she couldn't face the bills to keep warm. This is not an accident, this is cruel deliberate punishing the poor and vulnerable. There is not just the fact that Elaine died a horrible lonely death, but what will happen to her kids? Their lives have been difficult up to this moment, living in circumstance where their mother had to choose between eating, heating, now their lives will be shattered by the loss of their mother under these circumstances, what of their future, carrying the trauma of this ideological driven callous blow. No doubt our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, will cry "SHOCK", "DISGRACE", then move on to the latest the rapturous news of the new addition to the UK's biggest benefit family, the Windsor mob, the latest sex scandal and how much such and such a football club paid for a player. But, will anything change?

        This unnecessary tragedy is played out with callous vindictiveness, performed by puppets who see fit to carry out the ideology of their lords and masters, regardless of the consequences to those involved. This all takes place to a backdrop of millionaires and billionaires who shuffle their ill gotten gains from tax haven to tax haven, so as to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Our country is awash with wealth, while unfortunate individuals wrap themselves in coats and scarfs to keep warm, because they can't afford to pay the heating bills.

      This is 21st. century Britain, the sixth richest country on the planet, a country where an army of parasites, the few, enjoy private jets, multi-million pound yachts, millions stashed in off-shore tax havens, pomp and ceremony of royalty, and the many struggle with poverty and deprivation, choices of eating or heating in our cold cruel winter.

     Elaine Morrall's death is not an anomaly, it is the pattern of our society, for the vast majority, it is day to day struggles for a decent living, while we are surrounded by wealth plundered from the efforts of the ordinary people. This is capitalism, this is how it has always functioned, centuries of a system that fails miserable to see to the needs of the ordinary people. It would be naivety in the extreme to think that it can function other than it does. For justice for Elaine and the countless thousands in similar circumstance, capitalism must be destroyed and replaced by a system based on mutual aid, co-operation, sustainability and freed from the cancerous greed driven motive of profit. only then will we be able to see to the needs of all our people. Will we wait for another few Elaine Morrall type deaths, how many will it take?

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

A Country Of Daniel Blakes.

      In this brutal world of raw capitalism, our country, like most other countries has a multitude of "Daniel Blakes", from north to south, from town to city, honest decent people are being slowly and callously killed. It is not done by bullet or knife, it is done by ideology. Their potential life is being stunted and deliberately shortened. It is planned by faceless well heeled bureaucrats, who never enter the world of the ordinary people. A deliberate policy of demoralising and destroying those surplus to the requirements of capital. For how long will we tolerate seeing our friends, neighbours and family, being deliberately treated to this insidious slow death.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk