CITIZENS

020 7738 2348
October 2015
Opinion & Comment
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today 17
online: www.KCWToday.co.uk
Photograph © NHS Confederation
The fashionable
field of Inequality
By Peter Burden
Sir Michael Marmot works in the
fashionable field of Inequality, in
his case that of the Health of the
British population. It defines his raison
d’etre as Director of Health Equity; it’s
his metier, how he earns his living. Now
that Inequality has become a prevailing
Big Topic among social commentators
and political hacks, he is taking every
opportunity to beat his chest and
castigate a society in which statistics
show that the poor live less long than
people with more money. Add to this the
fact that longevity at any cost is the Holy
Grail for most of the modern medical
profession, and Sir Michael becomes a
very big cheese; people sit up and listen,
and – worse – accept some very broad
assumptions he makes about individual
human aspiration.
First, he appears to have no doubt
that longevity is a Good Thing; nor
does he doubt that anyone who reads
his work will accept that sweeping
assessment. People are so universally
enthralled to the notion that longevity
must be a Good Thing that they simply
don’t ask for the evidence. But do those
who have died at 70 feel more deprived
than those who have died at 90? Are the
longer-lived chuckling to themselves
at their good fortune – happy to have
an extra twenty years of breaking wind,
chronic incontinence, increasing deafness
while watching dreary TV shows,
between crabbing at junior relatives, or
manipulating them by changing the will
every few months?
No doubt there are legions of jolly
old folk – think of all those happy
smiling wrinkled faces in advertisements
for denture fixatives and laxatives –
but there are at least as many who are
bloody miserable, with not enough to
occupy their minds as they descend into
a quicksand of self-obsessed paranoia.
Some might even be aware that they
are contributing nothing to the world’s
wisdom or happiness while they create
overwhelming problems for those who
come after them. In a culture where
corporeal existence is chief, those who
achieve a great age are admired and
lauded for that simple fact, irrespective
of any contribution or, more likely, lack
thereof they may have made to society
during their exceptional span.
Sir Michael tells us that many lives
are being lost unnecessarily as a result
of the ignorance of the uneducated. The
implication is that the Government
aren’t doing enough. But, although
smoking has been fatuously banned in
some great public open spaces, in private,
where individuals are free to make their
own choices, they carry on doing it, in
the full knowledge that it will shorten
their lives.
We are all going to die; we are, I
believe, entitled to have some say in the
timing and manner of this event, unless
we wish to live like Sub-beta World
State Citizens in Brave New World.
People who smoke and booze pay for
their resultant healthcare needs through
specific and substantial taxation. Those
who eat themselves into porcine obesity
contribute very little towards the cost of
their future healthcare, but at least have
enough consideration to die sooner than
they otherwise would. While the widely
accepted public perception is that these
self-destroyers would be happier if they
didn’t die earlier than the norm, it is
their right to choose.
It is false to claim, as some
commentators do, that any people are
unaware of the health dangers; they
are absolutely aware – the warnings
are embedded in all aspects of popular
culture. But individuals are entitled to
carry on doing what they like doing, and
are happy to risk the consequences. It’s a
fair choice – they either give up the fags
and booze (and a large contribution to
the Exchequer) and live another twenty
years with no guarantee of happiness,
and probably at the tax payers’ expense,
or carry on shelling out duty on tobacco
and alcohol, in the knowledge that
they will at least have paid for their
hospitalisation before an early death and
avoidance of all the unpleasantness and
dreariness of growing old.
Does Sir Michael have any authority
to dictate to them what choices they
should make? More confusingly, he also
claims that even the middle-classes, who
have as ready access to health education
as their richer contemporaries, lose out
by six or seven years of life expectancy,
suggesting that the wealthy are enjoying
life so much that they are more reluctant
to let it go. Or perhaps the practical
characteristics that made them rich in
the first place also nurture a mental
attitude that encourages life. In any case,
Sir Michael’s claim is obfuscated by the
use of the term ‘middle class’, which
currently seems to include anyone who
can read and isn’t a millionaire.
One of the more specious aspects
of the claims of commentators of a
Toynbeeish persuasion is that the poor
suffer worse health and obesity because
they can only afford to eat rubbish
food. This is demonstrably not true; it
does, however, require more work and
commitment to eat well and cheaply.
Those who choose not to have the right
to spend their time how they want to. It
is also their right to drink tooth-rotting,
girth-swelling Coca-Cola, instead of
free, healthy tap water. The unfairness
lies in the fact that, unlike the fags and
booze consumers, as long as there is no
taxation on sugar-based foods, the tax
payer, not the consumer is paying for the
resultant health care.
As the Nation’s Nanny, Sir Michael
is entitled to inform, but not to dictate.
It might be simpler to rubber stamp
the bottom of every new born babe
in Britain with the message: “HM
Government Health Warning: LIVING
CAN BE DANGEROUS AND MAY
LEAD TO DEATH.”
www.peterburden.net
Signs of the
times
I noticed two trucks in the traffic
the other day, and the first was a
Wandsworth Council van with a sticker
on the rear stating CAUTION: THIS
VEHICLE STOPS FREQUENTLY.
Behind it was a laundry van with
another sticker reading CAUTION:
THIS VEHICLE FREQUENTLY
STOPS. These two were eclipsed by
a bus which sailed past the other two
and his sign said CAUTION: THIS
VEHICLE MAKES FREQUENT
STOPS. Subtle differences these,
but infused with slightly different
interpretation, a bit like that between a
maternity dress and a paternity suit, or
that thin line between free alcohol and
alcohol free, or a large cat and a big cat.
I saw a sign on the back of a security
van - POLICE FOLLOW THIS VAN,
but whether that was an instruction or a
warning was unclear.
There are a number of, dare I
say, witty signs and slogans, such as
the one of a now defunct oil drum
manufacturer in Battersea, who had the
motto.“Nobody can beat our drums”.
A plumbing firm in Battersea caused
a bit of a stir by painting their vans
bright pink and calling the company
“U-Benders”. In Wandsworth the
other day I spied a sign on a West One
Bathrooms van, which read. “Even
bathrooms as good as ours need a little
plug.” Not bad. In the US, where they
are less shy, there was another plumbing
company proclaiming “Don’t sleep with
a drip. Call our plumbers”, and a sign
on a Septic Tank Truck boasting “We’re
number 1 in the number 2 business”. I
was sent a rake of photographs taken in
Africa, one of which on a door marked
Dark Room had, “Keep door closed!!!
If it is left open, all the dark leaks out’,
and another of a man at a stall selling
torches, with a sign reading, “Ministry of
eliminating darkness”.
One of the very best of signs was a
bilingual one put up by Swansea Council
a few years ago declaring “No entry for
heavy good vehicles. Residential site
only”. The translation underneath read
“Nid wyf yn y swyfddfa ar hyn o bryd.
Anfonwch unrhyw waith i’w gyfiethu”.
The Welsh language translator actually
sent an automated reply, saying, “I
am out of the office at the moment.
Please send any work to be translated.”
Priceless. In Welsh, that’s amhrisiadwy.
Honest.
Dong Rant