Lets have a bit of charity at home

It's a terrible tragedy in Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world devastated by an earthquake that might have killed/will kill up to 100,000 people perhaps more. International aid is pouring in with volunteers from the UK (and other countries) and up to £2 million pledged in donations to help so far.

And yet, last year 36,700 people died in England and Wales from what's euphemistically called excess winter mortality (I don't have the figures for Scotland, but I suspect it's statistically similar), in fact since 2004 over 142000 people have died mostly from the cold, from fuel poverty caused by the green energy levy, from lack of a decent pension caused by Labours raid on the pensions system when they came to power. This is a national scandal, but it doesn't really get the publicity, old people don't really figure highly on the victimhood charts unless of course they have been mugged and get their pictures in the paper.

I'm not by the way saying that we shouldn't help the Haitians, it's not for me to tell people how they should spend their charitable giving, but I can try at least to hold the government to account and try in my small way to keep it in the public eye though goodness knows how many will read this (I could find out, but I honestly don't care)
I don't know what the figures for excess winter mortality in 2009/10 will be, winter isn't over yet, but I'd be willing to bet money that it will approach the current Haitian figures of about 50,000. 36,700 people last winter, yet the government carries on with its plans to produce expensive, useless (when the wind doesn't blow) energy supplies, our elderly will be reduced to living in a single room, heated by candles, living off toast, dying by thousands, proud people who've usually worked all their lives, have never asked the state for anything and don't want to ask their families (assuming they have any) for help in case they become a burden to them all because of government policies that are ill thought out, scientifically unsound and shamefully brushed under the counter because they happen here and not abroad. Yet politicians themselves will get golden handshakes and index linked pensions, so I guess it's a case of I'm all right Jack and sod the rest of you and please excuse me whilst I have the duck house repaired at your expense.

So, no lets not forget Haiti and the tragedy there, but lets also put it into perspective too and remember that people in the UK are dying not from an unforeseen disaster, but by deliberate government policy that has left them in fuel poverty and in danger of dying of the cold. There's your real tragedy.

Update: Mummylonglegs puts it oh so better than I did.