Good on Captain Tom – but the NHS is not a charity

That he chose to undertake this great feat at his great age and with his health-related issues is remarkable in the first instance. It’s understandable then that he made the NHS his chosen charity. Good on him, I say. That’s his right. I choose differently. I choose the likes of food banks, and local charities associated with Edinburgh Women for Independence. But I don’t think I have ever thought it would be necessary to choose to fund government over and above my taxes.

Have we all stopped paying our various, innumerable “taxes”? No matter what name they’re given, those taxes, those we are legally due to pay? Our taxes go to the Exchequer, help fund the NHS with Barnett formula resulting in some return here.

If rUK governments received all the taxes due to them and then allocated funding appropriately, would we feel the need to donate to public services, such as the NHS? So then, what about those off shores, non doms, Panama accounts? Something tells me that Moore would have received a hefty sum, OK perhaps not exactly the same, if he’d done this outwith the current global pandemic. We love “giving” if we can. More often than not, it makes us feel better, and not forgetting the old adage “there’s always someone worse off than yourself”. Add to that, if there is something heart-tugging about the whole thing, it’s even better. But the NHS shouldn’t be that sort of a “charity” that requires such monies, should it? The current crisis has demonstrated yet again that the NHS is underfunded, ill-equipped, and frequently understaffed. The exercise undertaken in 2016 demonstrated the NHS’s unpreparedness for a major health-related catastrophe, borne out now day by day. With Matt Hancock quoted Friday 17 as saying he would “love to be able to wave a magic wand” and have enough personal protective equipment (PPE) “fall from the sky in large quantities” but this was not possible due to a global shortage, perhaps it’s just as well that Moore chose the NHS, and that we’re here in Scotland.

So as I clap on Thursday nights for the NHS, the care sector, the refuse collectors, everyone keeping Scotland on the go, I’m not clapping for the UK Government. I just wonder if anyone clapping and donating to Captain Moore is doing so out of “guilty conscience syndrome”. After all, someone voted for the Tories. Someone voted for Alister Jack, recorded Friday 17 as saying that business and the economy has to start up again soon because “what we learn from previous analysis of recession and depression is that poverty kills”. A Tory telling us poverty kills, after the Tory austerity regime? That says it all for me.

So, I know we’ll continue to give to whom we want to, which is only right and proper. But I would really prefer to believe that my taxes are well used, and not squandered on the likes of ships that didn’t exist, fridges that weren’t required whilst daily evidence demonstrates that a service as vital as the NHS has been overlooked.

Selma Rahman

Edinburgh

IT’S not very British of me to speak out about a dear old Yorkshireman the population are celebrating this week but that’s my point. While we are all celebrating Tom Moore lest we forget why we are all celebrating his brilliant effort. The NHS is not a charity. We pay for it. It’s underfunded by the current British Government. I am humbled b Moore’s daily fundraising. It’s incredible. The gentleman is a hero because he fought for our freedom and now at 99 he’s selflessly setting out to raise cash, and, with support of the British press, is successfully raising £21m+ amid a health crisis, while the current government fails our NHS.

As more lives in the UK, including those of our NHS staff, continue to fall to this disease, Britain now has the honour of the highest daily Covid-19 death count in Europe. It is the British way to make a celebrity of dear Tom. This has no doubt lifted spirit as our death toll regrettably mounts! A mishandled health crisis is the last thing we should feel proud about.I deeply regret the British way to discount the reality, cover up truth and disregard what matters most to prioritise what makes us feel at ease. We should not feel much at ease right now. I am quietly terrified knowing those we know and love could be taken by the disease, or the crisis it’s put upon our health and care services, knowing more could be done to prevent it.

Covid-19 upon Brexit is rotten timing for the ruling elite and it’s the tragedy of our lifetime to see the right proven wrong with a daily death toll. Fine, celebrate Tom if we have to/need to, for now, but let’s not discount the 28-year-old nurse working in her third trimester at Luton and Dunstable Hospital. She sadly left this world within this week and a newborn without a mother. I’m not suggesting we make a celebrity of her, her loved ones deserve privacy at this time. I believe we owe it to her to recognise her name, Mary Agyeiwaa Agyapong.We ultimately owe it to all lives lost to be transparent about who’s accountable.

When we clap on the doorstep at 8pm each Thursday thanking our health and care workers and all key workers, giving their life to save others - remember they are our heroes, do not forget they are victims. Sure, sing for the Queen if it cheers us up a bit. I’d sing Happy Birthday to any old stranger because I’m human and happy to be alive. I hope we all use this time to reset our sense of identity, think about what really matters, who matters, what we value and prioritise those things. Lives matter, Britishness doesn’t.

Marion Gray

Gargunnock

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