Terminally ill people should be able to die with dignity – in a warm home

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The government must play its part by uprating benefits in line with inflation to ensure everyone at the end of their life has the money they need (Getty/iStockphoto)

The news from National Grid that households may experience three-hour electricity outages this winter as the government manages gas shortages is devastating for people with a terminal illness.

People dying at home rely on electricity for keeping their homes warm, for vital medical equipment such as syringe drivers for pain relief, and for the ventilators and oxygen they need to stay alive.

With 90,000 people currently dying in poverty in the UK each year, this group are already struggling to heat their homes due to the cost of living crisis.

Energy companies must act immediately to ensure the homes of people with a terminal illness are prioritised and protected from blackouts this winter. The government must also play its part by uprating benefits in line with inflation to ensure everyone at the end of their life has the money they need to die with dignity, in a warm home.

Ruth Driscoll

Associate Director of Policy and Public Affairs at Marie Curie

London

A dream and obsession

Home secretary Suella Braverman told the Tory conference it is her “dream” and “obsession” to deport desperate refugees to Rwanda. In her next breath, she told the conference that she "loves Britain”. Braverman embodies that total lack of basic humanity and fellow feeling that Tories call "patriotism".

Sasha Simic

London

Save the NHS

For any economy, health and education are the two most essential requirements. This means that nurses, doctors, carers and teachers, together with all the support staff (including teaching assistants, cleaners and porters) are vital to the economy – and indeed, make up a far greater part of it than bankers.

Yet these are the people, once applauded for keeping the country going through the pandemic, many of whom are now unable to feed their families, travel to work in their cars, heat or even keep their homes as a result of over a decade of Tory austerity and this most recent government’s latest fiasco The huge numbers of vacancies will only worsen as more people decide to leave their job for better pay and easier work in supermarkets.

The NHS is the largest employer in this country. If all its vacancies were filled, and all its employees awarded a living wage in this crisis, that would boost the economy much more than removing the cap on bankers’ bonuses. Bankers are still continuing to spend their money, but those who don’t have any are not.

If workers in education were also paid a living wage, and schools and hospitals could afford to heat their buildings and feed those in them, the knock-on effect would be dramatic in improving the outlook for the majority of the population. It would be hard and expensive, but probably less expensive than the £65bn the Bank of England is prepared to pay out for what we have seen of the Truss-Kwarteng misguided and destructive “plan for growth”.

Katharine Powell

Neston

Out before Christmas?

As amusing as it is to speculate that Liz Truss will be removed from office before Christmas, it should be expected that she will remain as UK premier until the next general election which may not come until January 2025.

In 2016 and 2019 and the Conservative Party successfully deployed the tactic of replacing a failing prime minister. Both replacements enjoyed a honeymoon period of great popularity until their failings were exposed. For Theresa May that came with the disastrous election campaign of 2017 and Boris Johnson’s downfall was due to his criminal hypocrisy.

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Truss’s shortcomings have been revealed spectacularly early in her tenure but an early removal by her party would look like a desperate rehashing of a tired tactic. The only other way in which the country can be released from this faltering government is by a general election. But with the current state of the polls, calling an election would only be an act of self-immolation on the Conservative Party’s behalf.

The country has no option other than to hope that the damage wrought by the remainder of this troubling administration is kept to a minimum for the next two or so years. The early signs do not instill confidence.

Neil Baird

Bristol

Ring leader

While on the trivial topic of Liz Truss’s clothes, not only has she chosen the identical dress to the fictional PM in Years and Years, but for weeks now she appears to be wearing Sauron’s “One Ring” on a chain around her neck. The Cracks of Doom are approaching, Liz!

Sue Catling

Swansea