"What happened to the world my generation built?", asks the dramatic headline in today's Graun. The article, by one Harry Leslie Smith aged 91, recounts in harrowing detail the privations of poor people before the advent of the welfare state. Mr Smith fears that we are returning to the era of his childhood.
Nowhere in his article however does he consider the economic and demographic pressures the welfare state now faces. When it was set up the life expectancy of an average working man was 48. It is now well into the 80s. People are living longer for all sorts of reasons, one of which is the staggering improvement in healthcare. Only this morning I looked at an MRI scan of my dodgy knee with an NHS consultant. These miracles are expensive. And the longer people live the more medical care they need.
My answer to Mr Smith's question sounds harsh, but it might just be true.
"It became unaffordable, and the debts we incurred to run it in our lifetimes will be still be being paid off by our great-great grandchildren".
