Thread by @fascinatorfun

The biggest story in the UK is not Brexit. It’s life expectancy - The Correspondent

Not just that life expectancy is falling for the elderly, but that infant mortality is rising - at least it is in England, but falling in Scotland.

thecorrespondent.com/177/the-bigges…

We don’t know what the infant mortality rates are since 2017 - because the funding for the ONS has been cut.

But we do know it rose from 3.6 babies in every 1k 2014 to 3.9 in 2017. Each point rise being statistically significant.

In Scotland it fell to 3.2 babies in every 1k

Despite all the profilgate spending on Brexit, a project to make us worse off, public spending is now 5% less (as a % of GDP) than in 2006.

We spend less on public services than almost all EUropean countries.

Meanwhile we have become the most unequal.

Once a state becomes highly unequal it can enter into a spiral of decline.

We are seeing it before our eyes.

And that is one of the reasons I hold in contempt the current Labour leadership, Front Bench Snr HQ personnel with their arrogant hubris in clinging to the unelectable.

Yes. Housing costs looms large in the reasons for the increase in the working poor.

Insecurity of tenure. Lack of agency. Reliance on food banks.

So it is that 1248 more people died than is usual in England and Wales alone in September 2019.

That rose to 2124 more in October 2019.

3372 more people than usual died in England and Wales alone in 2 months in 2019.

Let that stay front and centre stage in all our thoughts