Yesterday we awoke to another cold day with a temperature when I got up of 0° although this is projected to rise to about 12° in the course of the day. We are expecting a whole lot of news to unfold during the day, both domestic and international. On the domestic front, we are going to have the announcement of swingeing welfare cuts to the dismay of great swathes of Labour MPs (who did not feel they were elected in order to pass these policies) but approved of by most of the public. The background, though, is sobering. Ms Kendall is expected to target personal independence payments (PIP) - one of the main forms of disability benefits for those with long-term illnesses or disabilities - amid a spike in claimants. The PIP bill has grown from £13.7bn a year before the pandemic to £21.8bn in the current financial year and is set to increase to £34.1bn by the end of the decade. The number of people claiming this disability benefit is projected to more than double from two million to 4.3 million. The full details are to be announced to the House of Commons later in the day and although it looks as the PIP benefit has escaped being not uprated (ie cut), the eligibility criteria are certain to be tightened and massive efforts made to get those of working age into work and off benefits. The devil is in the detail, of course, and a potential solution would be to continue to allow the full PIP after a return to work but one suspects that this will be taken as evidence that the claimant has overstated the reasons for the original claim which could then be cut. There is a rule that the claimant must have found these medical conditions hard for 3 months and expect them to continue to be hard for another 9 months which can be difficult to assess if medical conditions flare up and then die down again. On the international front, there is going to be a critical phone call between Trump and Putin later on in the day and some newspapers are speculating that this might be a cynical carve-up of Ukraine's assets followed by an imposed ceasefire. Whilst our attention is being diverted by these issues, the ceasefire in Gaza seems to have broken down and the Israelis have launched massive strikes against Gaza overnight in which Hamas claims that 200 have been killed and over another 100 injured. This may be of course that Trump promised 'Hell on earth' could break out in Gaza and this may be a final push by Israel to attempt to achieve a complete domination of Gaza before the conflict burns itself out (if it ever does)
Last night, I received the news from the care agency that the young male Asian carer who often undertakes a visit to Meg has been allocated as her 'lead carer' which sounds like good news. When we see him, we will try and get more details about what exactly this means but I think it means that he will be review and oversee Meg's conditions as he has been caring for her so many months and therefore make recommendations for any variation in the care package, all within the constraints of course of the budget allocated for Meg's care by Worcestershire County Council (and to which we contribute). After a fairly rapidly taken breakfast, Meg and I made our way down the hill to Wetherspoons where we met up with our regular friend. Just as we were leaving, I received a call from my son informing me that there had been an incident in the vicinity of our house and we might not be able to able to get to our own house because dangerous live electricity cables were blocking our path. A near neighbour had some scaffolding erected around his house and in erecting their scaffolding, the firm had brought down two live, power cables which were snaking and hissing their way across the road. House alarms were going off along the length of Kidderminster Road. Thew entrance of our drive was blocked by the scaffolders' van and we waited on a neighbour's forecourt until the fire brigade arrived. Then another neighbour took pity on us and invited us into their house (Meg in her wheelchair) where we could wait until the National Grid repair team could arrive to repair the damage. It was now about 11.15 and we were told the damage would not be prepared until about 4.00pm but, fortunately, the team managed to isolate the cables and we were allowed back into the house at about 12.30. The electricity company had to turn off the power to 750 households in a complete block so the disruption was considerable and over a wide area. Naturally, although we were in the house, there was no power to boil a kettle for a hot drink but then we entertained the carer who, at least, managed to use the hoist to get Meg into her comfortable armchair as it has its own battery power supply. I have to say our neighbours were very hospitable in this mini-crisis and eventually we were pleased to get the power restored to us at about 2.30 in the afternoon.
Today has been a day full of news, both domestic and international. from which we have been cut off with our TV not being available. The timings for the care calls have had to be re-timed in view of this 'outage' in the middle of the day. The news from the Gaza conflict seems dire and it does appear that Israel have decided to break the ceasefire as over 400 Palestinians have been killed, many of them women and children and over 560 injured. This appears, at first sight, to be a push by the Israeli military to achieve a degree of dominance whilst the world's attention is diverted by the Ukraine conflict. There has been a long nearly two hour telephone call between Putin and Trump and details are still to be released but the speculation is rife that Trump and Putin are carving up the Ukraine between them.
© Mike Hart [2025]