These numbers are not my personal opinion on what poverty is they are official government statistics. Although without a permanent roof over your head is homeless, struggling to feed your family (hence using a food bank) and pay essential bills is living in poverty. I’m not sure what your point is, are you saying the 14M officially living in poverty are actually well off.



The increase in homelessness has nothing to do with immigration. We had immigration before the tories came to power in 2010 and we still have immigration now at similar levels.



Immigrants are scapegoated by our right wing press, which is owned by billionaire non domicile tax dodgers, despite the fact immigrants are less likely to be unemployed than British born people, less likely to claim benefits and contribute more than they take out of the system.

A large chunk of the population has health insurance - a bit like us so why would their behaviour be any different - sadly?

The figures I have read are that between 33-50 million Americans don't have health insurance - between half to 3/4 of our population. It is estimated 45,000 die as a result each year. They spend twice as much per capita on health than the world average but are ranked 34th in the healthiest countries in the world. Highly processed food & a lack of exercise are killers.

Completely agree - the point I was referring to is your assumption that because health care is very expensive people will take a different view to their lifestyle - its obvious they don't.

I think I was saying the opposite but as they haven't found a cure for memory loss I'm not sure.

A big problem is the NHS unilaterally sending out appointment letters with no thought for whether the patient can make it. Although they have got better in many cases and liaise there are still many ludicrous examples. For example, a few months ago a letter arrived one morning saying my daughter had a hospital appointment at 2.00pm that day when they are aware she resides nearly 200 miles away and has to be collected! I and others I know have recently received short notice appointments via letter and the next day received a second letter changing the day by a couple of days. In fact, often receive two or three letters on the same day! My guess is this is deliberate so they can massage their stats / waiting lists by saying that people cancelled / didn't turn up?