A little rant.

I always thought it was accepted that the absolute bare minimum a state was supposed to do was secure, as far as may be, the safety and security of its people and their property. If a state can't even do something as basic as that then it really shouldn't be moving on to anything more complicated.

Now, in London, the policy target response time for an emergency call is 20 minutes. That's right, ring 999 and shout "Argh, I'm being stabbed" and they'll get the cops to you in 20 minutes or so. (Only today in the paper there is a report of a murder trial in which the victim was knifed to death whislt his 999 call was on hold, for god's sake. I'm telling you, it won't be long before you dial 999 and get a recorded message saying "Sorry, all of our policemen are busy. Your call is important to us. Press 1 if you are being shot, press 2 if you are being raped....")

So although I admit I don't feel in much physical danger I can't say I have the state to thank for that.

Now, today, I read they are going to increase the fees for using the courts for civil cases. Apparently ministers want court users to pay the full cost of the court service. Big deal, you are thinking, but hang on. This means the state isn't even providing civil justice to its citizens (unless they can pay). What's that? A cowboy builder did a bad job in your house and caused £10000 of damage? You'd like to get compensation? Sorry, you can't. Of you go, try not to fall through the holes in your floor. (Of course you could always just go and break his legs, the police would be along to investigate some time next February)

In short, in the UK, I can't see the state is really providing any sort of basic legal framework for most of its citizens at all.

And another thing. Our wonderful NHS. Because we've got the NHS, we don't waste money on private health insurance like those Americans, do we? Because the NHS will look after us. Well, my mum's just been diagnosed with a nasty form of cancer. The good news is there is a new drug, licensed for that cancer, which offers about a 30% greater chance of a cure than the older treatments. The bad news is the NHS won't prescribe it because its too expensive. And of course she doesn't have private health insurance (which does pay out for the drug) because she thought the good old state NHS would provide. Oh well, never mind, maybe we can find £25,000 out of our heavily taxed income to pay for the drugs ourselves?

Don't even start me on the schools round my way either.

I mean, apart from lesbian equality project co-ordinators what are we actually getting for all this bloody money we pay out to Gordon Brown?