THIS is an open letter to Mark Harper MP, regarding 'Care

in the Community.'

Successive governments have allowed the banks to

get away with plunging the country into an economic

mess from which you now are trying to extricate

yourselves.

In addition, it has not stopped the expenses scandal

that has used taxpayers' money to allow unscrupulous

MPs to feather their own nests.

It was obvious that the most vulnerable and least

likely to be able to protest would be targeted, but your

Government reiterated over and over again that the frail,

the elderly, the weak and the vulnerable would be 'ring

fenced' and not suffer the economic cuts that must be

imposed on the rest of the country.

You made a show of stating that local authorities

were to have their funding increased to cover the costs of

providing care and support in the community.

Where has this funding gone because, according to

the social services acting on behalf of Gloucester council,

their funding has been cut.

Nothing but lies and deceit.

I have been waiting some time now to hear from you

why, if the above is true, I have had my care and support

cut by some 44 per cent leaving me very vulnerable

indeed. My general practitioner has written to you asking

the same and asking if this is your policy to target the old

and the frail. Are you hoping it will go away? Maybe you

are hoping this bitter cold will solve the problem and we

will die off? That would save your funding.

From next Monday, I will have lost two excellent

carers who have been with me for some three years and

who help me cope with a terminal health condition –

because it is not worth their while to work for 1.15 hours

a day when their own needs have to be met.

Although my care was considered to be the

minimum that could be allowed, I was managing to

maintain some semblance of health and stability. Now I

am told that all domestic cleaning, bed-changing,

shopping, washing and the hundred other small things my

carers do, is to stop. I am told to negotiate public

transport, in a wheelchair, carrying my oxygen and bags

of incontinence laundry and get myself to the laundrette if

I want clean linen! I am terminally ill with heart failure.

I was issued with a pile of leaflets by the social

services of where I could obtain help, all of which have

proved fruitless. There are no volunteers in the

community. It is a figment of some bright spark's

imagination. No consideration has been given to rural and

scattered communities. No thought has been given to the

fact we live in a fragmented society where we have been

taught, by successive governments, not to trust our

neighbours. Inflicting a climate of fear in order to govern

a nation is a political device.

A hundred years ago a small community as here in

the Forest would have had a close knit family and kinship

ties. This has all gone and many people are alone and

isolated, not knowing their neighbours, too proud to ask,

and not knowing where to turn for help.

When you came to this Forest Mark Harper, we had

great hopes of you, believing that you cared for the Forest

community. But then you were in opposition, so it was

expedient.

Now your party is in power, we are seeing your true

colours. However your days are numbered and the

Foresters will not forget your betrayal.

Your Government had a unique opportunity to show

your compassion and your caring for the most vulnerable

in our society, a move which would have won universal

respect, but you have shown your true Tory colours.

You will not get my vote again.

– Jean Brodie, Littledean Hill Road, Cinderford.