Ellee Seymour

When Jeffrey launched his blog, I’m sure he realised it would expose him to potential abuse, as well as a few jokes. And it appears some bloggers have had their fair share of fun along these lines.

Only now, according to Sunday Times columnist Bryan Appleyard, it is time to stop, enough is enough. It’s time for “The Guys” to end their “full-bloodied guerilla campaign”. Bryan confesses to being guilty of this too and says:

“I fear this is getting out of hand and becoming a full-blooded guerilla campaign. One recent comment by Jack turned out to be a savage and rather brilliant acrostic. Now look, The Guys, Jeffrey is fair game, but do we really want to turn his magnificent blog into an occasion for our childish humour? Do we really want to drive out every serious fan, swamping the site with subversive questions like ‘What happened to Bill Oddie?’”

Jeffrey seems to take it all in good heart, according to the comments he posted on Bryan’s site. He is doing lots of good work too; so far this year he has raised almost £1 million for various charities - and there are still another 14 charity auctions to be held before the end of the year. He certainly deserves our sympathy for taking part in a charity swim with Rolf Harris and George Galloway.

While Bryan admits to being somewhat surprised by Jeffrey’s rather loose language posted in his comments, Jeffrey says quite candidly :”one does like to muddy the waters every now and then”.

Some things never change…

Our elderly and vulnerable population deserve better than this. Reports that GPs will not have sufficient flu vaccines until the end of the year is disgraceful.

As a result, pensioners may be forced into buying the vaccine privately from local supermarkets .

This is because more than 2 million doses will not reach our GPs until December and it is feared that some vulnerable people will not get their vaccines until the New Year, well into the flu season.

According to Andrew Lansley, Shadow Health Secretary, this is the third year running that supplies have been late, the Dept of Health doesn’t seemed to have learned from its past mistakes.

The jabs, which will be administered by nurses during appointments at supermarket pharmacies, will cost nearly £15, while private medical centres can charge more than £20. This is a considerable portion of a single person’s weekly pension of £84.25.

My feeling is that they won’t bother if they can’t get the vaccine from their GP, they simply won’t know which supermarkets and medical centres it is available from, they may not have the means to travel there, and many won’t be able to afford it.

If they do pay privately, the Government should be made to repay them for the vaccine as they have created this crisis.

The situation has caused considerable concern among Help the Aged who have urged the Government to resolve this before it is too late. Cold weather can kill up to 20,000 people a year in the UK, rising to 40,000 in particularly cold winters, with thousands of deaths attributable to the flu.

Let’s just hope there isn’t a pandemic. The Health Protection Agency has a new data sharing system which will identify areas of the country with a high number of flu outbreaks where the NHS may need to concentrate its efforts.

However, if will fall flat on its face if vaccines have run out. And then there is the question of hospital beds, will we have enough to meet demand because of ward closures/staff shortages? Most unlikely.

So I strongly suggest we take it upon ourselves to ensure that elderly relatives, friends and neighbours get their flu vaccine. Don’t leave them in Patricia Hewitt’s uncaring hands.