Greece vs. the UK: Unemployment, Crumbling Healthcare and Pensions… Does Britain Need a Truth Committee on Debt?

‘Over the last few days I’ve been in Greece as part of a delegation with the Greece Solidarity Campaign. The scale of the challenge facing the Greek people, though already at the forefront of my mind, has been amplified by the many people I’ve met who describe to me a country in utter turmoil. Greece’s economy has been hit by a depression deeper than the one which plagued the USA in the 1930s. A quarter of the workforce is unemployed and half of the country’s children live in poverty. Wages have declined, more than half of pension payments don’t cover the basics and deprivation has risen.

Perhaps most frightening of all the problems facing the Greek people is the crumbling healthcare system. 3.1 million don’t have any health insurance. For those people – who are just one accident or illness away from disaster – the safety net upon which they could once rely now lies in tatters. The hospitals themselves are stretched to breaking point. In some cases there is just one nurse for every forty patients. Every piece of state spending – pensions, welfare provision, and local services – has been ruthlessly and methodically tapped for all it’s worth. The justification for this punishing austerity will be well known to people across Europe: debt.’

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