The Conservatives have been accused of “economic murder” for austerity policies which a new study suggests have caused 120,000 deaths.
The paper found that there were 45,000 more deaths in the first four years of Tory-led efficiencies than would have been expected if funding had stayed at pre-election levels.
On this trajectory that could rise to nearly 200,000 excess deaths by the end of 2020, even with the extra funding that has been earmarked for public sector services this year.
The study attributes this to cuts in health and social spending. It attributes 10% of the death toll to cuts in the number of nurses. And those cuts have led directly to the deaths of people. Just as the Grenfell Tower fire was social murder, a result of "cutting red tape", this is economic murder, a result of cutting the vital services people depend upon to protect their lives. And in both cases, the architects of that murder, the policy-makers who cruelly cut those vital protections, need to be held criminally accountable for it.
Meanwhile, here in New Zealand National pursued a similar strategy of health cuts. How many people have they murdered?