I was wrong!

Yes, I know it's a bit of a shock but I was wrong! A few days ago I said that gormless Gordon and his tax and waste policies were killing 5000 people a year because of dirty hospitals.

The actual figures are 8000 for C-diff alone, with another 3000 being killed by MRSA. That is eleven thousand deaths a year this man is responsible for! To be fair gormless Gordon can be held responsible for throwing billions into the NHS without solving this problem. But he didn't cause it.

The cause of our dirty hospitals is because the cleaning is no longer the responsibility of the NHS but is done by private contactors. So whatever a hospital spends on cleaning straight away a huge chunk of it goes to keep company directors in huge salaries and shareholders in profit. To acheive these profits they use the cheapest cleaning materials they can find and pay their staff minimum wage.

These staff are employed on short term contracts with hardly any legal rights, no entitlement to holidays and because of this their staff turnover is unbelievably high. They cleaners do as little as possible for the pittance they are paid and the end result is filthy hospitals and 11,000 deaths a year.

It also goes to prove another point. That people in the cleaning industry, dustmen, sewage workers, road sweepers etc are doing jobs that are every bit as important and every bit as essential as policeman, fireman, doctors etc. So isn't it about time this was recognised and they were paid the same?

We live in a society where white collar workers and leaches like those in the advertising industry get paid very well yet people in essential jobs that protect us from disease are paid a pittance.

Pay peanuts and you get monkeys. The relatives of 11,000 people last year can testify to that.