No, it’s not an Agatha Christie story, nor an episode of Midsomer Murders. But it is a gruesome tale of greed and self-interest. Last year Joan Edwards, a 90 year old spinster, left £520,000 in her will to be used by the Government of the day as they saw fit. She had been a nurse all of her working life, and we can imagine that she thought the funds would be used perhaps to fund the NHS, or for some similar public object. She is not alone in making such a bequest. Each year there are a few elderly people, often left without relatives, who wish their life’s savings to be used for the public good.
But in this case the local hospital will not be benefiting, nor will the local library, or the nearby primary school, nor any local or national public service because the Conservative and Lib Dem parties have decided that as the Government of the day they will keep the bequest as if it had been a party donation. This was hardly what she had intended, since her friends describe her as a woman without great political interests. Indeed though she seems to have been a traditional conservative voter when she first made her will donating her estate to the Government of the day it was a Labour administration which was in power.
What will the Conservatives and the Lib Dems do? Will they simply bear the shame of stealing this elderly woman’s bequest for the sake of short-term funding for the next election campaign? Or will they hand it over for the common good? We are running a poll across the various media we have access to, so why not have your say here. There is only one question, it will only take a moment to answer.
What a very odd bequest, although her money and her business. But there are animal and other charities that are in need of funding and scratch around for ways of getting it. All a rapacious government has to do for funding is raise taxes.
Money that could have been spent on homeless and sick dog and cats will now be devoted to supporting healthy families of muslims using British health facilities to grow their ever-increasing, unwanted and uninvited, families. And restock the bars in the House of Commons and the House of “Lords”.
One comment all week on David Cameron and the pensioner’s bequest. Dave’s not exactly boffo box office, is he?