The blog with no name

As Mr Blair is so concerned about our health I would like to point out the importance of decent housing.

10% of privately rented accomodation in the UK is unfit for human habitation

I've seen private accomodation in London that is beyond belief.

One million children in the UK live in housing that is overcrowded or unhealthy

Shelter's leaflet

Temporary accomodation

My local council has to pay on average £240 a week for a double room in a B&B, some of these B&B are definitely substandard (I knew a lady who through no real fault of her own had to live for a while in one of those places and within a week her hands were covered in scabies, she was also terrified as she could not lock her door properly).
Everybody knows that many of these places are not acceptable and still so much of the taxpayers money is used to pay for this poor short term solution that benefits no one besides the owners of these places.

Bad housing does affect people's health and their view of themselves, I think the social cost is huge and as usual some people are making money on other's people misery.
But that's obviously ok.

gets on my nerves.

People must take more responsibility for their health to relieve pressure on the NHS, Tony Blair is expected to say.

In a major speech, the prime minister will warn the service could be crippled by the cost of treating those affected by obesity, alcohol abuse and smoking.

Full article

He is waffling on now about choices and decisions...

Yes, I do believe that people have responsibilities but I object to be held responsible for everything. I don't live in a vacuum, I live in a society (does it still exist?) and it doesn't matter how much care I take of my life there are still aspects I cannot control.
Argueably in most cases if we need medical care we have some degree of fault, smoking, drinking, eating too much, playing sports, driving a car, getting up in the morning, having a stressful job, being poor etc.
It is my fault if I don't save enough for my pension, my fault if I don't retrain for a new career, my fault if I don't get a mortgage.
My fault if my children misbehave although if I want a mortgage and a pension it means that both my partner and I have to work full time thus neglecting the children.
I was working up to 60 hours a week (unpaid overtime) to help sustain Blair's economy and that didn't do much for my health and family life but it was probably my fault for having bad time management, it was not the employer's fault for cutting down staff and taking on more and more work.
And after that I was still supposed to bring up my children, prepare and eat healthy food, sleep properly and go to a gym to keep healthy.