Peter Rhodes on sunless days, social care and a government hitting the ground crawling

You may have thought that “Changed Labour” would hit the ground running on social care. Instead, they hit the ground barely crawling. A new independent commission on the issue will not start work until April and its proposals won't be revealed until 2028. God knows how many old folk will perish through neglect, or be forced to hand over all their wordly possessions to the care home industry, between now and then.

Meanwhile, as the new commission on social care twiddles its thumbs for another few months, let us pray that Artificial Intelligence is kept well away from any decision-making process. AI is the driving force of the 21st century, a power which knows all about the human race but nothing about people, and which reaches conclusions based solely on ice-hard logic. So if you ask an AI program to come up with a workable, affordable method of providing social care for the aged and infirm, there's a chance it will figure that, long before an answer is ready, all the old people will be dead. Sorted.

I dare say the weather experts are poring over the latest figures for their yuletide round-up. Watch our for a severe shortage of sun recorded in December. Thirty-eight years ago I was given a novelty Xmas candle with a tune triggered by sunshine. Stick it on the windowsill and, as the sun's heat hit it, the candle would unfailingly play Jingle Bells. This time we put out the candle as usual on December 14. There wasn't a day bright enough to set it off until January 2.