By Tim Murgatroyd

There is a wonderful English proverb: “A touch of nature makes all things kind”. Certainly, as spring advances the world wears kindlier colours. Blossom a subtle blush of pink and white. Skies a shade bluer and brighter as summer approaches.

Actually, I never worry about nature’s kindliness to the human race, and especially during the ancient festival of birth and renewal that is Eastertime.

This year, however, I do worry about a different kind of nature: the human variety. Is it just me who wonders if our country – indeed the whole world – could be kinder as we greet the spring of 2017?

Of course, we’re not responsible for the past, just the present. And perhaps that’s what concerns me.

Certainly, over the last few years, we have seen some deeply unkind cuts to the support for sick, disabled and elderly people in this country. Indeed, it is generally agreed that our underfunded adult social care system is in crisis.

According to the BBC more than 900 adult social care workers quit their job every single day in England last year due to poor conditions, low pay and a bruising workload. Clearly such a situation is unsustainable. And neither is it remotely kind to vulnerable people who rely on their carers for a dignified life.

Similarly, our NHS services have been cut of recent years. On March 7, The Press reported a scheduled cutback of £50 million from NHS services in the York area over the next four years and that the city faces a mounting funding crisis.

What I find particularly disturbing is that health chiefs seem to have no clear idea how these “savings” will be achieved.

One thing seems certain: vulnerable people will suffer in order to save money and the burden of costs will fall on ordinary working people.

One justification often heard for such cutbacks is that austerity is required to reduce public spending after the financial crash of 2008. Others believe the man and woman in the street shouldn’t be forced to subsidise the taxpayer’s historic bail-out of the banking system caused by decades of reckless speculation.

York Press:

Humanitarian crisis: Women carry food distributed by aid workers in South Sudan, a region on the brink of starvation

Now I appreciate it is merely human nature for some of the very wealthy to resent paying contributions that would allow a kinder health care system. Or even to paying all their employees a realistic living wage. But this spring, maybe we should ask ourselves whether we can carry on indulging such attitudes in the UK. After all, kindness should begin at home.

This Eastertime is also occurring at a time of terrible unkindness far from York. According to a top UN official, the world faces the largest humanitarian crisis since the end of the Second World War, with more than 20 million people in Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria facing starvation and famine. In Yemen the situation has been worsened by our government’s decision to sell armaments to undemocratic Saudi Arabia.

Indeed, earlier this month Theresa May assured her Saudi hosts during a state visit that arms sales would continue. (The same visit, incidentally, where she condemned Cadburys in the strongest moral terms for not adding the word ‘Easter’ to their chocolate egg hunt).

Over £3 billion worth of military equipment has already been licensed to the Saudi regime, including fighter-bomber jets, since they commenced their bombing campaign in Yemen, making the UK complicit with over 10,000 deaths and 17 million people being left food-insecure. Research by UNICEF shows that the conflict has led to a child dying of preventable causes every 10 minutes.

Rather than worrying about egg hunts, part of being more humane as a country in 2017 should involve the UK not fuelling foreign wars to increase arms dealers’ profit margins, however tempting that may seem as post-Brexit Britain scrabbles for trade deals.

Instead our nation’s wonderful engineering skills and enterprise could be directed at more compassionate projects such as developing renewable energy.

So, as we head towards summer after the Easter weekend, let’s insist Government policies make 2017 a kinder year both at home and abroad. Now that would be a spring blossom that really bore a fruitful harvest.