‘We can’t afford decent pensions anymore.’ ‘People are living longer.’ ‘We can’t afford benefits for the disabled.’

You hear these slogans in the media every week until they filter through your brain like toxic water. But for some people, the second of those statements is one they won’t hear. Why? Because they will be dead.

Take a look at the facts. According to a report from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Oxford University, an ‘extra’ 10,375 people died in the first seven weeks of this year.

In other words, there was a 12.5 per cent spike in deaths compared to previous years.

The slowdown in life expectancy for the average person in Britain is worse than anything seen since the early 1890s, and no other country in Europe has experienced as rapid a decline as the UK.

The report’s authors were clear the rise in premature mortality was linked to the winter chaos engulfing the NHS and cuts in social care.

Professor Danny Dorling said: “The key thing to remember is we had an NHS in crisis like never before. Austerity policies are the most likely cause of the slowing of life expectancy rises.”

Although Michael Gove and his ilk want us to be sick of ‘experts’, Professor Dorling is absolutely correct. This crisis is not an act of nature outside human control like the weather.

Many people who have been monitoring austerity policies inflicted on Britain in the name of financial prudence over the last decade have seen lots of ‘method in the madness’ (to misquote Shakespeare).

Again the facts speak for themselves. There has been a steady leeching of public money into corporations and shareholders’ bank accounts through privatisation, outsourcing and PFI for years.

Although this is mighty generous of us ‘little people’, it is now becoming painfully clear our generosity to the rich comes at a potential cost to ourselves and our loved ones. Namely, shorter life spans.

If the rise in mortality continues, overall life expectancy will reverse for the first time since the Second World War.

It has already declined for women living in the poorest areas. In addition, infant deaths have increased among the poorest families since 2011.

The Office for National Statistics has revealed more babies are dying within a year of being born, in a ‘disturbing reversal’ of several decades of the NHS’s success in reducing infant mortality.

Health professionals, charities and midwives are voicing serious concerns about the trend in England and Wales.

The rate rose from 2.6 neonatal deaths per 1,000 births in 2015 to 2.7 for every 1,000 births in 2016. Of course, our unhealthy national lifestyle habits are playing a part. Smoking among mothers, maternal obesity, poverty and the England-wide shortage of midwives were all cited by health professionals as potential explanations for the rise.

But it is not good enough to dismiss the trend as individual’s own fault. We elect a government to look after us through effective health services as well as active campaigns to encourage healthy ways of life.

A growing number of citizens fear the reason for the trends in life expectancy is stalling in Britain is that the ‘super rich’ – so very well served by our current government – wish to dismantle the welfare state established after the Second World War. And, my goodness, how we would miss it when it’s gone.

This system of universal benefits for citizens has kept ordinary people safe from destitution and unaffordable health care for the first time in human history.

It is perhaps our nation’s most precious asset, one that is being quite deliberately underfunded and sold off.

I believe that all the evidence, as opposed to the empty words of politicians, demonstrates the government wish to stealthily introduce an Americanised welfare system based on private insurance.

Their actions speak far louder than their words.

It is not too late to reverse this sinister trend in life expectancy. We only get one life, after all.