Die Rede soll übrigens nicht heißen, dass Terry Pratchett die Konservativen unterstützt, ihm geht es um die Sache. Um das zu verdeutlichen sind im a href="http://paulkidby.com/news/index.html" title="Newseintrag auf PJSM Prints">Newseintrag auf PJSM Prints auch Links zu den anderen britischen Parteien gesetzt.
Wer sich genauer dafür interessiert, kann sich den Newseintrag auf PJSM Prints vornehmen oder auf der Webseite der britischen Konservativen vorbeischauen.
Update 30.9.: Terry Pratchett wurde nach seiner Rede offensichtlich mit stehenden Ovationen bedacht. Hier ein (englischer) Ausschnitt aus Wales Online:
Best selling novelist Terry Pratchett won a standing ovation at the Tory conference today when he made a moving plea for more to be done to combat the rising toll from Alzheimer’s disease.
Mr Pratchett, author of the Discworld books, recently donated one million dollars for research after being diagnosed with an early onset form of the disease.
As guest speaker, he warned the country was facing a “tsunami” of dementia suffering and the load on the NHS and society as a whole could become “unbearable”.
Mr Pratchett, who is not a Conservative, said: “If the disease is not stopped or slowed, the country will have to deal with a large population of helpless elderly.”
Insisting that “big” decisions were required soon, he asked: “Is there going to be a government of any stripe willing to put its money where its mouth is .... or will dementia remain the most feared disease of the over-55s, facing ....loss of dignity and all too often the chemical cosh”.
He likened his own experience of Alzheimer’s, for which there is no cure, to a “slow motion car crash ... with always, at the back of your mind, the thought that sooner or later you’ll go through the windscreen”.
Cancer patients were seen as “brave battlers,” while dementia sufferers were regarded in some quarters as “superfluous old-farts”.
People laughed about the disease. But there was an “element of fear”.
With more than a million people forecast to be suffering from the disease by 2025 the cost of dealing it will run into billions of pounds.
“The toll of this nasty disease is greater than you think. An appreciable number of people in this room will be affected by it. Dementia isn’t a disease of the bumbling elderly. People get it in their 50s and 60s.”
Pausing occasionally due to the effects of the disease, Mr Pratchett said the strain on carers and their support was “bad enough now”.
With a rising number of sufferers, he warned that unless more research was done to combat Alzheimer’s: “Before long the effects on the NHS and society as a whole will be far too heavy. The load will be unbearable. What is unthinkable is to do nothing at all.”
Update 8.10.: Mittlerweile findet sich der Text der Rede auf der Webseite von PJSM Prints.
