Southern Cross. Cameron's albatross?

There's a lesson to be learned here.Take a company that is up to it's eyes in debt due to a series of financial deals including the renowned sale and leaseback number. It all looked like such a good investment at one time with shares reaching £4 in 2008. Now the same shares sell for 15p. Many of the company's overworked employees are on the minimum wage so there is little scope for the most popular form of corporate saving. The company attempts to buy a little room to move by asking it's landlords for "time to pay" but the talk is all about insolvency.

The company of course is care home provider Southern Cross and the lesson regards what can happen when privatisation and the logic of the market are allowed to take over health and social care. The spivs have no place in the care of the sick, aged or infirm and we let them in at our peril.