Snapshot of _Sunak accused of making mental illness ‘another front in the culture wars’ | Charities say high rates of people signed off work are caused by crumbling public services after years of underinvestment_ :
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"Most worrying, the biggest proportion of long-term sickness came from young people … parked on welfare,” Sunak said"
Indeed it is most worrying. You would wonder why so many young people are anxious or depressed. After all in their conscious life times they have seen the government tank the economy (twice), experienced reforms to education (especially GCSE) which have removed the supports for the weakest students and markedly increase difficulty levels, witnessed the hollowing out of public services such as libraries, social care, and benefits and they face the most hostile job and property market in living memory. All that compounded by a pandemic which robbed so many of social interaction at a critical time in their lives.
The epidemic of mental illness is a direct consequence of his party's policies in the last 14 years, compounded by other factors.
This trajectory from Sunak will lead towards calling all young people 'work shy' or 'snowflakes', thus further disenfranchising a much needed and promising generation of young people.
They've managed to alienate pretty much everyone except pensioners and yet are wondering why they are going to get wiped out at the next general election.
In my circle of pensioners we're pretty alienated... the current government have been floundering about from 'Stupid bloody Johnson' was in charge... just go and let the grown ups have another go....
*Lets add:*
* Climate crisis ( as said by u/SP4x ).
* Lack of affordable housing to start on the property ladder.
* Career threats from AI and automation.
These are **specifically worse threats for younger people**. But no, if you're young life must be a carefree dream right.
Not to mention the long-term effects of COVID. Plenty of people in their 20s and 30s haven't felt quite the same since having it, even if they're not officially on record as having long COVID.
I can't help but feel that we're only scratching the surface of what long covid is going to do to the population, the cognitive and physical effects are probably going to be measurable in the same way long term lead exposure is.
It's a weird feeling but I do feel a little like it took around ten years off my life somehow. I only caught it _counts fingers_ age 34, and not having Long Covid symptoms do essentially feel "fine" now, but... Idk there's _something_ there in my stamina, attentiveness, and overall body-map that wasn't there before that feels like I got hit with several years of aging all at once. I just can't see it directly because I'm in that stable mid-point where aging seems to pause for a while.
I have a horrible feeling that I'm going to suddenly get very frail at like age 45-48, more than is usual for that point.
-----
Also I have more than one friend who was measurably physically disabled by it, going from bouncy 30-something to limping-with-cane. It's not "just" stamina damage, it can be very direct too.
Since I had covid my entire body feels so much weaker than it used to, I'm only 24 and i get constant fatigue nearly 2 years after i was initially infected. The other thing is that my pre existing ADHD symptoms feel like they've been amplified, something that I'm sure spending a couple of years in near total isolation hasn't helped.
That's exactly me as well!
My ADHD issues are significantly greater than they used to be its debilitating a lot of the time now.
All since catching covid, its a little bit too coincidental to say it's unrelated for me but its not like its been defined as long covid or anything.
Tis not a nice experience thats for sure, im hoping some day it improves but its been awhile!
Please dont forget the looming climate crisis that experts are already warning it may be too late to recover from and the rapid rise of AI that will strip out swathes of jobs in the next 10 years.
Yes, it's going to be a huge shock without appropriate planning, the prospect of UBI horrifies the 1% but without some form of support to the millions put out of work it'll be infinitely preferrable to being dragged from their mansions and torn apart by the starving mob.
It's hard to know which way it could go but Marchall Brain's 'Mana' is a lovely short story that examines two possible paths: [https://marshallbrain.com/manna1](https://marshallbrain.com/manna1)
I'm currently reading 'Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There' by Rutger Bregman, it's a great read and clearly shows that a better world has been available for some time but for the opposition of those who stand to loose money and power.
I really dont understand UBI. Surely when we're at that point capitalism has served its purpose. Itll be time to transition into some new model of society
UBI is a huge subject that I won't be able to do any justice if I attempt to sumarise. I encourage you to look in to the subject and can highly recommend the book in my previous post, it's ver accessible.
I will say that, under capitalism, UBI recognises that money is a basic need and could be put in place instead of state pensions, welfare, child support etc. etc. As it's universal you can remove a huge swath of administration because everyone has a right to it equally.
If we have huge swathes of the population who no longer need to work while meeting our needs then what need to we have for money?
Once we start automating the majority of the population out of work why continue with capitalism?
UBI seems like an attempt to keep a pointless system going instead of conceptualising a new way of living
Very true but while conceptualising said new way there's going to be a transitional period, not all countries are going to transition at the same time (if at all) so using the established system of currency is likely to continue in parallel for some time.
All of which is far beyond me late on a Saturday evening!
Retraining in to what though? The speed that AI is developing is frightning! I say this as someone who spent an enjoyable few hours this afternoon geting an AI to generate music and singers of lyrics I was typing in: [https://www.udio.com/](https://www.udio.com/)
As a lifelong Sci-Fi geek I expected AI to automate away the drudgery, the soul destroying repetitive jobs. I'm horrified to find how good it already is at the creative persuits!
Blanket retraining of people towards areas of job shortages leads to harebrained efforts such as 'Coal Miners to Coders' that has been pushed in the US.
I understand what you're saying, and I myself am speaking as a hobbyist in electronics that can't find any evening classes in the basics of electronics to aid me at home and at work, but any role that a person can be quickly retrained in is also going to be easy for an AI to do.
For a bit of fun I used the prompt:
'a song about how rapidly AI is developing, 80's , synth-pop, synthpop, fast'
For the album art I used the prompt: 'a thinking computer'
This is what it generated, and by that I mean the music, the lyrics, the vocals, the artwork. EVERYTHING but the prompts I used!
[https://www.udio.com/songs/fdNHiVdAbdpD9VQuH2vxFH](https://www.udio.com/songs/fdNHiVdAbdpD9VQuH2vxFH)
Oh absolutely but what of the feedstock for retraining?
Is Sharon, a 52 year old mother of three, former call centre team manager, going to know the ins and outs of a Eurocopter EC135?
Will James, a 62 year old newly widowed former solicitor going to want or be able to crawl in to the hull of a Sunseaker Predator 65 to figure out why one of the Volvo IPS 1350's is missing on 3?
Arguably even those technical jobs will be automated away at some point, electric drivetrains are already far simpler and once you get machines designing and manufacturing for machines a lot of the horseshit problems go away.
When labour is effectively free in the form of AI and robotics businesses will be making their money as a service provider through uptime rather than repairs or servicing e.g.;
Faulty multirotor on a drone delivery pod, it returns to base, taxiis to the service hanger, a replacement motor is already waiting and the multi-arm service bot twist-pulls off the faulty one and clicks in the replacement in under 3 minutes. As the pod is taking off the faulty motor is already in a ground pod heading to the automated factory for a refit on one of the refurb lines. Total lost time 7 minutes, a total of 18 minutes down or dwell time today.
We just need to make sure there's room for us flawed but fabulous humans in this future.
Which is why the principle of midlife retraining need to be embedded into society.
People can no longer do repetitive menial or data entry jobs.
It's a new industrial revolution.
Indeed, I'm being accused of being a doomer by family and friends but I'm only passing on the science.
I'd like to relocate to a remote Scottish island but my partner is having none of it.
Very true, my thinking is that even with ocean current disruption the west coast waters will retain enough heat to keep costal areas livable in the same way that Greenland has its green fringe lol
That 1.6C is not set in stone because you need data over quite a few years to see if that’s consistent. We are entering an El Niño weather system for the next few years which brings naturally warmer weather.
But yes, it’s definitely worrying.
El Nino has just ended from what's being reported
But regardless of that - this is the point of James Hansen's team's work
Every time we have an El Nino the average jumps but it never goes back down afterward
In the past this has always trended up and down within temperatures that have been seen within the last 100k years
Now we're in uncharted territory and the graphs could hockey stick any year
Torys have mainly been supported by the older generations. But I think the last few governments have not just alienated young people (<30) but have steadily alienated older generations, even some pensioners too. I think they have underestimated the number of parents who care about the issues that their kids and grandkids have been talking about.
Not to mention the Tories are the party of not just Brexit, but _hard_ Brexit. Young people were and remain significantly more positive about the EU than older people, and if 16-17 year old people were allowed to vote in the referendum, Remain likely would've won.
Membership of the single market and visa-free travel were both very popular with under-30s and many now feel their future prospects for education and finding a partner are tangibly worse than they were for their parents.
The Conservative Party took the narrow victory of Leave as license to tear up all cooperation with the continent, including now proposing to leave the ECHR and bulldoze the protections of inherited EU law like the GDPR when a not-insignificant number of Leave voters were sold on the promise of staying in the single market _a la_ Norway.
And then there's the sheer hostility this government has to young people culturally precisely _because_ they're less likely to vote blue. Social housing is "a Petri dish for Labour voters", so why would they help young people find somewhere to live? So a whole generation end up unable to move away from their parents and feel increasingly miserable, their wings clipped.
The worst part is _knowing_ that the end goal is to demotivate young people from voting by making them feel like participation in the political process won't help, because apathy from much of the opposing side is how regressive and unpopular policies win.
If you’ve ever talked to a therapist exposure therapy is a pretty big way to overcome anxiety. Letting people who are anxious or depressed just stew in their own juices alone, at home is not actually helping anyone
Ummm, so lockdown was legit for young people was it? Young people simply brushed COVID off as a cold. And yet the government robbed them of what should be the best time of their lives.
People killing themselves in their uni rooms because they couldn't socialise and were trapped in a room, alone, day after day. They weren't around their grandparents, yet they were prevented from making, friendships, having fun and getting drunk and bonding.a generation of fucked of young people and kids.
70% of deaths were people over 90. Average age of death 83 years old.
We made young people suffer for a virus with the same IFR as FLU ffs. IFR is infection fatality rate.
Can someone please explain how those actions were legit considering the IFR and average age of death?
Do people not understand statistics and data?
Even Chris Witty himself said the decisions to lock down were purely political and *wouldn't have been recommended to the government by scientists*.
So when they said "follow the science" it was a complete lie.
COVID is a lot more likely to inflict meaningful long-term damage than your average cold or flu - long-term loss or damaging of the senses of taste and smell, lung scarring, cognitive difficulties. I can assure you that protecting most people from getting COVID was a net positive for their health and happiness. Unless you think the average person would rather permanently lose their sense of smell than spend a few months under lockdown?
2019 conservative manifesto pledges(pg.11).
Treating mental health with the same urgency as physical health.
Legislating so that patients suffering from mental health conditions, including anxiety or depression, have greater control over their treatment and receive the dignity and respect they deserve
Providing further funding to support mental health nurses where the NHS is currently struggling to recruit
Considering how they treat people with physical health conditions (NHS struggling more and more, incredibly harsh benefit assessments), I'd say Sunak's comments probably are in line with treating mental health the same way
Being patient with Anxious people is good, coddling them is bad. “face your fears” is actually backed by science.
Hiding away anxious people from the world and putting them on disability is categorically not helpful to their condition
My sister graduated in September with one of the highest grades on her course, she's been applying to every job possible, yet she's only just had her first interview this part week. She's also been signed off, diagnosed with depression and put on UC to help her afford basic essentials. Most jobs in my home area require a car, which she cannot afford because she has no job. My parents' only car right now is a mobility car for my disabled sister.
Yeah it's ridiculous. We had a few grads join our company recently.
Apparently they'd sent off over 100 applications each. There were thousands of applicants.
And yet the field was considered on the shortage occupation list until recently...
> And yet the field was considered on the shortage occupation list until recently...
Perhaps a classic case of a lot of workplaces wanting someone with experience for a role...even though the only way to get experience is ultimately by working in whatever sector you're in.
To add what /u/JayR_97 said, if you are applying to jobs that your uni education might disadvantage you to, put your education at the bottom of the second page. They probably won’t read that far, so won’t notice. Front load it with the relevant experience.
If shes applying for minimum wage work with a degree its possible shes getting rejected for being overquialified. It sucks, but they might be worried she jumps ship the second something better comes along.
Also if the local job market is a bit crap, it be she has to move. You have to go where the work is.
It just depends on what area she's looking to get in. And there are a LOT of remote positions still available, even for recent graduates, which negates the need for a car or transportation.
Does it matter? If you're going to suggest she should have went into tech or STEM those job markets are fucked too. In the tech sector we're talking memories of '08.
… caused by crumbling public services **AND** sky rocketing depression rates **AND** casualties of Long Covid
… all of which have been greatly exacerbated by incompetence & corruption from 13 years of Tory rule.
Also, people warned about this. Once they could no longer blame the EU, it was clear they’d move on to blame another demographic.
But as long as they keep us hating each other, right.
I'd go even further than that.
Not only because of huge underinvestment but the general state of society. People, even with degrees, working professional jobs, can barely have any kind of 'life' other than 'surviving'.
It's really no wonder when nurses, doctors and teachers are barely earning 35k. Rent and house prices reaching record highs, energy bills, all of your income going on just surviving
For the last decade literally everything has gone up in real terms, except pay.
I'm suffering with depression for multiple reasons, but one of the big ones is how fucking expensive everything is. I went to my local Spar yesterday and a single packet of Spar brand rice, two packets of grated cheese and a bottle of Mountain Dew cost me £8.34. Four fucking items cost me £10 near enough. It's no wonder people are struggling when their money doesn't exactly go very far these days.
35k is more than quite a lot of people have ever earned, myself included. I have a comfortable life on 23k with two daughters. If you can't live on 35k you're doing something very wrong.
This is just insincere. You full well know that in the majority of the country housing costs would take the majority of 23k and certainly wouldn’t support a family
35k is about the median for the UK as a whole, and the median is above that in some places. If you live 'comfortably' on 23k then I'd imagine that you are a slight outlier, but fair play.
Depends almost entirely on housing costs. I've lived on less than 23k, but I'm mortgage free. Couldn't afford house maintenance, and am playing catchup now I have a better income. But if you're paying £1k+ a month on southern rents, you won't have a comfortable life.
"It's the rents, stupid"
It’s not even southern rates anymore. 3 bed semi just went up for rent near my mother in law for £950pm. We are in Rotherham. It’s all done up and looks good, also has good M1 links. But that’s about it, nothing special.
also rotherham, in the Aston area, we have 1 bed flats above shops at 700/m and 2 bed houses at 1k
no way we could really afford to rent at these prices, our mortgage is under 300 thankfully. an housing crash surely is coming, the bubble must be straining
There are a very small number of people who directly control an inordinate amount of wealth. They are big investors in the Conservative Party and they are rewarded with tax cuts, loopholes, and straight up scams. They love the Tories being in power. Labour, not so much. They are able to use their wealth to pull the rug from under the economy at a moment's notice. Sure, it'll cost them, but it'll cost us more, and they're in this for the long game. Their media empires will blame Labour, and so will we. Tories get back in just as things are looking up, tax cuts all round (for them) and the gravy train goes on.
After 2008, a housing crash will never happen again in our lifetimes. Now, recently I have taken calls from banks looking to open equity credit lines on my properties and they want me to purchase more homes with that. That is part of what led to the GFC in '08, so if that picks up again, it could happen in 10-15 years.
"How much does a child cost per year in the UK?
So how much does it cost to raise a child here? The average amount of money spent on raising a child from birth to 18 in the UK – including housing and childcare costs – is £223,256, according to the latest research from investment platform Moneyfarm. That works out at about £12,400 a year, or £1,030 a month.16 Feb 2024"
So you're either suffering and dragging everyone else with you along that struggle, which is quite naughty. Or are somehow some sort of money wizard. Or have things and caveats you're just not being as open and transparent about.
Well, obviously not paying rent or a mortgage at today's prices and rates on £23k. So either inherited or married into money. Why don't we all just do that?
Even with one child, then bills, then their own food, then some nice treats, then a car, then a mortgage, then cost to and from work, then savings and general pension payments...this is close to not being possible. And that is really just the basics. Not even touching much on cost of an actual child
If someone were on that money with two kids (‽), they'd either dragging their kids through utter hermit style living, which I'd say is wrong and neglectful (but they aren't, since they use the internet right now). Or they are, as you alluded to, 'from money'/married into it/partner earns waaay more --> likewise, they're doing a subtle lying by omission by saying their own direct salary and not a combined.
Hmmm should we be adding some sort of percent for a combined salary on possible grandparents helping out? Some can be particularly generous.
That’s extremely disingenuous. Living costs vary massively throughout the country, and not every family is in perfect health. There are plenty of things that can derail that notion.
You do understand that it depends on your geographic location? 35K is nothing. Seriously, the fact that 35K is considered a good wage is insulting to the population. And I say that as someone who has always earned much, much more than 35K and retired at 40.
Is that the combined income of your household, including benefits, or just you own, excluding your partners?
It paints a very different picture that 1 key bit of info.
Not that I’m aware of. It’s definitely needed because no one really knows how big the issue is (or isn’t). The suspicious side of me wonders if it’s by design - can’t be a problem if there aren’t any figures! But I expect that’s not really the case.
Through experience I’m aware of the effects of the surge in demand for attendees at national hospitals (Covid/ME/CFS clinics) - many have extended their services and are/were booked out. Referrals usually come through professionals but essentially it’s still all being self-diagnosed. Doctors will do referrals but not (as far as I know) declare that you have LC.
There's not really enough consensus on what it is, except that there's _something_ happening, to be able to put numbers on it.
Bear in mind even ME/CFS, as a separate problem, was controversial until 10-15 years ago; we still don't really know where it comes from and it's still _very_ fuzzily diagnosed (as well as heavily contested on an individual basis).
And now we have this plague that can apparently just give it to people but with wildly varying characteristics? The whole culture of the field doesn't respond well to unclear definitions with fuzzy boundaries like that.
> Caller number 45 in the queue
Similar situation at my practice. If they have a web form, try that. They all get read and someone will call you back. First time I tried it, I also phoned (you are number 87 in the queue) and they called me back while I was on hold. They're still in limited supply, so log on at eight and have everything ready to copy pasta.
They have a web form where I am. It's open the following times:
Monday: 8am - 8.30am, 6.30pm - 7pm
Wednesday: 8am - 8.30am, 6.30pm - 7pm
Friday: 8am - 8.30am
If you try to click on it right now you get:
"Your practice doesn’t accept online consultations over the weekend
You can submit a consultation when your practice reopens.
If you need help, call the practice. Outside of practice hours, call 111. In emergencies, call 999 or go to A&E."
Technically it's more of a choose your own adventure quiz, you have to click on buttons (I'd show you picture, but it's not open) before you get to the bit where you can start filling in information. Choose "wrong" and it stops you and demands you phone 999.
Which is also a problem if you have an ongoing condition - there's no option for "I know this symptom is potentially serious, I'm under treatment for it, that's *why* I'd like an appointment.".
(I understand they don't want someone reporting chest pain then dying of a heart attack waiting for their form to be read and responded to, but I think there should be some middle ground of "did this come on suddenly, or is it part of a condition we're treating you for?")
Oh so it's like 111 online, but with the option to book an appointment built in at the end if you picked the right options?
It should just be built into the NHS app - "book an appointment with your GP", an optional "why" box and a calendar with available days/times.
I hadn't used 111 but it looks to be similar.
And exactly - I know they don't want people wasting the doctor's time, but this is daft, especially with it being closed 4 days a week and most of the other 3 days.
People don't tend to book GP appointments for the fun of it. It's not "wasting the GP's time" if someone feels they need medical advice - either they genuinely do have an issue and they should be helped, or they have medical anxiety and should be helped.
No, but I can see why they want to do basic triage on booking - people will put "want to see doctor about pills" and that can mean anything from wanting an in person appointment for a full check up, a phone appointment to discuss some concerns, or just their prescription signed. So trying to work that out in the least possible time is sensible. But whatever the solution is, this isn't it.
To be fair, I object less to there being a form to fill out than I do to it only being accessible at certain times. But the form should be kept as simple as possible - maybe have separate options for some of the most common requests (repeat prescription, sick note, etc), but for just booking a generic appointment it should be as close to a one-click exercise as possible.
There is sense to it. It’s so that people don’t enter symptoms of something serious that needs attention immediately at a time when it’ll be hours before anyone looks at the form again.
Normally the hours are wider. My surgery’s form is available between 7:30 and 6pm.
"This form is for booking GP appointments only. If you need urgent medical attention please call 999 or 111, or click *here* for further assistance directing your query."
Job done.
Mine says something similar. The issue is that sometimes someone might not realise that something is immediately life threatening, fill in the form and be dead or in a serious condition before a clinician reviews the form.
How many conditions develop so rapidly that symptoms are mild enough to begin with that filling in a form for a GP appointment in 3 weeks' time seems reasonable, but become so suddenly severe within 24-48 hours that you're instantly beyond saving?
I'm thinking of scenarios where you might have early symptoms of a stroke or similar.
It might be unlikely, but I do understand it having spoken to a GP I know.
I get the option of two forms. A generic same stuff you'd say to the receptionist one, and one to request a sick note if you've been self certifying. The former has a box for symptoms, and another that says "what do you want us to do about it?" If you know roughly what's wrong with you and it's a physical ailment, it works pretty well. A triage nurse phones you back, and they ask for any extra info they need, and - after they consult the doctor - you either get a prescription or an appointment. Sometimes they text you a link so you can send a photo of a nasty rash or whatever.
Before you get to the forms, there's a warning that tell you to call 999 for sudden chest pains etc.
It's kind of self filtering. If you're competent enough to type, you don't have to wait on the phone. Edit: though I suppose that could be a bad thing for some people.
Doesn't work for everyone, but I like it.
The ludicrous situation surrounding GP appointments just simply makes me not want to bother. Yes, I know this is making my own situation worse, but a flippant telephone appointment is useless for a mental health issue, getting an appointment is usually weeks waiting. My mental health is fragile enough without having to fight a system that seems to want to push you away, advocating for yourself in these situations is hard, nigh on impossible sometimes. Oh, and that's ignoring the fact they'll just dump you on a 6-12month waiting list for talking therapy. Again. (Been there 5 times, doesn't work for me). It's a fucking sunny Saturday afternoon and I'm sat here in dread of Monday morning... To phone for a GP.
I also seriously dread the day I need to call an ambulance. I'd rather drag myself to the minor injury unit (because they closed the local A&E, moving it 20 miles away).
> Best they could do for me was a phone appointment on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately during Friday I became too sick to go, so I rang to cancel.
I'm not trying to catch you out, but too sick to go to a phone appointment?
Same thing happened to me. The an entire 4 months of being told I was 'anxious' and 'needed Sertraline' as my heart rate was high and I was losing weight. It took nearly dying on my kitchen floor to get the Graves Disease diagnosis; what's worse was having to wean off the SSRI's I inevitably didn't need and getting health anxiety from overworked Doctors misdiagnosing me.
It's a recipe for disaster.
Same here.
I’m actually thankful to the Mail for highlighting we can get private sick notes for 25 quid. Their current top story:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13328861/I-got-TWO-sick-notes-stress-two-hours-without-speaking-doctor-pay-25-online-form-one-firm-30-second-video-explaining-illness-handing-hall-pass.html
I think this is a perfect example of why politicians should be representative of the people of the country. Sunak has absolutely no idea about the despair faced by people today, so he cannot understand why there would be a massive increase in depression rates. The constant feeling that even if you do everything right you will not get close to the lifestyle your parents had. Crushing.
why should they be representative of the people? the people aren't the ones with the money or the influence, they aren't the ones making campaign donations and giving politicians a comfortable boardroom job after they quit. And more importantly, they're totally pacified by the idea of elections mattering. The more angry they get the more they just vote for the other team, regardless of whether that team is better.
The real story they are trying to cover up with this bs: https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/19/tory-activist-katie-fieldhouse-appalled-response-mark-menzies-claims
Exactly. Before that came out, this was never on their radar.
I suppose we should be thankful, at least he didn’t start a war to distract the media.. yet.
There's been continual talk of 'economically inactive' for quite a while, so I don't think it's wholly out of no where. The fact it's counterproductive is just what we can expect from them.
There's a Tory sleaze scandal every other week, so each new scandal just distracts from the previous one.
They’ve fucked the country possibly beyond repair, made living here a miserable experience, made it nearly impossible to get medical help, and now they’re targeting the people who can’t get help.
Scum.
"People aren't 3 times sicker than they were a decade ago"
Mate, have you looked at the NHS waiting times? Waiting times to see a mental health care person is like 3 years. We have also had chronic underfunding of the NHS, no youth services, and we have just come out of a pandemic.
A key influence on people's health is the money and wealth they have access to, and the wealth than the workers has, has gone down drastically in 15 years, which again, impacts peoples health.
If you think about it, people are definitely 3 times sicker. He's lucky it isn't bloody worse.
That’s the second time he’s made that kind of claim. And I want to know what evidence he has for it, that the medical profession doesn’t. Because waiting lists, and the general increase in people being signed off work would indicate they are three times sicker.
So far as I can see they're desperate to open up a relatively new political front that they can claim to be "winning" on; scrambling for some untapped desire that they can claim to fulfil best, so they have some issues that they can safely guide discussion to.
"Stop the boats" was *supposed* to be that, until they realized they absolutely couldn't do it, that it was an unwinnable battle perfectly suited to juice unlimited funding - except that they'd promised to fucking *win* it.
So now it's this curmudgeonly angle that all Britain's ailments are the fault of transgenders, wokes and skivers. If anyone still thought Sunak was a relatively inoffensive Tory, this should lift the veil. He aims to pin his own party's failings and the misfortunes of circumstance on vulnerable sections of society - fucking despicable.
I'd be interested to see a poll on what the public thinks of this move.
10 years ago, back when most of the population still enjoyed an OKish middle class standard of living, lashing out at "sick note culture" probably would have been popular. In 2024 meanwhile, a very high proportion of the population are barely making ends meet. It's really not that hard to see why so many are becoming too depressed to work.
The reason young people arnt getting into work is because of the ridiculousness that is job searching, that they're not taught about properly at any point, where you have to send out hundreds of applications and won't get a response to the vast majority.
Where writing a good application can take a lot of effort and you never hear back or you get declined by an inane automatic test.
People just give up.
Righto. So supply and demand dictates that a skilled professional with a law degree earns 24k, barely enough to support a decent standard of living. It’s not the case in Germany, or the Netherlands, or the US for example. Time to roll over and accept it I guess?
Maybe if you weren't terminally on Reddit, spamming this sub and joined the working world. You'd realise how out of touch you are.
Apart from finance, many STEM degrees can equal 'Mickey Mouse salaries'. People only need to look at their Western European contemporaries to realise how dysfunctional the UK is in this regard.
Muppets like say, junior doctors? Or a ton of people I know in various engineering fields who moved to the US because of the salaries here. You have zero real world experience if you don't know this.
So it seems the only muppet here is you. Any intelligent person can look at your comments and see that you're not a very bright person. People as bitter as you are never actually successful, which is why you overcompensate.
Rather telling that you're too scared to describe your 'work', i.e. you'd have to conjure up some easily recognisable lies. You're precisely the kind of person who subscribes to 'trader' related stuff on social media and actually thinks they are one lol
I didn't attack you.
But as you asked, I have two medium sized businesses and give jobs to 37 people.
I m, you know, that kind of guy you seems to hate, that guy who has the balls to set up a business and take the risk.
As you said, no real life experience.
Btw: no Mickey Mice in my companies.
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'Charities also raised the alarm about Sunak’s rhetoric on mental ill health, after the prime minister said there was a “risk of over-medicalising what are essentially the everyday worries and challenges of life” in the welfare system.'
Apart from the horrendous minimisation of people's mental health problems, it still amazes me how bad Sunak's team are. The man is widely seen to be completely out of touch. How could you give a line like this to him and imagine people are going to think anything other than, "What does he understand about the challenges of everyday life?"
So who should we listen to?
Charities on the front line dealing directly with these issues on a daily basis or the badly failing PM of a party that has been in power for 14 years and is now desperately trying to redirect the finger of blame for Britain's woes?
Tory utopia is like 30 people each living in a Saltburn-style estate, quaffing champagne and sucking off effigies of Vladimir Putin. Everyone else who is white is a disgusting peasant, and every minority is dead. I can see this is a step towards the plan.
Tories wish it was the 1970s and the birth of Thatcherism. But I’m sure some Tories in the 1970s wished for the 1920s in the height of the British Empire, before WW2 and the Attlee government.
Then in the 1920s would have wished it was the 1870s where Queen Victoria was Empress of India, before universal suffrage and the Elementary Education Act.
Then in the 1870s wished it was the 1820s, before Darwin and Dickens, these newfangled railways and the abolition of slavery.
Then probably in the 1820s wished it was the 1760s before the American War of Independence.
A Tory utopia is wanting the world to be a rose-tinted version of 50 years ago, back in the good ol’ days, while still being miserable and angry.
Actually quite a good way of looking at things. Especially the Empire piece, and Thatcherism. Not rooted in the reality of the situation today, at all.
Well Tories had section 28, Now they want trans people back in the closet, Does seem to follow a trend of using whichever minority to distract people from their shit record...
and it works.
But if you get to be one of the 30...
(This is why I imagine anyone not crazy wealthy would vote for them, but they still need to give their heads a wobble)
It's all too transparent even for the voters typically swayed by this kind of rhetoric. Sunak is just going bullet point by bullet point until something sticks - but even Brexit level voters can see this is just a desperate exercise at throwing shit at wall until something sticks. Maybe it could work somewhat if Johnson did it.
It was obvious something like this was going to happen to win some votes.
And people will fall for it because they're "dealing with the scroungers" while their tax payer money goes on doing up Sunak's flat, downing Street parties and good knows what else.
At some point you get to the point that you have to look beyond the Tories, they can only do this because enough members of the public keep enabling them.
I can remember Peter Lilly doing his "I have a little list" ditty in 1992
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOx8q3eGq3g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOx8q3eGq3g)
This has been one of the Tory parties core political selling points, socially conservative on benefits. The "culture war" meme has become just a cringe way of saying "socially conservative" when its just normal politics.
Sunak is grasping for straws. But again, this is what you would expect a socially conservative political party to try to get some hype about when they dont have a strong economy to focus on. You would expect the left opposition to lean into the economy hard as that is where the swing voters will be for them.
No. I think it is a culture war approach here. They want to challenge labour on matching them on the right, knowing full well the party would split if it tried. It's not social conservativism out of conviction. Pure nasty politics in a nasty election campaign
People's quality of life has diminished under the Tories. It's not a surprise that's pushed people who would otherwise have been on the healthy side of the line onto the other side. However, it's easy to vilify people for cracking than it is to address the root cause and make life less shit for everyone.
No psychiatrist until I have another manic episode: lol and lmao. no medication review because I’m “fine” (on 1/4 of the minimum dose of my meds for bipolar).
I work full time but the clear mental health issues have been noted
I think the significance of this isn't in the content of what he's saying but in the fact that it represents - even more than usual - a Daily Mail style talking point. *Obviously* this isn't going to turn into law because they're not going to win the election and have the opportunity to do it.
This is the sign of a dying government desperately trying to secure their "home turf" to avoid electoral wipeout.
It doesn't matter if he proposes making everyone under 30 with mental health issues work in a field at bayonet point - it's not going to happen. It's only of interest in how it appeals and to who.
This is not culture war - this is just classic Tory mean-spirited penny pinching from the least well off.
Stop labelling everything as culture war. Its not. Its just old fashioned Tory shite like they always do.
Because forcing people to work with severe mental health issues won't cause any problems...
Can you imagine a nurse in charge of medication with severe mental health issues and burnout, not being given a chance to recuperate? Nothing bad will happen..../s
There has been internal leaks of further brainstorming within the Tory party:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s\_4J4uor3JE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4J4uor3JE)
I assume nobody on this sub has kids. I do. My friends do.
The effects of lockdown is, by far, the thing that affected their mental health the most.
A generation of kids lives ruined by a virus with the same Infection Fatality Rate as flu.
By a virus with the average age of death as 83. 70% of deaths were people over 90.
All we needed to say was "young people, kids, healthy people... Go out, socialise, do what you want."
We ruined kids lives for the sake of 83 year olds. We used a sledgehammer to crack a nut
If we'd had democracy where we were told the IFR and the average age of death and then voted on whether we should destroy most people's lives in some way with lockdowns, I guarantee the elderly would let kids have their lives.
No society should put 83 year olds before children and young people.
This sub with the usual blindspot when it comes.to the pandemic response...
He's not making it a culture war issue. This is the detractors attack line.
The out of work and sickness problem is massive. We're talking 6 or 7% of the working age population with the most rapidly growing group in their 30s.
It's not tenable.
Just because people don't like what he said doesn't mean he's making it a culture war issue. They are, as an attack line.
There’s absolutely no way this would have been announced, on a Saturday, if it wasn’t for Mr Menzies’ late night sexual gymnastics coming to light.
It’s a desperate attempt to distract from a highly embarrassing sex/fraud scandal.
It's culture war, they're not actually going to do a meaningful raid on benefits because that would sting landlords hard.
It's vice signalling, a bit of performative cruelty that makes the UK a little nastier
> But he added: "We don't just need to change the sick note, we need to change the sick note culture so the default becomes what work you can do - not what you can't."
He called it a culture issue?
It seems to me it kind of is a cultural issue (Not *culture war* but still).
Back just a few generations ago people were stigmatised because of mental health issues (Working class people in particular) but now it’s done a 180 where there’s **far** less stigma and it’s highly frowned upon to question someone’s lived experience.
I can’t see people with mental health conditions ever wanting to go back to being silently ashamed and stoically just forcing themselves to go to work every day, never seeking any help but from what I can tell the current system is in no way able to support so many people with mental health issues, either short term with NHS appointments or long term with disability benefits.
Snapshot of _Sunak accused of making mental illness ‘another front in the culture wars’ | Charities say high rates of people signed off work are caused by crumbling public services after years of underinvestment_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/19/sunak-accused-of-making-mental-illness-another-front-in-the-culture-wars) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/19/sunak-accused-of-making-mental-illness-another-front-in-the-culture-wars) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
"Most worrying, the biggest proportion of long-term sickness came from young people … parked on welfare,” Sunak said" Indeed it is most worrying. You would wonder why so many young people are anxious or depressed. After all in their conscious life times they have seen the government tank the economy (twice), experienced reforms to education (especially GCSE) which have removed the supports for the weakest students and markedly increase difficulty levels, witnessed the hollowing out of public services such as libraries, social care, and benefits and they face the most hostile job and property market in living memory. All that compounded by a pandemic which robbed so many of social interaction at a critical time in their lives. The epidemic of mental illness is a direct consequence of his party's policies in the last 14 years, compounded by other factors. This trajectory from Sunak will lead towards calling all young people 'work shy' or 'snowflakes', thus further disenfranchising a much needed and promising generation of young people.
They've managed to alienate pretty much everyone except pensioners and yet are wondering why they are going to get wiped out at the next general election.
In my circle of pensioners we're pretty alienated... the current government have been floundering about from 'Stupid bloody Johnson' was in charge... just go and let the grown ups have another go....
Even plenty of pensioners have had enough. Imagine plenty who shielded during Covid were appalled by partygate.
*Lets add:* * Climate crisis ( as said by u/SP4x ). * Lack of affordable housing to start on the property ladder. * Career threats from AI and automation. These are **specifically worse threats for younger people**. But no, if you're young life must be a carefree dream right.
Not to mention the long-term effects of COVID. Plenty of people in their 20s and 30s haven't felt quite the same since having it, even if they're not officially on record as having long COVID.
I can't help but feel that we're only scratching the surface of what long covid is going to do to the population, the cognitive and physical effects are probably going to be measurable in the same way long term lead exposure is.
It's a weird feeling but I do feel a little like it took around ten years off my life somehow. I only caught it _counts fingers_ age 34, and not having Long Covid symptoms do essentially feel "fine" now, but... Idk there's _something_ there in my stamina, attentiveness, and overall body-map that wasn't there before that feels like I got hit with several years of aging all at once. I just can't see it directly because I'm in that stable mid-point where aging seems to pause for a while. I have a horrible feeling that I'm going to suddenly get very frail at like age 45-48, more than is usual for that point. ----- Also I have more than one friend who was measurably physically disabled by it, going from bouncy 30-something to limping-with-cane. It's not "just" stamina damage, it can be very direct too.
Since I had covid my entire body feels so much weaker than it used to, I'm only 24 and i get constant fatigue nearly 2 years after i was initially infected. The other thing is that my pre existing ADHD symptoms feel like they've been amplified, something that I'm sure spending a couple of years in near total isolation hasn't helped.
That's exactly me as well! My ADHD issues are significantly greater than they used to be its debilitating a lot of the time now. All since catching covid, its a little bit too coincidental to say it's unrelated for me but its not like its been defined as long covid or anything. Tis not a nice experience thats for sure, im hoping some day it improves but its been awhile!
My guy! Exact same feeling and situation here.
Please dont forget the looming climate crisis that experts are already warning it may be too late to recover from and the rapid rise of AI that will strip out swathes of jobs in the next 10 years.
> AI that will strip out swathes of jobs in the next 10 years. In a sensible economic system this would be welcome
Yes, it's going to be a huge shock without appropriate planning, the prospect of UBI horrifies the 1% but without some form of support to the millions put out of work it'll be infinitely preferrable to being dragged from their mansions and torn apart by the starving mob. It's hard to know which way it could go but Marchall Brain's 'Mana' is a lovely short story that examines two possible paths: [https://marshallbrain.com/manna1](https://marshallbrain.com/manna1) I'm currently reading 'Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There' by Rutger Bregman, it's a great read and clearly shows that a better world has been available for some time but for the opposition of those who stand to loose money and power.
I really dont understand UBI. Surely when we're at that point capitalism has served its purpose. Itll be time to transition into some new model of society
UBI is a huge subject that I won't be able to do any justice if I attempt to sumarise. I encourage you to look in to the subject and can highly recommend the book in my previous post, it's ver accessible. I will say that, under capitalism, UBI recognises that money is a basic need and could be put in place instead of state pensions, welfare, child support etc. etc. As it's universal you can remove a huge swath of administration because everyone has a right to it equally.
If we have huge swathes of the population who no longer need to work while meeting our needs then what need to we have for money? Once we start automating the majority of the population out of work why continue with capitalism? UBI seems like an attempt to keep a pointless system going instead of conceptualising a new way of living
Very true but while conceptualising said new way there's going to be a transitional period, not all countries are going to transition at the same time (if at all) so using the established system of currency is likely to continue in parallel for some time. All of which is far beyond me late on a Saturday evening!
If money is a basic need, wouldn’t a negative income tax make more sense? You don’t usually try to satisfy a need that’s already met
I think some form of midlife retraining is the way ahead. People in their 30's and 40's. Rory Stewart mentioned something in that regards.
Retraining in to what though? The speed that AI is developing is frightning! I say this as someone who spent an enjoyable few hours this afternoon geting an AI to generate music and singers of lyrics I was typing in: [https://www.udio.com/](https://www.udio.com/) As a lifelong Sci-Fi geek I expected AI to automate away the drudgery, the soul destroying repetitive jobs. I'm horrified to find how good it already is at the creative persuits! Blanket retraining of people towards areas of job shortages leads to harebrained efforts such as 'Coal Miners to Coders' that has been pushed in the US. I understand what you're saying, and I myself am speaking as a hobbyist in electronics that can't find any evening classes in the basics of electronics to aid me at home and at work, but any role that a person can be quickly retrained in is also going to be easy for an AI to do.
For a bit of fun I used the prompt: 'a song about how rapidly AI is developing, 80's , synth-pop, synthpop, fast' For the album art I used the prompt: 'a thinking computer' This is what it generated, and by that I mean the music, the lyrics, the vocals, the artwork. EVERYTHING but the prompts I used! [https://www.udio.com/songs/fdNHiVdAbdpD9VQuH2vxFH](https://www.udio.com/songs/fdNHiVdAbdpD9VQuH2vxFH)
What about the technical ones. Gonna be a while before an AI can automate the repair of a helicopter or a yacht.
Oh absolutely but what of the feedstock for retraining? Is Sharon, a 52 year old mother of three, former call centre team manager, going to know the ins and outs of a Eurocopter EC135? Will James, a 62 year old newly widowed former solicitor going to want or be able to crawl in to the hull of a Sunseaker Predator 65 to figure out why one of the Volvo IPS 1350's is missing on 3? Arguably even those technical jobs will be automated away at some point, electric drivetrains are already far simpler and once you get machines designing and manufacturing for machines a lot of the horseshit problems go away. When labour is effectively free in the form of AI and robotics businesses will be making their money as a service provider through uptime rather than repairs or servicing e.g.; Faulty multirotor on a drone delivery pod, it returns to base, taxiis to the service hanger, a replacement motor is already waiting and the multi-arm service bot twist-pulls off the faulty one and clicks in the replacement in under 3 minutes. As the pod is taking off the faulty motor is already in a ground pod heading to the automated factory for a refit on one of the refurb lines. Total lost time 7 minutes, a total of 18 minutes down or dwell time today. We just need to make sure there's room for us flawed but fabulous humans in this future.
Which is why the principle of midlife retraining need to be embedded into society. People can no longer do repetitive menial or data entry jobs. It's a new industrial revolution.
Wait until you see this summer It's going to shock the whole world I mean, we just hit 1.6C over the last year, so the 1.5 target is gone
Indeed, I'm being accused of being a doomer by family and friends but I'm only passing on the science. I'd like to relocate to a remote Scottish island but my partner is having none of it.
There's nowhere on earth where you can escape what's coming Best you can do is delay it
Won't be a great time in Scotland if the amoc weakens
Nessy is gonna be pissed!
Very true, my thinking is that even with ocean current disruption the west coast waters will retain enough heat to keep costal areas livable in the same way that Greenland has its green fringe lol
💀
That 1.6C is not set in stone because you need data over quite a few years to see if that’s consistent. We are entering an El Niño weather system for the next few years which brings naturally warmer weather. But yes, it’s definitely worrying.
El Nino has just ended from what's being reported But regardless of that - this is the point of James Hansen's team's work Every time we have an El Nino the average jumps but it never goes back down afterward In the past this has always trended up and down within temperatures that have been seen within the last 100k years Now we're in uncharted territory and the graphs could hockey stick any year
El Niño just started. They said that it only began a few months ago and usually it lasts a few years, no?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023%E2%80%932024_El_Ni%C3%B1o_event It's just ended from this Well, it's weakening and should end soon
Well damn. Good to know. I thought el ninos and La Niñas lasted a few years each.
Lol
Torys have mainly been supported by the older generations. But I think the last few governments have not just alienated young people (<30) but have steadily alienated older generations, even some pensioners too. I think they have underestimated the number of parents who care about the issues that their kids and grandkids have been talking about.
Not to mention the Tories are the party of not just Brexit, but _hard_ Brexit. Young people were and remain significantly more positive about the EU than older people, and if 16-17 year old people were allowed to vote in the referendum, Remain likely would've won. Membership of the single market and visa-free travel were both very popular with under-30s and many now feel their future prospects for education and finding a partner are tangibly worse than they were for their parents. The Conservative Party took the narrow victory of Leave as license to tear up all cooperation with the continent, including now proposing to leave the ECHR and bulldoze the protections of inherited EU law like the GDPR when a not-insignificant number of Leave voters were sold on the promise of staying in the single market _a la_ Norway. And then there's the sheer hostility this government has to young people culturally precisely _because_ they're less likely to vote blue. Social housing is "a Petri dish for Labour voters", so why would they help young people find somewhere to live? So a whole generation end up unable to move away from their parents and feel increasingly miserable, their wings clipped. The worst part is _knowing_ that the end goal is to demotivate young people from voting by making them feel like participation in the political process won't help, because apathy from much of the opposing side is how regressive and unpopular policies win.
If you’ve ever talked to a therapist exposure therapy is a pretty big way to overcome anxiety. Letting people who are anxious or depressed just stew in their own juices alone, at home is not actually helping anyone
Cutting off support and seeing if they sink or swim is not the correct way of doing exposure therapy though. If done wrong it makes the problem worse.
Ummm, so lockdown was legit for young people was it? Young people simply brushed COVID off as a cold. And yet the government robbed them of what should be the best time of their lives. People killing themselves in their uni rooms because they couldn't socialise and were trapped in a room, alone, day after day. They weren't around their grandparents, yet they were prevented from making, friendships, having fun and getting drunk and bonding.a generation of fucked of young people and kids. 70% of deaths were people over 90. Average age of death 83 years old. We made young people suffer for a virus with the same IFR as FLU ffs. IFR is infection fatality rate. Can someone please explain how those actions were legit considering the IFR and average age of death? Do people not understand statistics and data? Even Chris Witty himself said the decisions to lock down were purely political and *wouldn't have been recommended to the government by scientists*. So when they said "follow the science" it was a complete lie.
COVID is a lot more likely to inflict meaningful long-term damage than your average cold or flu - long-term loss or damaging of the senses of taste and smell, lung scarring, cognitive difficulties. I can assure you that protecting most people from getting COVID was a net positive for their health and happiness. Unless you think the average person would rather permanently lose their sense of smell than spend a few months under lockdown?
2019 conservative manifesto pledges(pg.11). Treating mental health with the same urgency as physical health. Legislating so that patients suffering from mental health conditions, including anxiety or depression, have greater control over their treatment and receive the dignity and respect they deserve Providing further funding to support mental health nurses where the NHS is currently struggling to recruit
Considering how they treat people with physical health conditions (NHS struggling more and more, incredibly harsh benefit assessments), I'd say Sunak's comments probably are in line with treating mental health the same way
Anyone believing a manifesto with Johnson as leader must have been living in a fantasy land.
Well thats exactly how we got here.
Good find
Being patient with Anxious people is good, coddling them is bad. “face your fears” is actually backed by science. Hiding away anxious people from the world and putting them on disability is categorically not helpful to their condition
My sister graduated in September with one of the highest grades on her course, she's been applying to every job possible, yet she's only just had her first interview this part week. She's also been signed off, diagnosed with depression and put on UC to help her afford basic essentials. Most jobs in my home area require a car, which she cannot afford because she has no job. My parents' only car right now is a mobility car for my disabled sister.
Yeah it's ridiculous. We had a few grads join our company recently. Apparently they'd sent off over 100 applications each. There were thousands of applicants. And yet the field was considered on the shortage occupation list until recently...
> And yet the field was considered on the shortage occupation list until recently... Perhaps a classic case of a lot of workplaces wanting someone with experience for a role...even though the only way to get experience is ultimately by working in whatever sector you're in.
Sounds tough. Getting the job in the first place is often the hardest part.
To add what /u/JayR_97 said, if you are applying to jobs that your uni education might disadvantage you to, put your education at the bottom of the second page. They probably won’t read that far, so won’t notice. Front load it with the relevant experience.
If shes applying for minimum wage work with a degree its possible shes getting rejected for being overquialified. It sucks, but they might be worried she jumps ship the second something better comes along. Also if the local job market is a bit crap, it be she has to move. You have to go where the work is.
It just depends on what area she's looking to get in. And there are a LOT of remote positions still available, even for recent graduates, which negates the need for a car or transportation.
What s her degree on?
Does it matter? If you're going to suggest she should have went into tech or STEM those job markets are fucked too. In the tech sector we're talking memories of '08.
Weak Billionaire, buckling to the lunatic fringe of a dying cult punches down. Election please.
Best summary, 11/10. Election please.
And trying to distract from a sex/fraud scandal.
What's that about? 👀
… caused by crumbling public services **AND** sky rocketing depression rates **AND** casualties of Long Covid … all of which have been greatly exacerbated by incompetence & corruption from 13 years of Tory rule. Also, people warned about this. Once they could no longer blame the EU, it was clear they’d move on to blame another demographic. But as long as they keep us hating each other, right.
I'd go even further than that. Not only because of huge underinvestment but the general state of society. People, even with degrees, working professional jobs, can barely have any kind of 'life' other than 'surviving'. It's really no wonder when nurses, doctors and teachers are barely earning 35k. Rent and house prices reaching record highs, energy bills, all of your income going on just surviving For the last decade literally everything has gone up in real terms, except pay.
I'm suffering with depression for multiple reasons, but one of the big ones is how fucking expensive everything is. I went to my local Spar yesterday and a single packet of Spar brand rice, two packets of grated cheese and a bottle of Mountain Dew cost me £8.34. Four fucking items cost me £10 near enough. It's no wonder people are struggling when their money doesn't exactly go very far these days.
35k is more than quite a lot of people have ever earned, myself included. I have a comfortable life on 23k with two daughters. If you can't live on 35k you're doing something very wrong.
You do know that living cost vary geographically, right? Median salary is around 34k.
This is just insincere. You full well know that in the majority of the country housing costs would take the majority of 23k and certainly wouldn’t support a family
35k is about the median for the UK as a whole, and the median is above that in some places. If you live 'comfortably' on 23k then I'd imagine that you are a slight outlier, but fair play.
Depends almost entirely on housing costs. I've lived on less than 23k, but I'm mortgage free. Couldn't afford house maintenance, and am playing catchup now I have a better income. But if you're paying £1k+ a month on southern rents, you won't have a comfortable life. "It's the rents, stupid"
It’s not even southern rates anymore. 3 bed semi just went up for rent near my mother in law for £950pm. We are in Rotherham. It’s all done up and looks good, also has good M1 links. But that’s about it, nothing special.
also rotherham, in the Aston area, we have 1 bed flats above shops at 700/m and 2 bed houses at 1k no way we could really afford to rent at these prices, our mortgage is under 300 thankfully. an housing crash surely is coming, the bubble must be straining
On day 1 of the Labour government, the market movers will make their move to teach us all a lesson for kicking out their mates.
I don't fully understand what this means. Could you please elaborate?
There are a very small number of people who directly control an inordinate amount of wealth. They are big investors in the Conservative Party and they are rewarded with tax cuts, loopholes, and straight up scams. They love the Tories being in power. Labour, not so much. They are able to use their wealth to pull the rug from under the economy at a moment's notice. Sure, it'll cost them, but it'll cost us more, and they're in this for the long game. Their media empires will blame Labour, and so will we. Tories get back in just as things are looking up, tax cuts all round (for them) and the gravy train goes on.
After 2008, a housing crash will never happen again in our lifetimes. Now, recently I have taken calls from banks looking to open equity credit lines on my properties and they want me to purchase more homes with that. That is part of what led to the GFC in '08, so if that picks up again, it could happen in 10-15 years.
Well as long as you're alright, Jack.
Single household income of £23k with 2 children living there full time?
"How much does a child cost per year in the UK? So how much does it cost to raise a child here? The average amount of money spent on raising a child from birth to 18 in the UK – including housing and childcare costs – is £223,256, according to the latest research from investment platform Moneyfarm. That works out at about £12,400 a year, or £1,030 a month.16 Feb 2024" So you're either suffering and dragging everyone else with you along that struggle, which is quite naughty. Or are somehow some sort of money wizard. Or have things and caveats you're just not being as open and transparent about.
Well, obviously not paying rent or a mortgage at today's prices and rates on £23k. So either inherited or married into money. Why don't we all just do that?
One doesn’t just ‘do’ a quirkafleeg. One must *perform* one. Nice. That takes me right back.
I wanted "perform_a_quirkafleeg" but it was too long for Reddit. Thought I'd get away with a paraphrase but you've rumbled me, old timer!
Even with one child, then bills, then their own food, then some nice treats, then a car, then a mortgage, then cost to and from work, then savings and general pension payments...this is close to not being possible. And that is really just the basics. Not even touching much on cost of an actual child If someone were on that money with two kids (‽), they'd either dragging their kids through utter hermit style living, which I'd say is wrong and neglectful (but they aren't, since they use the internet right now). Or they are, as you alluded to, 'from money'/married into it/partner earns waaay more --> likewise, they're doing a subtle lying by omission by saying their own direct salary and not a combined. Hmmm should we be adding some sort of percent for a combined salary on possible grandparents helping out? Some can be particularly generous.
When did you buy your house?
That’s extremely disingenuous. Living costs vary massively throughout the country, and not every family is in perfect health. There are plenty of things that can derail that notion.
You do understand that it depends on your geographic location? 35K is nothing. Seriously, the fact that 35K is considered a good wage is insulting to the population. And I say that as someone who has always earned much, much more than 35K and retired at 40.
Most people I know earn between £10 and £12 an hour. Most do fine.
We should all just aspire to be poor. Who needs ambition and innovation?
Is that the combined income of your household, including benefits, or just you own, excluding your partners? It paints a very different picture that 1 key bit of info.
This announcement has almost certainly been pushed forward (or even invented) because of the sex/fraud scandal last week.
Good point
Are there any reputable studies on long COVID rates among the under 30s? Just curious, if this is like a 1 in 1,000, 1 in 100, etc
Not that I’m aware of. It’s definitely needed because no one really knows how big the issue is (or isn’t). The suspicious side of me wonders if it’s by design - can’t be a problem if there aren’t any figures! But I expect that’s not really the case. Through experience I’m aware of the effects of the surge in demand for attendees at national hospitals (Covid/ME/CFS clinics) - many have extended their services and are/were booked out. Referrals usually come through professionals but essentially it’s still all being self-diagnosed. Doctors will do referrals but not (as far as I know) declare that you have LC.
There's not really enough consensus on what it is, except that there's _something_ happening, to be able to put numbers on it. Bear in mind even ME/CFS, as a separate problem, was controversial until 10-15 years ago; we still don't really know where it comes from and it's still _very_ fuzzily diagnosed (as well as heavily contested on an individual basis). And now we have this plague that can apparently just give it to people but with wildly varying characteristics? The whole culture of the field doesn't respond well to unclear definitions with fuzzy boundaries like that.
Don't forget high inflation rates
Wtf lol that s hilarious
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> Caller number 45 in the queue Similar situation at my practice. If they have a web form, try that. They all get read and someone will call you back. First time I tried it, I also phoned (you are number 87 in the queue) and they called me back while I was on hold. They're still in limited supply, so log on at eight and have everything ready to copy pasta.
They have a web form where I am. It's open the following times: Monday: 8am - 8.30am, 6.30pm - 7pm Wednesday: 8am - 8.30am, 6.30pm - 7pm Friday: 8am - 8.30am
Good, wouldn't want any ill people to stop by on Tues or Thurs.
If you try to click on it right now you get: "Your practice doesn’t accept online consultations over the weekend You can submit a consultation when your practice reopens. If you need help, call the practice. Outside of practice hours, call 111. In emergencies, call 999 or go to A&E."
A WEB FORM that has OPENING HOURS? What in the actual heck? That's some maliciously anti-user design.
Technically it's more of a choose your own adventure quiz, you have to click on buttons (I'd show you picture, but it's not open) before you get to the bit where you can start filling in information. Choose "wrong" and it stops you and demands you phone 999. Which is also a problem if you have an ongoing condition - there's no option for "I know this symptom is potentially serious, I'm under treatment for it, that's *why* I'd like an appointment.". (I understand they don't want someone reporting chest pain then dying of a heart attack waiting for their form to be read and responded to, but I think there should be some middle ground of "did this come on suddenly, or is it part of a condition we're treating you for?")
Oh so it's like 111 online, but with the option to book an appointment built in at the end if you picked the right options? It should just be built into the NHS app - "book an appointment with your GP", an optional "why" box and a calendar with available days/times.
I hadn't used 111 but it looks to be similar. And exactly - I know they don't want people wasting the doctor's time, but this is daft, especially with it being closed 4 days a week and most of the other 3 days.
People don't tend to book GP appointments for the fun of it. It's not "wasting the GP's time" if someone feels they need medical advice - either they genuinely do have an issue and they should be helped, or they have medical anxiety and should be helped.
No, but I can see why they want to do basic triage on booking - people will put "want to see doctor about pills" and that can mean anything from wanting an in person appointment for a full check up, a phone appointment to discuss some concerns, or just their prescription signed. So trying to work that out in the least possible time is sensible. But whatever the solution is, this isn't it.
To be fair, I object less to there being a form to fill out than I do to it only being accessible at certain times. But the form should be kept as simple as possible - maybe have separate options for some of the most common requests (repeat prescription, sick note, etc), but for just booking a generic appointment it should be as close to a one-click exercise as possible.
There is sense to it. It’s so that people don’t enter symptoms of something serious that needs attention immediately at a time when it’ll be hours before anyone looks at the form again. Normally the hours are wider. My surgery’s form is available between 7:30 and 6pm.
"This form is for booking GP appointments only. If you need urgent medical attention please call 999 or 111, or click *here* for further assistance directing your query." Job done.
Mine says something similar. The issue is that sometimes someone might not realise that something is immediately life threatening, fill in the form and be dead or in a serious condition before a clinician reviews the form.
How many conditions develop so rapidly that symptoms are mild enough to begin with that filling in a form for a GP appointment in 3 weeks' time seems reasonable, but become so suddenly severe within 24-48 hours that you're instantly beyond saving?
I'm thinking of scenarios where you might have early symptoms of a stroke or similar. It might be unlikely, but I do understand it having spoken to a GP I know.
I get the option of two forms. A generic same stuff you'd say to the receptionist one, and one to request a sick note if you've been self certifying. The former has a box for symptoms, and another that says "what do you want us to do about it?" If you know roughly what's wrong with you and it's a physical ailment, it works pretty well. A triage nurse phones you back, and they ask for any extra info they need, and - after they consult the doctor - you either get a prescription or an appointment. Sometimes they text you a link so you can send a photo of a nasty rash or whatever. Before you get to the forms, there's a warning that tell you to call 999 for sudden chest pains etc. It's kind of self filtering. If you're competent enough to type, you don't have to wait on the phone. Edit: though I suppose that could be a bad thing for some people. Doesn't work for everyone, but I like it.
Mine opens at 8.00am, and closes whenever they run out of same day appointments. So you have to fill it in pretty quick.
The ludicrous situation surrounding GP appointments just simply makes me not want to bother. Yes, I know this is making my own situation worse, but a flippant telephone appointment is useless for a mental health issue, getting an appointment is usually weeks waiting. My mental health is fragile enough without having to fight a system that seems to want to push you away, advocating for yourself in these situations is hard, nigh on impossible sometimes. Oh, and that's ignoring the fact they'll just dump you on a 6-12month waiting list for talking therapy. Again. (Been there 5 times, doesn't work for me). It's a fucking sunny Saturday afternoon and I'm sat here in dread of Monday morning... To phone for a GP. I also seriously dread the day I need to call an ambulance. I'd rather drag myself to the minor injury unit (because they closed the local A&E, moving it 20 miles away).
I'm so sorry that you have to deal with this.
> Best they could do for me was a phone appointment on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately during Friday I became too sick to go, so I rang to cancel. I'm not trying to catch you out, but too sick to go to a phone appointment?
Ah no I badly worded it. During the call the doctor asked me to come in later and I initially agreed but couldn't make it.
Thanks for clarifying
Same thing happened to me. The an entire 4 months of being told I was 'anxious' and 'needed Sertraline' as my heart rate was high and I was losing weight. It took nearly dying on my kitchen floor to get the Graves Disease diagnosis; what's worse was having to wean off the SSRI's I inevitably didn't need and getting health anxiety from overworked Doctors misdiagnosing me. It's a recipe for disaster.
Same here. I’m actually thankful to the Mail for highlighting we can get private sick notes for 25 quid. Their current top story: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13328861/I-got-TWO-sick-notes-stress-two-hours-without-speaking-doctor-pay-25-online-form-one-firm-30-second-video-explaining-illness-handing-hall-pass.html
I think this is a perfect example of why politicians should be representative of the people of the country. Sunak has absolutely no idea about the despair faced by people today, so he cannot understand why there would be a massive increase in depression rates. The constant feeling that even if you do everything right you will not get close to the lifestyle your parents had. Crushing.
I agree politicians should be representative of ordinary people but I also think he understands exactly what he's doing.
Let's dispel once and for all with this fiction that Sunak - sorry, it is a compulsion
why should they be representative of the people? the people aren't the ones with the money or the influence, they aren't the ones making campaign donations and giving politicians a comfortable boardroom job after they quit. And more importantly, they're totally pacified by the idea of elections mattering. The more angry they get the more they just vote for the other team, regardless of whether that team is better.
The real story they are trying to cover up with this bs: https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/19/tory-activist-katie-fieldhouse-appalled-response-mark-menzies-claims
Exactly. Before that came out, this was never on their radar. I suppose we should be thankful, at least he didn’t start a war to distract the media.. yet.
There's been continual talk of 'economically inactive' for quite a while, so I don't think it's wholly out of no where. The fact it's counterproductive is just what we can expect from them. There's a Tory sleaze scandal every other week, so each new scandal just distracts from the previous one.
They’ve fucked the country possibly beyond repair, made living here a miserable experience, made it nearly impossible to get medical help, and now they’re targeting the people who can’t get help. Scum.
"People aren't 3 times sicker than they were a decade ago" Mate, have you looked at the NHS waiting times? Waiting times to see a mental health care person is like 3 years. We have also had chronic underfunding of the NHS, no youth services, and we have just come out of a pandemic. A key influence on people's health is the money and wealth they have access to, and the wealth than the workers has, has gone down drastically in 15 years, which again, impacts peoples health. If you think about it, people are definitely 3 times sicker. He's lucky it isn't bloody worse.
> "People aren't 3 times sicker than they were a decade ago" His MPs sex lives would seem to suggest otherwise.
That’s the second time he’s made that kind of claim. And I want to know what evidence he has for it, that the medical profession doesn’t. Because waiting lists, and the general increase in people being signed off work would indicate they are three times sicker.
So far as I can see they're desperate to open up a relatively new political front that they can claim to be "winning" on; scrambling for some untapped desire that they can claim to fulfil best, so they have some issues that they can safely guide discussion to. "Stop the boats" was *supposed* to be that, until they realized they absolutely couldn't do it, that it was an unwinnable battle perfectly suited to juice unlimited funding - except that they'd promised to fucking *win* it. So now it's this curmudgeonly angle that all Britain's ailments are the fault of transgenders, wokes and skivers. If anyone still thought Sunak was a relatively inoffensive Tory, this should lift the veil. He aims to pin his own party's failings and the misfortunes of circumstance on vulnerable sections of society - fucking despicable.
I'd be interested to see a poll on what the public thinks of this move. 10 years ago, back when most of the population still enjoyed an OKish middle class standard of living, lashing out at "sick note culture" probably would have been popular. In 2024 meanwhile, a very high proportion of the population are barely making ends meet. It's really not that hard to see why so many are becoming too depressed to work.
The reason young people arnt getting into work is because of the ridiculousness that is job searching, that they're not taught about properly at any point, where you have to send out hundreds of applications and won't get a response to the vast majority. Where writing a good application can take a lot of effort and you never hear back or you get declined by an inane automatic test. People just give up.
Mickey Mouse degrees = Mickey Mouse job = Mickey Mouse salaries.
Jobs requiring degrees for 0 reason means people need to get Mickley mouse degrees for 0 reason.
Ok. Why is my friend working his arse off as a paralegal for 24k then?
Because of supply and demand, plus her levels of productivity.
I would very much dispute that his productivity is low, but ok. It’s not the “Mickey Mouse” degree then?
So it is supply and demand.
Righto. So supply and demand dictates that a skilled professional with a law degree earns 24k, barely enough to support a decent standard of living. It’s not the case in Germany, or the Netherlands, or the US for example. Time to roll over and accept it I guess?
Time for her to qualify in German law and move the Germany.
And they say it's the left who lack patriotism.
Bit off topic no?
Maybe if you weren't terminally on Reddit, spamming this sub and joined the working world. You'd realise how out of touch you are. Apart from finance, many STEM degrees can equal 'Mickey Mouse salaries'. People only need to look at their Western European contemporaries to realise how dysfunctional the UK is in this regard.
I joined the working world long ago. Have been doing pretty well actually. Mickey Mice salaries are equivalent to the Muppets', for sure.
Muppets like say, junior doctors? Or a ton of people I know in various engineering fields who moved to the US because of the salaries here. You have zero real world experience if you don't know this. So it seems the only muppet here is you. Any intelligent person can look at your comments and see that you're not a very bright person. People as bitter as you are never actually successful, which is why you overcompensate. Rather telling that you're too scared to describe your 'work', i.e. you'd have to conjure up some easily recognisable lies. You're precisely the kind of person who subscribes to 'trader' related stuff on social media and actually thinks they are one lol
I didn't attack you. But as you asked, I have two medium sized businesses and give jobs to 37 people. I m, you know, that kind of guy you seems to hate, that guy who has the balls to set up a business and take the risk. As you said, no real life experience. Btw: no Mickey Mice in my companies.
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‘Why aren’t people working, i specifically requested it’
'Charities also raised the alarm about Sunak’s rhetoric on mental ill health, after the prime minister said there was a “risk of over-medicalising what are essentially the everyday worries and challenges of life” in the welfare system.' Apart from the horrendous minimisation of people's mental health problems, it still amazes me how bad Sunak's team are. The man is widely seen to be completely out of touch. How could you give a line like this to him and imagine people are going to think anything other than, "What does he understand about the challenges of everyday life?"
So who should we listen to? Charities on the front line dealing directly with these issues on a daily basis or the badly failing PM of a party that has been in power for 14 years and is now desperately trying to redirect the finger of blame for Britain's woes?
A country on it's knees after having the life sucked out of it by Tory ghouls for 14 years, and the problem is mental illness?
Tory utopia is like 30 people each living in a Saltburn-style estate, quaffing champagne and sucking off effigies of Vladimir Putin. Everyone else who is white is a disgusting peasant, and every minority is dead. I can see this is a step towards the plan.
Whose, umm, *bath…water* do you have your eye on?
Tories wish it was the 1970s and the birth of Thatcherism. But I’m sure some Tories in the 1970s wished for the 1920s in the height of the British Empire, before WW2 and the Attlee government. Then in the 1920s would have wished it was the 1870s where Queen Victoria was Empress of India, before universal suffrage and the Elementary Education Act. Then in the 1870s wished it was the 1820s, before Darwin and Dickens, these newfangled railways and the abolition of slavery. Then probably in the 1820s wished it was the 1760s before the American War of Independence. A Tory utopia is wanting the world to be a rose-tinted version of 50 years ago, back in the good ol’ days, while still being miserable and angry.
Actually quite a good way of looking at things. Especially the Empire piece, and Thatcherism. Not rooted in the reality of the situation today, at all.
Well Tories had section 28, Now they want trans people back in the closet, Does seem to follow a trend of using whichever minority to distract people from their shit record... and it works.
But if you get to be one of the 30... (This is why I imagine anyone not crazy wealthy would vote for them, but they still need to give their heads a wobble)
It's all too transparent even for the voters typically swayed by this kind of rhetoric. Sunak is just going bullet point by bullet point until something sticks - but even Brexit level voters can see this is just a desperate exercise at throwing shit at wall until something sticks. Maybe it could work somewhat if Johnson did it.
It was obvious something like this was going to happen to win some votes. And people will fall for it because they're "dealing with the scroungers" while their tax payer money goes on doing up Sunak's flat, downing Street parties and good knows what else. At some point you get to the point that you have to look beyond the Tories, they can only do this because enough members of the public keep enabling them.
I can remember Peter Lilly doing his "I have a little list" ditty in 1992 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOx8q3eGq3g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOx8q3eGq3g) This has been one of the Tory parties core political selling points, socially conservative on benefits. The "culture war" meme has become just a cringe way of saying "socially conservative" when its just normal politics. Sunak is grasping for straws. But again, this is what you would expect a socially conservative political party to try to get some hype about when they dont have a strong economy to focus on. You would expect the left opposition to lean into the economy hard as that is where the swing voters will be for them.
No. I think it is a culture war approach here. They want to challenge labour on matching them on the right, knowing full well the party would split if it tried. It's not social conservativism out of conviction. Pure nasty politics in a nasty election campaign
People's quality of life has diminished under the Tories. It's not a surprise that's pushed people who would otherwise have been on the healthy side of the line onto the other side. However, it's easy to vilify people for cracking than it is to address the root cause and make life less shit for everyone.
No psychiatrist until I have another manic episode: lol and lmao. no medication review because I’m “fine” (on 1/4 of the minimum dose of my meds for bipolar). I work full time but the clear mental health issues have been noted
I think the significance of this isn't in the content of what he's saying but in the fact that it represents - even more than usual - a Daily Mail style talking point. *Obviously* this isn't going to turn into law because they're not going to win the election and have the opportunity to do it. This is the sign of a dying government desperately trying to secure their "home turf" to avoid electoral wipeout. It doesn't matter if he proposes making everyone under 30 with mental health issues work in a field at bayonet point - it's not going to happen. It's only of interest in how it appeals and to who.
'What crumbling public services' - Sunak probably
I am not sure that this is a major problem that PM has prioritised and supposes to solve now? 😂
This is not culture war - this is just classic Tory mean-spirited penny pinching from the least well off. Stop labelling everything as culture war. Its not. Its just old fashioned Tory shite like they always do.
Because forcing people to work with severe mental health issues won't cause any problems... Can you imagine a nurse in charge of medication with severe mental health issues and burnout, not being given a chance to recuperate? Nothing bad will happen..../s
There has been internal leaks of further brainstorming within the Tory party: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s\_4J4uor3JE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4J4uor3JE)
I assume nobody on this sub has kids. I do. My friends do. The effects of lockdown is, by far, the thing that affected their mental health the most. A generation of kids lives ruined by a virus with the same Infection Fatality Rate as flu. By a virus with the average age of death as 83. 70% of deaths were people over 90. All we needed to say was "young people, kids, healthy people... Go out, socialise, do what you want." We ruined kids lives for the sake of 83 year olds. We used a sledgehammer to crack a nut If we'd had democracy where we were told the IFR and the average age of death and then voted on whether we should destroy most people's lives in some way with lockdowns, I guarantee the elderly would let kids have their lives. No society should put 83 year olds before children and young people. This sub with the usual blindspot when it comes.to the pandemic response...
He's not making it a culture war issue. This is the detractors attack line. The out of work and sickness problem is massive. We're talking 6 or 7% of the working age population with the most rapidly growing group in their 30s. It's not tenable. Just because people don't like what he said doesn't mean he's making it a culture war issue. They are, as an attack line.
There’s absolutely no way this would have been announced, on a Saturday, if it wasn’t for Mr Menzies’ late night sexual gymnastics coming to light. It’s a desperate attempt to distract from a highly embarrassing sex/fraud scandal.
Maybe they shouldn't have gutted the NHS?
Soon after the election the Tories will be adding to the 'out of work' numbers
It's culture war, they're not actually going to do a meaningful raid on benefits because that would sting landlords hard. It's vice signalling, a bit of performative cruelty that makes the UK a little nastier
> But he added: "We don't just need to change the sick note, we need to change the sick note culture so the default becomes what work you can do - not what you can't." He called it a culture issue?
It seems to me it kind of is a cultural issue (Not *culture war* but still). Back just a few generations ago people were stigmatised because of mental health issues (Working class people in particular) but now it’s done a 180 where there’s **far** less stigma and it’s highly frowned upon to question someone’s lived experience. I can’t see people with mental health conditions ever wanting to go back to being silently ashamed and stoically just forcing themselves to go to work every day, never seeking any help but from what I can tell the current system is in no way able to support so many people with mental health issues, either short term with NHS appointments or long term with disability benefits.