UK
Crash the economy, wreck the NHS – and then blame the working class
It is a performance of arrogance that only the most sneering Conservatives can pull off
OPINION
By Andrew Fisher
April 19, 2024
By Andrew Fisher
April 19, 2024
‘The architects of these failed policies have no answers to offer, just blame’
(Photo: Yui Mok/Getty Images)
Every few years – maybe once or twice a decade – the working class in Britain decides not to work. There’s an outbreak of “swinging the lead”, “worklessness” or as current Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak would have it today, a “sicknote culture”.
When the Thatcher government’s disastrous economic policies caused mass unemployment at levels not seen since the 1930s, minister Norman Tebbit was on hand to tell those dumped onto the dole queue to effectively “get on your bike” and find work.
After George Osborne and David Cameron imposed austerity, and unemployment rose to its 21st century high of 2.7 million, they talked of “skivers” and a “benefits lifestyle”. Even Nick Clegg yapped along with talk of “alarm clock Britain”, people who got up to work and resented those on benefits.
And now today, with NHS waiting lists at their highest ever level and the longest and deepest fall in living standards on record, we have Stride and our billionaire PM blaming a “sicknote culture”.
The chutzpah of having crashed the economy and wrecked the NHS, and then blaming those at the sharp end is a performance of arrogance that only the most sneering Conservatives can pull off.
Rather than address the NHS waiting list of 7.5 million, which includes 1.9 million people waiting for mental health treatment, Sunak and Stride blame the victims of their policies. The long waits without mental health support mean that many people’s conditions get worse, so even if they weren’t signed off work before, they end up having to be.
GPs – according to the Government – are too free and easy with these fit notes, and under their proposed reforms would lose the power to issue them, with that power passing to those employed by the Department for Work and Pensions. There are real dangers in this proposal. GPs have a duty to their patients’ well-being, whereas DWP employees, as we’ve seen before, can be set targets to reduce numbers and costs.
t
ANDREW FISHER
Disabled people are paying for the failure of universal credit
Then there is the fact that we have just been through the worst cost of living crisis on record. Numerous peer-reviewed studies show that there is a clear link between recession, inadequate housing, debt and poor mental health.
Poverty is increasing in this country, more families than ever are living in temporary accommodation and at the sharpest end rough sleeping has doubled since 2010. Citizens Advice reports that over five million people have “negative budgets” where their living costs exceed their income.
Any government knowing we were entering recession should have foreseen this rise, and boosted resources; instead, NHS waiting lists have grown while mental health services remain under-resourced.
The “parity of esteem” between physical and mental health that was promised in the 2012 Health and Social Care Act has failed to materialise. The British Medical Association estimates that last year an additional £2.9bn of ringfenced funding for mental health services was needed to meet demand.
The Royal College of Midwives reports that the number of women waiting for perinatal mental health care increased by 40 per cent in the six months to March 2023.
Ruth Rankine of the NHS Confederation said: “The deeper problem isn’t the [fit note] system – it’s that people are sicker than they were and they have more complex healthcare needs. This is why it is vital the Government starts treating investment in the NHS as an explicit tool of economic development.”
And it’s not just at the level of national services either. Years of austerity in local government has stripped away voluntary sector services and public health budgets.
Where I live, all voluntary sector funding from the local council has been axed. The local Mind charity was providing 2,500 local residents with employment support, welfare benefits advice and mental health support. Their council funding was stopped last year, and it’s a similar tale around the country of cuts in funding to homeless charities, mental health support and welfare advice services.
We are seeing an increasingly hostile, punitive and inadequate social security system, where claimants are subject to ever more rigorous conditionality and sanctions to get a pittance of benefits that fail to make ends meet. It serves not as a safety net but as a further source of stress and anxiety.
The architects of these failed policies have no answers to offer, just blame. They have no solutions, just scapegoats: whether that’s those struggling to cope or family GPs trying to do the best thing for their patients.
In prattling on about “sicknote culture” today, Sunak and Stride join an ignoble tradition: failed politicians blaming others for their failure.
Every few years – maybe once or twice a decade – the working class in Britain decides not to work. There’s an outbreak of “swinging the lead”, “worklessness” or as current Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak would have it today, a “sicknote culture”.
When the Thatcher government’s disastrous economic policies caused mass unemployment at levels not seen since the 1930s, minister Norman Tebbit was on hand to tell those dumped onto the dole queue to effectively “get on your bike” and find work.
After George Osborne and David Cameron imposed austerity, and unemployment rose to its 21st century high of 2.7 million, they talked of “skivers” and a “benefits lifestyle”. Even Nick Clegg yapped along with talk of “alarm clock Britain”, people who got up to work and resented those on benefits.
And now today, with NHS waiting lists at their highest ever level and the longest and deepest fall in living standards on record, we have Stride and our billionaire PM blaming a “sicknote culture”.
The chutzpah of having crashed the economy and wrecked the NHS, and then blaming those at the sharp end is a performance of arrogance that only the most sneering Conservatives can pull off.
Rather than address the NHS waiting list of 7.5 million, which includes 1.9 million people waiting for mental health treatment, Sunak and Stride blame the victims of their policies. The long waits without mental health support mean that many people’s conditions get worse, so even if they weren’t signed off work before, they end up having to be.
GPs – according to the Government – are too free and easy with these fit notes, and under their proposed reforms would lose the power to issue them, with that power passing to those employed by the Department for Work and Pensions. There are real dangers in this proposal. GPs have a duty to their patients’ well-being, whereas DWP employees, as we’ve seen before, can be set targets to reduce numbers and costs.
t
ANDREW FISHER
Disabled people are paying for the failure of universal credit
Then there is the fact that we have just been through the worst cost of living crisis on record. Numerous peer-reviewed studies show that there is a clear link between recession, inadequate housing, debt and poor mental health.
Poverty is increasing in this country, more families than ever are living in temporary accommodation and at the sharpest end rough sleeping has doubled since 2010. Citizens Advice reports that over five million people have “negative budgets” where their living costs exceed their income.
Any government knowing we were entering recession should have foreseen this rise, and boosted resources; instead, NHS waiting lists have grown while mental health services remain under-resourced.
The “parity of esteem” between physical and mental health that was promised in the 2012 Health and Social Care Act has failed to materialise. The British Medical Association estimates that last year an additional £2.9bn of ringfenced funding for mental health services was needed to meet demand.
The Royal College of Midwives reports that the number of women waiting for perinatal mental health care increased by 40 per cent in the six months to March 2023.
Ruth Rankine of the NHS Confederation said: “The deeper problem isn’t the [fit note] system – it’s that people are sicker than they were and they have more complex healthcare needs. This is why it is vital the Government starts treating investment in the NHS as an explicit tool of economic development.”
And it’s not just at the level of national services either. Years of austerity in local government has stripped away voluntary sector services and public health budgets.
Where I live, all voluntary sector funding from the local council has been axed. The local Mind charity was providing 2,500 local residents with employment support, welfare benefits advice and mental health support. Their council funding was stopped last year, and it’s a similar tale around the country of cuts in funding to homeless charities, mental health support and welfare advice services.
We are seeing an increasingly hostile, punitive and inadequate social security system, where claimants are subject to ever more rigorous conditionality and sanctions to get a pittance of benefits that fail to make ends meet. It serves not as a safety net but as a further source of stress and anxiety.
The architects of these failed policies have no answers to offer, just blame. They have no solutions, just scapegoats: whether that’s those struggling to cope or family GPs trying to do the best thing for their patients.
In prattling on about “sicknote culture” today, Sunak and Stride join an ignoble tradition: failed politicians blaming others for their failure.
Andrew Fisher is a former executive director of policy for the Labour Party
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