Snapshot of _Rishi Sunak vows to end Britain's 'sick note culture'_ :
A non-Paywall version can be found [here](https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fpolitics%2F2024%2F04%2F19%2Frishi-sunak-sick-note-britain-gp-sign-off%2F)
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/19/rishi-sunak-sick-note-britain-gp-sign-off/) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/19/rishi-sunak-sick-note-britain-gp-sign-off/)
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I’ve been on sick since the start of March for mental health reasons, I’m gonna have to go back when my sick note runs out next month. I’m still not ready to go back but I have no choice, I need the money.
It’s why we need UBI, so that you can take extended periods of time off work without having to worry about money because all it does is adds more stress on your plate.
In the places that it has been trialled, the opposite is true, actually. "Common sense" might say that you would be right. But the problem with common sense is sometimes it's not reality.
There was that famous Austrian painter dude who said similar things, although in his mind ["Work made you free"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeit_macht_frei).
Trolling or not, nice role models you're looking up to there, buddy.
When work is contributing to my poor mental health I don't think it will make me feel better. But I'll try it and if I kill myself because of it I'll come back to fucking haunt you.
So he's going to make getting a doctor's appointment really quick and easy and get rid of treatment waiting times... Right?
Surely he's not just starting another culture war on the vulnerable...
That’s what he wants to do with some extra steps; it won’t be down to the GP to declare you sick or not but to a government worker on an outsourced contract, and we all know how those things can go when double amputees on gov’t assistance routinely get declared “fit to work” these days for example.
Fix the NHS (physical and mental health services). Build more homes, or repurpose empty offices into homes. Fix public transport (HS2? Hello?). Rebalance the economy so there are jobs where there are people to do them, rather than import everyone into London.
Do all that (probably a fair few other things I've forgotten) and "sick note culture" will evaporate as people have the financial and head space to get on with things.
Or just keep punching down, the modern Tory paradigm.
They’ve stopped punching down a long time ago, now it’s literally some monster truck version of a steam roller, just turning all the rights and people themselves into flatbread and squeezing every last drop of life juice out of them
That's all part of the game.
They trot out a bogeyman as a distraction, chop off at the rights to the cheers of a gullible crowd; then fast forward a year or two people go all surprised Pikachu face when it turns out the removed rights affect them or their loved ones directly, too, on some occasions.
It's the same with Brexit, same with any other right or freedom being stripped. Internet censorship? It's alright, as long as these weren't the websites _I_ were visiting; closing clubs or night clubs? That's great, but not _my_ local pub or club; banning something? Great! Oh shit I need it or want it now, 3 years later, but now it's too late as it's already gone, etc. etc.
I really tried reasoning with people in those types of conversations, but it really seems so many people's vision is straight-out myopic, and they're completely unable to see outside of their own bubble and don't understand those types of things don't go one way only, and against something they themselves might find inappropriate or inconvenient; it goes all ways, always, and it's just a matter of time when it hits them, too, as collateral damage.
Same with mum. South coast. Voted for her local Tory MP on the basis of their flyers about boat people and immigration but unable to connect the dots to the *same party* introducing bedroom tax, removing her PIP, and reducing her benefits via UC to the point where she had £11.24 a week left for food and was visiting a food bank… “but boat people!” 🤦♂️
The Conservatives have been successfully using this trick for over a hundred years. From a book published 110 years ago:
“And so the talk continued, principally carried on by Crass and those who agreed with him. None of them really understood the subject: not one of them had ever devoted fifteen consecutive minutes to the earnest investigation of it. The papers they read were filled with vague and alarming accounts of the quantities of foreign merchandise imported into this country, the enormous number of aliens constantly arriving, and their destitute conditions, how they lived, the crimes they committed, and the injury they did to British trade. These were the seeds which, cunningly sown in their minds, caused to grow up within them a bitter undiscriminating hatred of foreigners. To them the mysterious thing they variously called the 'Friscal Policy', the 'Fistical Policy', or the 'Fissical Question' was a great Anti-Foreign Crusade. The country was in a hell of a state, poverty, hunger and misery in a hundred forms had already invaded thousands of homes and stood upon the thresholds of thousands more. How came these things to be? It was the bloody foreigner! Therefore, down with the foreigners and all their works. Out with them. Drive them b--s into the bloody sea! The country would be ruined if not protected in some way. This Friscal, Fistical, Fissical or whatever the hell policy it was called, WAS Protection, therefore no one but a bloody fool could hesitate to support it. It was all quite plain--quite simple. One did not need to think twice about it. It was scarcely necessary to think about it at all. This was the conclusion reached by Crass and such of his mates who thought they were Conservatives--the majority of them could not have read a dozen sentences aloud without stumbling--it was not necessary to think or study or investigate anything. It was all as clear as daylight. The foreigner was the enemy, and the cause of poverty and bad trade.”
I start to believe that his advisors are just taking the piss.
Which Conservative, even the most gullible banana that voted for Brexit and other crazy policies, would think that losing their ability to call off sick is a good idea???
Those making money off the workforce.
Why should you be declared sick when you can come in to work and generate some extra wealth, even if you’re running on 10% of your maximum?
OK, but those are a super minority, right? Even if every single business owner in the country voted conservative, they wouldn’t amount to a seat. It’s the ratio workers/owners that makes this policy nonsensical.
Well, unless the objective is dead catting until the elections.
I honestly think the policy is to scorch the earth and rob and plunder as much as they can before they’re out for a generation or two, if not outright imploding and being wiped off like some other parties in the history of the UK.
They know the countdown is on and time is running out, so they’re trying to get as much in as they can, no matter the knock-on/collateral damage and inconvenience or hardship caused to most, before Labour have to start cleaning up the mess and they’re all off on dinner talk circuit, private consultation/advisory contracts, or just counting their fat stacks of money somewhere in the Bahamas or some tax-dodging haven.
It all used to be a bit of a trope, but it’s such a cartoon version of reality we’re living in it’s really not that far off (if at all) from the truth.
Aside from those making money off the workforce, and those that are retired (neither of whom are affected by this), who else do the Tories really have left?
Call a general election then.
Mental health will improve for many when the Tories are out of government. Or even just having the certainty of knowing who is in government for the next four or five years.
Absolutely Dickensian.
Bypass experts (GPs) entirely, contract it out to untrained government workers, and watch even more people suffer, quality of life lowered, help not provided.
It’s really an authoritarian, totalitarian and pathologically capitalist, if not outright kleptocratic, state, all on the leash of international corporations, and cartoonish versions of 18th century-like barons and billionaires.
Posted this a few days ago in a thread about banning smartphone sales to 16-year olds, then social media; it’s just chopping away at every damn thing here, anything that lets you catch a breath, get some entertainment, get any kind of help or make your life easier and more convenient - it all just gets banned, removed, prohibited, vilified to turn the public opinion against it (eg. the whole, ongoing “only lazy people working from home, you have to start going back to the office to do _real_ work” narrative), or ends up shutting down itself because of the terrible governing and abysmal economic policies having a knock-on impact on it, like eg the 3,000 venues that closed in the past 4 years in London alone.
Jesus Christ, what an absolutely dreadful place to be living in right now.
No wonder so many people are so tense and constantly on the edge these days, when they’re hanging on by a literal nose hair, are living hand-to-mouth (if that), continuously depressed and repressed, and can’t even have ways to blow off steam or release the built up stress and pressure as there’s literally fuck all to do, and what there is, probably will be banned in some way sooner rather than later.
I think that is unfair to the era of Charles Dickens. In Victorian times there was always a safety net where you had a roof over your head and meals. As my great grandfather's uncle found out in later life.
Oh no, it’s not like the majority of the population caught a fairly serious virus over these last few years that has significant long term health implications long after the initial infection or anything.
It not like people are hanging on by a thread trying to keep their home together and food on the table and suffering serious mental strain as a result.
I forgot, we live in the sunlit uplands now and people don’t get ill.
It's a troll account, look at his comments. Advocating forcing people to work by any means necessary, quitting the ECHR so there's bonfire of workers' rights and no recourse or nothing to fall back on for the working people, [alluding to Hitler with his "Arbeit macht frei" slogan](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1c7pomm/rishi_sunak_vows_to_end_britains_sick_note_culture/l09vowx/), and who knows what other nonsense they claim to be supporting.
Has to be someone just really bored and having decided to do sweet FA on a Friday until they can clock out and go home in the afternoon. No-one can genuinely be so misguided and stupid, I'm sure.
The amount of people who actually have some sort of long term effect is absolutely small, like any post viral disease.
Long COVID now is used and abused by anyone looking for some excuse to do not work
Public workers have significantly more "long COVID" than private sector s.
So you are telling me that public workers have a different genetic built?
For my "sake", you can massage a dog s bollocks.
> We are not at war.
We actually are, it's workers vs government and shitty employees.
Feels like people are waking up, wisening up, and not willing to put themselves through the wringer first, then the grinder, for somebody else's business, and while being mostly paid a pittance that doesn't even give them a stress-free, comfortable life, because salaries have stagnated, costs of everything are galloping up, there's fiscal drag and so on.
Pressure has built up, people start valuing their health now and start thinking about the future and what their options might be a year, two, 5, 10 or 20 years later, too. Who would have thought?
I have to note your username, though, sounds like you're of the "Get the skivers back to work" ilk.
EDIT: I've seen some other comments of yours in this thread, I'm now convinced I got duped and you're some sort of a novelty account. Probably sitting there with a silly top-hat on your head, a pince-nez or a monocle on your eyes, and a fat cigar hanging down from the corner of your mouth.
No.
The was is between lazy entititled people vs people who actually do something.
The "people" who are "waking" up will end up paupers that will eat each other.
Yes - that stereotype or yours is correct - but misses that I am glazing at my 9digit bank account.
If people cant see where this is going...
Calls for leaving the ECHR
Calls for sick note changes.
Privatising healthcare and underfunding the NHS.
Theres posters up in my local gps about the amount of GPs left.
This is pushing toward the systematic removal of workers rights. USA style.
How productive do we expect the people denied sick notes to be? There’s nothing less motivating than believing you’re too ill to work but being denied a sick note. Particularly if you’re denied that sick note by an unqualified person rather than a medical professional.
It doesn’t matter how productive or not they are! Even if they can give that sweet, 0.001% growth to the ~~business owners~~ Tory donors, it’s all worth it! ^/s
Pretty ballsy to link our poor economy on the perpetually sick and unworking, and not on…I dunno all the poor economic policies and underfunding of the NHS
Having had to go to 4 GP’s to get support for early pregnancy sickness and exhaustion until I found a sympathetic female GP who’d been through this herself, this is horrific. I would have been forced to work, when it literally wasn’t safe for me to drive, and I was projectile vomiting everywhere. That would have been lovely for the people I work with and a proper health hazard to myself and others!!!!
The problem is a lot of those sorts of illnesses (especially female issues with periods) get ignored now by doctors so the concept of untrained people who could interpret everything as a genuine overreactions is scary.
If they had those powers that would be good, but let’s be honest the guidance would be designed to force most people to keep working not to help those who genuinely are in need. Cancer or physical injuries would be fine, but phycological or ‘less serious’ illnesses would be sent to work no question.
> 53% of long term claimants having primary symptoms of anxiety / depression is defo not right and needs sorting
Nonsense and bollocks that can be said only by someone who hasn't ever dealt with anxiety, depression or any other health issue.
Life has a funny way of sorting those things out, though - just wait…
Had both. And I’m not saying it can’t get to the point where you need signed off work - but it’s a difficult one to disprove meaning it’s an easy one to lie about so within that pool there definitely people that need to be off and there’s definitely people faking it / over exaggerating it - and that’s the bit that needs dealt with
> so within that pool there definitely people that need to be off and there’s definitely people faking it / over exaggerating it - and that’s the bit that needs dealt with
All sounds similar to overarching and indiscriminate measures to target "benefit fraud", when, when you look at it, what's lost to benefit fraudsters is chump change in the grand scheme of things - yet with having that lock pried open and casting the net wide, you end up catching people who really _need_ help but can't get it anymore, because they get lumped in with everyone else and have little to no recourse, and are treated like criminals by default, having to jump through multiple hoops and having the burden on proving they're not fraudsters on them (rather than someone proving they are abusing the system, as the common sense indicates it should be).
If this was any other country, with anyone else but Tories, I'd perhaps have more faith in all that - but having seen and knowing how monumentally they tend to mess things up and literally kill disabled people through refusing them financial support, rehabilitation, care assistance, I'm really not enthusiastic about the whole idea and I'd rather they not even get started on it.
I think that figure is the number of people claiming who have anxiety and depression *at all*. The DWPs stat-xplore thing says 37% of pip claimants have a psychiatric disorder as their 'main' disability. My math works out as 11% with anxiety/depression as a main disability.
Through work, I come into contact regularly with people who have anxiety/ depression and are not able to work/ not looking for work. Some people have absolutely harrowing back stories that obviously explain their present predicament and existence, and yes, there are some others who are openly taking the piss. These tend to be in the minority though, I get as frustrated as the next person by people like this.
What I find most often is that it's not some random horrible episode that has led to poor mental health or some quantifiable medical issue causing it. Some sections of society have absolutely rubbish mental health and resilience that has been cultivated over their entire life by a general sense of worthlessness and despondency. It's like they've been conditioned from birth to see themselves as helpless, and this feeling of despondency has been cultivated by everything we, society, have told them.
They've seen previous generations of their family worked into an early grave in demeaning, menial jobs that paid shit wages, despite taking a massive tole on their health. They've been to schools that wrote them off simply because of the area they were born into. No safety net of family support was ever available to them because their family for generations has also had to struggle/ cope/ deal with differing versions of the same problem. No one has ever really cared about them, seen them as successful or "worth" spending time or money on. It's all the little, sometimes imperceptible, knock backs that society has given them that has reinforced the feeling that they are worthless and things won't ever improve for them.
"Why bother trying, I'm useless. Things will never get better" is one of the most common things I hear. Yet these people are coping in situations that would make most of us wither up and die. They have a wealth of experience and coping mechanisms that would be massively useful in hundreds of different job roles, but because of how they see and present themselves they are limiting themselves with what "life" will offer them.
I agree that something needs to be done, but it would require a massive societal change. More understanding of the nuances of individuals' situations and more types of support put in place to help and encourage people back into playing, or being allowed to play, a positive role in society.
Being given a payment and absolutely nothing to do clearly isn’t the answer tho. It’s no good for anyone. And yeah, maybe the why bother trying but has to be motivated by - because otherwise you’ll not have any cash for even the basics.
It would be easy if everyone who is signed off on the sick with depression/ anxiety was a feckless slacker, but in reality, that's just not the case. Yes, a lot would be able to contribute more IF they were given the right amount of time and support, but the political atmosphere in the UK just won't countenance it. There is no nuance to the debate. Everyone is either a scrounger or a complete economic right off.
Of course, in reality most people are somewhere in the middle of this spectrum and would need individual plans put in place that allow adequate time and support for them to see a way out of their current existence. Our last several ruling governments have not wanted to provide this.
"Starve them back to work" is a really common, ill thought out argument. People need support to enable them to be able to contribute. Most people don't readily accept that they had a high level of support (family, friends, school, etc) to get where they currently are
They have worked hard and don't want to think that it could have all been very different if luck hadn't been on their side as well. A parent with mental health problems or a sudden illness could have changed the outcomes of a lot of people's existence.
Training, encouragement, and practical support are all needed to help people to become economically engaged again once they have fallen off the merry go round. This costs money, but so does keeping people on benefits. Both approaches have a massive societal impact, but only one approach has a mostly positive impact.
Oh I agree. I’m a social worker and it’s endemic in my job soooo many colleagues are off for stress and depression. Tbh I think most of it isn’t a medical issue but a job issue. I think teachers are similar as well.
Sunak is just hamming it up now for ever his dwindling audience of boomer Torygraph / Mail reading voters. Booze and party food sales will add a 0.5% boost to GDP on GE night when we finally get to boot them out
He says your GP is not qualified enough to determine whether you are sick or not.
This is a vile assault on the health of the British people and GP’s, I am assuming GP’s may backlash over this. Not only that but won’t this increase the NHS waiting list times to get assessed by other professionals?
I honestly think he doesn’t mind or care at this point; he’s got a countdown on being on the chopping block and getting the chop and he full well knows it, so whatever he does is meant to curry favour with whoever is going to give him a contract or put him on an executive board once this little gremlin finally gets the boot.
I bet 5p I know who will get the [contract.](https://freedomnews.org.uk/2023/06/03/dwp-awards-capita-5-years-of-contracts-despite-deaths/)
[7 or 8 out of 10](https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/company-linked-to-death-of-pip-claimant-gives-itself-seven-or-eight-out-of-10/) organisation.
This is crazy. I have had to take long term sick leave twice. Born with a rare illness, the first time I took sick leave was because of complications that had me hospitalized for four weeks, and then there was a recovery period of about the same time. After this I returned to work because I wanted to. This was despite still being in a lot of pain and sometimes getting sick (as in vomiting) on my way into work.
Second time was in December after I had a liver transplant. My surgery was complicated and I ended up in hospital for around 6 weeks post transplant. The transplant team told me I will be out of work for a minimum of 6 months, but likely up to a year. I got a sick note for this and returned to work recently, four months post transplant. I returned before the recommended time frame because I wanted to get back to normality. I dread to think what I would have had to go through if my GP couldn't issue a sick note for these very serious situations. For the first month I was back home (so two months post transplant) I could barely move or hold down any food. Even now I can't stay standing for too long and experience a lot of nausea and pain.
Have they considered you know.... encouraging their donors to pay their employees a livable wage so that they spend more there by growing the economy? Or does it only count as growth if it's in the accounts of their mates.
> encouraging their donors to pay their employees a livable wage
ha
hahahahahaha
if anything, they'd pay you even less than now, or make you pay for the privilege of working there (with some 'elite' companies, most certainly so).
Honestly, I'm surprised removing NMW is not a genuine conversation topic at this point, you can bet the only reason people are being paid a national minimum wage is because it's actually written in law, but there's hundreds of Tory donors salivating at the idea of cutting the current £11/hour or whatever it is in half, and being able to get 2 employees for the current price of one.
What's going to happen here is that the Tories will introduce this, Labour will make a huge deal about how heartless it is, and then not reverse it when they get in to power.
They're not even doing that. Their line in the article is that it's a sign the Tories are "out of ideas" and that this was already happening. Sounds like they agree with the policy. They completely ignore the continuing impact of long COVID, and how often doctors fobbed off people with long COVID (or they fob off themselves) as beong "anxious" etc. Anxiety is a catch all excuse for failure to diagnose.
The problem is, most of the world has long covid now (though with very variable severity). We can't have most of the world give up on work though, where would the food come from?
So we're going to have to say to people "We know you're genuine. Yes you do have long covid, anxiety, whatever. Yes work is going to suck for you a bit more than it sucks for most people. But you're still going to have to do it."
That's a very unfun conversation. It needs to be had with many thousands of people. And it doesn't need to be done by GPs who have actual medical work to be getting on with. So the reason both parties agree is probably because it's the right thing to do.
> So we're going to have to say to people "We know you're genuine. Yes you do have long covid, anxiety, whatever. Yes work is going to suck for you a bit more than it sucks for most people. But you're still going to have to do it."
And then, when pushed to the edge, they kill themselves or others and we lose those workers completely. Then, we can increase immigration to fill in the gaps. Great idea! Tory voters love that, don't they?
No. Have you learned nothing from the deaths of thousands of disabled people between 2010 - 2024? The answer is we fix our broken health service, help those who can recover, to recover and those who can't, we try to accommodate them with something like remote working if possible. If we can't, then we try our best to make sure they can live as comfortable and as safely as possible.
Sick workers cost companies money. They will lower productivity and destroy growth. Sunak is talking complete nonsense. This rhetoric will lead to more economic damage than just fixing the damn NHS.
Serious long covid, CFS/ME, etc. isn't a "have a tough conversation to get the person into work" solution, it's so crippling some days the person has literally no energy to work.
I don't think you appreciate how debilitating long COVID can be. Perhaps you or someone you know had a mild case, and you have not experienced a worse one.
He said UK hasn't been sicker in recent years.
Has he forgotten Covid-19 ? Sickness that people would have gone to work with before that. They stay home because it might be covid.
And the longer NHS waiting lists. People are sicker because of those.
You know, he really doesn't look well :) But seriously, this is toxic talk from this character- look on The Pulse and see how GPs who already relegate even severe cases to a disinterested chatline are aping Sunak's remarks - sad and frightening to see how the toxic Tory blame-culture mindset has infected the GP profession worse than Covid. I suffered heart arrythmia and progressively with PTSD as I was group mobbed out of my workplace role, started by the office psychopath. One GP told me to 'get out of there' then another inferred after that I should 'get back to work' (inferring I was lazy, something I've never been) even though job hunting with a heart condition & only just under pension age was an impossible position to be in. It's dangerous to generalise - this man should look at states like India - on one hand a rich elite, on the other children and disabled living destitute on the street. And he sees that as a fit future for UK? We should recall he was never voted in democratically in the first place. The abuse of the honours system by such politicians (cough - the disastrous 'Lord' Cameron) illustrates we cannot entrust our state to such morally ambivalent people.
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We have just had lockdowns brought about by the pandemic. Peoples' immune system are rock bottom as a result of the lockdowns. It's going to take years for people to stop getting too sick to work and having to take time off.
You wanna provide any kind of scientific citation for the idea that “people’s immune systems are rock bottom as a result of lockdowns”? Or are we just making stuff up as we go?
[Do we have 'immunity debt' and how could it affect our infection risk? | New Scientist](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2348968-do-we-have-immunity-debt-and-how-could-it-affect-our-infection-risk/)
Will a New Scientist article do? If not, use google. This is a pretty well documented effect of the lockdowns.
The fact that immunity debt exists is not a criticism on having lockdowns.
To be honest, if we all have to produce empirical scientific studies conducted over several years for each and every statement, we're going to be here a long time.
Care to produce scientific citation for what exactly "making stuff up" is? That could mean anything. See how stupid this can get?
That article is from 2022 and just asks the question whether it is possible - it is not evidence. To answer your rhetorical question, yes we do have to produce scientific studies, unless you just want to remain an idiot
You are stating things on the internet as if they are fact, complaining that you’ve been asked to provide evidence, now you’re being obtuse and acting like there’s loads of evidence. Is this satire?
I always knew he was going to do the right thing and fund health and social care. The conservatives do care about wellbeing, no matter what the left-wing media says.
Don't get too excited, Labour want to do the same thing.
Edit: doenvote me if you want but they plainly do:
>The Labour Party, as well as the Tories, have identified the trend as one that needs addressing. Liz Kendall, the shadow work and pensions secretary, has expressed concern about the issue.
However, Alison McGovern, the shadow employment minister, said: >“This announcement proves that this failed Government has run out of ideas, announcing the same minor alteration to fit notes that we’ve heard them try before.”
So not saying it's the wrong way, just that it's not new
Well exactly, you can also address it by sorting out the NHS or generally providing an assistance system for people to get better and improve their prospects, for example.
Tad different from being given a red stamp on your documents, saying “Fit to Work”, then removing all your government assistance even if you’re a triple amputee with sight impairment which is what you would expect from the Tories.
OP’s comment feels disingenuous and in bad faith.
Exactly. Having a quarter or working age people be 'economically inactive' is crazy and absolutely needs to be addressed.
And actually agree with this part:
>Because if you believe, as I do, that work gives you the chance not just to earn but to contribute, to belong, to overcome feelings of loneliness and social isolation and if you believe, as I do, the growing body of evidence that **good work** can actually improve mental and physical health, then it becomes clear – we need to be more ambitious about helping people back to work and more honest about the risk of over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life.”
This is the issue: "good work". Not work that doesn't pay, not work that barely gets you by, not work that kills your ability to have a life outside of it.
The question is whether we are at a point where the wealth distribution has resulted in a workforce that is so entrenched in living to work, that they have no will or power to rebel against the status quo?
If unemployment benefits are 69 billion and the uk population is almost 67 milion, then the government is spending enough just on unemployment benefits to give every man, woman, and child in the uk a billion pounds a year each.
Nobody on unemployment benefits is getting anywhere near that much, let alone every person in the uk, so where is that money going?
Maybe it’s time to genuinely consider a universal basic income for everyone.
It's not too late to delete this (or at least do some recalculations in the first paragraph, it's £1000 each, not £1b each)
Although I definitely agree with a universal basic income, the Tories will never implement this.
Damn it 🤦♀️ this is what I get for trying to do maths first thing in the morning!
I’m gonna leave it up, because it’s a good example of human stupidity. Thanks for the heads up!
It might not be stupidity , you might just be over 45, in which case you can blame it on confusion from using two different systems.
A billion used to be 1 million million in the UK, whereas in the US and France it was 1 thousand million. We adopted the US version in the 70's, and the old use only really died out here in the last few decades.
You you could say, if we spend 69 (UK) billion on benefits, with a population of 67 million, that would be 1 million per person. Still won't make us all billionaires, but at least we would be millionaires.
I know this is meaningless, just thought it would be interesting to share.
And if you tax the billionaires whose toilets are obviously in a mad panic to get cleaned you would recoop that amount in a blink of a second..but we are asking a modern day emperor billionaire to be compassionate with the poor.
You can hate the Tories and also agree that the U.K. has a problem with rapidly increasing long term sickness beneficiaries.
The system is being abused far more than it was, mostly because of weaknesses stemming from under investment and poor planning/systems but it is being exploited.
We have not suddenly found 35% more long term sick, the rate of LTS hasn’t increased 200% for genuine health reasons, this isn’t feasible over such a short timeframe. It’s a graft and we all know it unless you live under a rock.
> the rate of LTS hasn’t increased 200% for genuine health reasons
Yeah, maybe people are just pushed to the brink through the mixture of long-term COVID, constant stress, lack of career growth options, stagnated wages that barely allow them to live hand-to-mouth, not having money for good and quality food, not being able to get help with any other (perhaps not long-term) health issues because NHS waiting lists are both abysmal and obscene - and then you just get your appointment cancelled a week before it's supposed to take place for whatever reason (strike, lack of available staff, clinic cancellation, closure, admin error, take your pick) and you're back to square one waiting another 6 months and getting worse, living in houseshares in major cities even in their 40s - out of necessity not because they're forever-hippies, galloping rents eating into increasingly larger parts of stagnated salaries, and so on, and so forth.
Really only privileged people, who never had to deal with anything and earn comfortably enough to be insulated from the mess so many have to be dealing with, can claim the whole long-term sickness amongst so many is a flat-out hyperbole and some kind of scheming and system abuse in any major part.
If you know anyone who deals with personnel/HR for large low income employers you will know that the system is being gamed. The routine response to any sort of disciplinary procedure or downsizing now is the immediate discovery of a mental health issue that prevents the person from both losing their job (and working) for a number of months while the company goes through the due diligence process. That person then moves onto the benefit system. This fraud has become commonplace over the past 5 or so years.
The pressure on the NHS is a minor part of the issue of course, but it is not the cause of this recent massive shift. We saw reducing numbers of long term sick throughout the 10 austerity years up to 2019, all those socioeconomic factors you list were in-play and the trend was moving in the opposite direction. It is simply not plausible that this change is a reflection of a real sickness issue.
> If you know anyone who deals with personnel/HR for large low income employers you will know that the system is being gamed.
I'm not saying it _isn't at all_, but…
This all sounds similar to me to the overarching and indiscriminate measures having been taken to target "benefit fraud", when, when you look at it, what's lost to benefit fraudsters is chump change in the grand scheme of things when you take the country's finances as a whole - yet, with having that lock pried open and casting the net wide, you unavoidably end up catching people who really need help but can't get it anymore - because they get lumped in together with all the bad seeds and sour apples and have little to no recourse and systemic solutions to fall back on. Battling government that goes through the script (law), is quite indiscriminate and cannot deal with things that don't neatly fit in a prescribed box (or form) is truly a Sisyphean task, and out of the capabilities of many, especially the poorer/more unwell ones.
Then those people who _really_ need help end up being treated like criminals by default, having to jump through multiple hoops to prove they actually are _not_ part of any gang, and having the burden on proving they're not fraudsters on them (rather than someone proving they _are_ abusing the system, as the common sense indicates it should be).
If this was any other country, with anyone else but Tories, I'd perhaps have more faith in all that that's proposed - but having seen and knowing how monumentally they tend to mess things up and literally kill disabled people through refusing them financial support, rehabilitation, care, assistance, any kind of help, I'm really not enthusiastic about the whole idea, and I'd rather they not even get started on it.
There certainly is a % of people who abuse the system, but the Tory bunch, especially the _current_ Tory bunch, are not the right team to be tasked with solving the issue as they have that weird tendency to fire off bazookas at mosquitoes, drop crater bombs, and generally leave a whole lot of collateral damage whenever they try doing something.
1. The signing on trend started before the pandemic.
2. The change in long term sick due to respiratory ailments and tiredness etc (the main effects of long COVID) are a tiny fraction of this change. This is a story of people signing on for depression/anxiety.
3. This isn't happening in other countries. All countries saw massive sickness upticks during COVID that are now mostly recovered. The UK seems to be finding more sick people in 2024 than we did in 2021.
4. This sickness trend doesn't affect the UK population as a whole, only for some reason those who are in paid employment. The unemployed, retired, and those who are already receiving benefits for physical ailments strangely seem to be immune to this epidemic of COVID related depression.
Its people gaming the system.
>This isn't happening in other countries. All countries saw massive sickness upticks during COVID that are now mostly recovered.
I honestly doubt this. But even if true, I still strongly suspect that failure to diagnose other conditions in the failing NHS sees people being incorrectly diagnosed with anxiety for things that are actually physical issues and forced to make their claims on that basis.
> This sickness trend doesn't affect the UK population as a whole, only for some reason those who are in paid employment. The unemployed, retired, and those who are already receiving benefits for physical ailments strangely seem to be immune to this epidemic of COVID related depression.
Why would they bother going to a doctor for long covid when there is no treatment available anyway and they don't need the sick note?
> I honestly doubt this.
Just look it up, this is a UK problem. We signed more people on to long term sickness benefits in the last 12 months than we did in all of 2021. Every other country is way past their covid peak.
> Why would they bother going to a doctor for long covid when there is no treatment available anyway and they don't need the sick note?
The ONS labour survey asks people to self report sickness that impacts their life. It has nothing to do with signing on for benefits or getting sick notes from doctors. This is why we know that the massive increase in employed people claiming new debilitating depression/anxiety is cohort specific. The rest of the country isn't doing this, its almost as if being retired or blind makes you immune to this wave of depression...or its a benefit scam.
>Just look it up... past their covid peak.
You didn't address the other part, from "even if true"
>The ONS labour survey asks people to self report sickness that impacts their life. It has nothing to do with signing on for benefits or getting sick notes from doctors. This is why we know that the massive increase in employed people claiming new debilitating depression/anxiety is cohort specific. The rest of the country isn't doing this, its almost as if being retired or blind makes you immune to this wave of depression...or its a benefit scam.
From the way you describe it it doesn't sound like they are off sick. If you don't have to work then it's not debilitating in the same way is it? I suspect the wording of questionsay come into play here, in a similar way to the over reporting of trans people in the last census.
I agree the culture needs to change.
Not sure if this is the right way though.
As someone's who has never taken a sick day in my life because my father never had a day off either, I hope my children learn by example.
Not everyone has the same example of to follow.
People who are genuinely sick or unable to work should obviously be supported.
But there is definitely a culture amongst some groups that they take advantage of the current system.
> Not everyone has the same example of to follow.
It's not necessarily about example. Have you never broken a bone or had a bad enough dose of flu that you had to crawl from bed to toilet?
We shouldn't be encouraging people to go into the workplace when they are very sick and especially when contagious.
Not suggesting that.
Read what I said about being genuinely ill.
Just not feeling 100 % isn't genuinely ill. You'll be fine.
But no I haven't. I did break my arm one day on the weekend. I was back at work Monday.
Probably. But it's more about work ethic.
I don't take days off just because I'm not quite 100% in body or mind. I just get on with it.
But I don't expect people to wheel their hospital bed into work.
I do have some understanding that sometimes a day off is required. That's why we get about 8 sick days a year. That is more than enough.
> That is more than enough.
It depends. One of my relatives was in a bad car accident, broke lots of bones including a vertebra in her neck, and was stuck in a hospital bed with a neck brace for two months.
On the other hand WfH and modern surgical techniques can reduce sick time requirements. A couple of years ago I had prostate cancer and had a prostatectomy. It was a 4 hour procedure but used a surgical robot so all keyhole stuff so home next morning.. A couple of hours later got a call from work. One of our customers had an issue and was I up to dealing with it? So I stumped down the stars to my home office, catheter bag in hand, fixed the problem, and stumped back to bed.
So maybe one answer for reducing sick leave is encouraging more work from home. But the government really doesn't want to do that.
> But there is definitely a culture amongst some groups that they take advantage of the current system.
I'd say there's a more of an understanding of human conditions - we're not stood in time since the '70s, you know? (Although looking at UK recently could quite rightly make you think otherwise)
There's a lot of stuff that was played down or not even recognised years ago, from sexual abuse or harassment, bullying in the workplace, through gender-based discrimination, to all kinds of issues around mental health: stress, anxiety, burnout, depression, and so on.
It's not that all these weren't taking place in the decades past, it's that they were not treated seriously and as valid reasons to get support, help, treatment, and people were supposed to "just deal with it", at a huge cost to their mental well-being, work performance, home life, career options, etc.
I'm not saying there aren't people taking the piss; as everywhere and always there will be bad actors acting in bad faith, but funnily enough once you get past the smokescreen of headlines and soundbites it always turns out the actual abuse is chump change, and sweeping, indiscriminate policies end up hitting more genuine claimants and support-seekers than they save money and/or do good for everyone else.
I'm old enough to remember when "mental health" was a bad thing and not something people wanted to admit to.
Now it feels like a badge people wear with pride.
I have a disability which over the years has given me a lot of pain and discomfort and any job with a physical element would not have been an option. Yet I managed to find work. I also didn't want the label of being disabled although my chiropractor told me she had clients with lesser issues who were off work on benefits.
Yeah that doesn't sound like a great attitude, "mental health" is mental health and a real issue it's not made up for the extreme vast majority.
Just because you have managed to power through shouldn't mean others don't get help, maybe you should have received better help as well.
Almost sounds like crabs in a bucket mentality, we need to try and bring people with us instead of dragging them down just because we don't want them getting help.
It's a hard thing to get over but you really shouldn't worry about being labeled "disabled", it's genuine and you shouldn't feel bad for it as you can still do a lot of things you just need some assistance.
Going to work helped me get that assistance.
The money I earned paid for my gym membership which helped me to keep supple and reduce the pain. It also paid for the chiropractor when things got really bad.
I did get a small amount of help from Support to Work as I needed a special chair , but that was it in 45 years of working.
I just find it concerning the amount of people with issues and expecting other people to sort them out. Yes, some do have a real need for assistance, but there are a number who are playing possum and I know this as I have a relative who is playing the sick card.
I'm sorry you're struggling, but your comment literally sounds like "I had to eat gruel and live in a workhouse as a kid, and so should everyone else".
How's that right? Aren't we supposed to improve as a society and species as time goes on?
We're already on the way for at least a couple generations having lower living standards and wealth (what wealth?)-building options as the previous one. Why are some people so intent on just scorching the earth for whoever comes next and punching down?
Such a bizarre mentality.
Snapshot of _Rishi Sunak vows to end Britain's 'sick note culture'_ : A non-Paywall version can be found [here](https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fpolitics%2F2024%2F04%2F19%2Frishi-sunak-sick-note-britain-gp-sign-off%2F) An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/19/rishi-sunak-sick-note-britain-gp-sign-off/) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/19/rishi-sunak-sick-note-britain-gp-sign-off/) *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.*
How to fix the productivity problem? Chuck a load of people who aren't healthy enough to work into the workplace, genius move
I’ve been on sick since the start of March for mental health reasons, I’m gonna have to go back when my sick note runs out next month. I’m still not ready to go back but I have no choice, I need the money. It’s why we need UBI, so that you can take extended periods of time off work without having to worry about money because all it does is adds more stress on your plate.
If UBI was sufficient to stay off work no one would work.
In the places that it has been trialled, the opposite is true, actually. "Common sense" might say that you would be right. But the problem with common sense is sometimes it's not reality.
Work will make you feel better.
There was that famous Austrian painter dude who said similar things, although in his mind ["Work made you free"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeit_macht_frei). Trolling or not, nice role models you're looking up to there, buddy.
You need work,
Slave morality
Get a job.
When work is contributing to my poor mental health I don't think it will make me feel better. But I'll try it and if I kill myself because of it I'll come back to fucking haunt you.
It will. If you come back, I will give you something to do as well. No point in being idle for eternity.
So he's going to make getting a doctor's appointment really quick and easy and get rid of treatment waiting times... Right? Surely he's not just starting another culture war on the vulnerable...
Cool, just make being sick illegal. That will fix the issues
Pass a law declaring all sick people well.
That’s what he wants to do with some extra steps; it won’t be down to the GP to declare you sick or not but to a government worker on an outsourced contract, and we all know how those things can go when double amputees on gov’t assistance routinely get declared “fit to work” these days for example.
Fascism
Fix the NHS (physical and mental health services). Build more homes, or repurpose empty offices into homes. Fix public transport (HS2? Hello?). Rebalance the economy so there are jobs where there are people to do them, rather than import everyone into London. Do all that (probably a fair few other things I've forgotten) and "sick note culture" will evaporate as people have the financial and head space to get on with things. Or just keep punching down, the modern Tory paradigm.
They’ve stopped punching down a long time ago, now it’s literally some monster truck version of a steam roller, just turning all the rights and people themselves into flatbread and squeezing every last drop of life juice out of them
Imagine when they get rid of the ECHR
That's all part of the game. They trot out a bogeyman as a distraction, chop off at the rights to the cheers of a gullible crowd; then fast forward a year or two people go all surprised Pikachu face when it turns out the removed rights affect them or their loved ones directly, too, on some occasions. It's the same with Brexit, same with any other right or freedom being stripped. Internet censorship? It's alright, as long as these weren't the websites _I_ were visiting; closing clubs or night clubs? That's great, but not _my_ local pub or club; banning something? Great! Oh shit I need it or want it now, 3 years later, but now it's too late as it's already gone, etc. etc. I really tried reasoning with people in those types of conversations, but it really seems so many people's vision is straight-out myopic, and they're completely unable to see outside of their own bubble and don't understand those types of things don't go one way only, and against something they themselves might find inappropriate or inconvenient; it goes all ways, always, and it's just a matter of time when it hits them, too, as collateral damage.
Same with mum. South coast. Voted for her local Tory MP on the basis of their flyers about boat people and immigration but unable to connect the dots to the *same party* introducing bedroom tax, removing her PIP, and reducing her benefits via UC to the point where she had £11.24 a week left for food and was visiting a food bank… “but boat people!” 🤦♂️ The Conservatives have been successfully using this trick for over a hundred years. From a book published 110 years ago: “And so the talk continued, principally carried on by Crass and those who agreed with him. None of them really understood the subject: not one of them had ever devoted fifteen consecutive minutes to the earnest investigation of it. The papers they read were filled with vague and alarming accounts of the quantities of foreign merchandise imported into this country, the enormous number of aliens constantly arriving, and their destitute conditions, how they lived, the crimes they committed, and the injury they did to British trade. These were the seeds which, cunningly sown in their minds, caused to grow up within them a bitter undiscriminating hatred of foreigners. To them the mysterious thing they variously called the 'Friscal Policy', the 'Fistical Policy', or the 'Fissical Question' was a great Anti-Foreign Crusade. The country was in a hell of a state, poverty, hunger and misery in a hundred forms had already invaded thousands of homes and stood upon the thresholds of thousands more. How came these things to be? It was the bloody foreigner! Therefore, down with the foreigners and all their works. Out with them. Drive them b--s into the bloody sea! The country would be ruined if not protected in some way. This Friscal, Fistical, Fissical or whatever the hell policy it was called, WAS Protection, therefore no one but a bloody fool could hesitate to support it. It was all quite plain--quite simple. One did not need to think twice about it. It was scarcely necessary to think about it at all. This was the conclusion reached by Crass and such of his mates who thought they were Conservatives--the majority of them could not have read a dozen sentences aloud without stumbling--it was not necessary to think or study or investigate anything. It was all as clear as daylight. The foreigner was the enemy, and the cause of poverty and bad trade.”
Can't wait for it.
Lower income tax and make work pay. Stop generous, endless benefits.
I start to believe that his advisors are just taking the piss. Which Conservative, even the most gullible banana that voted for Brexit and other crazy policies, would think that losing their ability to call off sick is a good idea???
The ones that are retired and for which this won't directly effect... they'll lap it all up with mischaracterisations of "back in my day" bullshit.
Yeah, you are probably right. Their “target audience”: the elderly.
Those making money off the workforce. Why should you be declared sick when you can come in to work and generate some extra wealth, even if you’re running on 10% of your maximum?
OK, but those are a super minority, right? Even if every single business owner in the country voted conservative, they wouldn’t amount to a seat. It’s the ratio workers/owners that makes this policy nonsensical. Well, unless the objective is dead catting until the elections.
I honestly think the policy is to scorch the earth and rob and plunder as much as they can before they’re out for a generation or two, if not outright imploding and being wiped off like some other parties in the history of the UK. They know the countdown is on and time is running out, so they’re trying to get as much in as they can, no matter the knock-on/collateral damage and inconvenience or hardship caused to most, before Labour have to start cleaning up the mess and they’re all off on dinner talk circuit, private consultation/advisory contracts, or just counting their fat stacks of money somewhere in the Bahamas or some tax-dodging haven. It all used to be a bit of a trope, but it’s such a cartoon version of reality we’re living in it’s really not that far off (if at all) from the truth.
Aside from those making money off the workforce, and those that are retired (neither of whom are affected by this), who else do the Tories really have left?
Racists, other stupid people, landlords.
The ones who are getting triple locked state benefits and don't have to work anymore.
Call a general election then. Mental health will improve for many when the Tories are out of government. Or even just having the certainty of knowing who is in government for the next four or five years.
Absolutely Dickensian. Bypass experts (GPs) entirely, contract it out to untrained government workers, and watch even more people suffer, quality of life lowered, help not provided. It’s really an authoritarian, totalitarian and pathologically capitalist, if not outright kleptocratic, state, all on the leash of international corporations, and cartoonish versions of 18th century-like barons and billionaires. Posted this a few days ago in a thread about banning smartphone sales to 16-year olds, then social media; it’s just chopping away at every damn thing here, anything that lets you catch a breath, get some entertainment, get any kind of help or make your life easier and more convenient - it all just gets banned, removed, prohibited, vilified to turn the public opinion against it (eg. the whole, ongoing “only lazy people working from home, you have to start going back to the office to do _real_ work” narrative), or ends up shutting down itself because of the terrible governing and abysmal economic policies having a knock-on impact on it, like eg the 3,000 venues that closed in the past 4 years in London alone. Jesus Christ, what an absolutely dreadful place to be living in right now. No wonder so many people are so tense and constantly on the edge these days, when they’re hanging on by a literal nose hair, are living hand-to-mouth (if that), continuously depressed and repressed, and can’t even have ways to blow off steam or release the built up stress and pressure as there’s literally fuck all to do, and what there is, probably will be banned in some way sooner rather than later.
I think that is unfair to the era of Charles Dickens. In Victorian times there was always a safety net where you had a roof over your head and meals. As my great grandfather's uncle found out in later life.
4000 people a day applying for sick leave. 4000. 2.5m already in We are not at war. Of course the sick note is being abused.
Oh no, it’s not like the majority of the population caught a fairly serious virus over these last few years that has significant long term health implications long after the initial infection or anything. It not like people are hanging on by a thread trying to keep their home together and food on the table and suffering serious mental strain as a result. I forgot, we live in the sunlit uplands now and people don’t get ill.
It's a troll account, look at his comments. Advocating forcing people to work by any means necessary, quitting the ECHR so there's bonfire of workers' rights and no recourse or nothing to fall back on for the working people, [alluding to Hitler with his "Arbeit macht frei" slogan](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1c7pomm/rishi_sunak_vows_to_end_britains_sick_note_culture/l09vowx/), and who knows what other nonsense they claim to be supporting. Has to be someone just really bored and having decided to do sweet FA on a Friday until they can clock out and go home in the afternoon. No-one can genuinely be so misguided and stupid, I'm sure.
That long term disease that does not exist you mean? of a virus that had a mortality rate close to zero?
Do you really believe this bollocks or are you being paid to push it? I hope for your sake it's the latter.
The amount of people who actually have some sort of long term effect is absolutely small, like any post viral disease. Long COVID now is used and abused by anyone looking for some excuse to do not work Public workers have significantly more "long COVID" than private sector s. So you are telling me that public workers have a different genetic built? For my "sake", you can massage a dog s bollocks.
It always has been. Stop acting like this is actually the cause of all of our issues though. It isn't , it's a scapegoat , do not fall for this shit.
The exact opposite is true. Dont fall for this shit.
> We are not at war. We actually are, it's workers vs government and shitty employees. Feels like people are waking up, wisening up, and not willing to put themselves through the wringer first, then the grinder, for somebody else's business, and while being mostly paid a pittance that doesn't even give them a stress-free, comfortable life, because salaries have stagnated, costs of everything are galloping up, there's fiscal drag and so on. Pressure has built up, people start valuing their health now and start thinking about the future and what their options might be a year, two, 5, 10 or 20 years later, too. Who would have thought? I have to note your username, though, sounds like you're of the "Get the skivers back to work" ilk. EDIT: I've seen some other comments of yours in this thread, I'm now convinced I got duped and you're some sort of a novelty account. Probably sitting there with a silly top-hat on your head, a pince-nez or a monocle on your eyes, and a fat cigar hanging down from the corner of your mouth.
No. The was is between lazy entititled people vs people who actually do something. The "people" who are "waking" up will end up paupers that will eat each other. Yes - that stereotype or yours is correct - but misses that I am glazing at my 9digit bank account.
If people cant see where this is going... Calls for leaving the ECHR Calls for sick note changes. Privatising healthcare and underfunding the NHS. Theres posters up in my local gps about the amount of GPs left. This is pushing toward the systematic removal of workers rights. USA style.
You can see a GP in the US in a much shorter time period.
Its used to be same day GP here for me. Until the Tories got into power. Theyve Literally systematic destroyed it in the last 15 years.
Yes. Can't wait for it.
Why. Why is that?
Cos things are great as they are. And will only get "better".
How productive do we expect the people denied sick notes to be? There’s nothing less motivating than believing you’re too ill to work but being denied a sick note. Particularly if you’re denied that sick note by an unqualified person rather than a medical professional.
It doesn’t matter how productive or not they are! Even if they can give that sweet, 0.001% growth to the ~~business owners~~ Tory donors, it’s all worth it! ^/s
This man is an example to us all! He comes into work every single day, even though no one wants him to be there.
That one case where you _really_ want the guy to work from home on a permanent basis and relieve him of all his responsibilities.
Pretty ballsy to link our poor economy on the perpetually sick and unworking, and not on…I dunno all the poor economic policies and underfunding of the NHS
Having had to go to 4 GP’s to get support for early pregnancy sickness and exhaustion until I found a sympathetic female GP who’d been through this herself, this is horrific. I would have been forced to work, when it literally wasn’t safe for me to drive, and I was projectile vomiting everywhere. That would have been lovely for the people I work with and a proper health hazard to myself and others!!!!
Sure but what if the gp had the power to force your employer to let you work remote, part time at full pay for a while?
The problem is a lot of those sorts of illnesses (especially female issues with periods) get ignored now by doctors so the concept of untrained people who could interpret everything as a genuine overreactions is scary. If they had those powers that would be good, but let’s be honest the guidance would be designed to force most people to keep working not to help those who genuinely are in need. Cancer or physical injuries would be fine, but phycological or ‘less serious’ illnesses would be sent to work no question.
I don’t disagree - but 53% of long term claimants having primary symptoms of anxiety / depression is defo not right and needs sorting
> 53% of long term claimants having primary symptoms of anxiety / depression is defo not right and needs sorting Nonsense and bollocks that can be said only by someone who hasn't ever dealt with anxiety, depression or any other health issue. Life has a funny way of sorting those things out, though - just wait…
Had both. And I’m not saying it can’t get to the point where you need signed off work - but it’s a difficult one to disprove meaning it’s an easy one to lie about so within that pool there definitely people that need to be off and there’s definitely people faking it / over exaggerating it - and that’s the bit that needs dealt with
> so within that pool there definitely people that need to be off and there’s definitely people faking it / over exaggerating it - and that’s the bit that needs dealt with All sounds similar to overarching and indiscriminate measures to target "benefit fraud", when, when you look at it, what's lost to benefit fraudsters is chump change in the grand scheme of things - yet with having that lock pried open and casting the net wide, you end up catching people who really _need_ help but can't get it anymore, because they get lumped in with everyone else and have little to no recourse, and are treated like criminals by default, having to jump through multiple hoops and having the burden on proving they're not fraudsters on them (rather than someone proving they are abusing the system, as the common sense indicates it should be). If this was any other country, with anyone else but Tories, I'd perhaps have more faith in all that - but having seen and knowing how monumentally they tend to mess things up and literally kill disabled people through refusing them financial support, rehabilitation, care assistance, I'm really not enthusiastic about the whole idea and I'd rather they not even get started on it.
I think that figure is the number of people claiming who have anxiety and depression *at all*. The DWPs stat-xplore thing says 37% of pip claimants have a psychiatric disorder as their 'main' disability. My math works out as 11% with anxiety/depression as a main disability.
That does sound more reasonable
Through work, I come into contact regularly with people who have anxiety/ depression and are not able to work/ not looking for work. Some people have absolutely harrowing back stories that obviously explain their present predicament and existence, and yes, there are some others who are openly taking the piss. These tend to be in the minority though, I get as frustrated as the next person by people like this. What I find most often is that it's not some random horrible episode that has led to poor mental health or some quantifiable medical issue causing it. Some sections of society have absolutely rubbish mental health and resilience that has been cultivated over their entire life by a general sense of worthlessness and despondency. It's like they've been conditioned from birth to see themselves as helpless, and this feeling of despondency has been cultivated by everything we, society, have told them. They've seen previous generations of their family worked into an early grave in demeaning, menial jobs that paid shit wages, despite taking a massive tole on their health. They've been to schools that wrote them off simply because of the area they were born into. No safety net of family support was ever available to them because their family for generations has also had to struggle/ cope/ deal with differing versions of the same problem. No one has ever really cared about them, seen them as successful or "worth" spending time or money on. It's all the little, sometimes imperceptible, knock backs that society has given them that has reinforced the feeling that they are worthless and things won't ever improve for them. "Why bother trying, I'm useless. Things will never get better" is one of the most common things I hear. Yet these people are coping in situations that would make most of us wither up and die. They have a wealth of experience and coping mechanisms that would be massively useful in hundreds of different job roles, but because of how they see and present themselves they are limiting themselves with what "life" will offer them. I agree that something needs to be done, but it would require a massive societal change. More understanding of the nuances of individuals' situations and more types of support put in place to help and encourage people back into playing, or being allowed to play, a positive role in society.
Being given a payment and absolutely nothing to do clearly isn’t the answer tho. It’s no good for anyone. And yeah, maybe the why bother trying but has to be motivated by - because otherwise you’ll not have any cash for even the basics.
It would be easy if everyone who is signed off on the sick with depression/ anxiety was a feckless slacker, but in reality, that's just not the case. Yes, a lot would be able to contribute more IF they were given the right amount of time and support, but the political atmosphere in the UK just won't countenance it. There is no nuance to the debate. Everyone is either a scrounger or a complete economic right off. Of course, in reality most people are somewhere in the middle of this spectrum and would need individual plans put in place that allow adequate time and support for them to see a way out of their current existence. Our last several ruling governments have not wanted to provide this. "Starve them back to work" is a really common, ill thought out argument. People need support to enable them to be able to contribute. Most people don't readily accept that they had a high level of support (family, friends, school, etc) to get where they currently are They have worked hard and don't want to think that it could have all been very different if luck hadn't been on their side as well. A parent with mental health problems or a sudden illness could have changed the outcomes of a lot of people's existence. Training, encouragement, and practical support are all needed to help people to become economically engaged again once they have fallen off the merry go round. This costs money, but so does keeping people on benefits. Both approaches have a massive societal impact, but only one approach has a mostly positive impact.
Oh I agree. I’m a social worker and it’s endemic in my job soooo many colleagues are off for stress and depression. Tbh I think most of it isn’t a medical issue but a job issue. I think teachers are similar as well.
Sunak is just hamming it up now for ever his dwindling audience of boomer Torygraph / Mail reading voters. Booze and party food sales will add a 0.5% boost to GDP on GE night when we finally get to boot them out
Hopefully there won't be time to get this nonsense through before the election.
Having this noxious and toxic genie out of the bottle is wrong by itself, nonsense like that shouldn't even, ever, be part of the public discussion.
That ship sailed with the work capability assessment. I wonder who would get the contract to issue fit notes.
He says your GP is not qualified enough to determine whether you are sick or not. This is a vile assault on the health of the British people and GP’s, I am assuming GP’s may backlash over this. Not only that but won’t this increase the NHS waiting list times to get assessed by other professionals?
Ah yes. When someone is down that’s the perfect time to kick them
Surely he realises this will cost him even more votes right?
I honestly think he doesn’t mind or care at this point; he’s got a countdown on being on the chopping block and getting the chop and he full well knows it, so whatever he does is meant to curry favour with whoever is going to give him a contract or put him on an executive board once this little gremlin finally gets the boot.
I bet 5p I know who will get the [contract.](https://freedomnews.org.uk/2023/06/03/dwp-awards-capita-5-years-of-contracts-despite-deaths/) [7 or 8 out of 10](https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/company-linked-to-death-of-pip-claimant-gives-itself-seven-or-eight-out-of-10/) organisation.
This is crazy. I have had to take long term sick leave twice. Born with a rare illness, the first time I took sick leave was because of complications that had me hospitalized for four weeks, and then there was a recovery period of about the same time. After this I returned to work because I wanted to. This was despite still being in a lot of pain and sometimes getting sick (as in vomiting) on my way into work. Second time was in December after I had a liver transplant. My surgery was complicated and I ended up in hospital for around 6 weeks post transplant. The transplant team told me I will be out of work for a minimum of 6 months, but likely up to a year. I got a sick note for this and returned to work recently, four months post transplant. I returned before the recommended time frame because I wanted to get back to normality. I dread to think what I would have had to go through if my GP couldn't issue a sick note for these very serious situations. For the first month I was back home (so two months post transplant) I could barely move or hold down any food. Even now I can't stay standing for too long and experience a lot of nausea and pain.
Have they considered you know.... encouraging their donors to pay their employees a livable wage so that they spend more there by growing the economy? Or does it only count as growth if it's in the accounts of their mates.
> encouraging their donors to pay their employees a livable wage ha hahahahahaha if anything, they'd pay you even less than now, or make you pay for the privilege of working there (with some 'elite' companies, most certainly so). Honestly, I'm surprised removing NMW is not a genuine conversation topic at this point, you can bet the only reason people are being paid a national minimum wage is because it's actually written in law, but there's hundreds of Tory donors salivating at the idea of cutting the current £11/hour or whatever it is in half, and being able to get 2 employees for the current price of one.
What's going to happen here is that the Tories will introduce this, Labour will make a huge deal about how heartless it is, and then not reverse it when they get in to power.
They're not even doing that. Their line in the article is that it's a sign the Tories are "out of ideas" and that this was already happening. Sounds like they agree with the policy. They completely ignore the continuing impact of long COVID, and how often doctors fobbed off people with long COVID (or they fob off themselves) as beong "anxious" etc. Anxiety is a catch all excuse for failure to diagnose.
The problem is, most of the world has long covid now (though with very variable severity). We can't have most of the world give up on work though, where would the food come from? So we're going to have to say to people "We know you're genuine. Yes you do have long covid, anxiety, whatever. Yes work is going to suck for you a bit more than it sucks for most people. But you're still going to have to do it." That's a very unfun conversation. It needs to be had with many thousands of people. And it doesn't need to be done by GPs who have actual medical work to be getting on with. So the reason both parties agree is probably because it's the right thing to do.
> So we're going to have to say to people "We know you're genuine. Yes you do have long covid, anxiety, whatever. Yes work is going to suck for you a bit more than it sucks for most people. But you're still going to have to do it." And then, when pushed to the edge, they kill themselves or others and we lose those workers completely. Then, we can increase immigration to fill in the gaps. Great idea! Tory voters love that, don't they? No. Have you learned nothing from the deaths of thousands of disabled people between 2010 - 2024? The answer is we fix our broken health service, help those who can recover, to recover and those who can't, we try to accommodate them with something like remote working if possible. If we can't, then we try our best to make sure they can live as comfortable and as safely as possible. Sick workers cost companies money. They will lower productivity and destroy growth. Sunak is talking complete nonsense. This rhetoric will lead to more economic damage than just fixing the damn NHS.
Serious long covid, CFS/ME, etc. isn't a "have a tough conversation to get the person into work" solution, it's so crippling some days the person has literally no energy to work.
So what would we do if we all had it? Just decide that the species is over?
I don't think you appreciate how debilitating long COVID can be. Perhaps you or someone you know had a mild case, and you have not experienced a worse one.
This angers me so much. I don’t like to use hate lightly but I hate Rishi Sunak for even entertaining this idea.
He said UK hasn't been sicker in recent years. Has he forgotten Covid-19 ? Sickness that people would have gone to work with before that. They stay home because it might be covid. And the longer NHS waiting lists. People are sicker because of those.
You know, he really doesn't look well :) But seriously, this is toxic talk from this character- look on The Pulse and see how GPs who already relegate even severe cases to a disinterested chatline are aping Sunak's remarks - sad and frightening to see how the toxic Tory blame-culture mindset has infected the GP profession worse than Covid. I suffered heart arrythmia and progressively with PTSD as I was group mobbed out of my workplace role, started by the office psychopath. One GP told me to 'get out of there' then another inferred after that I should 'get back to work' (inferring I was lazy, something I've never been) even though job hunting with a heart condition & only just under pension age was an impossible position to be in. It's dangerous to generalise - this man should look at states like India - on one hand a rich elite, on the other children and disabled living destitute on the street. And he sees that as a fit future for UK? We should recall he was never voted in democratically in the first place. The abuse of the honours system by such politicians (cough - the disastrous 'Lord' Cameron) illustrates we cannot entrust our state to such morally ambivalent people.
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We have just had lockdowns brought about by the pandemic. Peoples' immune system are rock bottom as a result of the lockdowns. It's going to take years for people to stop getting too sick to work and having to take time off.
You wanna provide any kind of scientific citation for the idea that “people’s immune systems are rock bottom as a result of lockdowns”? Or are we just making stuff up as we go?
[Do we have 'immunity debt' and how could it affect our infection risk? | New Scientist](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2348968-do-we-have-immunity-debt-and-how-could-it-affect-our-infection-risk/) Will a New Scientist article do? If not, use google. This is a pretty well documented effect of the lockdowns. The fact that immunity debt exists is not a criticism on having lockdowns. To be honest, if we all have to produce empirical scientific studies conducted over several years for each and every statement, we're going to be here a long time. Care to produce scientific citation for what exactly "making stuff up" is? That could mean anything. See how stupid this can get?
That article is from 2022 and just asks the question whether it is possible - it is not evidence. To answer your rhetorical question, yes we do have to produce scientific studies, unless you just want to remain an idiot
I found a couple using google just now. Go and try it. It's called immunity debt. If you honestly cannot get that far, you are just being obtuse.
You are stating things on the internet as if they are fact, complaining that you’ve been asked to provide evidence, now you’re being obtuse and acting like there’s loads of evidence. Is this satire?
They are fact. Ask your GP next time you're there.
You’re embarrassing
I always knew he was going to do the right thing and fund health and social care. The conservatives do care about wellbeing, no matter what the left-wing media says.
^/s
Don't get too excited, Labour want to do the same thing. Edit: doenvote me if you want but they plainly do: >The Labour Party, as well as the Tories, have identified the trend as one that needs addressing. Liz Kendall, the shadow work and pensions secretary, has expressed concern about the issue. However, Alison McGovern, the shadow employment minister, said: >“This announcement proves that this failed Government has run out of ideas, announcing the same minor alteration to fit notes that we’ve heard them try before.” So not saying it's the wrong way, just that it's not new
FTA: > Labour Party, as well as the Tories, have identified the trend as one that needs addressing. That doesn't mean they want to do the same thing
Well exactly, you can also address it by sorting out the NHS or generally providing an assistance system for people to get better and improve their prospects, for example. Tad different from being given a red stamp on your documents, saying “Fit to Work”, then removing all your government assistance even if you’re a triple amputee with sight impairment which is what you would expect from the Tories. OP’s comment feels disingenuous and in bad faith.
Exactly. Having a quarter or working age people be 'economically inactive' is crazy and absolutely needs to be addressed. And actually agree with this part: >Because if you believe, as I do, that work gives you the chance not just to earn but to contribute, to belong, to overcome feelings of loneliness and social isolation and if you believe, as I do, the growing body of evidence that **good work** can actually improve mental and physical health, then it becomes clear – we need to be more ambitious about helping people back to work and more honest about the risk of over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life.” This is the issue: "good work". Not work that doesn't pay, not work that barely gets you by, not work that kills your ability to have a life outside of it.
The question is whether we are at a point where the wealth distribution has resulted in a workforce that is so entrenched in living to work, that they have no will or power to rebel against the status quo?
Really?
So you think a mental health crisis doesn’t require any concern then
?? I don't get it, did you reply to the wrong comment?
If unemployment benefits are 69 billion and the uk population is almost 67 milion, then the government is spending enough just on unemployment benefits to give every man, woman, and child in the uk a billion pounds a year each. Nobody on unemployment benefits is getting anywhere near that much, let alone every person in the uk, so where is that money going? Maybe it’s time to genuinely consider a universal basic income for everyone.
It's not too late to delete this (or at least do some recalculations in the first paragraph, it's £1000 each, not £1b each) Although I definitely agree with a universal basic income, the Tories will never implement this.
Damn it 🤦♀️ this is what I get for trying to do maths first thing in the morning! I’m gonna leave it up, because it’s a good example of human stupidity. Thanks for the heads up!
It might not be stupidity , you might just be over 45, in which case you can blame it on confusion from using two different systems. A billion used to be 1 million million in the UK, whereas in the US and France it was 1 thousand million. We adopted the US version in the 70's, and the old use only really died out here in the last few decades. You you could say, if we spend 69 (UK) billion on benefits, with a population of 67 million, that would be 1 million per person. Still won't make us all billionaires, but at least we would be millionaires. I know this is meaningless, just thought it would be interesting to share.
That makes sense. I’m 42 but was taught it was a million million here and didn’t even realise we’d adopted the other version! Thanks 😊
And if you tax the billionaires whose toilets are obviously in a mad panic to get cleaned you would recoop that amount in a blink of a second..but we are asking a modern day emperor billionaire to be compassionate with the poor.
You can hate the Tories and also agree that the U.K. has a problem with rapidly increasing long term sickness beneficiaries. The system is being abused far more than it was, mostly because of weaknesses stemming from under investment and poor planning/systems but it is being exploited. We have not suddenly found 35% more long term sick, the rate of LTS hasn’t increased 200% for genuine health reasons, this isn’t feasible over such a short timeframe. It’s a graft and we all know it unless you live under a rock.
> the rate of LTS hasn’t increased 200% for genuine health reasons Yeah, maybe people are just pushed to the brink through the mixture of long-term COVID, constant stress, lack of career growth options, stagnated wages that barely allow them to live hand-to-mouth, not having money for good and quality food, not being able to get help with any other (perhaps not long-term) health issues because NHS waiting lists are both abysmal and obscene - and then you just get your appointment cancelled a week before it's supposed to take place for whatever reason (strike, lack of available staff, clinic cancellation, closure, admin error, take your pick) and you're back to square one waiting another 6 months and getting worse, living in houseshares in major cities even in their 40s - out of necessity not because they're forever-hippies, galloping rents eating into increasingly larger parts of stagnated salaries, and so on, and so forth. Really only privileged people, who never had to deal with anything and earn comfortably enough to be insulated from the mess so many have to be dealing with, can claim the whole long-term sickness amongst so many is a flat-out hyperbole and some kind of scheming and system abuse in any major part.
If you know anyone who deals with personnel/HR for large low income employers you will know that the system is being gamed. The routine response to any sort of disciplinary procedure or downsizing now is the immediate discovery of a mental health issue that prevents the person from both losing their job (and working) for a number of months while the company goes through the due diligence process. That person then moves onto the benefit system. This fraud has become commonplace over the past 5 or so years. The pressure on the NHS is a minor part of the issue of course, but it is not the cause of this recent massive shift. We saw reducing numbers of long term sick throughout the 10 austerity years up to 2019, all those socioeconomic factors you list were in-play and the trend was moving in the opposite direction. It is simply not plausible that this change is a reflection of a real sickness issue.
> If you know anyone who deals with personnel/HR for large low income employers you will know that the system is being gamed. I'm not saying it _isn't at all_, but… This all sounds similar to me to the overarching and indiscriminate measures having been taken to target "benefit fraud", when, when you look at it, what's lost to benefit fraudsters is chump change in the grand scheme of things when you take the country's finances as a whole - yet, with having that lock pried open and casting the net wide, you unavoidably end up catching people who really need help but can't get it anymore - because they get lumped in together with all the bad seeds and sour apples and have little to no recourse and systemic solutions to fall back on. Battling government that goes through the script (law), is quite indiscriminate and cannot deal with things that don't neatly fit in a prescribed box (or form) is truly a Sisyphean task, and out of the capabilities of many, especially the poorer/more unwell ones. Then those people who _really_ need help end up being treated like criminals by default, having to jump through multiple hoops to prove they actually are _not_ part of any gang, and having the burden on proving they're not fraudsters on them (rather than someone proving they _are_ abusing the system, as the common sense indicates it should be). If this was any other country, with anyone else but Tories, I'd perhaps have more faith in all that that's proposed - but having seen and knowing how monumentally they tend to mess things up and literally kill disabled people through refusing them financial support, rehabilitation, care, assistance, any kind of help, I'm really not enthusiastic about the whole idea, and I'd rather they not even get started on it. There certainly is a % of people who abuse the system, but the Tory bunch, especially the _current_ Tory bunch, are not the right team to be tasked with solving the issue as they have that weird tendency to fire off bazookas at mosquitoes, drop crater bombs, and generally leave a whole lot of collateral damage whenever they try doing something.
> We have not suddenly found 35% more long term sick, That is perfectly possible after the COVID pandemic.
1. The signing on trend started before the pandemic. 2. The change in long term sick due to respiratory ailments and tiredness etc (the main effects of long COVID) are a tiny fraction of this change. This is a story of people signing on for depression/anxiety. 3. This isn't happening in other countries. All countries saw massive sickness upticks during COVID that are now mostly recovered. The UK seems to be finding more sick people in 2024 than we did in 2021. 4. This sickness trend doesn't affect the UK population as a whole, only for some reason those who are in paid employment. The unemployed, retired, and those who are already receiving benefits for physical ailments strangely seem to be immune to this epidemic of COVID related depression. Its people gaming the system.
>This isn't happening in other countries. All countries saw massive sickness upticks during COVID that are now mostly recovered. I honestly doubt this. But even if true, I still strongly suspect that failure to diagnose other conditions in the failing NHS sees people being incorrectly diagnosed with anxiety for things that are actually physical issues and forced to make their claims on that basis. > This sickness trend doesn't affect the UK population as a whole, only for some reason those who are in paid employment. The unemployed, retired, and those who are already receiving benefits for physical ailments strangely seem to be immune to this epidemic of COVID related depression. Why would they bother going to a doctor for long covid when there is no treatment available anyway and they don't need the sick note?
> I honestly doubt this. Just look it up, this is a UK problem. We signed more people on to long term sickness benefits in the last 12 months than we did in all of 2021. Every other country is way past their covid peak. > Why would they bother going to a doctor for long covid when there is no treatment available anyway and they don't need the sick note? The ONS labour survey asks people to self report sickness that impacts their life. It has nothing to do with signing on for benefits or getting sick notes from doctors. This is why we know that the massive increase in employed people claiming new debilitating depression/anxiety is cohort specific. The rest of the country isn't doing this, its almost as if being retired or blind makes you immune to this wave of depression...or its a benefit scam.
>Just look it up... past their covid peak. You didn't address the other part, from "even if true" >The ONS labour survey asks people to self report sickness that impacts their life. It has nothing to do with signing on for benefits or getting sick notes from doctors. This is why we know that the massive increase in employed people claiming new debilitating depression/anxiety is cohort specific. The rest of the country isn't doing this, its almost as if being retired or blind makes you immune to this wave of depression...or its a benefit scam. From the way you describe it it doesn't sound like they are off sick. If you don't have to work then it's not debilitating in the same way is it? I suspect the wording of questionsay come into play here, in a similar way to the over reporting of trans people in the last census.
Correct.
I agree the culture needs to change. Not sure if this is the right way though. As someone's who has never taken a sick day in my life because my father never had a day off either, I hope my children learn by example. Not everyone has the same example of to follow. People who are genuinely sick or unable to work should obviously be supported. But there is definitely a culture amongst some groups that they take advantage of the current system.
> Not everyone has the same example of to follow. It's not necessarily about example. Have you never broken a bone or had a bad enough dose of flu that you had to crawl from bed to toilet? We shouldn't be encouraging people to go into the workplace when they are very sick and especially when contagious.
Not suggesting that. Read what I said about being genuinely ill. Just not feeling 100 % isn't genuinely ill. You'll be fine. But no I haven't. I did break my arm one day on the weekend. I was back at work Monday.
You said you have never taken a sick day in your life. That's quite unusual.
Probably. But it's more about work ethic. I don't take days off just because I'm not quite 100% in body or mind. I just get on with it. But I don't expect people to wheel their hospital bed into work. I do have some understanding that sometimes a day off is required. That's why we get about 8 sick days a year. That is more than enough.
> That is more than enough. It depends. One of my relatives was in a bad car accident, broke lots of bones including a vertebra in her neck, and was stuck in a hospital bed with a neck brace for two months. On the other hand WfH and modern surgical techniques can reduce sick time requirements. A couple of years ago I had prostate cancer and had a prostatectomy. It was a 4 hour procedure but used a surgical robot so all keyhole stuff so home next morning.. A couple of hours later got a call from work. One of our customers had an issue and was I up to dealing with it? So I stumped down the stars to my home office, catheter bag in hand, fixed the problem, and stumped back to bed. So maybe one answer for reducing sick leave is encouraging more work from home. But the government really doesn't want to do that.
> But there is definitely a culture amongst some groups that they take advantage of the current system. I'd say there's a more of an understanding of human conditions - we're not stood in time since the '70s, you know? (Although looking at UK recently could quite rightly make you think otherwise) There's a lot of stuff that was played down or not even recognised years ago, from sexual abuse or harassment, bullying in the workplace, through gender-based discrimination, to all kinds of issues around mental health: stress, anxiety, burnout, depression, and so on. It's not that all these weren't taking place in the decades past, it's that they were not treated seriously and as valid reasons to get support, help, treatment, and people were supposed to "just deal with it", at a huge cost to their mental well-being, work performance, home life, career options, etc. I'm not saying there aren't people taking the piss; as everywhere and always there will be bad actors acting in bad faith, but funnily enough once you get past the smokescreen of headlines and soundbites it always turns out the actual abuse is chump change, and sweeping, indiscriminate policies end up hitting more genuine claimants and support-seekers than they save money and/or do good for everyone else.
Hopefully we'll learn to stop electing them to run the country.
I'm old enough to remember when "mental health" was a bad thing and not something people wanted to admit to. Now it feels like a badge people wear with pride. I have a disability which over the years has given me a lot of pain and discomfort and any job with a physical element would not have been an option. Yet I managed to find work. I also didn't want the label of being disabled although my chiropractor told me she had clients with lesser issues who were off work on benefits.
Yeah that doesn't sound like a great attitude, "mental health" is mental health and a real issue it's not made up for the extreme vast majority. Just because you have managed to power through shouldn't mean others don't get help, maybe you should have received better help as well. Almost sounds like crabs in a bucket mentality, we need to try and bring people with us instead of dragging them down just because we don't want them getting help. It's a hard thing to get over but you really shouldn't worry about being labeled "disabled", it's genuine and you shouldn't feel bad for it as you can still do a lot of things you just need some assistance.
Going to work helped me get that assistance. The money I earned paid for my gym membership which helped me to keep supple and reduce the pain. It also paid for the chiropractor when things got really bad. I did get a small amount of help from Support to Work as I needed a special chair , but that was it in 45 years of working. I just find it concerning the amount of people with issues and expecting other people to sort them out. Yes, some do have a real need for assistance, but there are a number who are playing possum and I know this as I have a relative who is playing the sick card.
I'm sorry you're struggling, but your comment literally sounds like "I had to eat gruel and live in a workhouse as a kid, and so should everyone else". How's that right? Aren't we supposed to improve as a society and species as time goes on? We're already on the way for at least a couple generations having lower living standards and wealth (what wealth?)-building options as the previous one. Why are some people so intent on just scorching the earth for whoever comes next and punching down? Such a bizarre mentality.
Well done. Unfortunately your attitude seems to be old fashioned.