UK gets 2nd-last place for Mental Health – why?

Thanks to class privilege, predator capitalism and ‘neoliberalism’ government in the UK feels like a vicious legal scam exploiting us.

from thefreeonline on 18th May 2024 by GeorgeMonbiot

The Day That Never Comes

The news should have stopped us in our tracks. Astonishingly, however, it was scarcely reported here. The latest map of mental wellbeing published by the Global Mind Project reveals that, out of the 71 countries it assessed, the United Kingdom, alongside South Africa, has the highest proportion of people in mental distress – and the second worst overall measure of mental health (we beat only Uzbekistan). Mental wellbeing has plummeted in the UK further than in any comparable nation. How was this not headline news?

More importantly, why has it happened? The Global Mind Project blames smartphones and ultra-processed food. They doubtless play a role, but they’re hardly peculiar to the UK. I think part of the reason is the sense that life here is, visibly and obviously, spiralling backwards.

There was a time when almost everyone in the UK believed the following promises. That a rising economic tide would lift all boats. That everybody would have a good home. That drudge work would diminish and jobs would become more interesting. That we would enjoy greater economic security and more leisure time.

That educational attainment would keep rising across all social classes. That our healthcare and health would inexorably improve. That the UK would become ever cleaner and greener. That governance and democratic engagement would get better by the year.

We could easily have had all of these things. A vast amount of money has flushed through this country. Science has advanced by leaps and bounds; health and labour-saving technologies have greatly improved; we know exactly how to build good homes, treat sewage and improve democracy.

Instead (literally, in the case of our rivers) almost everything has gone to shit. The five giant evils identified in 1942 by William Beveridge, who helped design the welfare state, have returned with a vengeance. He called them “want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness”. His paternalistic language translates today into poverty, morbidity, educational exclusion, wretched housing and crumbling infrastructure, and bad employment or an inability to work.

As they come thundering back, the five evil giants have brought some friends to the party: environmental chaos, extreme political dysfunction and misrule, impunity for the powerful and performative cruelty towards the powerless, and state-sponsored culture wars to distract us from the rest of the horror show.