I think billionaires should be ground in to fertiliser for botanical gardens flower beds.
this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
31 points (91.9% liked)
UK Politics
3509 readers
165 users here now
General Discussion for politics in the UK.
Please don't post to both !uk_politics@feddit.uk and !unitedkingdom@feddit.uk .
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.
Posts should be related to UK-centric politics, and should be either a link to a reputable news source for news, or a text post on this community.
Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.
If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread. (These things should be publicly discussed)
Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.
Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.
!ukpolitics@lemm.ee appears to have vanished! We can still see cached content from this link, but goodbye I guess! :'(
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Humanpenguin thinks politicians rectal cranium insertion is under diagnosed.
Wes Streetin always struck me as an odd choice for a ministerial position. He generally just seems to go out of his way to put his foot in his mouth.
Because he thinks speaking confidently about something is the same as actually knowing what hes talking about.
He also has a massive throbber for the private sector, which compromises his stance on things.
He's gonna be the next leader so get used to him!
I don't really think the membership is all that keen on him though so I'm not sure how easy that would be for him to achieve. There are others that I can think of as more likely candidates for future party leader.
And all doctors should listen to a history graduate because?
Historically they were undiagnosed seems to be the best advice he can offer. Or is it the usual political solution. Deny anything you don't like exists.
Wes Streeting can fuck right off
When asked if he agreed with experts that warn of an overdiagnosis of mental health conditions, Streeting said he wanted to "follow the evidence and I agree with that point about overdiagnosis" (my emphasis).
Is this really an unreasonable exchange of views? Shall we perhaps hold off on the outrage till we've read the whole article? Or even the whole of the sentence in question?
Very carefully worded question that avoids any mention of who specifically the "experts" in question are, or what study exactly came to these conclusions.
There are "experts" that claim the world is flat, and "experts" that claim vaccines cause all sorts of problems worse than the diseases they prevent.
One can always dig up an expert that agrees with whatever bullshit you wish to peddle.
I'd bet folding money that the "expert opinion" referred to is in fact, in the report by the IFS they mention above in the article rather than any medical study examining the subject.
'Bet folding money' or 'speculate baselessly'?
I wouldn't call 40+ years of exposure to politicians' half truths and twisting of words "baseless", but you do you.
This is, in fact, baseless. There are experts in, e.g., ADHD, who thinks it's over diagnosed, so the base assumption here is: he's referring to those experts.
Given the real questions about over-diagnosis, your assumption, 'I bet in this interview I didn't listen to he was referring to a report I haven't read' is, indeed, baseless.
Likewise, there are experts in neurology and psychology who dismiss said assertions, pointing to our progress in understanding and ability to diagnose now what we couldn't previously.
Many individuals previously labelled "difficult", "lazy", and "unmotivated" are now understood to be afflicted with medical problems. We can't yet do all that much about it, but we know more than we did.
As you can see, it largely depends on how much background knowledge you already have on the subject at hand as to what conclusions can be drawn from the wording.
Perhaps your view might not be the correct one, after all?
Edit: It is worth drawing attention to the fact that it suits no politician to lose the oft derided "lazy do-nothings" supposedly responsible for society's decline, or at the least a "drain on hard working families".
The pounds sterling cost of the entire welfare state would fit numerous times over into the unpaid taxes of the likes of Amazon et al.
So who exactly are the politicians really looking out for?
Edit 2: Going forward, Labour under Starmer will continue to be Tories in Red ties. The less well educated voters will, instead of "voting Labour 'cos they always have" will be taken in by "the pretty lie" and vote for Farage's Fascists instead, you just watch.
Equally, we shouldn't label certain patterns of thinking as 'disordered' when they're actually just different. We certainly shouldn't medicate differences away. Over diagnosing is (almost by definition) not a good thing and we should take seriously the possibility that it's happening with some disorders. This in no way precludes supporting those who do have disorders.
The problem is not the factual accuracy of what he's saying but why he would say it.
To anyone who follows politics even remotely, Wes clearly here is doing a dog whistle. He's signalling to the boomers that labour also thinks people with mental health issues are just lazy. Hes doing reactionary politics on purpose.
You are correct for the most part.
However, until the "world of work" accepts those "differences" without needing laws to force them to do so, labelling of differences will remain a requirement for those that require the help.
Taking away some the pittance they get to assist with how the world refuses to service the "different" is bad enough, to justify it with intentionally bent statistics and the medical opinions of "experts" that are actually economists is pure Tory territory.
Starmer's Labour is as bent as they come, and they're handing power to Reform at the next election with their disgusting policies. Calling it now for future reference.
It would require a level of naivety that most lack.
It's pretty clear he's only interested in this as a way to further the party's current austerity programme.
Let the actual experts figure out if there's an over diagnosis problem and sort it out through the proper consensus forming channels rather than having politicians cherry pick the expert who most aligns with their view.
If you're going to do benefits cuts against people who are mentally ill specifically, just do that rather than trying to get mental ill health massaged out of the statistics so that you can launder your reputation.
What a stupid thing to say in an interview. Labour need to get their shit together comms-wise.
This was done on purpose, it's not a mistake. Wes is literally this cruel.
So this is why Suzanne O’Sullivan is getting so much media attention?
(For context she’s one of those celebrity doctors who has very unscientific opinions and she basically thinks most of mental health is an “excuse” for weird/lazy/unproductive people.)
Anyways she’s getting loads of media attention these days, right around the time Wes Streeting’s government is trying to cut disability insurance.