29 February 2024 , 21:51
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WHATEVER happened to the British stiff upper lip? Looks like it’s turning into a trembling lower one.
Millions of young adults suffer from mental health issues ranging from anxiety and depression to bipolar disorder.
Almost 200,000 men and women aged 18 to 24 are crying off work because of their affliction. So what’s going on?
I know we’re not supposed to say “when we were young, we just had to get on with it” because that only upsets the twentysomethings.
But dammit, it’s true.
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When I think of my parents, men still in their teens fighting the Nazis, and women toiling in munitions factories far from home, I shake my head in disbelief.
My wife, aged 18, cared for two babies in a poky Nottingham flat with a galvanised bucket on the stove to wash the nappies.
We had nowt. I went out and worked anywhere, on a farm, as a window cleaner, in a cycle factory and worked nights in a soap works. I was a crap manual worker, but I got on with it.
But hang on, there’s always more to every story, and behind the headline about mental health is another less reported development: the number of people in insecure employment has risen by 500,000 to 6.8 million.
That’s one in five of the working population forced to take fake jobs with zero-hours contracts and no rights.
And that’s the reason why young uns are unhappy, ill and too depressed to get a job. It’s the fault of bosses who squeeze the life out of them, with no duty of care or security, and to hell with the consequences.
Finding a proper, decently paid job with a responsible employer is like finding a gold pig under your pillow. There’s no “it” to get on with any more.
That’s why Labour’s pledge to revolutionise rights at work is so critical. We have to stop the slide towards a virtual slave society.