‘Labour’s pledge key to fixing our sick-note society’

WHATEVER occurred to the British stiff higher lip? Looks prefer it’s turning right into a trembling decrease one.

Millions of younger adults endure from psychological well being points starting from nervousness and melancholy to bipolar dysfunction.

Almost 200,000 women and men aged 18 to 24 are crying off work due to their affliction. So what’s occurring?

I do know we’re not presupposed to say “when we were young, we just had to get on with it” as a result of that solely upsets the twentysomethings.

But dammit, it’s true.

When I consider my dad and mom, males nonetheless of their teenagers preventing the Nazis, and ladies toiling in munitions factories removed from dwelling, I shake my head in disbelief.

My spouse, aged 18, cared for 2 infants in a poky Nottingham flat with a galvanised bucket on the range to scrub the nappies.

We had nowt. I went out and labored wherever, on a farm, as a window cleaner, in a cycle manufacturing facility and labored nights in a cleaning soap works. I used to be a crap guide employee, however I bought on with it.

But grasp on, there’s all the time extra to each story, and behind the headline about psychological well being is one other much less reported growth: the variety of folks in insecure employment has risen by 500,000 to six.8 million.

That’s one in 5 of the working inhabitants compelled to take faux jobs with zero-hours contracts and no rights.

And that’s the rationale why younger uns are sad, sick and too depressed to get a job. It’s the fault of bosses who squeeze the life out of them, with no responsibility of care or safety, and to hell with the results.

Finding a correct, decently paid job with a accountable employer is like discovering a gold pig underneath your pillow. There’s no “it” to get on with any extra.

That’s why Labour’s pledge to ­revolutionise rights at work is so vital. We need to cease the slide in the direction of a digital slave society.