The words that Kemi Badenoch endorsed in the pamphlet published during the course of her Conservative Party leadership campaign that I referred to on this blog yesterday have haunted me since then because I have found many of them so troubling. None, however, appear to be more difficult than these:
The socialisation of mental health
While people talking about mental health is a positive, the socialisation of mental health so everyone has to treat you differently has failed to improve people's mental health outcomes. As one academic put it, across the West, ‘the meaning of ‘safety underwent a process of ‘concept creep' and expanded to included ‘emotional safety'… The subjective experience of ‘harm' became definitional in assessing trauma'. Psychological and psychotherapy professions numbers went from 102,000 in 2002 to 223,700 in 2023. In 1999 the NHS spent £4 billion on mental health, which had risen to £16.8 billion by 2023/4.
This approach now offers economic advantages and protections. If you have a neurodiversity diagnosis (e.g. anxiety, autism), you are in a category similar to race or biological sex in terms of discrimination law and general attitudes. As a child, you may well get better treatment or equipment at school – even transport to and from home. If you are in the workforce, you are protected in employment terms from day 1, you can more easily claim for unfair dismissal, and can also require your employer makes ‘reasonable adjustments' to your job (only revealed after you are employed). By 2024, mental health was the number 1 issue for new welfare claimants, with this as the primary claim for 41% of all new disability related benefit claims.
And then there were these words, as well:
Being diagnosed as neuro-diverse was once seen as helpful as it meant you could understand your own brain, and so help you to deal with the world. It was an individual focused change. But now it also offers economic advantages and protections. If you have a neurodiversity diagnosis (e.g. anxiety, autism), then that is usually seen as a disability, a category similar to race or biological sex in terms of discrimination law and general attitudes.
If you are a child, you may well get better treatment or equipment at school – even transport to and from home. If you are in the workforce, you are protected in employment terms from day 1, you can more easily claim for unfair dismissal, and under disability rules you can also require your employer makes ‘reasonable adjustments' to your job (and you can reveal your disability once you have been employed rather than before).
In short, whereas once psychological and mental health was seen as something that people should work on themselves as individuals, mental health has become something that society, schools and employers have to adapt around.
I cannot read these words and but think that Badenoch is implying that she wishes to deny the diversity of people living within our society.
I cannot help but think that she is also seeking to deny:
- Most mental healthcare
- The right to time off work for mental health conditions
- Support for children with mental health conditions in schools
- Special educational needs support for many children
- The right to support during education e.g. with the special needs some have for equipment, additional time, reading assistance and much else.
It would also seem that she wants to return to:
- A world of isolation and fear for those she deems to be 'not normal', who she makes clear should suffer in isolation and silence
- A past where bullying of those with mental ill health was the norm
- A place where those who were not typical were told to shut up and comply. The straitjacket had to fit everyone.
- A world of trauma for millions, in other words.
What is also apparent is that Badenoch wants to do this by:
- Stigmatisation
- Bullying
- Cutting of spending on mental health and related issues, especially in education
- The removal of access for many to any chance of participating in society.
I was brought up in the world that Badenoch wants, and as a result, I saw and lived with the consequences. They were horrendous and long-lasting.
It would seem that Badenoch is in absolute denial of most modern understanding of both mental health and the neuro-divergence that is always inherent within societies. Some of the latter can give rise to mental health issues, but most are simply about the different understandings that people have as to how they can integrate within the society in which they live, which have to be respected. It is almost staggering that she picks up people with autism and anxiety for special attention when doing so, seemingly seeking to deny the consequences that these conditions can give rise to.
What I read from the whole of this document is that Badenoch is seeking to promote the idea that there is a single uniform standard of behaviour, philosophy, conduct and belief that is acceptable in her worldview and that those who transgress are of no concern to her.
We cannot, of course, know the precise number of those whose mental health conditions Badenoch is seeking to abuse, but many of us will suffer mental ill health during our lives or know those who have and do, and a substantial minority of people will be neuro-divergent. Many of these people will not fit into the supposedly standard education and employment systems that supposedly fit all and which Kemi Badenoch clearly thinks should prevail even though the inevitable consequence will be that the abilities of many people will be seriously underdeveloped at massive long-term cost to society at large.
What Badenoch ignores is that if neuro-divergence exists, it is precisely because of the advantages it brings to society. Otherwise we should have expected the evolutionary process to have eliminated it. Badenoch is seeking to deny that. She is claiming we should all be the same, when very obviously we are not.
I find it almost impossible to explain the revulsion that I feel at the words that Kemi Badenoch has chosen to endorse. They can only imply a belief on her part in her own superiority and a resulting belief that she has a right to impose her views upon everyone else, whether they are suited to them or not.
This is not just arrogant but goes far beyond that. It reveals an intellectual and moral bankruptcy so deeply embedded within her psyche that it suggests she has no understanding of the lives of most people and the options that they have or that the demands that she is making are repugnant to them. Her expectation that she can impose those demands is imperialist as a result, but it's also worse than that. The words she has endorsed imply that she is willing to deny the humanity of others.
That should make her wholly unfit for any public office, let alone to be Leader of the Opposition in this country. There are, unfortunately, no grounds for thinking that her political demise will come as quickly as that of Liz Truss, but the sooner it happens the better the public life of this country will be.
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Agreed.
Her words are a manifesto of suffering.
People are different and that brings strengths and weaknesses. But the idea that autism is generally some sort of superpower, or the implicit suspicion that people are falsely claiming mental health issues to seek undeserved economic benefits, is a fantasy which indicates no contact with the people described or knowledge of the way their lives are affected.
Just on the numbers, £4 billion in 1999 was about 5% of NHS spending (total around £80 billion). £16 billion now is around 8% of the current spending (around £180 billion). Is that a big number or a small number? General CPI inflation has been about 80% since 1999, so 4 and 80 would become 7 and 144 with no action. But medical inflation is higher than general inflation, and much of the cost is wages which have increased too. For example the minimum wage has gone from £3.60 to &11.44 and soon £12.21. The suggestion is that mental health workers are unable to tell whether or not someone is unwell enough to need medical care.
Anyone who has needed to access mental healthcare in the NHS will know the demand is huge and it remains terribly underfunded.
Perhaps Kemi Badenoch should stick to computer science and financial services rather than trying to second-guess medical professionals. But of course this sort of victim blaming and stigmatisation play into her divisive culture wars. A nasty Hobbesian war of all against all.
Agreed
Thanks
Thank you, both.
I worked with her husband on some projects at a German bank and am mystified about the jobs the media assign to the pair. We also worked at the blue eagle, but I did not come across him.
She: Systems analyst. Software engineer. Wealth manager.
He: Investment banker.
Corrections:
She: Operations and admin.
He: Operations and admin manager, including overseeing the set up and kitting out of the German firm’s new office above Moorgate station.
I doubt either engaged clients and came across any form of risk management (credit, regulatory etc.).
One gathers from Whitehall that she struggled with complexity and resorted to the tactics the likes of Cummings and Patel used when finding out (from officials) that the world is a bit more complicated than their sound bites contemplated.
Mr B was interested in a political career.
Hamish Badenoch styles himself on LinkedIn as Global Head, Future Work and Real Estate Transformation (as well as Managing Director). Think this may be management speak for Downsizing….
🙂
I agree. There is support for your conclusions, in the reports of her behaviour in ministerial office, allegedly bullying civil servants, and, via the despatch box, naming a HuffPost journalist whose behaviour (sending her a series of questions, as journalists do) she referred to as “creepy & bizarre” during a ministerial answer in Parliament.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemi_Badenoch
Thank you, Robert.
One can see why she brought Patel back. Birds of a feather and all that.
I broadly agree with you but what she is saying is shared by a large proportion of the electorate mainly because many of these issues are open to exaggeration and abuse.
So what would you do about that?
And, even, do you really think that is true?
I have recently heard the same suggestions from the same sources that usually complain about benefit fraud, lazy workers, and “illegal” immigrants. “Some of these people with these disabilities, you know, special needs, well, they’re taking advantage, getting special treatment, it’s all a bit of a scam”.
It’s only now reading what Badenoch is saying that I have made the connection. It’s clearly “out there” spreading its poison. Just when you thought they were scraping the bottom of the barrel, you find they can scrape even lower.
Agreed
“shared by a large proportion of the electorate…”
Can you share your evidence for that assertion please? I’ve learned never to take statements like that at face value.
I’m curious. Is this large proportion of the electorate aligning with her opinion the same as those who voted for Brexit, deny climate science, dislike immigrants, and so on?
“Badenoch is seeking to promote the idea that there is a single uniform standard of behaviour”.
What foillows is relevant.
In “Late Soviet britain” – Innes cites a paper by Mirowski & Nik-Khah ( (The Knowledge we have lost in information – Ox Uni 2017). The point: neoclassical economists/neo libtards needed a “universal economic agent” to make their barmy statements on economics “work”. Step forward the “rationally selfish invidivudal” “rational economic man became the central actor in neo-classical economic theory”.
Bad-Enoch has swallowed neo-libtardism hook line & sinker – & as readers can see – there is an extension of uniform economic behavior to other areas (unifrom standard of behaviour) . The woman is a neo-libtard automaton – much like the totally barmy Liz trussed. Goodness, the tory party (what is left of it) throws up nutters.
Getting help for SEND children is incredibly difficult.
I know of one in my county where an appeal will be heard in a year’s time!
The school concerned has no resources to deliver and Reeves’ extra billion won’t go very far.
Many children are being let down. It even makes economic sense to invest in these kids.
Agreed
This was always a concern of mine in 15 years as a school governor.
“By 2024, mental health was the number 1 issue for new welfare claimants, with this as the primary claim for 41% of all new disability related benefit claims.”
Hardly surprising when Badenoch’s party has spent decades creating such a dysfunctional society that trying to fit in overburdens people’s coping mechanisms.
Not to mention that, in the world Kemi Badenoch wants, child victims of sexual abuse will get little if any help.
I’m not surprised to hear this disgusting rhetoric from this psychopath. The Conservative Party have shown in the last fifteen years nothing but a profound disdain for people who are either physically or mentally disabled.
Where is the economic advantage of being on benefits? The reality is that most disabled people who depend on state benefits in the UK struggle financially.
The current government also shows no signs of change; neither appears interested in investigating the root cause of the increase in mental health problems. Instead, the stigmatization of disabled people continues. The main objective is to get people back to the rat race.
I was diagnosed as Autistic at the age of 60. At secondary school I was labelled ‘trouble’, ‘awkward to deal with’ and bullied. My eldest is also Autistic but had help at school and understanding teachers. He is, as a reuslt, better off mentally than I was or will be.
Badenoch’s attitude should have been consigned to history, but she and her ilk have been allowed to use it as part of the culture wars to divert attention from the real cause of today’s economic and social misery: Neoliberalism.
Thanks
And thanks for sharing your story
Good luck to you and your son
For most people in the UK understanding neuro-divergence is at a very early stage. It is complex which is why the word “spectrum” is used. There is no excuse, however, for a politician not to understand it to the best of their ability because support for neuro-divergent individuals does require legislation and the spending of central and local state money. Right-wing shills for the rich like Kemi Badenoch will seek to spread lies about the condition which she knows will gain traction amongst those who know little about it. The same of course is true about the UK’s monetary system.
I’m convinced that the majority of mental health issues are a consequence of the grinding anxiety too many people endure just to try and live a half decent life.
For decades politicians have structured a society of brutal individualism on the back of abrogated responsibility for people’s well-being to neo-liberal forces.
It is long past time for ‘The Courageous State’ to step up.
“For decades politicians have structured a society of brutal individualism on the back of abrogated responsibility for people’s well-being to neo-liberal forces.”
Yes, and Marketisation is THE method politicians use to affect this, Rob. Think of Milburn, Stevens and Blair’s NHS ‘reforms’. Pro-market policies which damaged and fragmented healthcare.
Mental health issues and increased anxiety are the proof that it’s working.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)60763-6/fulltext
The increase in mental health problems has occurred in the USA too.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/11/elections-2024-america-at-the-end-of-its-tether.html
This quite lengthy and detailed analysis of the root causes of this malaise ends with this:
” If we really want to reclaim our democracy, we need leaders who not only grasp the depth of our suffering but also present a vision that speaks to our shared humanity. Otherwise, we’re just going to be stuck as passive spectators in a political theater that’s lost the plot and doesn’t serve us anymore.”
Thanks
Quotes from Nigel Farage. This is where Badenoch is heading and who she is pandering to
“This is the sexy bit: Elon comes in and takes a knife to the deep state. Just like when he bought Twitter he sacked 80 per cent of the staff,” Farage told The Telegraph.
“There are going to be mass lay-offs, whole departments closing and I’m hoping and praying that’s the blueprint for what we then do on our side of the pond.
“Because that’s what Reform UK believes in – that we’re over-bureaucratised and none of it works. This assault on the bureaucratic state is the thing that’s really exciting.
“They’ll all be gone. They’ll all be fired. Why do we need Whitehall with all these useless, ghastly Marxists? Universities have all become madrassas of Marxism. The whole thing is appalling.”
https://www.gbnews.com/p…nald-trump-nigel-farage
Madness…..
A few weeks ago I asked a class of 25 Year 12 students (16 yrs old) about the future they envisage, their world. Answers ranged from ‘never think about it’ to the majority ‘things are going to get worse’. They don’t see any golden decades before them. Add to that any other factors (boys abuse and control of girls is an issue in schools, depression and self harm is always there 13 years onwards), and you worry for them. There are almost no resources apart from teachers available for the neurodivergent, the depressed, the disturbed, those from broken families.
That is what new students are like
Good luck, John, and thanks
but what do all those fired people then do? where are the jobs? who will have the money to spend on goods and services provided by those who own the companies?
She repeatedly talks about the neurodiverse and those with mental health issues as getting priority treatment or economic advantage, as if that is somehow unfair. I don’t know if she’s driven by jealousy or an obsession with public spending. Either way, no parent of an autistic child who is given transport to school because they can’t cope with public transport is thinking “hey, I’m better off!” – to suggest just one example.
My grand-daughter is dyslexic, and gets extra help with learning from the school’s SEND department. If the school couldn’t offer this support “advantage” she would certainly be unlikely to achieve her full potential. BadEnough’s idea that she should pull herself up with self motivation would be laughable if it were not so cruel and tone deaf.
I’m tempted to rant on, but I think everyone here already understands the point.
Thanks Rick
I wholly understand your rant and the care implicit in it
Thanks for your thoughts Richard.
The underlying point is that Badenoch is seeking to identify new groups for scapegoating and “othering”.
This is classic far right populism, however it is dressed up.
Culture wars are her MO.
They are inherently fascistic.
Along with socialists, union leaders and the left, the first targets after the 1933 succession were the disabled, and mentally ill, a perfect fit for eugenics supporters.
However, the Labour government’s targets in their benefit reduction strategy are exactly the same vulnerable groups as Badenoch is attacking.
Thank you, Richard.
Richard is right to put the spotlight on Bad Enoch, a type I have come across all too often in finance and its overlap with politics.
When I saw Bad Enoch and Reeves on Sunday morning, I thought of: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rachel-reeves-says-labour-does-not-want-to-represent-people-out-of-work-10114614.html. There’s a lot more of this.
I had forgotten https://www.independent.ie/regionals/herald/starve-the-irish-threat-by-brexit-backing-tory-sparks-furious-backlash/37606031.html, but not https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56281781, one of many and going back to her school and university days.
She’ll fit with Badenoch very well
There are social and individual (sometimes wrongly called “medical”) models of disability. The social model is political, and has led to huge improvements in accessibility since its origin in the 1970s. By the 1990s, though, politicians had wised up to the tactic and it became more difficult for disability activists to make progress. The academic Mike Oliver has a lot of detail on this.
Sometimes, people can think the social model of disability as being all that is needed. This is in itself discriminatory about people with disabilitites, since they will often want to change disadvantages inherent to the way their bodies (and/or minds) operate. These disadvantages are termed “impairment effects”, and are not caused by society. Rather, treatments or therapies, or the use of prosthetics and other mechanical/electronic aids, are tailored to the individual. Eyeglasses and wheelchairs are classic example.
It sounds as if Badenoch wants a rebalancing towards an individual model of disability. This could be a good thing if combined with (a) funding for individualised treatments (i.e. massive increases in NHS and social care budgets, etc); and (b) a continuation of increase in social model style accessibility (i.e. treatments within an individual model are not instead of social model accommodations, but rather are in addition).
Is this what she intends? I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader. However, I wanted to note that a rebalancing towards an individual model of disability is not in and itself a bad thing – just that (a) individualised treatments should be tailored, optional and funded by the state; and (b) social model accommodations should be extended at the same time (it’s not either/or!).
I don’t think your outcome is anything close to what Badenoch wants
Oh, I agree. She intends to cut the funding for individual treatments, and also remove social accommodations. Worst of all possible worlds.
I agree 100% Richard but I’d also point out (and I’m sure you’d agree) that austerity since 2010 has already decimated provision for many neurodivergent people, even before Kemi Badenoch gets anyway near it. For example, spending SEN provision for children is only a fraction of what it needs to be. And even before 2010, many services were inadequate.
I wholly agree Howard
Badenoch and her ik are one of the three common responses to the situation we are in globally, namely life become slowly less well off materially, with no way back to the unending growth era. Unless we discover some magic power source as easy to access and useful as fossil fuels.
The first common response is denial of this reality with pretence that if we can just get back to growth things will be fine (Starmer, Reeves, Streeting at al).
The second one is acknowledgement that things have been getting worse for a while, but blaming the “other”, so that if we can just get “other” under control or destroyed then things will be fine (Badenoch, Braverman, Jenricks et al, leading to fascism).
The third is to acknowledge the reality and admit that the only positive way forward is mutual help for each other and more equitable distribution of material goods and services so that those at the bottom are not ground into the muck, which implies those at the top must become less elevated. There is no identified leadership for this response yet, although I suspect that of existing political groupings the Greens have most chance of getting there, at least in the UK.
Response one is running out of road fast – seems unlikely it will remain viable more than a few years. Response two is gaining traction but doesn’t seem to be able to achieve a majority. Response three is disorganised and needs to get it together quickly, or response two will take over.
The new Shadow Cabinet is full of the same stock of failures who wrecked Britain in the last Conservative Government. The Conservatives must either be remarkably stupid, or think we are remarkably stupid; if they think we have forgotten the ineptitude and self-serving arrogance that punctuated the careers of Badenoch, arrogant and simple-minded; Priti Patel, a leader of the Brexit dogmatists, and as Home Secretary established the Rwanda asylum deal – at a cost of £500m+ plus £150,000 for each person sent to Rwanda – and only four were ever sent, all voluntary. Mel Stride – who voted for Michael Gove as Conservative leader in 2019, which is a telling indicator of his judgement. Badenoch has appointed him Chancellor, presumably on the grounds that he made clear as Work and Pensions Minister in 2023, that he considered the triple-lock was not sustainable.
There are other hopeless duds in the Shadow Cabinet, appointed by Badenoch, but frankly too tedious to enumerate. Most of them have supported Brexit; and as that is costing us 4% of GDP every single year (and leaving a permanent wound in the economy); that will be costing us around £90Bn every single year (and growing). The Labour Budget spend, in that context is a simple act of blind desperation (a single canapé to feed a starved elephant). The brazen, shifty Conservative crew, in any context; are just too dim to be taken seriously, except for this: they are there, and they are given, gratis the oxygen of national coverage and publicity and cheered on by a bought and paid for Press.
Chris Philp as Home Secretary? Really?
You mean Chris Philp? This Chris Philp; Chief Secretary to the Treasury appointed by ……. Liz Truss; who Tweeted this immediately after the Kwarteng Budget, but just before the Pound Sterling fell through the floor (to a 37-year low against the dollar, down to $1.09): “Great to see sterling strengthening on the back of the new UK Growth Plan”. That Chris Philp?
Nope, never heard of him either.
That’s the one
I have to say that when I saw that Philp was in the frame, I was speechless.
Maybe he should be pitied? But he was/is part of the same crew that has led me to overhearing a conversation today at work that my Council is on the verge of bankruptcy because of temporary accommodation costs.
At this moment in time it is hard to know who to be more angry at: the Tories who created this mess or ‘Mute Labour’ (the latest iteration of New Labour) who seem to have no ideas about how to deal with this at all except to add costs to Councils that are on the verge of going under.
The struggles friends of mine have had getting diagnoses and help for their kids with ‘special needs’ (mostly ASD), the grief and relief in our family when members were diagnosed as neurodiverse… the terrible toll on health in this country due to years of austerity and insecurity (the diseases of despair). I was absolutely sickened to hear Ms Badenoch’s words. It is some comfort to find a group of people who agree. I’ve retreated to a pile of novels and chocolate today I’m afraid, after news from across the Atlantic. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh
Anne
You gave my sympathies
And I know far too many neurodiverse people not to care
I know too many who will be victimised by the likes of Trump, too
Richard
The Tories have always been like this. When they face political or economic problems they immediately look for a scapegoat. They did it in the early 90s with single mothers. They did it in 2010 with the skivers and the bedroom tax. They were starting to have yet another go at the disabled before the last election. For a political organisation which calls itself the “party of personal responsibility” they are remarkably reluctant to take any themselves.
At the end of the day, they are looking at budgets and choosing what they want to cut should they get back into office. SEND is a big part of local authority spending. Therefore they craft an argument that everyone who needs it is illegitimate.
The problem they’ve got is mental ill-health is deteriorating in many countries not just the UK so they can hardly ascribe this to some aspect of British culture. When I worked in China I was surprised to find that they have even worse problems with anxiety about young people.
“They can only imply a belief on her part in her own superiority”
It really does grate with how cock-sure she is
[…] have already highlighted some aspects of her viciously nasty agenda this week. Project 2025, to which I have referred this morning, was written by think tanks closely […]