Nigel Farage was at his very worst yesterday. As The Guardian reported:
Nigel Farage has claimed that doctors are “massively over-diagnosing” children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) and mental health conditions.
Asked at this press conference about the rising number of children diagnosed with Send, and what could be done to help them, Farage replied:
It's a massive problem. I have to say, for my own money, when you get to 18 and you put somebody on a disability register, unemployed, with a high level of benefits, you're telling people aged 18 that they're that they're victims. And if you are told you're a victim, and you think you're a victim, you are likely to stay [a victim].
So many of these diagnoses, for Send before 18, for disability register after 18 – so many of these have been conducted on Zoom, with the family GP.
I think that is a massive mistake. I think you're the family GP, and I've know your family for generations, and you're saying to me there's a real problem here with depression, or whatever it may be, it's quite hard for me as your GP to say no.
I don't think any of these allocations should be done by family GPs. I think should be done independently.
And I think we are massively – I'm not being heartless, I'm being frank – I think we are massively over-diagnosing those with mental illness problems and those with other general behavioural disabilities. And I think we're creating class of victims in Britain that will struggle ever to get out of it.
The suggestion made by Farage is utterly absurd. Start with the fact that he still thinks we have family doctors. We don't.
Then note that he thinks these doctors will have known families for 'generations'. They haven't. You're lucky to see anyone more than once at my GP surgery.
And after that, note that he thinks doctors 'diagnose' autism and ADHD, which are the major issues he is actually referring to. Depression is not one of them, and it's absurd to suggest that it is. But they don't 'diagnose' these conditions, almost ever. That is a very specialist activity that they are not trained to do.
What is more, neither is even an illness: they are types of being. You discover them. You realise they exist. You don't, as such, diagnose them.
Nor is it the case that having either makes anyone a 'victim'. Nor does it condemn those with them, unless neurotypical people, like Farage, want to condemn them, as they too often do, with comments like these.
Either condition, or both together, provide a description of the way someone is wired. Neither is 'curable' any more than being left-handed is curable. Many of those who have these conditions would not want to be without them. If understood correctly, they can be superpowers, not reasons for concern. The problem we have is in adapting to the fact that people have these conditions, and in learning what those with them can contribute.
That adaptation is very much harder because neurotypical people with power want to keep people in little boxes where they might be controlled. Many people with ADHD and autism are highly creative. As such, they threaten the neoliberal order. Such people have always threatened power. I bet you the child who suggested the emperor was wearing no clothes had autism, ADHD, or both. That's why the control freaks, like Farage, want to stigmatise people with these conditions. Those who oppress and stigmatise are the problem. Those with ADHD and autism are not.
And yes, the numbers with such conditions appears to be growing. That is because they are becoming more apparent in a world where individuality, creativity, opportunity, and individualism are being eroded, meaning those possessed of these qualities stand out more. It is not that there are more of them. Instead, it's much more likely that many are now refusing to mask their conditions, which is good news. And if you do not know what masking is, look it up here.
I was delighted to see this response from the National Autistic Society (in the same Guardian article)
The National Autistic Society has described Nigel Farage's comments about Send children as “wildly inaccurate” and accused him of perpetuating “stigma” and making life harder for disabled people. Mel Merritt, head of policy and campaigns at the NAS, said:
Nigel Farage's comments are wildly inaccurate and show that he's completely out of touch with what autistic children and adults have to go through to get a diagnosis or any support at all.
For the record, absolutely no one has got an autism diagnosis through the GP – this is just incorrect, wrong, fake news.
Children with Send and disabled adults, including autistic people, are not victims who are being ‘over diagnosed'. They are people who face huge delays and long fights to get the most basic support across every aspect of their lives, including diagnosis, education, health and social care.
Spreading misinformation only perpetuates stigma and makes life harder.
We're calling on all politicians to drop the political point scoring and stand up for their autistic and other disabled constituents.
But let me stress that Farage's fascist requirement of uniformity in the population that he wishes to govern is not peculiar to him in UK politics. Kemi Badenoch has also been on this bandwagon, saying last October:
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.
She suggested that these diagnoses were being used to abuse the state.
The National Autistic Society responded to her then, saying:
"Kemi Badenoch's comments and the statements in the ‘Conservatism in Crisis' document are not only offensive to autistic people but detached from reality and demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of autism and disability.
"Politicians need to stop looking to the autistic community as a political football and instead recognise the difficulties and challenges that so many autistic people face in their daily lives. They need to engage in good faith to make a positive impact rather than dismissing their needs. Our charity would be happy to provide factual and evidence-based information about autism through one of our excellent autism awareness training sessions.
"Autistic people and their families face huge delays and long fights to get support across all aspects of their lives, including diagnosis, health, education and social care. It is greatly concerning that in 2024, elected politicians still don't understand that autism is not a mental health condition and to say that ‘anxiety' is a neurodivergent condition, is completely incorrect.
"Being autistic doesn't offer economic advantages and protections, only three in 10 autistic people are in any form of employment, the lowest of any disability. Reasonable adjustments are in no way an immediate pathway into economic privilege, but a legal right to make sure autistic people can participate in work, education and live a dignified life.
"To say children with a diagnosis of a neurodivergent condition, like autism, ‘may well get better treatment or equipment at school' and ‘even transport to school' is to misinterpret legal protections and adjustments that give young people access to the education they need and should be entitled to. Parents of autistic children have to fight too hard and too long for support; often having to pay for expensive legal battles, that overwhelming find in favour of families."
They are right.
Badenoch, like Farage, was wrong. What they want are standard, compliant people who will fit into the neurotypical neoclassical/neolibral economic model to be productive economic units, as they deem us all to be. That requirement of uniformity is so built into that model that macroeconomics actually assumes that all people are entirely homogenous and can be represented by a single representative agent when considering how to manage the economy.
We are not uniform.
Our diversity is to be celebrated.
The far right does not do that. It wants to destroy that diversity.
In the States, the far-right health secretary, Robert Kennedy, is demanding that a register of people with autism be prepared. He is also promising a cure by September.
I think we can see where this is going. There are horrible precedents. Read this. Then worry.
And for the record, I suspect I have a great deal of experience of these issues.
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Dusting off my PhD in the Bleeding Obvious and based on my experience and that of others I suspect that, starting at school one of the reasons for the increase in diagnosis is the increasingly ‘unfriendly’ environments in schools and the wider world.
As an obvious ‘for example’ the school uniforms that are increasingly prescriptive, expensive – quite another issue, and if you are ‘neurodiverse’ agony. But of course you need a bit of paper to ‘get out’ so thats what parents do.
To say nothing of the massive opportunities school uniform creates for pupils and teachers to play silly buggers over something that has nothing to do with education.
It was also interesting looking at this from The Grauniad today
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/apr/25/manchester-commuters-lib-dem-ban-out-loud-music-public-transport
In particular
read” might not be the first word Mancunians reach for to describe their daily commute, but for Ross Kenyon, 45, reluctantly waiting at a tram stop on a cloudy morning in central Manchester, it’s the feeling clawing at his body.
Why? He hates the tram. So much so, he refuses to take it to work, preferring a half-hour walk to his office instead. He says the the buses are even worse. He avoids them completely.
The reason, he says, is antisocial behaviour. He’s become increasingly bothered by people playing music out loud or vaping on public transport.
“You get on the trains or trams, especially on a Friday or Saturday night, and there are people with the speakers and music and it’s just impolite … It just aggravates me,” said Kenyon, who works in trading. “I go to Dubai quite a lot and everything’s all nice. But here, it’s like there’s no rules any more. It’s not that I’m the fun police. I just find it annoying.”
Now there are lots of issues including public health and public order – I suggest that people making excessive noise are often either bullies or (insert abusive term of choice) and I am certainly NOT passing any comment on the person who this piece reports on, but clearly excessive and unnecessary noise which is increasing makes life harder for the neurodivergent.
So there is a lot that could be done that would be worth doing anyway which would make life better for those who are neurodivergent. In particular I suggest that for a lot of people ‘on the edge’ it would keep them on the right side of that edge ie well.
Much to agree with
You can definitely add a national curriculum for only for preparation for a pub quiz, that is totally out of kilter with what many kids need, in particular the non-academic who seem to have no place in it.
It would help if people understood what reasonable accommodation might look like for many on the spectrum.
It doesn’t need to be something expensive. It might be allowing some flexibility in start/end times to avoid the worst of rush hour. It might even just be setting clearer goals and ensuring there is somewhere in the office that’s a quiet space. It might be doing introductions consciously. It might be excusing them from noisy team building social events which are overloading. It may just be recognising how someone responds so there isn’t a misinterpretation of a lack of eye contact or skipping social frivolities to get right to facts.
None of these are expensive or arduous. Part of why we need SEND facilities early is to reduce any resulting conflict and anxiety, giving a better chance of finding their strengths to contribute to society.
For some those things would be useful
But fundamentally, the issue is about the fact that the ADHD and autistic minds work differently to the neurotypical mind.
That means finding the right tasks, setting them the right way, rewarding appropriately, and understanding the lily differences.
It also means understanding the communication stles, which are often so different.
It is actually not hard, but most neurotypical people have no idea sich issues exist.
“It might be doing introductions consciously. It might be excusing them from noisy team building social events which are overloading.”
I am neurotypical and hate these time-wasting “noisy team building social events”!!!!
May I be excused too?????
Ban them, forever
Even though there are many things wrong with this increasingly far-right country of the Netherlands, which has been my home for 30+ years, it seems we’ve a long way to go when it comes to punishing the sick.
After the current mid-term holiday (my 2 weeks off begin next week) I have an interview forca position at a “special education” school. The student body ranges from those with physical disabilities to those slightly on the various spectra of disorders such as autism, ADD etc etc
This school has:
– max class size of 10 students
– in-house counsellors permanently available
– constant training and support for teachers plus open-door policy to aforementioned counsellors for own needs if required
– teacher pay scale above the basic scale since the extra effort required is recognised and rewarded
Even though the student body has various special needs, they follow exactly the same education as other, more standard schools. Meaning it’s obvioys there are certain barriers to traditional learning but these kids aren’t disabled, they just require a different approach.
It all seems so grown-up and healthy. Unlike what I hear/read about education in the UK.
Such schools do exist here, but they are few and far between. I have a friend who works in one.
Fa***e is out shooting foxes again. He’s got quite a brush collection on his gatepost, from right and not quite so right, even including QE recently. Now its neurodivergent foxes in his sights, because both Tories and Labour have been talking about them.
You rightly mention Bandwagon Badenoch, but Streeting has been out there too, banging on about the “medicalisation of mental health” in a major speech on 16th March.
It’s symptomatic of the way politics has simply become a matter of jumping on bandwagons or shooting each other’s foxes – snipping away at the margins of your opponent’s support base (you hope) – because of a lack of any positive grown-up vision for making the world a better place.
Of course, once these bandwagons get going, they are dangerous. Driven by incompetent drunks with L plates they cause havoc in ordinary peoples lives, and time has to be spent repairing the damage or protecting actual and potential vulnerable victims.
But they aren’t the main thing, and those evil cynics, Badenoch and Starmer and Fa***e know it.
400 passive complicit Labour MPs could do something about this. But they are too “frit”.
This is my view. Human beings are complex and individual. In the search for scientific respectability , the early psychotherapy movement was tempted to a medical model of the diagnosis of specific maladies. In the US Psychoanalysts were required to be doctors first.
In the US most medical care is paid for by insurance and they won’t pay out unless there is a diagnosis. So we had the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual in five editions and a new one expected soon. ( Europe uses the ICD which differs in some ways e.g. defining schizophrenia ) So groups of behaviours became symptoms of a condition. Labels could then be attached. This is not to say there are now common patterns of behaviour which can be usefully described. The point is there was a lot of reification, turning an abstract into a concrete object. A lot of science tends to be reductionist. Thus we have people who approach therapy through medication or neurological explanations and, I feel, the individual, can get lost. There were counter movements such as Carl Rogers who believed the essence of the ‘cure’ was the existence of an authentic relationship. Then we had the govt sponsored cognitive behavioural therapy CBT with an emphasis on thoughts. All have their uses. I found I could get better outcomes but using different methods with different people. A more integrated approach is more common now, so some progress.
I could go on but will spare you.
A final point is that mental (emotional ) health is not just an individual thing. We are part of a societal context.
As a counsellor I saw a number people referred by an organisation-often for not reaching their targets! ( there’s neo-liberal concept for you) I expressed the view that the organisation needed therapy more than most of the people I saw. It was not popular. I retired soon after-just 3 months before the lockdown.
A good blog post. I reckon I have certain autistic traits (which some people I know have recognised – and tests indicate), but its not a problem for me and yes has certain advantages in number crunching! Farage is as usual talking rubbish but there are people out there who think “these people are saying they have problems to get money from the state – and our taxes pay for them”. Complete rubbish but there is an audience out there which responds to Farage and Badenock. Oddly enough they are happy that some people get paid a lot for not doing a lot – Mr Bailey of the BoE is a good example!
Thanks
Thank you, Richard, for raising this and pointing out the conservative/right-wing need for homogeneity in people. Of course, Farage, the poster boy for the neoliberal to fascism pipeline, would have an issue with neurodivergence; they are an out group he can target under the guise of “saving taxpayer money”. It appears that autism is the new wedge issue, no doubt thought up by right-wing policy wonks in some think tank. Remember the leaked Tufton Street memo on Trans people? “They are the next wedge issue.” They now feel more empowered to go after a larger minority it seems.
He and Badenoch may have picked the wrong battle here, though. As you stated, diagnoses are increasing due to better awareness, not overdiagnosis. People in their 50’s and 60’s are being diagnosed after wondering why they felt so different all their lives. 1 in 3 people in the construction industry are neurodivergent, the ordinary, decent, hard-working people Farage likes to pretend he speaks to in the pub. And I couldn’t throw a rock in my town without hitting a fellow parent struggling to find a place in the world for their neurodivergent child. Good luck gathering support for this wedge issue, Nigel.
As for the mental health comments, well, frankly, piss off Nigel. It’s society that makes many people ill. The same society that makes apparent “victims” of the neurodivergent. Change society, and the so-called problem goes away. As things stand, if the likes of Farage, Badenoch, and Starmer want to perpetuate this ultra-competitive neoliberal hellscape, then they need to accept that many humans aren’t capable of living in it. It’s unnatural and is not how humans are meant to live. If you like the way our society and economy are run, if you thrive in it, then perhaps you are the truly neurodivergent one.
Thanks Tom
And good luck
I think diagnoses are also increasing because of the intolerable pressure this ‘new society’, created post 2010 by those wicked Tories, has generated and put on ordinary people. Life is really hard compared to a mere 20 years ago.
Farage’s remarks, along with Badenoch’s, betray not only a profound ignorance of what neurodivergence actually is, but also a disturbing ideological agenda that seeks to pathologise and delegitimise difference. Their statements aren’t just “misinformed” — they’re actively harmful, built on a foundation of eugenicist nostalgia and neoliberal productivity metrics, where human value is equated with economic output.
Let’s be crystal clear: autism, ADHD, and other neurodevelopmental conditions are not “mental illnesses” nor the result of some fashionable epidemic of mollycoddling GPs. These are lifelong neurobiological variations, well documented in scientific literature and recognised in international diagnostic standards like the DSM-5 and ICD-11. Suggesting they’re simply being “handed out” by GPs over Zoom is not just wrong — it reveals a total failure to grasp how incredibly difficult it is for families to access diagnoses in the first place.
The truth is the opposite of what Farage claims. Diagnosis in the UK is a gruelling, often years-long process involving educational psychologists, speech and language therapists, clinical psychologists, and psychiatrists — not a kindly family GP scribbling a note. And many are still waiting, stuck on waiting lists that can stretch years. It is not over-diagnosis that is the problem — it is under-recognition, late diagnosis, and chronic underfunding of specialist services.
What’s truly dangerous about Farage’s rhetoric is that it plays on a toxic fantasy: the idea that acknowledging someone’s difference is equivalent to labelling them a “victim” — that recognising neurodiversity is somehow a conspiracy to create a generation of weaklings dependent on the state. But people don’t become “victims” because they receive support. They become victims because they are denied it. Because they are told, like Farage tells them, that they’re faking it, that they’re a burden, that their struggle isn’t real.
And then there’s Badenoch, whose language is laced with the same neoliberal suspicion of equity. To her, reasonable adjustments — the bare minimum required by law to ensure access — are “advantages.” As if being permitted to learn in a way that fits your brain, or having a taxi take you to school because public transport is impossible to navigate, is some unfair leg-up. She frames disability rights as a form of cheating. That’s not just offensive — it’s authoritarian.
Farage and Badenoch aren’t making innocent mistakes here. They are pushing a narrative that frames disabled people as inconvenient, expensive, and suspicious. They see diagnosis not as a means of access and understanding, but as a threat to the rigid, economically conformist society they wish to preserve. And like all authoritarian thinkers, they aim to erase what they cannot control or comprehend.
This isn’t just about ignorance — it’s about power. And it should terrify anyone who values compassion, individuality, and truth.
Farage was at his worst, yes. But what’s more terrifying is that he was also at his most revealing.
Thanks
This is happening in step with similar developments in the USA, where the bizarre Robert F Kennedy Jr is calling for people with autism (which he is apparently sceptical about) to be enrolled in some kind of register. Shades of the 1930s. We should not suppose these evils are confined to England: the Atlanticist shadow dance (ever more fascist) has been going on for several decades as US political and economic assumptions and culture embed themselves throughout the West.
Thank you, many good responses to Richard’s sound analysis. Wait for NHS diagnosis 2 years in my county (as of 2019). Diagnosis as older adult – grief and relief. I’m still cautious about who I tell, but try to if relevant as I want understanding to grow.
Wise to be cautious.
The biggest problem for most neurodivergent people is indifference, contempt or abuse from neurotypicals, not the condition itself.
Farage is a disgrace. All he is doing is telling people who are not being supported that others have a passport to better treatment than them with a diagnosis of some kind, as though the diagnosis is being used for ‘queue jumping’.
It’s all very negative and divisive as well as based on lies.
He is a reprehensible piece of shit isn’t he?
All I see at the post Covid workplace these days is everyone recognising neuro-divergency except in one area: how that divergency affects learning your job. All this working from home and interaction through online training courses and teams meetings is not helping.
“He is a reprehensible piece of shit isn’t he?”
Could not have said it better myself.
“All this working from home and interaction through online training courses and teams meetings is not helping.”
Noe Schitt Sherlock!
It works for some
I hated offices
Working from home works very well for me – I’m a mainly online ESOL teacher. I’m not that bothered about what suits property-owning Tories who want everyone back to the office to justify their portfolio investments.
Should say “fit only for”.
If only we had someone with your empathy and compassion within the current government Richard, instead we have fascist adjacent Kendall and Reeves with their obsession of categorising individuals along with the disabled around their ability to work, something practiced in 1930’s Germany with deadly outcomes for the disabled if they were deemed unfit to work.
The media and political class are so detached from the realities of obtaining a diagnosis or help for ADHD or ASD, I’ve been waiting nearly 2 yrs for an assessment.
All I can say is good luck.
And the Labour government aren’t doing much differently with their ‘Wellbeing’ and Schools Bill. Doing their level best to remove the rights of many send and autistic children and their parents under the guise of free school meals
It seems leaders of political parties don’t understand the system that they set out in statute, and what’s implicit within this is worrying.
Positioning GP’s, and vulnerable children as culpable for the problems is just wrong.
EHCP (see below) were extended in England to 25 years, in recognition of the huge barriers young people with SEND face when they turn 18 years. For them and their families it feels like falling off a cliff edge, children’s services pull away and they are left with depleted, confusing adult services. Young people with autism and other SEND are all different, just like non-autistic people. After 18 SEND young people and their families want a good life like everyone else, to be active and where possible have employment, but many face multiple barriers on just the basics. They can’t drive, their parents work, and their local bus service has gone; or there is no training and employment opportunity in their area.
Farage saying GP’s diagnosing on a zoom call is just not how it works. He’s wrong.
In England, some children and young people with SEND with higher need have a process called an educational health and care needs assessment (EHCna), which might or might not lead to an EHCP (educational, health and care plan). As its title clearly states, it’s a multi-disciplinary assessment – in health it’s community paediatrics and speech therapists who are usually more involved, not GP’s.
This SEND process is co-ordinated by local government education services: where independently licensed educational psychologists, employed by local authorities provide an educational psychology assessment and advice to the LA.
Educational psychology is not a profession which ‘diagnoses’ any condition, they work collaboratively to assess strengths / difficulties, provide a formulation and plan to assist progress. Assessment is just one aspect of the role (it used to be a lesser part of the role) the other part which used to be much larger, is prevention – to help children and young people thrive.
What the politicians are not talking about is why the numbers of children with SEND are growing.
This issue is inter-acting and multi-factorial. The numbers have long been rising – Covid was an accelerant; EHCP’s extended to 25 years, it was formerly 18 years (1 reason above); better awareness and understanding of SEND amongst parents and many professionals; children with more complex conditions are living longer; constraints on funding within schools and other services; constraints on curriculum so harder to make preventative adjustments, EHCP’s are statutory so one of the few remaining services and funding sources left, Covid and inequality impacts, decrease in preventative work due to ‘efficiencies’, turnover of frontline workforce retention and recruitment difficulties, funding issues in educational psychology; ideological driven social and educational initiatives from Westminster which ignore the international evidence-base of what works well.
In respect of these politicians’ comments on mental health diagnosis – poverty is a causal factor, not correlational it’s causal, a causes b, poverty causes depression, anxiety, psychosis etc. Why don’t they talk about that?
Having worked in children’s services, the most powerful context influencing children’s development and educational outcomes is the neoliberal experiment which has been running in the UK for decades now. We and our children are the lab rats. These are the outputs of the experiment.
We just need to look to other countries’ outcomes for children. UK is simply not doing as well as it should compared to its economic neighbours; in many parts of the UK the outcomes for children and young people are shocking. 1 in 3 children live in poverty, majority where one parent is working.
A child’s development happens just once, what happens over this critical sensitive period has a long-reach into the human life-span. We will be living with what’s been done to our children for a long time. None of this is their fault. They can’t vote, they have no political or economic power; they are totally dependent on us – the adults – to protect them and offer them the best chance possible to help them thrive.
Every Child Matters – like adults, they are all unique, and all can make a contribution to the good life we should be creating for all of us, not just the few.
If we don’t believe that every child matters the assumption then becomes just some matter, and that assumption is deeply worrying.
Thanks and much to agree with.
Thank you for featuring SEND children, and for FtF.
You help me sleep better at night, in a world that feels frightening FtF brings hope 🙂
Thanks
Farage and Badenoch are just parroting what the Trumpists are saying and believing in the US. For example, Robert Kennedy Jr – now Secretary of Health – has ‘promised’ Trump that by September they will have identified the ‘environmental toxins’ (his words) that are causing the ‘epidemic’ (again, his words) of autism in the US. To this end he’s cut funding for ongoing research into other causes – for example, the work already done on identifying genetic contributors – presumably so nobody will contradict his ‘findings’ come September.
He won’t find them. I can guarantee that.
Of course not, but that’s not the point, as you know. It’s to muddy the waters and then launch into conspiracy theories about why he hasn’t found them. Plus he’s thinking of the various ‘schemes’ he can come up with to make money once he’s out of office. Hopefully, he’ll be yet another of Trump’s people who gets prosecuted for various offenses once we have a new President. Assuming we do.
Thanks
https://www.jrf.org.uk/child-poverty/special-educational-needs-and-their-links-to-poverty
“This report shows that poverty is both a cause and an effect of SEND and makes a series of recommendations, including:
Policy-makers and school and early years leaders should prioritise SEND.
Staff in schools and early years settings should be trained to identify needs so that they can be spotted early and over-identification and under-identification are reduced.
Targeted funding for pupils with SEND who are at risk of exclusion should be provided so that schools can support them before they are excluded.”
Noted
Thanks
“The suggestion made by Farage is utterly absurd. Start with the fact that he still thinks we have family doctors. We don’t.”
Did “Doc Martin” and “Call the Midwife” style healthcare delivery ever exist in the UK??? Did it ever exits anywhere??? It certainly NEVER existed in the USA.
Though I love both shows (have seen every episode at least twice), these shows make people nostalgic and yearn for something that never really existed.
With respect to neurodiversity, in the USA the “schools” try to diagnose the condition(s) as early as possible so the individual can be properly educated/trained to function in life after finishing K-12 at the age of 18. Many people who are neuro diverse go to Harvard/Yale/MIT and many become brick layers/carpenters/electricians/elevator technicians/premier plasterers.
In today’s USA economy some elevator technicians/premier plasterers have higher starting salaries than graduates of Harvard/Yale/MIT.
It really is a toss up as too who is the more stupid with the lower IQ: Farage or Trump.
There were family doctors at the time doctors could do very little at all for people I.e. Until the 70s
They have not since then. In other words, you have to be quite old to remember it.
And if the US is so enlightened why the RFK approach?
The veterinary profession (both in companion animal and small animal practice) has changed over the last 100 years (within an almost totally “private” funding model (except for a limted amount of government mandated animal health programmes (epizootics, FMD, TB, Brucellosis etc), from the “family practice” model described so well by James Heriott (its all true!) to a profession now about 45% in the hands of venture capital, and bordering in some areas, on extortion. I started in the “family” model, and by the time I changed vocation in 1994, we were moving towards the other “financialised” model, and I was glad to get out. That process is now well advanced.
My view is that the old Heriott model of (private) family vets was far better than the current trends in (NHS) financialised GP practices. Heriott style vets made a living doing something they loved (and worked very hard doing it, alternate nights and weekends on call, after a full day working, no overtime, pay comparable to an HGV driver) whereas now, even in NHS human Gen Practice, it’s all about return on investment, maximising profits for contracted out services, meeting financial targets and manipulating patients to fit your financial model.
I mention this, just to give a point of view that sees a trend that is beyond the politics of “public/private” – that ignores the NHS side of the story, and looks at a parallel profession, to see the “financialisation” of what used to be a caring, albeit always privately funded, profession providing a very “family” service.
Thanks
“And if the US is so enlightened why the RFK approach?”
The RFK person CANNOT do due anything unless his mandates are tagged to additional Federal funding which any school district can refuse.
Education is a State and Local municipality issue.
90% of funding for education comes from State and Local municipality taxes.
The federal government only funds (with matching grants) Special Education, ESOL, DIE programs.
Some schools in “poverty stricken” areas do receive additional funding but it filters through the states.
90% of educational mandates are set at the State and Local municipality level.
Educational mandates set at the Federal level are mostly due to court cases…ie….”Brown vs, The Board of Education of Topeka Kansas”, Title IX funding, and M.A. vs. Newark Public Schools.
See:
https://edlawcenter.org/issues/special-education/significant-special-education-cases/
Useful….
The nail in the coffin of family doctors was the 1990 contract changes, bringing the market, removing the list size restrictions and abolishing the MPC that endeavoured to distribute GPs according to population need. The coffin was buried by the 2003 contract, which abolished both 24 Hr responsibility and personal lists. It also introduced the requirement to focus on screening the healthy for diseases they might never get, rather than treating the diseases as they presented. A slab of concrete the size of an airport terminal was the Lanlsey changes which removed any final link between primary care and initiating treatment
So yes family practice was the norm in the UK until the late 1970’s but came under sustained attack in the 80’s and 90’s and every change since then has made it harder to practice that kind of medicine.
Waiting lists have risen and confidence in Doctors has fallen over that time. It’s almost as if the UK politician class thinks a purely hospital based service would be more efficient and cost less.
It wouldn’t it would cost more. And lives are being lost as that transition takes place.
Ministers should think carefully before they make any further changes.
ADHD and autism are highly creative. As such, they threaten the neoliberal order. Such people have always threatened power.
No such truer words spoken. It is my great belief that my underemployment is due to this very reason, my inability to get promotion to manager, my inability ability to gain meaningful employment is all linked to the above statement.
I am a 36 year old independent audhd, with a postgraduate degree, a myres brigs INTP personality, 36 jobs, 18 voluntary positions, been self employed and have an intelligence that scares many. I am dangerous I am a threat, I can think and worst of all I can smell Bull-sh@@t. No one will employ me let alone be my friend or even stop to talk to me. I am too clever to enlightened,I threaten the perfect world order, the little system that keeps the hamsters in line.
Simon Baron Cohen for example on autism , it was his research in the 80’s, that has framed our views on autism and contributed and massively indoctrinated people to the current ideology that people have surrounding autism that farage is spouting.
I am king of heap, I have to be every other person apart from one has rejected my being, I know I’m dangerous, I know I am acid, that bitter taste, that runt of the litter, that speck on a shoe. But know this I am even more dangerous because I am aware.
And after kid starver and his merry band of idiots has further added to my heap I find myself merrily humming from the top of my heap “for us there is no tomorrow and that makes me dangerous”
Claire
I feel your anger
I agree with you about the ability and threat of autistic people, and how terrible Sacha Baron Cohen was – he was profoundly wrong with his theories of the mind.
But I suggest one thing. You might be the sane person. The rest might be those with problems.
Someone I know was once a manager in an IT unit.
Now and certainly in those days he wasnt up on Neurodiversity BUT his comment was that there were quite a few people who needed careful managing.
But clearly people are out there who can ‘deal with’ for want of a better word the situation on both sides.
There are jobs out there that are very suitable for, and forgiving of, ASD and ADHD. IT is one of them, the various engineering disciplines the other. I have noticed the engineers on my site have “quiet time”, reviewing documents, drawings, scopes etc, or we will all drift off to watch a beam lift or other interesting activity. Many project managers are on the spectrum. One of the best PMs I ever worked for likely is, which helps. When the person in charge is autistic, they get it. Working on the tools attracts lots of people with ADHD, for obvious reasons. I’m sure there’s many a contract that has turned a profit due to a brickie with ADHD and energy to burn.
Since the passing of the 1988 Education Reform/Deform Act and its implementation, with its intended student+ teacher learning conformity, imposed by OFSTED, both students and teachers have been objectified into mere submissive producers of doubtful educational data.
Alas beyond words, the persons who are the essence of learning, and its too distant relative, which is state education, are the students of all ages and the teachers of many and various types, have been so unwisely subordinated to the current authoritarian “educational” system/Procrustean Bed.
Such is the aim of all forms of authoritarianism which seeks and works, to impose uniformity and stultifying acceptance of unquestioning, dull obedience.
At our school, it was the effective policy that the curriculum was adapted and made subordinate to the needs and opportunities presented by each, individual, child and their socio- economic contexts.
Our school enjoyed the company and inputs of children from a very wide range of socio-economic backgrounds and physical and intellectual circumstances, yet, by subordinating the what to the who and adding such activities as full score musicals, roller skating and pupil presentations, no one left unable to read or perform to an audience.
“As you develop confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you can have fun, you can do amazing things.” (From Joe Namath)
Thanks
Did RFK suggest that he would find an autism cure by September?
He did say that he thought there was an environmental cause that he hoped to identify by September, and that might enable him to eliminate the exposures that caused them. I couldn’t find him talking about a cure. https://www.youtube.com/live/AG-zkALlAsU?si=jkXsQ6KsFDm4u9B0&t=2502
That sounds like he is suggesting a cure to me.
Eliminate the environmental cause and the problem is solved is the argument.
There is no environmental cause. People are wired to be ADHD and / or autistic, and thank goodness for that. We would still be socialising in caves otherwise.
I too looked for any suggestion of an imagined ‘cure’, however I don’t think he is at the moment suggesting one, although this might well be his eventual goal, heaven forbid. I was about to suggest that he might ask to test it on Mr Musk.
They are looking for correlations, which they will sell as causal.
OK
It’s quite simple – create a financial benefit for bring diagnosed with x, and the number of people f]getting diagnosed with x will go up.
Remove the financial benefit and the proportion being diagnosed will go down again.
There is no financial benefit from being diagnosed.
And anyway, you are not diagnosed with ADHD and autism. You are discovered to have them.
And the biggest problem people with these conditions have is abuse from people like you.
How do you live with your hate?
It’s quite simple – highlight a gross injustice being done to the vulnerable, and evil, small-minded, attention-seeking, organised and suspiciouly motivated, selfish bullies will gather to attack you.
I cannot tell you how lucky I was to have completed my education before the imposition of the populist and reductive National Curriculum.
The local primary school I attended in the 1970s was very close in spirit to the Montessori schools that people now pay to send their children to. All open-plan with mostly self-directed learning. Questions were always encouraged. It was a truly joyful place.
In the 1970s, I understand that delegations were sent to the UK from various countries to understand how we were able to achieve such a high degree of social mobility. This of course coincided with our high water mark in 1978, when we had (by many accounts) the most equal society in Western Europe – in terms of wealth at least, but arguably also in terms of opportunity. How quickly our gains can be squandered.
I always knew that I was a bit different. It didn’t need a label, but I now know that the label would be ADHD. That didn’t matter so much in that kind of education system. Enthusiasm and spontaneity were seen as good things in principle. Of course, there were rules to be followed. But the rules were self-evidently about the advancement of the common good, and so were almost universally observed.
These days, the dominant culture is one in which small-minded and unimaginative people manipulate themselves into positions of power. I need not name them. They use their mechanistic and legalistic rules to suppress those who can think and imagine, because such qualities are both alien and terrifying to them. How quickly our gains can be squandered.
Thanks
It seems others have said much of what I might have written though my heart is too full to express it, but I wanted to tell you I think this is one of your best ever posts. (Exhausted carer of an autistic adult.)
Beverley
Thank you
And thank you for caring
Richard
It surprises me that no one seems to have alighted here on the very obvious point is that what Farage is doing is making the case for CUTTING BENEFITS and help for the non-neurotypical. For him, as for the Right in general, the idea that some ordinary person is on benefits and not working is anathema. What’s the betting that he’s not nearly so exercised by tax cuts for the rich?
I think it’s got less to do with “cutting benefits” as with attracting attention, promoting populist disinformation, and gaining support, and then power, and with power, more money. Farage is more of a dangerous opportunist than an ideologue.
Of course, once in power, those financing him will do all those cuts and worse, but pinning Fa***e to any well argued ideology is like trying to nail jelly to the wall or pick up quicksilver.
Agree Robert – he is a cynical opportunitist who will flap his gums to order for anyone who pays him (although I think the xenophobia and racism are real). As you also say, though, those who pay him very much have an agenda.
Hi
People say I have some A- spectrum traits.
But they helped me to drive in new error free IT systems or sort out bought in package deficiencies. You just need a thick skin.
My friend works in outsourced excluded pupils territory. They should get 16 hours of weekly support but in practice its 2 hours after ‘outsource skimming’. The council still pay his wages, but after they are skimmed as well. What bothers me are 200,000 invisible children round the country not even ‘getting’ the two hours. How will they find any sort of ‘work’ in the future?
Jobs where you just needed to pull a handle all day and could survive have gone.
And ones where you are working with abstract concepts like ledgers can be A-I generated.
We need a new people focused work and play, liberally governed free-trade model.
The money needs to just go round and it has no needs or feelings. In an ecological way.
Thank you.
A great deal think about. I am doing that.
For a more a positive and ultimately optimistic view on neurodiversity and autism in particular, can I recommend John Harris’s book Maybe Im Amazed, about bringing up their autistic son and their shared love of music. Also book of the week on BBC Sounds and he has been interviewed. An inspiring and moving insight into the challenges and even the rewards of having an autistic member of the family.
As a political journalist, John Harris has always struck me as someone with great empathy for others, reflected in his series Anywhere But Westminster where he tried to understand and reflect in a non-judgemental way the lives and views of those usually ignored.
Thanks
I was bumped up a year at primary school and missed being taught reading. My parents got my grandmother to teach me reading from books, out of the library. I still have the book I learnt from, Mystery at Witchend by Malcolm Saville. So instead of learning the letters that make up the word I identify the word by it’s outline shape. I generally read at 100 pages an hour. The down side is that I can not spell words, the purchase of the BBC PC with a spell check was a god send.
I love reading despite having problems a school as being different, an obversly dangerous person. You can read a book while walking.
I trained as a mining engineer and worked at the Mufular mine in Zambia and then at Galmoy mine in Ireland, from construction , operation to close down, The icing on the cake was the the rehabilitated tailings dam has been designated as a wildlife reserve. I loved learning new engineering techniques and construction. Despite retiring some 10 years ago, I am a consult for the reopening the old Galmoy mine.
I have over 20,000 books, a mixture of real and e-books, with about 30% unread and of course the good ones to re-read.
I loved Malcolm Saville books. I remember ones set on the Long Mynd and Romney Marshes.
You do nit seem to have come to harm.
I am a slow reader. I wish I did not need to read every word.