As Guido noted, the knives were out yesterday following the unsurprising defection of former Rossendale and Darwen MP Jake Berry to Reform. Most reactions were a bit flat: “oh, hasn’t he already gone”…
Insiders point to the upcoming potential creation of a directly elected mayor of Lancashire. Angela Rayner is overseeing the reforms in the government’s programme on English devolution. Ironically, Labour is creating a mayoralty that Reform will have a very strong chance of winning…
The establishment of the mayoralty is controversial. It is currently unclear whether Labour will create the post from central government powers – or leave the decision to local authority leaders in the county. The new Reform UK leader of Lancashire County Council Stephen Atkinson, a former Conservative, has called for a public referendum on the matter. If that all goes ahead it could be game on for Farage’s party, but candidacy for such a powerful post would not be uncontested inside Reform…
Speaking on Times Radio, former Home Secretary David Blunkett spoke about overdiagnosis of mental problems:
“Let’s distinguish those who are really severely mentally ill, diagnosed with things that require prolonged medical and diagnostic treatment. My wife and I talk about this a lot, because she’s a retired GP, about the fact that you can be sad without being ill. You can be momentarily depressed because your boyfriend or girlfriend’s just thrown you and you’re not mentally ill. You can even have mild issues, which can be dealt with with the right kind of support, but it doesn’t make you mentally ill. So we’ve got a real task, I think, to get the psychology, if you like, of this over. But there are things where you definitely need medical intervention, and there are other things where you need good friends, you need good connectivity, and you need a job.”