It’s obvious that whomever wins the leadership we’re going to have to nurture a lot of new people (as well as the `old hands`. I think it’s important that we do so working with the grain of that individual’s personality to allow it to grow for the benefit of the Party. After all, celebration of […]
Opinion: A life discarded
View image | gettyimages.com Mr K. had arrived on the wing at Brixton Prison on the Friday. By Monday morning he was dead. He had managed to hang himself using a sheet tied around the window bars. No-one knew what time he had died. It would be interesting to know whether the inquest showed […]
Opinion: Ending mental health inequality
I joined the Liberal Democrats partially due to the importance that has constantly been put on mental health issues by the party. I have suffered from extreme depression and have ended up in A&E due to self-harm and suicidal thoughts. A couple of weeks ago I was officially discharged from psychiatry and I’m using my […]
Opinion: We made Mental Health an issue – now we must lead the fight to make it possible
Having worked as a frontline mental health social worker for the past 15 years, there was no-one prouder than I was to see Nick Clegg and Norman Lamb push mental health care (and its place within the NHS) up the political agenda . There is no doubt that without the determination of our gutsy Party, […]
Opinion: Conservative health policies are short on detail
What have the Conservatives said on health so far? Their manifesto makes big promises – but is vague on detail. NHS England’s Five Year Forward View called for £8 billion more annually by 2020 (alongside £22 billion efficiency savings) to maintain NHS standards. Liberal Democrats were the first to sign up to this – and […]
LibLink: Norman Lamb on a mission
View image | gettyimages.com Over on Huffington Post, Norman Lamb has written about his campaign to end discrimination against mental health. The Liberal Democrats are on a mission to end the discrimination against mental health. From Paul Burstow who changed the law to give mental health equality with physical health to my work ensuring […]
Opinion: First term councillor diary – mental health, the Council and me
In 1998 I lived 500 yards from Mick Philpott who was later convicted of killing 6 of his children. I’d met him on one occasion and was told even then he was an odd individual. Never did I expect to see him on the telly, but, having lived in that area, hearing what he had […]
Nick Clegg says: Employers must be equally supportive of workers with mental and physical health problems
I wrote the other day of my annoyance at the dreadfully stigmatising headlines about mental health in the wake of the Germanwings plane crash. It’s good to see that Nick Clegg has given quite a detailed interview reported on the Huffington Post while on the battle bus about this issue in which he said that […]
P-37: What are the Liberal Democrats talking about today? Mental Health and the manifesto for the mind
We’ll be having daily deeper and more detailed look at the party’s main theme. Today it’s mental health. Nick Clegg and Norman Lamb this morning said that Liberal Democrats (or should that be Democats?) would invest £3.5 billion in mental health over the next Parliament. Part of our record in Government includes securing £150 million […]
38 Degrees get it badly wrong on Lib Dem funding for NHS – but don’t do nearly enough to put it right
Everyone makes mistakes. That’s a fact of life. However, when you do, you need to properly acknowledge it and make amends. One of the key Liberal Democrat priorities for this election is that we would fund the £8 billion that the NHS in England needs. In fact, we’re spending more than that on health because […]