TOO many Brits think it is “fashionable to have mental health problems”, Reform MP Lee Anderson has blasted.
The Red Wall firebrand is today expected to use his party conference speech to lambast the ballooning benefits bill and rise in sick claims.
In an interview with The Sun he drew a contrast to his career as a coal miner to warn the current generation has gone soft.
He said: “I don’t ever recall any of our team having a day off work ever because if you dropped a day off sick you didn’t get a day’s wages, simple as that.”
The Ashfield MP added: “It’s become fashionable now to have mental health problems, to have your own counsellor, to go for therapy, to have anxiety attacks, to get down to the local you benefit centre and sign on for PIP or ESA.
“It’s just fashionable. People complain about anxiety problems, and now I’m sure that back in the day in the village I grew up in where all the men worked down the pit and the women worked the factory, and they had nowt at the end of the week, I’m sure they were stressed, I’m sure they were anxious, I’m sure they had their problems.”
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“We didn’t whinge or complain… we just cracked on and got on with it because for us in that village that was normal.”
Spending on sickness benefits alone is forecast to hit an eye-watering £100billion a year by 2030.
Sir Keir Starmer was forced to abandon a £5billion package of savings before the summer amid a Labour MP rebellion.
Nigel Farage opens Reform’s conference in Birmingham today as his party opens up a 10-point lead in the opinion polls.
Ahead of the two-day get-together, Labour accused him of selling voters promises he could not keep.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed said: “Nigel Farage is a disgrace. All anger, no solutions.
“You can’t run a country with ‘don’t know’ answers. It’s time Reform came clean and gave the British public the answers they deserve.”
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