Political prisoner, activist, journalist, hymn-writer, emerging thinktanker, aspiring novelist, "tribal elder", 2019 parliamentary candidate for North West Durham, Shadow Leader of the Opposition, "Speedboat", "The Cockroach", eagerly awaiting the second (or possibly third) attempt to murder me.
Tuesday, 5 December 2006
The madness behind the Mental Health Bill
Mental health policy in this country has long been dictated by a sort of political mental illness in itself, namely the belief that if the two front benches agree with each other, then that constitutes a consensus at large and "the centre ground", dissent from which is by definition extreme and insane. We also see the consequences of this warped thinking in so many other areas, of course.
I don't know where you get the idea that the two front benches agree with each other on the Mental Health Bill. They don't. See for example this Conservative press release on the subject. The Tories are largely following the line of the all-party pre-legislative scrutiny committee which looked at the previous draft Bill, and which was highly critical of both its broad thrust and its detail, and are tabling lots of amendments reflecting this.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of ways of criticising the Mental Health Bill, but claiming that it arises from a complacent cross-party consensus is entirely wrong.
They're not yet. They will be by the time a final Bill reaches Third Reading, even if the Tories have to go through the pretence of voting against it (although I doubt even that).
ReplyDeleteAnd anyway, I was talking about policy in general. Labour voted against Tory Mental Health Bills that cruelly dumped vulnerable people on the streets to harm themselves and others, but it has continued the policy once in office. And the Toies might vote against this Bill, but they have no intention of changing it of they ever got the chance.
Like so much else, in fact.