The latest blue sky thinking from NL is get off incapacity benefits, get on yer bike and look for work… as boy, you will be healthy…so no need to clog up the NHS and be a burden to the tax payer. I think that sums up Andy Burnham’s impersonation of Norman Tebbit.
What I really really loathe about all these attacks by NL is the finger-wagging morality, lecturing people about their lifestyles. But how precisely is Burnham going to help people get fitter and healthier? He spends his time highlighting the cost to the tax payer regarding incapacity benefits and the cost to the NHS about Type 2 diabetes. Where are the proposals for low cost/free access to sport centres, more swimming pools as opposed to closing them down, importance of green spaces (not selling them to make a profit), information and education about food and diet because our relationship to food is utterly distorted under capitalism, just further comodification, eating habits are predicated around a kind of ‘rush rush rush’ mentality, not time to sit down, on the go as capitalism dictates. Burnham, like the rest of the object able NL clones, finds it easier to moralise people rather than look at the underlying reasons why people are on benefits and ill. Also, Burnham makes sweeping assumptions about illnesses and reverts to stereotypes, with this ‘oh they must be ill because they lead a sedentary lifestyle’…. And again, NL reverts to what it knows best, vilifying and stigmatising people with this catch-all, sicknote culture. It is like people are ‘swinging the lead’, not really ill, pulling the wool over their GPs and what is needed is a more draconian system that chucks people off the benefits system. I’m sure as well Burnham is playing to the right-wing populist media by denouncing people who are ill, hoping that it will prove to be a vote winner.
Burnham, really, should ask himself why Britain is currently in 21st place in Europe on activity levels. This is inevitably intertwined with rising inequalities, widening gap between rich and poor and so on. This level of antagonism will only lead to further feelings of inadequacy, mental distress, lack of self-esteem and confidence. Instead of finger wagging lecturing from Burnham he should think seriously about the impact of NL’s policies driven by neoliberal ideology on working class people…..
Neo-liberalism makes you ill. Yes physical activity is made expensive. People get stressed out despite the sedentary lifestyle that neo-liberalism encourages: you sit down for your work in a call centre ot in a delivery vehicle etc. You get very stressed while sitting down working. It also destroys your back. You then need to travel by car to work pumping fumes into the air that cause asthma. The cars also prevent childen playing in the street so they get fat on their psp devices. It also sells you food full of sugar and fat. Then it tells you off about the cosequences.
Sickening, just sickening.