DEFERRAL, DON’T DO AND DELUSION
⏱ 7 min read
Is there a pandemic in the UK of a disease which leads people to prefer doing nothing to doing, saying no not yes and deferring decisions which might have real consequences? Is there a breakdown in facing reality and dealing with urgent problems? In a world of misinformation maybe delusion is merely a new state of happiness, comfort and dreams in place of actuality. Delusion and dishonesty are natural bedfellows.
WORKING FROM HOME: REAL PRODUCTIVITY
Angela Rayner, Minister for Housing, has declared that working from home is a good thing, more productive than civil servants attending the workplace. She encourages it. A mere 60% attendance is generally required but not it seems enforced. And she makes no reference or acknowledgement of the simple fact that the public sector is in productivity doldrums. According to Ernst & Young if public sector productivity had improved like the private sector in 2019-2024, GDP would have gone up by 3%.
Yet so much material is now produced indicating that, while in some cases a flexible approach to location of work is evidently in common sense cases helpful, in general WFH is damaging to businesses; and WFH is not good for employees. Chris Witty, Chief Medical Officer, (newspapers round 10 July) is reported as suggesting the sedentary life at home reduces life expectancy. A report by certain economists in the USA found a surge in mental health depression and loneliness was explained by WFH practices. Lack of human contact seriously diminishes wellbeing, and if Covid measures taught anything it is that humans need each other’s relationships, denied by WFH. EY also reports that WFH personnel need to get back in the office to learn the soft skills they must master to avoid being replaced by AI. Major companies such as Amazon, John Lewis, JP Morgan and WPP have reverted to fuller time office attendance policies.
But our civil service, and it seems the Government, fail to address the public sector issue. Delusional or don’t care. Or derelict in duty. Maybe too the NEETS problem is connected to lack of human contact.
DEFFERAL, NO DECISION, NO DO
The Starmer Government was, and perhaps now the Burnham era will be, diseased by inaction, indecision and procrastination on important issues. Perhaps denial of urgency. Starmer pretended the UK can defend itself against for example Russia and he said he was rearming the country appropriately, while not in fact doing so. Yet that was in the face of the Lord Robertson review: who in June 2025 shouted constantly with frustration that the UK cannot defend itself, the UK is in peril and the remedy was urgent. Nothing has happened of any consequence. Almost none of the UK’s infrastructure, such as power, water and telecoms, can be defended against ballistic missiles and so the UK is a sitting duck. It cannot retaliate as it has no such missiles either. Dereliction and delusion.
When it comes to the disastrous disease of young people out of education and work, dependent on huge benefit payments, Alan Milburn, commissioned to report, said in 2025 that welfare and other change was needed. His report so far confirms that. But his final report, before any real action is taken, is not even due yet. So, action deferred. Evidence is conclusive that mental health is the disease so many on welfare, including the young, now use to get State pay outs, in effect self-diagnosing incapacity and getting Personal Independent Payments, which would be better named Personal Dependent Payments. And yet so many would be better off in work or learning, and their subsidy is unaffordable. Four million people are now jobless with no requirement to look for work: yet Government seems to say this is acceptable by deciding no real plan or action to rapidly and substantially reduce the numbers.
An underlying delusion, simply being ignored it seems, is that a label of ADHD or autism or other categorisation, is often inappropriately applied to people. On 3 March it was reported that the number of young doctors who claim neurodiversity (is that a bad thing?) or learning disabilities to avoid work has doubled since the pandemic with the Faculty of Occupational Medicine reported to be concerned that doctors are gaming the system.
And more generally, a survey of 1000 GPs found that autism and ADHD diagnoses are being given to patients too easily and a report done for the Centre for Social Justice echoes that concern.
Claims for child disability allowance doubled from 420,000 in 2016 to 900,000 last year; seemingly not even means tested and mostly in the category of behavioural disorder.
Some medics question whether ADHD is a real medical disorder, for example, Dr Fiona Heath, once President of the Royal College of General Practitioners. Children are being condemned as SEND, mentally sick in effect, when they should not be, but are simply badly behaved or badly brought up. But it is as if fear grips people in authority that they may give offence or be attacked for suggesting it is time to get real and limit the cases.
The new PM says nothing is to be proposed to reduce the welfare bill until next year perhaps, despite, according to the Guardian, the fact that 1,000 people are being added to the disability and sickness benefits bill, such as through PIP, every day. And the longer a person is dependent on welfare the harder it is to get them off and working. Deferral means do nothing.
Social Care is a problem Andy Burnham is sworn to solve, but nothing is even contemplated until Dame Louise Carey finishes her review sometime next year, that is deferred; and maybe it’s delusional if he thinks this can be funded like the NHS, with a bottomless pit of taxpayer money.
With NEETS, worklessness and social care, with no decisions until next year at the earliest, actual action is unlikely before 2028 at the earliest and the effects of any action unlikely to be felt until perhaps 2029, or even later. And so, lack of urgency and decisions, deferral and don’t do mean visions of a transformed UK are as useful as Tik Tok is as a conveyor of information and truth, and in fact delusional.
DELUDING THE PUBLIC
The declared priority of Government is ameliorating the cost of living, while being committed to grow the economy and be pro-business. Ameliorating the cost of living so far has meant Government handouts of taxpayer money. The PM’s favourite economic adviser, Lord Jim O’Neil, once of Goldman Sachs, has said any tax rises, especially on wealth, would be stupid and will reveal that growth commitment is unreal. Yet how can tax rises be avoided while at the same time shelling out more money and refusing to address reducing the unaffordable costs of expensive energy, the welfare state, including pensions, and the unproductive public sector: it omens bad that the PM has, it is reported just agreed another generous pay rise for train drivers on the inefficient London-Manchester line with no material concessions in return.
Do the public really think that because Government bore the cost of lockdown for them it means Government will carry all unusual costs for example those caused by foreign wars? That is delusional. But it seems the new PM, like those before him, is cementing that delusion with promises to bear the cost of living. He should dispel it, not promise subsidies, and instead control inflation and reduce taxes. That way people will have more money in their pockets and choose their own solutions. Spreading delusion is to spread false hope and deceit.
See also: –
The Public to Restore Honest Order
Urgency – Key to Security and the Economy
Serious Debate to Replace Political Dystopia
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