There are some problems that are so vast, nobody ever quite manages to talk about them or even see them. One is long term sickness benefit, a separate welfare payment from unemployment pay. An astonishing 3 million people are claiming it, up by 1 million in just five years. Two thirds of the claimants cite anxiety or depression or some other form of mental problem. It costs £48 billion a year, more than we spend on the police.
These are some of the statistics that pepper Fraser Nelson’s Dispatches programme for Channel 4. A matter of weeks after leaving the editorship of The Spectator, he has taken to television, to explore the aspects of this apparently intractable problem which he has often discussed in print.
