Alison Bennett's Monday Mail - An unexpected twist

Welcome to my Monday Mail. As Mid Sussex’s Lib Dem general election candidate, every Monday, I send a short email sharing a few of the things that I have been doing and thinking about in the last week.

An unexpected twist

This month, it will be two years since I was selected to be the Liberal Democrat candidate in Mid Sussex. In that time we have become the largest party on the District Council, gained control of Haywards Heath Town Council, retained control of Burgess Hill Town Council, and following favourable boundary changes, seen the sitting Conservative MP decide to stand for election elsewhere.

After Labour HQ announced in December that they were appointing candidates to their remaining ‘non battleground’ seats and putting Mid Sussex on that list, I had been anticipating that a Labour candidate would likely be announced around now. What I hadn’t been expecting was that the candidate would be a member of 90s Britpop band Blur. It got me reminiscing about a school trip to Iceland when I was 16: Mr Greenfield driving a minibus past incredible volcanoes and glaciers and my friend Jess putting Parklife on the tape player and us all singing Girls & Boys over and over again. I have to admit though that I was more into my homework than bands at school. So whilst I am looking forward to meeting the Labour candidate at some point in the campaign, I only have an Oasis album that I could ask him to sign.

Why is there a mental health crisis amongst our young people?

Growing up in the 90s might have involved plenty of homework for me and I accept that this was probably not typical, but I have been wondering how different it is being a teenager and young adult these days.

A recent report by the Resolution Foundation found that People in their 20s are more likely to be out of work because of poor mental health than those in their early 40s. I find this both really troubling and sadly unsurprising based upon the conversation I have with parents and young people who I know. I don’t normally share articles in this email that have really upset me, but I was beyond disappointed by Matthew Parris’s column in Saturday’s Times. Its dismissal of neurodiversity and mental health diagnoses felt like a knee jerk reaction to something that we ought to be asking harder questions of ourselves about. Thank goodness then for Caitlin Moran, who in the same edition spoke up for young people from a position of personal experience as a 90s teenager and a 2020s mother.

A (very) long read

One of Moran’s observations was about the crippling effect that expensive housing has on young people. If you are interested in learning why it has ended up like this, Why Britain doesn’t build gives an in depth analysis of house building policy over the last century. Put the kettle on first and give it the time it deserves.

Best wishes,

Cllr Alison Bennett
Prospective Parliamentary Candidate
Mid Sussex Liberal Democrats

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