Lib Dems are promising to revolutionise mental health care. This is opportunism, pure and simple

Given their record in government, any sane person would regard a pledge by the Liberal Democrats with a healthy dose of cynicism. Their latest hobby-horse is mental health; it has been the subject of several recent speeches and the issue has a dedicated page on their website. The ‘mental health action plan’ consists of seven pledges, most of which are pitifully vague.

For example, the pompously named ‘Crisis Care Concordat’ is about ‘making sure no one experiencing mental health crisis is ever turned away from services’. I’m not being flippant when I ask: what do they mean by ‘mental health crisis’? It’s not like diagnosing pneumonia or a broken leg. People manifesting symptoms of clinical depression or schizophrenia should obviously not be turned away, any more than anyone posing a suicide risk – and one hopes they aren’t. But does being messed up as a result of a night’s boozing and drug-taking count as a mental health crisis? Who decides?