Full extent of sick-note Britain revealed

We already know that Britain has a massive sick-note problem but we did not, until today, know just how large. Every three months, the ONS surveys 35,000 people and uses the results to guess how many (for example) are not working due to long-term sickness. That figure had been 2.6 million. But it has today been revised upwards by 200,000 – equivalent to the population of Norwich or Aberdeen – to 2.8 million. The chart of those too sick to work, already one of the most alarming in UK economics, now looks even worse.