What would Labour do?

31/10/23 . Blog

With an election expected within the year, thoughts turn to what the opposition might do to improve men's health. Fortunately, as far as Labour is concerned, we don't have to look too far.

In the Forum's archives, we have interviews with and articles by the minister for public health in the last Labour government. It was Yvette Cooper, now shadow home secretary. And she was very interested in men's health.

  • From 2000, an interview with Yvette Cooper in which the list of topics will be familiar to many: poor life-expectancy, access to services, heart disease, prostate cancer, the so-called crisis in masculinity and whether we need a minister for men.
  • From 2001, the Foreword to the first issue of the Forum's pioneering Men's Health Journal written by Yvette Cooper.

What will Labour do to improve men's health? These articles might help. 

Labour leader Kier Starmer

The Men’s Health Forum need your support

It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking.

In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to.

It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for.

We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing.

Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.

Registered with the Fundraising Regulator