New ‘minister for loneliness’ pledges to defeat endemic problem

Theresa May has appointed Britain’s first minister for the lonely in order to help continue the work of the murdered MP Jo Cox.

Sports and Civil Society Minister Tracey Crouch has been tasked with setting out a new strategy for helping the millions of people believed to be suffering from loneliness in the UK. Couch has been asked to pull together all strands of government, including the Treasury, the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions, to tackle the problem.

The Office for National Statistics “will help to devise a method of measuring loneliness, and a fund will be set up to allow government and charities to find innovative ways to deal with it”, says The Times.

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Loneliness was a key issue for Cox, who was murdered by a right-wing extremist during the EU referendum campaign in 2016, says Politico’s Jack Blanchard.

Professor Jane Cummings, the chief nursing officer for England, has said that loneliness can have a “devastating impact” on mental health and can also increase the risk of premature death by a third.

A study by the Co-op and the British Red Cross found that more than nine million people in the UK “always or often” lonely, while Age UK found 200,000 older people had not had a conversation with a friend or relative in more than a month.