(Image shows a white woman's hand reaching over a paper notebook to a laptop, holding a pen.) This piece will be discussing the UK Local Authority Elections which took place on May 7th 2026; in that sense, it is "political." However, political positions and political judgements will not form part of this post. In the course of my work identifying the overall problem (it usually only is one problem, just with many presentations) facing organisations, teams, and individuals, and working through the worst-case-scenarios to effective solutions, I've worked directly with serving Conservative councillors whose views very much aligned with the most right-wing positions in that party, and active members of Extinction Rebellion; my personal politics are irrelevant, the politics of the people I'm working with are irrelevant; there's a problem. My job is to solve it. Sometimes, political attitudes add to the problem, but they have never actually been the proble...
Split image on a blue background. Left side shows a white woman with long red hair, wearing a pinstripe suit, sitting at a desk with her head in her hands. Right side shows a man slumped forward with his head in his hands, setting across a table from an older woman. Tony Blair's centre-left think tank wants people with conditions like ADHD, depression, and anxiety to be actively prevented from claiming welfare assistance for unemployment. These conditions, the think-tank believes, are "not work-limiting." As someone with lived experience of severe depression with suicidal ideation, generalised anxiety disorder and social anxiety, who has never claimed any of these conditions mean I "can't work", and who generally takes the view that you "may as well go to work depressed and anxious - at least you get paid for it", I'd like to agree. I've been into work the morning after a failed suicide attempt. I've had a full on psychotic episode...