Shadow UK health minister Wes Streeting has claimed that a ‘crisis in masculinity’ is costing lives. To address this, he unveiled Labour’s men’s health strategy earlier this month. This will involve expanding NHS health checks in ‘men-friendly spaces’, like sports grounds, pubs and workplaces. Above all, Labour wants to encourage boys and men to be more open about their mental health. Apparently, men are still too reticent, too prideful, to talk about and confront their mental-health problems.

Be more open about mental health – is that even possible? Today’s Britons – and that includes men – have never been more willing to divulge the details of our mental-health struggles. We are bombarded by mental-health awareness-raising campaigns from charities, tech platforms and celebrities. Diagnoses of mental-health conditions are soaring, especially among young males. And prescriptions for anti-depressant drugs have risen by over a third in the past six years.

Yet while policymakers, state agencies, charities and a whole host of other organisations have ramped up the focus on men’s mental health, they have done so to little palpable effect. Men seem to be suffering from worse mental ill-health than ever before. In particular, men continue to account for three-quarters of deaths by suicide, a trend that has remained consistent since the 1990s. Suicide remains the single-biggest killer of men under 50, a stat that Streeting himself described as ‘shocking’.