The Plymouth shooting is a symptom of Britain’s mental health crisis

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A candlelit vigil is held at North Down Crescent Park, Plymouth, on Friday for victims of the shooting

(Getty)

The horrific killings in Plymouth the other day will presage a number of official inquiries and one can but hope that a clearer picture emerges and action taken.

At the moment four questions enter my mind: firstly, as a nation, why have mental health problems – pre-pandemic, I must underline – escalated so much and so quickly; and is it connected to the proliferation of crazy conspiracy theories?

Why are our mental health services so woeful? This is not just in the last few years, the cut-backs started in the Eighties. Since then it has all been pure tokenism.