‘Don’t man up, talk it through’ – men urged to confront mental health problems
It’s a rare thing, a group of men in a room, talking about their mental health. They have all led difficult lives, and they don’t usually talk about it.
They throw a ball around the room to indicate whose turn it is to speak. “When a man talks about his emotions he is often told, ‘don’t be a girl… man up’,” offers one participant, Harry Lambert.
He has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and describes not airing problems as like “allowing a poison to build up inside”.
Harry Lambert has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder
This mentoring weekend, offered by the charity Oak London, is an opportunity for these men to release some of that poison.
Charities warn this time of year can be extra difficult for those struggling with their mental health.
Men are more likely to go missing, sleep rough, and become dependent on drugs and alcohol – all contributing to a higher suicide rate compared to women. It is the most common cause of death for men under 50.
In the room with sofas around the edge, the men – mostly in their 20s – have come from various unstable settings.
Some are referred from probation services, others have been homeless and responded to flyers put out in London hostels offering a retreat to Bristol and a weekend to “escape your everyday surroundings” and “develop your relationship with yourself and others”.
The first section of the session is about recognising the stereotypes of manhood. Participants offer up words for the whiteboard – including dominant, macho, stoic.
Physically, all of them size up more than most to these expectations, but as their tattooed hands write down shortcomings on pieces of paper, the insecurities come to light.
“You make people scared,” one writes.
‘A lot of people don’t show emotion’
This prompts a discussion about how they should respond when someone is visibly scared of them as they walk down the street.
“I feel like if I’ve scared you, I feel like the one thing I don’t want to then do, is approach you and say, like, ‘sorry’.”
The other men agree this wouldn’t work, but all recognise the sense of isolation their physical appearance can create. At the same time, they accept, they often want to look tough.
“A lot of people I know, they don’t show any sort of emotion,” says Shareef Venson, an ex-participant and now helper.
“But you can see that they’re struggling with certain issues. It’s just that they feel like they can’t physically show it.”
Several factors that affect men’s mental health
Benjamin Kuti, a soft-spoken young man, had a difficult childhood, often without his mother present. He has dyspraxia but says many factors can play on his mental health.
Benjamin Kuti says many factors can play on his mental health
“Being unemployed, for example, or even just being isolated. That can just impact your psychological state. It’s a very small, blurred line. I really struggle to create meaningful relationships with people where it’s like, this person actually sees me, or this person actually likes me – for me.”
Wealth, and failing to accumulate it, is another recurring theme.
The handwritten sticky notes are attached to bricks and Shareef stands in the middle while the men pile them into his arms saying the words on the paper: “You scare people”, “you failed in your job”, “you have a low self-esteem”. One of the last ones reads, “you should jump”.
Loaded up with all the notes a mentor asks Shareef: “How would it feel going for a job carrying all those bricks?”
“I wouldn’t apply for anything,” he says.
One of the exercises the men do to tackle their mental health struggles
And so, the lesson is to try to remove them, reject them, pass them back, put them on the floor, share them out, so you carry fewer.
Rare opportunity to talk about struggles
Mental health among men often goes undiagnosed. Only about half of those suffering from a mental health problem seek help. That means they often carry the burden alone.
Jos Lucas, founder of Oak London, says: “Because we’re outside of London, outside of distractions, outside of people having to look over their shoulder every minute… I think it naturally happens, in group discussions, that people do feel that they can trust each other, they can talk about things that they might not otherwise have the opportunity to talk about.”
Jos Lucas, founder of Oak London
Harry, who has self-harmed and struggled with depression and anxiety since the age of 13 says he didn’t get a diagnosis for his personality disorder until he was 19.
He describes his symptoms as “heightened anxiety, heightened depression, major mood swings, manic episodes and extremely depressive episodes, along with things like suicidal thoughts and tendency to things like addiction”.
He is still on the waiting list for therapy. The conversations he has had with other men at the Oak London project have been some of the most open and honest he’s ever had.
‘I can talk openly without being judged’
He said: “A lot of times you talk to your friends and especially with men, you talk to them and say, how are you doing People say ‘Yeah, I’m good,’ and they won’t be good because they think you either don’t care or they think you don’t hear it, or they’re worried that you’re going to judge them.”
“Whereas here in Oak London, this is the only place I’ve ever been to where I felt I can go and I can talk openly without being judged, while trying to help other people and help myself.
“It’s okay to be vulnerable. And I think that’s the message that urgently needs to be out there, because there’s so much stigma around how a man needs to be dominant, masculine and stoic, but if you’re an emotional man, a sensitive man, embrace that, that’s okay. And if you feel like you want to talk, talk to someone.”
Back in London, life’s troubles await these young men but addressing them by saying them out loud, and hearing of them in others, may just help.
UK
Government draws link between good weather and small boat crossings – but they are rising during bad conditions too
A new Home Office report has linked the UK’s balmy start to 2025 to a dramatic rise in the number of small boat crossings when compared to the same period last year.
However, analysis by the Sky News data team shows that there has also been a big rise in crossings on days when the weather has been poor.
A record 11,074 people arrived in small boats before May this year, a rise of almost 50% compared with the same period last year.
According to the Home Office figures, 60 of those days this year were classed as “red days” – where Channel crossings are more likely because of good weather – compared with just 27 last year.
In a new report released today, the Home Office says that the doubling of red days from January to April 2025, compared with the same period in 2024, “coincides with small boat arrivals being 46% higher” over that period.
Our analysis, using similar criteria to the Home Office, but not attempting to directly replicate their methodology, agrees that there have been an unusually high number of days this year when the weather makes for good sailing conditions.
But it also shows that there are significantly more people making the crossing when the weather is not ideal – a rise of 30% on last year, and more than double compared with the year before.
We’ve classified the weather as being favourable on a day when, for several consecutive hours early in the morning, wave height, wind speed, rain and atmospheric pressure were all at levels the Met Office says typically contribute to good conditions for sailing. There’s more detail on our methodology lower down this page.
There is a clear link between better weather and more people arriving in the UK on small boats.
An average of 190 people per day have arrived so far this year when the weather has been fair, compared with 60 on days with less consistently good conditions.
But if we look just at the days when the weather is not so good, we can also see a clear and consistent rise in the numbers over time.
That average of 60 arrivals per “low viability” day is a rise of more than 30% on last year, and more than double the 24 that arrived on each similar day in 2023.
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UK sees new Channel migrant record
There are a range of reasons why more people could be crossing on bad weather days.
Smuggler tactics are changing, and Home Office data shows severely overcrowded boats are becoming more common.
In the year to April 2022, just 2% of boats had 60 or more people on board, compared with 47% in the year to April 2025.
In other words, in the space of three years, the number of boats with more than 60 on board has gone from 1 in 50 to every second boat.
Dr Peter Walsh, senior researcher at the Migration Observatory at Oxford University, told Sky News that a rise in demand due to geopolitical issues, like the situation in Afghanistan, may be a factor, but that it is interesting that illegal entries to the EU are down while they have risen in the UK.
What is the Home Office doing?
The current government has placed a major emphasis on disrupting the smuggler gang supply chains to restrict the number of boats and engines making it to the French coast.
Part of the problem is that French authorities are unable to intercept boats once they are already in the water, which is believed to have been exacerbated by good weather.
The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has confirmed the French government is reviewing its policies after she pressed for a law change that would allow police in France to apprehend migrants in shallow waters.
The Home Office released figures on Thursday that revealed France is intercepting fewer Channel migrants than ever before, despite signing a £480m deal with the UK to stop the crossings.
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‘Britain has lost control of its borders’
How are we defining good and bad days?
The Home Office says that its assessments of the likelihood of small boat crossings are passed to it by the Met Office.
“A Red, Amber, Green (RAG) daily crossing assessment is produced of the likelihood of small boat crossing activity based on the forecasted wave height and other environmental and non-environmental factors; such as rates of precipitation, surf conditions on beaches, wind speed and direction, open-source forecasts, and recent trends.”
We’ve not tried to replicate that methodology directly. But we’ve looked at Met Office categorisations for wave height, wind speed, atmospheric pressure and rain, four factors that each contribute to fair conditions for sailing in a small boat.
They say a wind speed of 5m/s is a “gentle breeze”. They classify precipitation as at least 0.1mm of rain per hour. If the “significant wave height” – the height of the highest one third of waves – is below 0.5m, they say that’s “smooth”.
Standard pressure at sea level is 1,013hPa, and high pressure “tends to lead to settled weather conditions” . We’ve set the minimum pressure at 1,015hPa, on the high side of standard, and used the thresholds listed above for the other metrics.
We’ve categorised a “high viability” day as one in which all four of those conditions were met in the Dover Strait for at least four consecutive hours, between 2am and 6am UK time.
A “low viability” day is where there is no more than one hour during which all those conditions were met. And “medium” is when the conditions are met for 2-3 hours.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
The UK will be forced to agree this month to increase defence spending to 3.5% of national income within a decade as part of a NATO push to rearm and keep the US on side, Sky News understands.
The certainty of a major policy shift means there is bemusement in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) about why Sir Keir Starmer‘s government has tied itself in knots over whether to describe an earlier plan to hit 3% of GDP by the 2030s as an ambition or a commitment, when it is about to change.
The problem is seen as political, with the prime minister needing to balance warfare against welfare – more money for bombs and bullets or for winter fuel payments and childcare.
Follow live updates: Does the UK need an ‘Iron Dome’ system?
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during a visit to a military base training Ukrainian troops in April. File pic: PA
Sir Keir is due to hold a discussion to decide on the defence spending target as early as today, it is understood.
As well as a rise in pure defence spending of 3.5% by 2035, he will also likely be forced to commit a further 1.5% of GDP to defence-related areas such as spy agencies and infrastructure. Militaries need roads, railway networks, and airports to deploy at speed.
This would bolster total broader defence spending to 5% – a target Mark Rutte, the head of NATO, wants all allies to sign up to at a major summit in the Netherlands later this month.
It is being referred to as the “Hague investment plan”.
Asked what would happen at the summit, a defence source said: “3.5% without a doubt.”
Yet the prime minister reiterated the 3% ambition when he published a major defence review on Monday that placed “NATO first” at the heart of UK defence policy.
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What’s in the UK Strategic Defence Review?
The defence source said: “How can you have a defence review that says NATO first” and then be among the last of the alliance’s 32 member states – along with countries like Spain – to back this new goal?
Unlike Madrid, London presents itself as the leading European nation in the alliance.
A British commander is always the deputy supreme allied commander in Europe – the second most senior operational military officer – under an American commander, while the UK’s nuclear weapons are committed to defending the whole of NATO.
Even Germany, which has a track record of weak defence spending despite boasting the largest economy, has recently signalled it plans to move investment towards the 5% level, while Canada, also previously feeble, is making similar noises.
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Is the UK battle ready?
The source signalled it was inconceivable the UK would not follow suit and said officials across Whitehall understand the spending target will rise to 3.5%.
The source said it would be met by 2035, so three years later than the timeline Mr Rutte has proposed.
Defence spending is currently at 2.3%.
A second defence source said the UK has to commit to this spending target, “or else we can no longer call ourselves a leader within NATO”.
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PM challenged on NATO, defence and Gaza
Read more:
UK to build weapons factories
Russian-linked hackers targeted MoD
Sky News’s political editor Beth Rigby challenged the prime minister on the discrepancy between his spending ambitions and those of his allies at a press conference on Monday.
Sir Keir seemed to hint change might be coming.
“Of course, there are discussions about what the contribution should be going into the NATO conference in two or three weeks’ time,” he said.
“But that conference is much more about what sort of NATO will be capable of being as effective in the future as it’s been in the last 80 years. It is a vital conversation that we do need to have, and we are right at the heart of that.”
New Sky News podcast launches on 10 June – The Wargame simulates an attack by Russia to test UK defences
Mr Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister, said last week he assumes alliance members will agree to a broad defence spending target of 5% of gross domestic product during the summit in The Hague on 24 and 25 June.
NATO can only act if all member states agree.
“Let’s say that this 5%, but I will not say what is the individual breakup, but it will be considerably north of 3% when it comes to the hard spend [on defence], and it will be also a target on defence-related spending,” the secretary general said.
The call for more funding comes at a time when allies are warning of growing threats from Russia, Iran, and North Korea as well as challenges posed by China.
But it also comes as European member states need to make NATO membership seem like a good deal for Donald Trump.
The leaders of all allies will meet in The Hague for the two-day summit.
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The US president has repeatedly criticised other member states for failing to meet a current target of spending 2% of national income on defence and has warned the United States would not come to the aid of any nation that is falling short.
Since returning to the White House, he has called for European countries to allocate 5% of their GDP to defence. This is more than the 3.4% of GDP currently spent by the US.
Mr Rutte is being credited with squaring away a new deal with Mr Trump in a meeting that would see allies increase their defence spending in line with the US president’s wishes.
The NATO chief is due to visit London on Monday, it is understood.
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