To take on the squalor in our towns and cities and to reject "unsanitary living conditions" wherever they were to be found. Because it was in all of our interests. It took at least thirty years for British politics to respond fully. It was only when unfit and unhealthy soldiers were sent to the Boer War and were unable to rise to the demands of the conflict that governments dared properly to act. In the 20th century, in the Great Depression of the 1930s, it was apparent that the patchwork of private and charitable health services was inadequate. But it took the Second World War and the great reforming Labour government that followed it, to rise to the task and establish the National Health Service. The 21st century challenge of mental health is as profound. Like sanitation, it is a massive public health challenge, affecting millions. Like the demand for an NHS in the 1930s, our national response is wholly inadequate against the scale of the challenge. In both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it took war to shock us out of complacency. This time we can't wait for greater crisis. We must act. It means changing the ways that we do things in this country so that we actually save money. And improve lives. But it requires us to break the taboos, to build a consensus for action, to change our NHS and to deploy all the resources of Britain -- a truly One Nation solution -- to put