The breakdown of the black community in order to maintain slavery began with the breakdown of the black family. Men and women were not legally allowed to get married because you couldn't have that kind of love. It might get in the way of the economics of slavery. Your children could be taken from you and literally sold down the river.

For families across the UK who are income-poor but more than that whose lives are blighted by worklessness educational failure family breakdown problem debt and poor health as well as other problems giving them an extra pound - say through increased benefits - will not address the reason they find themselves in difficulty in the first place.

Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.