The Green Party is calling upon the government to introduce a three-day weekend, by arguing that it would help with physical and mental health issues.

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The 2020 manifesto pledge was introduced by Jonathan Bartley and Caroline Lucas, the Greens’ only MP, who asked, “What kind of country do we want to be?”

On the ‘Andrew Marr Show’, Bartley said:

We’re facing in the 21st century a very uncertain world with big pressures from corporate globalisation.

When I was a kid we were told there would be all this wealth created, we’d have this great technological advance, but you know what? What we’re seeing is just growing inequality and we feel that people are being short-changed.

We’re seeing a right-wing coup over Brexit which is taking us into an even more deregulated situation. Crashing out of the single market, crashing out of the customs union.

Meanwhile, Lucas said:

I think there’s a lot of evidence that suggests that when people are exhausted their productivity goes down. And what we’re suggesting here is that we are now the sixth-largest economy in the world.

People are working ever more hours, getting ever more stressed, getting ever more ill health, mental health problems as well. What we want to do is take a step back and think, ‘What is the purpose of the economy? What kind of country do we want to be? And do we really want a future where all of us are just trying to work even harder?’

We’re bringing our work with us every time we go home in the evenings, at the weekends.

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She’s got a point. Productivity has been proven to suffer when people are overworked. Theresa May – I think you should take this concept very seriously. Perhaps we should hold a referendum on it. It might be the first UK referendum in a while where people would actually feel satisfied with the outcome.

For more interesting Green Party policies, click HERE.