Comedian Geoff Norcott is right. We need to take men's health seriously – Euan McColm

Misogynistic ‘men’s rights’ campaigners are a problem, but it’s also important to have good-faith discussions about genuine problems like male suicide rates

Appearing on the BBC’s Politics Live show a couple of months back to promote his book, “The British Bloke Decoded”, the stand-up comedian Geoff Norcott was asked about the possibility of the UK Government creating the post of minister for men. Bravely, he shared his opinion.

He wasn’t, he said, totally wedded to the idea but he found the hostility towards it instructive. If, he said, it had been established that women were less likely than men to visit their doctor or to be able to maintain friendships, we might ask what societal issues had made this so. As it was, since those were issues disproportionately affecting men, there was a tendency to ask why they were doing it to themselves.

The reaction of fellow panellists on the programme was unsurprising. A female journalist questioned whether the idea of a men’s minister was anything more than an attempt to feed into a culture war narrative. A lot of ministers bandied about this idea in order to make an enemy out of women, she said.

Another guest, the Labour peer Frances O’Grady, conceded there remained problems with the way boys are raised – often, for example, being discouraged from revealing emotional issues – then, with a crunch of the gearbox, shifted the discussion. We had to talk about why women earned 15 per cent less than men, she said, and why most women experienced sexual harassment. Why didn’t Norcott, she asked, establish BASH – Blokes Against Sexual Harassment? It was possible, said the stand-up, to condemn sexual harassment of women and to discuss problems specific to men and how they might be addressed.

I felt rather sorry for Norcott. He’d made some perfectly valid points about men’s health – both physical and mental – and the discussion had quickly become about toxic masculinity. So, I was pleased to learn this week that the comedian is taking practical steps to raise awareness of – and raise funds to tackle – problems affecting men.

Norcott will host an already sold-out comedy night in London next April, starring a string of A-listers, including Katherine Ryan, Al Murray, and Romesh Ranganathan. All profits will go the The Men & Boys Coalition, an umbrella charity supporting men’s health and well-being initiatives.

It often seems that, when it comes to matters relating to men’s health, the conversation doesn’t proceed much beyond the need to have a conversation. The reasons are unsurprising. For one thing, it is undoubtedly true that – in countless areas – it is women who are at a disadvantage. Of course, tackling this inequality must be a political priority. It is also the case that a modern “men’s rights” movement, driven by misogyny, is disruptive to good-faith discussion of genuine problems.

We know that boys are more likely than girls to go off the rails during the transition from primary to secondary school yet politicians rarely, if ever, talk about how this might be addressed; we know that men are less inclined to seek medical help about health worries; and we know that suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50.

Geoff Norcott is right. Politicians should be able to find the space to address these problems without neglecting other important matters.