Politicians are losing their minds over childhood obesity with their policies on banning cartoons on cereal boxes
Cereal killer
OUR politicians are losing their minds over obesity.
Tony the Frosties Tiger has been around since 1952, the Honey Monster since 1976. Why weren’t kids obese back then? Because they did far more exercise, had no Xbox and only three TV channels.
But MPs believe it’s somehow Tony’s fault now if children over-eat and their parents cannot propel them off the sofa.
There is no evidence that banning cartoons from advertising cereals will have any beneficial effect. It is just one more random brainwave formed into anti-obesity policy by panicky, gullible MPs.
It cannot help that they mistake celebrity chefs and other lobbyists for experts on nutrition. Why is the Health Select Committee so in thrall to Jamie Oliver?
He’s a fine chef. Indeed Jamie makes a delicious muffin containing 436 gut-busting calories and a mountain of sugar, promoted by a Moshi Monster. It would be easy to call the man an ocean-going hypocrite, and we will.
His expertise lies in making tasty grub. Less so in running restaurants. None at all in the area of public health.
Our Government and MPs need to get a grip on themselves. The fizzy drinks tax is bad enough. Hiking the price of everyone’s grub and hammering food advertising is brainless, authoritarian, un-Conservative and doomed to fail.
More exercise is the key — not bans, heavier regulation and reckless taxes on simple pleasures.
Get tax down
WHEN did the Tories give up on low taxes?
Our overall burden, including every stealthy grab, has hit a 32-year high.
Yet Scots Tory leader Ruth Davidson wants to forget about cutting them and plough billions more into the NHS. Chancellor Philip Hammond, meanwhile, wants the State to rein in private firms.
Remind you of anyone? Corbyn would tax us to the hilt and crush private enterprise. The Tories are playing into his hands promising to be Corbyn-lite.
They should be Conservatives. Lower taxes. Put more money in people’s pockets, get the economy growing.
Voters like it. And what else are the Tories for?
NHS cash can come from other budgets, pending a total rethink of its funding.
End the secrecy
PAROLE Board members should be named. The Justice Secretary’s excuses won’t wash.
David Gauke claims they might be vulnerable to blackmail or threats from a criminal’s pals. How, if they are identified only AFTER a ruling? Besides, judges don’t hide behind anonymity.
Parole decisions have a huge potential impact on the public — as in the bungled Worboys ruling The Sun fought against.
People have a right to know who makes those calls, as well as why.
Open justice must trump the tiny possibility of some imagined risk to them.