Meddling in our lives

There is a mindset within the Department of Health and Social Care that should not be there. A group of people there, perhaps most of them, seem to think that it is their job to make people live as the Department’s personnel think they should live, rather than as people might choose to live. They use both punishments and incentives to bring this about.

The punishments they advocate, and sometimes secure, are things such as taxes on sugar and fizzy drinks and minimum pricing on alcohol. They want people made to feel bad about exercising their own eating and drinking preferences by requiring calorie counts on foods and in restaurants and pubs. The idea is to make people sufficiently guilty that they will no longer enjoy themselves when they do what they want to do instead of doing what the Department wants.

They seek bans on the advertising of what they call “junk” foods, ones that contain more fats and sugars than they would have people eat. In particular, they seek to stop advertising that might be seen by young people, so they try to secure laws that limit the times at which it can be shown. They sought, and still seek a blanket ban on the promotion of what they regard as unhealthy foods, and used a definition that would ban advertising the traditional foods that counties and localities take pride in, food such as Cumberland and Lincolnshire sausages, Cornish pasties, or Melton Mowbray pork pies.

There is scant evidence that advertising bans would be effective in changing behaviour. Estimates suggest that the ban on advertising the so-called “junk” foods to children might make a caloric difference equivalent to about one doughnut every three months.

The incentives, as opposed to punishments, they propose include discounts on clothes for those who can show they meet healthy eating targets, though it remains unclear how such records could be kept without intrusive surveillance into people’s lives. It is also unclear whether ten percent off T-shirts would lead people to avoid putting on weight more than the known drawbacks of obesity already do.

Obesity is indeed a problem, but these are not the ways to address it. The claim that curbs on freedom are justified because of the costs that would otherwise fall on the taxpayer is specious. If the aim were to save taxpayer funds, shorter lifespans would achieve far more savings on state pension payouts. It is not and never has been about money; it is about power. It is about using the power of the law to control what other people do and how they might live.

It is not an attitude that belongs in government, and it should be removed. Government may well advise us and publish information that enables us to make our choices with greater knowledge, but when it makes those choices for us, it steps over a line that should not be crossed in a free society.