Nanny Will Look After Us

The nanny state is writ large in the latest pronouncement about obesity:

Individuals can no longer be held responsible for obesity and government must act to stop Britain “sleepwalking” into a crisis, a report has concluded.

You what!?! Of course individuals are responsible for what they put in their mouths. No one else is. What kind of asinine fuckwittery is this? The formula is very, very simple – as pointed out by the Devil’s Kitchen who similarly appalled by this utter bollocks:

It’s easy: you eat no more than you burn: people generally do not need two big meals a day. It’s very simple really: if you eat more calories than you burn, you will get fat. It’s not a difficult concept.

Indeed. While there are people who have metabolic conditions that predispose them to obesity; ultimately, this formula is the answer – eat less, exercise more; burn off the calories that you take in. Like DK, I look around me and I do not see thousands of obese people. Indeed, by far, I see mostly slim people. Presumably I am not looking as hard as the authors of this report.

Still, what is to be done about this obesity?

Dramatic and comprehensive action was required to stop the majority of us becoming obese by 2050, they said.

Hmmm. These being?

The government pledged to draw up a strategy to address the issue.

Oh, God help us!

But, wait…

But the report authors admitted proof that any anti-obesity policy worked “was scant”.

Well, why the fuck do it, then? If it doesn’t work, leave well alone. In fact, whether it works or not, leave well alone because it is none of your fucking business.

Dr Susan Jebb of the Medical Research Council said that in this environment, it was surprising that anyone was able to remain thin, and so the notion of obesity simply being a product of personal over-indulgence had to be abandoned for good.

Well, Dr Jebb, I find it rather simple; at the risk of repeating myself, I eat no more calories than I burn off. It isn’t difficult. And it is a product of personal over indulgence and it is a matter for the individual. As for the costs – we pay for these costs ourselves in taxation. It isn’t free and perhaps the fact that it isn’t free should be more widely disseminated.

“The stress has been on the individual choosing a healthier lifestyle, but that simply isn’t enough,” she said.

Yes it is. Any attempt to intervene is poking your nose into peoples’ private affairs and is none of your business. I quote the Devil’s Kitchen again:

And the idea that people are not responsible for their own food intake is disgusting; have you heard of personal responsibility, you silly bitch. This is just more socialist claptrap.

STOP INFANTILISING THE POPULATION, YOU BITCH.

People are responsible for their weight, just as they are responsible for every other action that they take. The idea that the government should get involved in the very way that we eat is an unbelievable imposition: it is the most disgusting idea that I have heard since yesterday.

I’m afraid, DK, that you will hear yet another one by tomorrow, such is the control freakery inherent in this administration and those parasites who feed from it.

On the matter of government poking its nose (yet again) into our private lives, he draws our attention to Dawn Primarolo and the matter of the middle class tipple:

Drinkers in middle-class areas are more likely routinely to consume “hazardous” amounts of alcohol than those in poorer areas, research published today shows.

Social drinkers who regularly down more than one large glass of wine a day will be told they risk damaging their health in the same way as young binge drinkers.

Yes, well, that is their problem. Not that I’ve noticed any particular problem – apart, that is, from the purse-lipped totalitarian puritans of the Labour party who appear to think that no one should do anything that might conceivably bring them pleasure.

The figures will be used by the Government to target middle-class wine drinkers and to make drunkenness as socially unacceptable as smoking.

Dawn Primarolo, the Public Health Minister, said: “Most of these are not young people, they are ‘everyday’ drinkers who have drunk too much for too long. This has to change.”

Okay, now I’ve warmed up from annoyed to bloody furious. Just who the fuck is Dawn Primarolo to decide that “this has to change”? This is nothing whatsoever to do with Primarolo or anyone else. I don’t drink – don’t like the taste – but these people are enough to drive me to it. Alcohol has been socially acceptable since we first pressed the grape. Our near neighbours revel in it and it is not socially unacceptable to them (maybe my impending move to France is the right thing after all). Indeed, what is “acceptable” or “unacceptable” seems to drip like acid with some regularity from the mouths of New Labour apparatchiks – what we are talking about here is what they declare is acceptable or not; not what actually is; after all, that is a matter for the individual. People drinking the odd vino at home is no one’s business and it is certainly no business of the government. It is not up to government to have any part in what we ingest.

These people have been in power too long. They are starting to get used to the idea that they have the authority to decide how we should live our lives. They have no such authority and while there is breath in my body I will grant them none. My body is mine and what I decide to put into it – or how much – is a matter for me and me alone. I will not allow these bastards dominion over my body – ever. God, but I hate politicians and the hangers-on who brown nose them in the hope of getting their reports acted upon; the slimy underbelly of society that has now managed to gain control over our lives – and we, hapless fools, let them. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

Rope, politician, lamp post – some assembly required.

Edited to take into account the comment by Pete. Okay, now that makes more sense.