This type of behaviour is an example.
Ministers are set to impose a “healthy food standard” that will force stores to curtail sales of sugary and salty snacks in favour of more fruit and vegetables.
Shops failing to meet the mandatory targets could face fines, which retail sources warned could see prices rise.
The measures will form the backbone of a 10-year plan to improve the nation’s health, which will be unveiled by Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, this week. Downing Street hopes the changes can help avert the need for future tax rises by slashing the £11 billion a year that obesity costs the NHS.
But senior retail figures said they had been blindsided by the “draconian” plans, which they said would add to a growing glut of red tape on business.
As is always the case with politicians and civil servants who are immune from the realities of daily life, they expect to issue a 10-year plan and targets without having the first clue about how this will be achieved, not the first inclination that what we eat is none of their goddamned business.
One called the proposals a “nanny state” policy, while another industry source warned that the measures were being “propelled by food propagandists” who did not believe in people taking responsibility for their own diets. …
Well, quite, but when has that stopped them?
Under the proposals, it will be left up to supermarkets to decide how they meet the requirements. Retailers could change the recipes of own-brand products, target discount offers or award shoppers more loyalty points for choosing healthier options. …
As I said, clueless. They have issued a diktat and expect others to make it work or be punished for it. Kafka couldn’t have dreamed this one up. Anyway, my approach is the same as it always is: I will do as I please and they can go hang.
Why?
Why?
Why?
“The nation’s health”? What kind of talk is that? And they’ve the gall, the sheer unadulterated brass neck, to call everyone else “far right”.
What is it with these mindless drones?
Plans, plans, plans. 4 year, 5 year, 10 year……..
That and tax. Truly two cheeks of a rancid arse.
Tax can cure everything, it’s just a matter of “nudge”.
But not with the crimes that people are actually concerned about. The “taxes” on the degeneracy that is turning this once great country into a third world sewer are essentially zero for a depressing range of crimes.
I don’t really need to elaborate in this forum but the laughable sentences – the “tax” – imposed for so many outrages.
Talk about fiddling while Rome burns.
I wish I could say better that than fiddling with kids. Buy as many sweets as you like, just not from a supermarket!
The best I can do is point to the late Grandad’s post from May 2013 titled ‘Choices’ https://headrambles.com/2013/05/24/choices/
Grandad said it all!
A quote from that excellent post:
“Nag, nag, nag, fucking nag.”
I just wish that I could figure out some way that we could fight back. If I owned a supermarket chain, Wes Streeting would be banned. Of course he could get his wife or some lackey to do his shopping for him but it would be enjoyable to refuse him service and tell him why.
“Wife” would be an alien concept to Streeting, husband however . . .
Of course if people paid extra to cover the cost of their obesity to the NHS there might be a more direct link. But politicians would fear criticism for showing discrimination. Far better to get some (imaginary) bloated plutocrats to police the shopping baskets.
It’s not so much ‘class war’ as a ‘special retail operation’.
Maybe the sweety aisle could have a really narrow entrance so that only thin people can get in.
i don’t even…
oh for fuckz sake.
just why?
well, we all know the answer. they’re dictatorial little shits who enjoy trying to tell people what to do.
I’d call them fascists but that would be an insult to the good name of fascists…
how do they even expect it to work and how is it supposed to work?
if I go and buy some food from the supermarket, how are they meant to know how many meals or people it’s for?
we have much bigger problems. it’s fiddling while Rome burns.
can’t wait til I can retire. I think I’ll move somewhere with individual freedom. North Korea maybe.
You are missing the point, they won’t expect it to work but if they make it too confusing they can sting the supermarkets, it’s another indirect tax. Look at their balls up over manufacturers being fined a hefty penalty if they were not selling enough electric cars, they pre-registered them, they didn’t sell now there are hundreds if not thousands parked up on old airfields and suchlike, very eco friendly. Bastards.
A customer only buying a packet of sugar, a packet of salt and a pound of lard will have the klaxons sounding in the local Gesundheitspolizei bunker, and an armed riot squad will be securing every store exit before self service station has issued a receipt.
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“Lay down your glocose, sodium chloride and triglycerides then lie face down with your hands behind your head.”
A 10 year plan? Why not a 5 year plan? Too Soviet?
er…don’t supermarkets already have huge sections devoted to fresh fruits and veggies? And freezer sections full of fresh frozen fruits and veggies? And even entire sections devoted to the canned (tinned) variety of fruits and veggies? Maybe many people just don’t want to buy fruits and veggies and would rather purchase a bag, packet, or box of something else instead? There’s a large population that definitely don’t want (or know how) to prepare said fresh fruits and veggies.
The fresh stuff spoils quickly, so it would be wasteful to force supermarkets to carry large amounts of perishables people don’t want to buy. Because this is not going to change consumers’ minds. It’ll just damage the food providers. Which is prolly what they want.
The supermarkets won’t have too much of a problem with this – just add the paperwork to the load of the compliance departments they already have, refuse to stack shelves with “unhealthy” items until enough “healthy options” have been sold, and put up prices to cover it all. I can see it ruining little local businesses like the bakery my neighbour’s family runs, that makes them a living selling sweet sticky cakes and would never in a month of sundays be able to do any of that.
Of course, Labour has always hated independent businesses.