Voices We Should Safely Ignore

I've counted to ten so many times with this guy recently. Lord knows I've tried but, Jamie Oliver, please stop with this stuff already.

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has criticised sports stars David Beckham and Gary Lineker for promoting junk food.

The television presenter, who forced the Government to introduce nutrition rules in schools after highlighting the unhealthy meals served to pupils, has added his name to a letter which condemns the use of athletes in commercials.

Look, guys and gals, "television presenter" are the operative words here. Say it was "London Black Cab driver", what would be your reaction? Shut your trap? Couldn't agree with you more.

Especially since the country won't even listen to them on the subject of transport in London, yes. Perish the thought, eh?

So why is anyone listening to someone who has such a loose link with his subject matter, and seriously believes that the young will die before their parents because of a few cans of coke or a Big Mac here and there. The man is quite insane, or at the very least a bit of an easily-conned dick.

The letter, published in the Times, reads: 'On the eve of the London Olympics we, a group with a vested interest in improving the health and wellbeing of young people, express our grave concern about this trend.'

Well, we know what Jamie's vested interest is, don't we? It's shifted thousands of books via a TV series, and got him over to the US for another version ... where they told him to poke his mockney nose where the sun don't shine.

And why not? Because as others have mentioned, Jamie's brand of holier-than-thou is nothing more than self-aggrandising snobbery.

I mean, let's talk about Oliver's pristine credentials, shall we? This is the guy who is absolutely certain that he doesn't want things banned. Oh no, billy-oh.

A spokesman for Jamie Oliver, who has championed improved nutrition in schools, said: 'He is completely against a ban on butter. He uses butter in his recipes, for example for roasting potatoes in his Christmas programme.

'He doesn't like the whole kind of food police, we must ban everything, point of view.'

Course not, except when ... err, hold on, did that say "a spokesman for Jamie Oliver"? Good grief with bells on, that our sad bovine world has come to this.

I digress.

Course not, except when he is advocating a ban on butter ... for others who don't earn millions for their point of view, like he does.

School cooks are being told to stop using butter in sandwiches to help tackle childhood obesity.

They are being urged to use a reduced-fat spread or none at all as part of a tough nutrition regime coming into force today.

However, the directive – part of the school meals revolution demanded by Jamie Oliver – was greeted with shock and bemusement last night.

Nothing from the 'spokesman', but then it doesn't hurt Jamie's income, that one.

Other signatories to the letter are [...] and London cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra.

Dr Malhotra, who has called for a ban on junk food sponsorship of the Olympics, said: 'It is totally perverse that some of the main sponsors of the greatest sporting spectacle in the world are McDonald’s and Coca-Cola.

It's also quite perverse that anyone takes an agenda-driven crank like Malhotra with any degree of seriousness.

This is the company Oliver keeps these days. The guy appears to be so malleable and credulous that I truly think he would believe that Screw Fix Direct is a dating agency if someone pranked him.

'The very lucrative financial gain for these athletes is sadly at the expense of our children’s health and we should not allow this to continue.'

Much of the very lucrative financial gain for Jamie Oliver is also sadly at the expense of everyone else except Jamie bastard Oliver!

'With celebrity status comes responsibility. So rather than helping to fuel this nation’s growing obesity crisis, these stars can play a key role in helping stem it.'

Hey, Jamie! With celebrity status also comes the responsibility to not be an over-bearing bore who forces one's opinions on the public who are very happy with Pepsi, McDonald's and other consumer products, thank you very much. It might not be the view in Hoxton where they name their kids after fairies, flowers and teddy bears, but in the real world your cash-trousering should have no effect on anyone else whatsoever. How arrogant that you think it should.

Yet one more example of how the public is sucked into a position where they feel it perfectly acceptable to interfere in the lives and choices of others. The producers being promoted are rich simply through the massive support they receive from the public. The celebrities advertising their products are entirely in keeping with the proper order of the world.

A letter from a collection of state-funded career prohibitionists, self-described vested interests, utter lunatics, and profit-chasing hypocrites like Jamie Oliver should be discarded as irrelevant, but you just know some airhead in Westminster will think it the most important thing he's ever seen.

Sadly, Oliver is one of the 1% of irritating dickheads that incessantly use their ill-gained influence to negatively affect the lives of the other 99% of us.

Hmmm. 1% controlling 99% for self-interest? I reckon there's a publicity angle there.

Jamie Oliver And Other People's Children

Over the weekend, the Telegraph published an retch-inducing obsequious puff piece on Jamie Oliver which - inadvertently, I reckon - gave an astonishing insight into the dictatorial mind of the sanctimonious snob. It's behind a paywall but here are some hideous lowlights.

The night before I’m due to meet Jamie Oliver there are whispers from his headquarters of a big announcement. ‘All will become clear!’ they say. The next morning, news duly breaks that the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, will ban junk-food advertising on the capital’s Tube and bus network, as well as the opening of hot-food takeaway shops within 400 metres of schools – the culmination of 28 months of close collaboration between Oliver and Khan. 

‘It’s a mega day,’ Oliver tells me at Jamie HQ

He is happy, apparently, because a clueless attention-seeking Mayor has proposed a pointless ban on advertising - which will have no effect whatsoever except to kill advertising revenue and reinforce the idea of censorship while reducing public choice - and stated that he is intending to all but eradicate new takeaways in the capital unless they are to open in a park or the river Thames, as you can see by clicking to enlarge the graphic below.

It won't surprise you to learn that evidence to date - you know, that evidence thing that politicians like to pretend they look into - shows that all this will do diddley-squat for obesity rates in London.

Mega, huh?

No care for the businesses which will be affected and no care for the choices that he - in his misplaced ignorance - is depriving the rest of the public. Still, it makes his multi-millionaireship happy, so screw everyone else, eh?

But, incredibly, that isn't the astonishing bit. How about this?

‘I’ve been through five prime ministers. Mr Blair was the first person to admit that the state was responsible for children’s health between the ages of four and 16.

The state is responsible for children's health? Not parents? Can you think of anything more repugnant than that? Well, fear not because Jamie can.

The state was doing nothing about how this group are fed, while being right on the case of dog food.’

Did he just compare other people's children with dogs? Or was he comparing a Big Mac with a can of Pedigree Chum? Sometimes you just can't tell with obsessed hysterical extremists, can you?

Anyway, let's crack on.

He’s been accused of being the ‘fun police’, running a ‘nanny state initiative that penalises poor people’, of endangering the revenue of advertising agencies, being hypocritical, upsetting American mothers, and failing to understand what it is to be poor and unable to afford healthier food.

All of which is true, I'd say, apart from the affording healthier food. Healthy food is far cheaper than less healthy alternatives, but hard-working people (who are not paid to be in the kitchen throwing together recipes with ingredients they just have lying around the house like Jamie) make a trade-off with the time they have available. It's the time they can't afford, not a 45p cucumber.

‘Yes,’ says Oliver. ‘I don’t like [the criticism]. I got my arse kicked left, right and centre for 10 years. It makes me feel sick, but defending my position is more important. On the whole,’ he adds with some irony, ‘all of the people I care about most – obese children and their parents – are the ones who don’t like me.’

Well maybe that's a hint, Jamie old boy, that they'd prefer you to leave them alone to make their own choices. Reason being I think they know more about what's best for their families than you fucking do. 

Why don’t you just sell the lot and become an MP and continue your fight in Parliament? The suggestion seems genuinely to shock him; indeed, he stops talking for at least three seconds. ‘But you wouldn’t want me in Parliament,’ he says eventually. ‘I’ve done nothing clever in 15 years,’ he says. ‘It’s all common sense. All I’ve done is create conversations that newspapers report on. Having my own children changed me. It made me realise that those annoying kids down the street were someone’s children, and so they mattered.

I think the operative words there, Jamie, are "someone's children" as in not yours.

Childhood obesity is the first thing and the last thing I think about every day, which isn’t normal.’

No it's not, it is obsessive and you should seek help for your addiction to snobbery and bossing people around.

However, the most stunning part in the entire article has to be this.

Oliver’s obesity campaign faltered when Theresa May’s 2016 legislation (Chapter One) included a tax on sugar content in drinks but nothing about restrictions on junk-food advertising. ‘It’s absolute bollocks that parents are totally to blame for childhood obesity; incompetent legislation is to blame.’

Let's turn that round a tad. If parents are not to blame, he must be saying - in his knuckle-dragging way - that they are not to be judged responsible for what their kids eat. That, instead, the state should usurp parental choices and - as Oliver's daft policies show - dictate the food supply without even a nod to evidence, practicality, efficacy or financial reality. Nope, just feels.

For Oliver to say - with a straight, albeit slack-jawed fat-tongued, face - that the state is responsible for what kids eat, and not parents, is incredibly sinister. Once it is accepted that the state can involve itself in something as fundamentally private to families as what parents feed their children - in fact that it has more of a role than parents themselves - we are almost through looking glass.

I mean, Christ, give them that kind of power over parental choice and politicians will want to name kids next! 

"their children, Poppy Honey, Daisy Boo, Petal Blossom Rainbow, Buddy Bear and River Rocket". 

OK, not a great example.   

Jamie Oliver Is In Australia, Close The Border

Slack-jowelled uber-hypocrite Jamie Oliver has been in Australia this week but, before you get excited, sadly Essex's most esteemed serial arsehole is likely to be coming back.

It's curious that in the past we used to deport hungry poor people to the other side of the world for stealing a loaf of bread, while now mega-rich elitists like Oliver - who advocate policies which steal pocket money from kids - travel there in luxury and enjoy fawning articles promoting his snobbery masquerading as concern for health.

Articles like this one, for example.

Oliver, who has campaigned heavily for a sugary drinks tax in Britain, points to Coca-Cola as one of those big businesses that needs to be doing better. 

"Not that they're my arch enemy – although they probably are – but, if you look at Coke and say, 'Could they be a health food company in 100 years?' I believe they can." 

Well I'm baffled as to how Coca-Cola could be your arch enemy, Jamie, seeing as you sell their full sugar version for a very profitable £2.65 per 330ml can, but whatever.

"I donated 18 months to telling the sugar tax story in the UK, but it's all based on science and fact and the same science and fact applies to Australia."

Hmm, 'donated' is an odd word to use for regularly being in national headlines just prior to the launch of a new book, but as for "science and fact", huh? A consistent and decades long reduction in sugar consumption and a non-existent 'obesity epidemic' doesn't require a sugar tax, Jamie. If politicians stuck to science and fact instead of junk science and career lobbyist bullshit the idea would have been laughed out of parliament. I think the word you are actually searching for is propaganda.

"The conservative UK government didn't want to make that sugar tax policy, but we got it because, when it comes to the crunch, a modern day prime minister has to act on the data if the story is told correctly."

Or maybe the prime minister was a weak pussy and acted on the threat of bullying from people like Jamie and the hundreds of thousands of fellow vile ovine snobs who follow him, because the story sure as shit wasn't "told correctly" by the extremist lunatics who demanded it.

"I think the interesting thing about Australia is that not one major party is even debating or sniffing about it. But France, Portugal, Hungary, Ireland and the UK are all in. Australia will fall in line, too."

It is to Australia's immense credit that they haven't yet fallen for the lies bandied about concerning a sugar tax, and current thinking there is that it is daft and won't work, which is correct because it won't.

Critics of a sugar tax in Australia claim the government shouldn't be interfering with our freedom of choice.

Ya don't fucking say!

Similar to what happened with the introduction of plain packaging tobacco laws and push for pokie reforms, the term "nanny state" is thrown around a lot.

The obligatory reference to tobacco, but remember there is no slippery slope, oh no.

"Australia is a bit obsessed by the nanny state thing, isn't it?" says the chef. 

Probably because it is the most advanced nanny state in the world, Jamie. That would tend to get up many people's noses if they lived amongst it daily.

"But ask Aussie parents if they're cool with 15 cents on a can of sugary soft drink going to schools for food education and sports. When we said that in the UK, the sugar tax polled at 75 per cent approval. The nanny state argument from knobheads is bollocks. This is f--king common sense."

Not really, gobshite. Isn't the tax supposed to reduce consumption? How will significant amounts of money be generated and still reduce the sales of something you say is detrimental to health? You can't have it both ways.

To get a sugary drinks tax implemented in Australia means "mobilising Aussie parents to just tell the government what to do," says Oliver.

This is a quite stunning concept! So Jamie is saying that parents - you know, the people who decide what their kids can and can't eat and drink - should tell the government what to tell them their kids can and can't eat and drink? Erm, why don't those parents just cut out the middle man and stop their kids drinking sugary food and drinks if that's what they want?

The simple answer to that question is that they're not really bothered about their own kids are they? Nor is Jamie, I'm sure his only drink water and eat wholesome sugar-free stuff (as in, not anything Jamie cooks). They are talking about the proverbial and sinister "our children" which they have appropriated as their own to mask their repulsive bigotry.

Theirs is the type of irrational contempt once reserved for other minorities. But it's no longer acceptable - in fact, it's illegal - to discriminate on race, gender, disability, sexuality or religion, so the hateful compulsion to feel superior has to get shifted somewhere. It is, though, perfectly OK for Jamie and his horrible fans to sneer at those fat kids they see in the High Street, to disapprove when they see lower classes coming out of McDonald's, and to demand that government does something about it.

This is the kind of person who loves Jamie Oliver; the control freak whose life is so empty, dull and formulaic that they get their kicks out making other people's business their own without asking, and of thrusting themselves into the lives of others of whom they disapprove.

"But the genius of the sugary drinks tax is that when it happened in the UK, it was the first time I can remember the government standing up and giving the industry a spank. Every other part of the food industry witnessed it so, at a rate faster than I can tell you, the whole industry is reformulating shit out of the food chain. Cutting back on all the salt, fat and sugar. They haven't been asked to do it either — it all comes from that one action."

No, they weren't asked, Jamie, they were threatened, there's a very significant difference.

It won't matter to multi-millionaire Jamie that government adds a levy on Coca-Cola because he'll carry on selling it to rich affected twats who visit his overpriced, sugar-laden restaurants at an eye-watering mark-up. It won't matter to his interfering and snooty middle and upper class followers either, they can afford to pay a bit more for their kids' treats after they have finished their main course of steamed kale and pine nuts washed down with San Pellegrino. It will, though, punish those who Jamie and his repulsive fan base find so objectionable, the poor.

Or, as put brilliantly in the Telegraph at the time Osborne announced the UK's sumptuary sugar tax.

Virtue-signalling politicians, bureaucrats and celebrities feeling tremendously good about themselves because they’ve bossed the rest of us around, and imposed a stealth tax on those least able to afford it.

Indeed.

Oliver succeeds because he panders to the dark and anti-social nature of some of the most hideous people in our midst. He peddles pomposity and the right of self-centred individuals to impose their petty prejudices on others. He is a modern day Marie Antoinette so it is no surprise that his crusade draws on the tobacco control industry for inspiration because their reasoning is equally mired in junk science and their fans equally disgusting.

Australia, can we persuade you to keep him? Essex's, erm, loss could be your gain, after all. 

Oliver, Oliver, Never Before Has A Chef Been A Bore

Oh the joy.

It's not going well for righteous hypocrite Jamie Oliver over in Yankland. Even fellow lefty luvvie Brits think he's a bit of a cock.

Jamie Oliver’s bid to slim down America has suffered another blow as Ricky Gervais declared he stood “no chance”.

“It failed in England. He tried to get them to stop and no, they like fat,” the comedian said.

“If you go to a fat person, it’s not a surprise, they know what’s making them fat – it’s all the pies. They know that. If you go: ‘Ooh those pies are fattening’, they’re not going to go: ‘Really? I thought it was the jogging that made you fat?’

“It’s their choice. Fat people don’t get fat behind their own back. No one’s sneaking into their apartment when they’re out and injecting their lettuce with a million calories. They know why they’re fat and they like it.”

Meanwhile, a survey of kids in a school where the mockney twat had been filming suggests that they, like those in the UK, are rejecting his recipes.

A survey conducted at the West Virginia school featured in “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” won’t surprise anyone who’s seen the first two episodes: Kids liked their standard institutional food better than Oliver’s made-from-scratch menu items.

And when denied the food they were used to, many stopped buying the school lunch.

The survey at Central City Elementary in Huntington also found the children drank less milk after Oliver removed the sugary chocolate and strawberry bottles.

Hey, Jamie. Never mind fella, just like J R Hartley found, there's still a few more countries to try.

I hear there are a few porky kids in Outer Mongolia. Why not fuck off over there and interfere ... for about a decade?

Exporting A Righteous Hypocrite

You may have noticed from previous posts that I've little time for self-serving, hypocritical, faux-righteous, money-grubbing, attention-seeking, socially-damaging, culinary whore, Jamie Oliver.

By way of attempt after attempt at right-on headline grabbing, he finally hit on one crusade which gained him the kudos to go with the book sales, and in doing so has cost the country a reported £1bn for little benefit, encouraged public health bansturbators, and introduced scope for a multitude of unintended authoritarian consequences.

Not that he should care too much. It's earned him a skipload of readies, so screw everyone else.

So, it's good to see that his decision to go the rock 'n' roll route and try to 'break' America is encountering stiff resistance. David Letterman, normally a welcoming host, was visibly dismissive of Oliver the other day, as you can see in this clip (and if you believed Oliver was only trying to encourage, and not coerce, before, your view may change at around 3:00)



Oliver is a parasite, an evil turd who is not satisfied with earning a fortune from entertaining and useful books, but instead wishes to tap into huge government reserves to impose his own life choices on everyone else ... for incredibly lucrative personal gain. He will claim to be acting altruistically but, if he truly believes that, he must be rather short-sighted (or thick) not to see the potential downside of his nagging.

Reason carries an article highlighting how Oliver is going to find it more difficult in the US where libertarian ideals are more cemented than over here.

These men, women, and children of the Mountaineer State may or may not understand Oliver and his British accent and order of chivalry, but they no doubt understand why he is there. They’ve read the same things I have—that Oliver would like nothing more than an invitation to the White House to make policy with healthy-eating Czarina Michelle Obama.

If Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution is a hit, then Great Britain’s so-called national treasure may find an Obama White House invitation is just the first step in one chef’s quest to subjugate the American diet.

Read the whole piece as author, Baylen Linnekin, contests Oliver's contribution to public health, both in the UK and the US, as well as incorporating a video to illustrate that the mockney twat has completely overlooked the real problem, and pointing out his bandwagon jumping nature in pursuit of approval.

Then, enjoy Charlie Brooker taking the holier-than-thou pratt apart in this BBC Four clip from three years ago.



Perhaps there is an upside, though. If he's successful over there, we might be lucky - he may never come back.

Time To Cut Jamie Oliver

It's no secret that my opinion of Jamie Oliver is less than complimentary. In fact, I think he's a naïve, self-important, nannying, lucre-obsessed prick who has cost the country £1bn already (and he wants more) by pushing government into enforcing rules on school dinners which are doomed to failure. They'll fail because they are based on coercion and a condescending attitude which human nature naturally abhors.

So it was interesting to stumble across this article the other day which kinda mirrors the points I've been making here.

Brian Wansink and David R. Just of Cornell University published an interactive graphic in the New York Times that illustrates how subtle cafeteria changes, not finger-wagging campaigns, can make a big difference in the way kids eat:

Children and teenagers resist heavy-handed nutritional policies — and the food that is associated with the heavy hand. No food is nutritious, after all, until it is actually eaten.

A smarter lunchroom wouldn’t be draconian. Rather, it would nudge students toward making better choices on their own by changing the way their options are presented. One school we have observed in upstate New York, for instance, tripled the number of salads students bought simply by moving the salad bar away from the wall and placing it in front of the cash registers.

There are caveats here. Firstly, yes, the article is hosted at the Center for Consumer Freedom, an organisation funded by the food industry, and also this is discussing 'nudging' which would usually be anathema to a libertarian.

However, the funding would seem irrelevant considering their opinion is backed up by evidence which not only appears legit, but is also pretty obviously common sense to anyone who spends any time with the public. Besides, who can possibly object to nudging when it is done in such a way as to retain full freedom of choice?

And choice is most definitely the key to this. Nothing is banned, denied, limited, or discouraged in this theory, merely given less prominence. If a student in their hypothetical canteen wishes to eat unhealthy food, nothing is stopping them. But merely by placing 'healthier' options in different locations, or by describing food differently, the choices made are drastically altered.

Personally, I don't believe it is the concern of any government to meddle in our lives or 'save' us from perceived unhealthy decisions, but if they really feel they must, then subtle - non-coercive - methods such as these should be the way they go about it.

However, what healthists - and the dangerously counter-productive Oliver - seem incapable of understanding is that hectoring and restriction of choice will always lead to failure and unintended consequences. So disastrous has Oliver's crusade been, for example, that hundreds of councils across the country are now hampering local businesses as a direct result.

Yet the righteous seem too dull-minded to see what is as plain as the nose on their face. Coercion doesn't work; restrictions don't work; bans don't work; and prohibition has never worked.

By contrast, benign non-compulsory encouragement does, simply because it carries the public with it and makes everyone happy to co-operate. In tobacco control, smoking bans invariably halt decreases in smoker prevalence; in road management, shared space schemes all but eradicate accidents entirely; in the workplace, a popular boss will invariably derive better productivity from his staff than a bully; in fact, in any walk of life, if you promote personal responsibility and afford respect to the public, they will reciprocate and work with you.

Now, I've been taken to task on Oliver before, the general idea being that at least he is doing something, or 'his heart is in the right place'. But, if so, when is he going to see that his methods are not only failing, but also causing more problems than they are solving? If he can't, I'd suggest he is woefully under-qualified in the grey matter department and, therefore, shouldn't have any fucking sway with government just because he can do a wicked toad in the hole.

However, if he does recognise that things aren't quite working out how he imagined - and food being passed through school gates, crying on-screen, plus being ridiculed by Letterman would tend to suggest he has noticed a certain resistance - then one can only assume that it's blind ignorance, a holier-than-thou attitude, and the resultant bumper cheques that are driving him on.

Which helps no-one but Oliver himself. The dictatorial cock.

Another Triumph For Repulsive Elitist Snobs

I remember back in 2007 when the English smoking ban came in, the reaction from politicians and health zealots was nauseating.

If it was truly about protecting bar workers' health, they may have said something like "we're really sorry smokers, we realise this is unfair on you but it's something we feel we have to do". But no, Health Secretary of the time Alan Johnson almost punched the air in delight announcing it; Cancer Research UK sent out newsletters to all its donors "rejoicing" in the news; and Deborah Arnott was excited about how smokers had been "exiled to the outdoors". ASH then published a report boasting about how they had connived, cheated and bullied government into abandoning manifesto commitments to accommodate smokers.

Today, we've seen exactly the same thing following this morning's court decision in Scotland to allow minimum alcohol pricing.

The moment it was announced, social media was swamped with arrogant middle class elitists jubilant at how they had stuck it to the working man. It was a landmark decision, a triumph, one 'public health' activist even published a gif of a stick man literally punching the air, while former Scottish CMO - a man I imagine to be quite rich - was said to be over the moon!

Sir Harry Burns, former Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, says he's "absolutely over the moon" at the Supreme Court decision on minimum pricing for alcohol.

— BBC Andrew Kerr (@BBCandrewkerr) November 15, 2017

Not one of them had any concern for low earning moderate drinkers who will now have to struggle to pay for a meagre pleasure, no fucks were given for them. The ecstatic outpourings were not muted to take into account that innocent people will suffer hardship, far from it, it was more like health campaigners were bathing in the poor's misery.

We saw the same ugly disregard when the sugar tax was passed by doughnut-brained MPs, who can forget the euphoria of super-rich Jamie Oliver dancing like he'd just won the lottery at the pleasure he derived from making people pay more for something that he personally doesn't like.

Jamie Oliver had a little #sugartax dance on BBC News https://t.co/mZa1XJLsVf #Budget2016 pic.twitter.com/ZhvV1p5G8p

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) March 16, 2016

All those celebrating these new immoral restrictions on liberty, property rights and self-autonomy are nothing but repulsive, elitist snobs.

You see, the smoking ban, sugar tax and minimum pricing all have something in common. They are all restrictions on pleasures that are mostly enjoyed by less prosperous families. The middle classes have been sneering at the enjoyment of the less well off for millennia, mostly by railing against the licentious and ungodly morals of the unwashed. But now they cloak it as some kind of care for health and think they can get away with it, but they can't.

Today's vile show of rapture from a wide array of bigots betrays what their real motives are. They are not sorry about the working guy because - in every 'public health' area - it is precisely that guy they set out to bully.

The smoking ban wasn't about bar staff, it was about making life more difficult for the builder who likes to enjoy a pint and a fag. They didn't temper their jubilation in respect for the fact that his life had just got worse, because they were glad his life got worse.

Jamie Oliver - and the ghastly middle class sheep that hang on his every odious utterance - didn't acknowledge that the sugar tax was effectively stealing pocket money from kids, because he was glad he was stealing pocket money from kids who he detests for choosing to drink something he disagrees with.

Likewise today. Health campaigners know very well that minimum pricing will have no effect whatsoever on harmful drinkers. It won't stop or slow down the consumption of alcohol for the small percentage of the population who drink far too much, it will just push some people into poverty.

But then it's not aimed at harmful drinkers, it is aimed at everyone. And with minimum pricing they have come up with a policy that targets only low earners. For these very well off elitists, this is just about perfect. A policy which turns their repugnant distate for the habits of working families into something that will harm the frightful working class ... but won't intrude on their own liking for a cheeky top of the range Merlot.

If Marie Antoinette had been able to create policy in this day and age, minimum alcohol pricing would be the policy she would have chosen.

And you know what the clincher is to prove that this is exactly the aim? Minimum pricing doesn't even deliver an extra penny to the state. All the cash generated goes straight into the pockets of mostly big businesses such as out-of-town supermarkets which 'public health' camapigners - overwhelmingly a left-leaning profession - usually like to demonise.

I have no axe to grind myself about minimum pricing, I will still buy my New Zealand Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and Peroni at a price that it won't touch, but I know and employ many people for whom it would cause a hardship. The campaigners behind hideous laws like it, though, generally tend to avoid consumers if they can possibly help it. They don't listen to their concerns, they talk at them rather than with them, and they exclude them from policy-making decisions, instead bypassing debate and going straight to government clutching junk science.

Just like the smoking ban and sugar tax before it, minimum alcohol pricing is just a big elitist party zone where the rich get to look down their noses at the poor and stop them doing things that the elite find a bit icky. They don't care that their actions are fundamentally immoral and are not ashamed at celebrating the misery of low earners because they revel in it. Making life less pleasurable for millions of people, predominantly those who don't have much money is exactly the point.

They are repugnant. May some higher being someday make them rot for eternity for being such a sick plague on society.

Reality Bites In Snobland

Oh frabjous day!

Long time readers may remember when the sugar tax was installed by a timorous, erm, 'Conservative' government quaking in their boots under pressure from a gullible TV chef. I called it "a triumph for repulsive anti-social snobbery".

The sugar tax is born out of the same vile and scum-infested middle class base as the smoking ban. The only difference being that back then it was smokers, now it is the overweight. The precedent was set a decade ago, a precedent which gave a green light for the most hideous in society to point fingers, criticise the choices of others, publicly vomit insults, and demand government force be brought to bear on people who they feel offended at seeing.

Since then we have seen the laughable spectacle of Jamie Oliver's menu offerings being found to be more unhealthy than Burger King and Pizza Hut and Public Health England have come out with draconian measures of what is deemed to be unhealthy.

This has come as a bit of a shock to some of the food snobs amongst us. Farmdrop is a company which has advertised "fresher, fairer" food on the London tube for a few months now. I've seen their adverts and I personally wouldn't buy from them because I just know it will be expensive but I have no problem with their business angle at all, I wish them the very best of luck. I'm sure most of their customers wouldn't think the same about ads for Burger King or KFC, but then that's the difference, isn't it?

Well Farmdrop just got a dose of reality. L. O. L.

To combat childhood obesity, Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has enforced a ban on junk food advertising across London’s public transport network, which we fully support. But is it really a ban on junk food as we know it?

For a company which is in the food business, to not see this coming is a fatal error. And, sorry guys, if you fully support this you just lost any sympathy from me.

Preventing brands from aggressively advertising junk food to children on the transport network is a step in the right direction and we fully support it. The link between heavily processed junk foods and obesity is well established (it's not - DP) and recent studies suggest that diet-related diseases like diabetes are rising among children, which is hugely concerning. The majority of Londoners support the decision as well, including respected figures in the food industry like Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

I could go into the concept of polls which ask airy questions without going into detail but I don't think these guys would get it, but they should because what if the poll said "would you be in favour of banning advertising of 'junk food' which includes farm-produced butter, eggs and bacon?" because that's the PHE definition. I reckon they would get a different result and wouldn't be so supportive of the results.

Naturally, we were pretty shocked that a picture of some fresh groceries with a healthy mixture of fruits and vegetables, dairy, eggs and cupboard staples would flout TfL’s new junk food rules. But it turns out that TfL score foods individually according to a nutrient profiling model created by the Government. It’s a pretty crude measure and means that foods you would still think of as junk, like fizzy drinks with artificial sweeteners or low-fat fried foods, could in some scenarios comply with the new regulations.

At this point I imagine the Farmdrop guys be like ...

Well yes because ...

We fully support the Mayor of London’s decision to prohibit junk food advertising on the transport network but we’re concerned about how it’s being applied. We hope that TfL sees some sense and starts to apply the ban with a little better judgement. 

Hey, it's not TfL's judgement of what is HFSS food, it is towards PHE that you should be directing your complaint. Reason being that if snobs call for bans on products they find icky because chavs like them (come on, own up, that's what it is about really) then the constituents of those foods need to be analysed and a policy formulated based on the ingredients. Just a feel-good about who makes it won't wash once you get the big state involved.

It is quite hilarious to see a company piggy-backing on hipster snobbery being hoist by a petard entirely fashioned by its snooty customers. The replies on Twitter to Farmdrop's astonished tweet were testament to it.

Here's the rub though. The companies that Farmdrop fully support having their ads banned - they touch upon McDonald's in their article - will, at some point, get round the rules by reformulating their products. Farmdrop, however - if it is true to its unique business selling point - will not be able to reformulate natural butter, eggs and farm-produced bacon. Their ads will still be banned unless PHE changes the rules.

And the only way that they can do that is by admitting that it's all snobbery after all and that the restrictions will only apply to large fast food chains and not to Jamie Oliver's sugar-laden hypocrisy or Farmdrop's perfectly natural, but sadly high in fat sugar and salt, produce.

Then we will see some pretty momentous court cases.

There is one thing that might help Farmdrop though. They could stop pandering to snobbery and join us in attacking ridiculously arbitrary rules and object to any restrictions on what we are allowed to see on advertising billboards. Now they have worked out that it really isn't about health, would they be prepared to join we who are on the side of the angels? I doubt it.

Once they and the people they sell to learn to be accommodating of the choices of others maybe we might get somewhere as a society. Until then, chalk one up for those of us who have been warning them for a long time about this and revel in the discomfort. 

What Dreams May Come

Looks like yesterday was a bad day for business if you're a self-righteous mockney twat.

The Jamie Oliver-approach will not work in tackling public health problems like obesity and smoking, the health secretary says.

Mr Lansley said people needed to take responsibility for their own health.

"If we are constantly lecturing people and trying to tell them what to do, we will actually find that we undermine and are counterproductive in the results that we achieve,".

{insert short sound file of the Hallelujah Chorus here}

I never thought I'd be jealous of a minister (even though I held such a position in a dream sequence once), but those who know my views on 'jerk off' Jamie will be unsurprised to know that I'd have given my 1980s 7" vinyl picture disc collection to have been able to deliver that withering dismissal of his methods. And to the comrades of the BMA, too.

The self-appointed saviour of our nation isn't too happy with his relegation to background noise, of course.

"I'm not encouraged by the news that the new health minister has summed up 8 years of hard work in a few lines for the sake of a headline," said Mr Oliver.

Retorts the person whose 'hard work' for the last 8 years has consisted of making headlines for the sake of selling more books.

Coming to his defence was our old friend, Alan 'Libertarian by nature' Maryon-Davies.

"Of course, we could probably do a little less nagging, but you still need to nudge people."

Keep plugging with those libertarian ideals, eh Al? Oh yeah, and perhaps buy a dictionary?

Despite previous reservations, this is all very promising from Mr Lansley, who only the day before engaged with our forthright blog mascot on the same area of policy.

Philip Davies: "May I urge the Secretary of State to get NICE to go back to what most people think it is for, which is to monitor the cost-effectiveness and clinical effectiveness of drugs? Many people do not think that it does a particularly good job on that, anyway, but it is currently indulged in empire building, with its ridiculous drivel in recent weeks on smoking breath tests for pregnant women, compulsory sex education for five-year-olds and subsidies for food companies to make healthier food. Surely it ought to go back to what it should be doing, and doing it better, rather than empire building, as it is doing."

Andrew Lansley: "In 2005 the previous Government charged NICE with producing public health guidance as part of its work. As I establish a more integrated and effective public health service, I shall consider how the advice of NICE fits into that strategic framework."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement there, I thought. More like a 'not us, Guv' and a vague implication that the current arrangements may change. In light of Lansley's speech today, perhaps the change might not be favourable to NICE ... which would be a bloody good thing.

Now, encouraging as this all appears, the Puddlecote mistrust of politicians runs rather deep so enthusiasm/ire will remain on ice until such time as hopes of a change in the dictatorial state attitude are fulfilled/dashed.

But the still small squeal of Jamie Oliver is a delightful taster of what could follow if Lansley gets heavy on the collective righteous ass. I was therefore, last night, mostly dreaming of an upcoming indignant cacophony.

Mmmmmm.

150,000 Vile Curtain-Twitching Prodnoses

I hear great news about the latest campaign by odious, preening, self-publicising lardarse Jamie Oliver.

Food and drink manufacturers have praised the government for ruling out Jamie Oliver's proposed sugar tax, claiming the idea was “misplaced”.

Good, it's a daft idea.

By "misplaced" manufacturers mean it will have no effect whatsoever, which should be obvious to all but the most moronic in society, and it seems there are quite a lot of them.

Nearly 150,000 people have signed the celebrity chef's petition which calls for a tax on sugary drinks in a bid to fight childhood obesity.

I'd explain why signatories to that petition should be held in contempt but I don't have to, because Grandad already did a good job of it earlier this month.

So here we have a bunch of mindless morons actually calling on their government to tax them more, just because an idiot with an agenda told them to?  Did someone mention turkeys and Christmas? 

It's not often we get a chance to see into the mind of the brain dead, but here they were in force, with their outpourings of shock and horror.  An odious little arse-dribble tells 'em they must do something and they do it in their droves, without question. 

The Cockney Cunt has a petition on-line to implore the government to apply more tax.  It is a very efficient sheeple counter. 

At the time of writing, there are 98,672 bleating away happily and the number is rising. 

And they wonder why the world is up shit creek?

Quite. Sleb worship meets the great unthinking, with predictable fuckwittery.

I'd disagree only on one minor point, you see these hideous people are not calling on the government to tax them more ... but to tax others more. So perfect do they consider themselves to be that they suffer an irresistible urge to impose their narcissistic worldview on other people by way of force. Vile little bullies, each and every one.

Long time readers may remember the same revolting character flaw being exhibited by Sonia Poulton on Radio 5 Live in 2012, on which I wrote at the time.

[W]hile Poulton was waxing hysterical about how we needed controls for "our children", Gabb challenged her. Exactly as he should. "Our children?", he said, "you look after your children, I'll look after mine". The result was as predictable as it was shrill. 

From then on, Poulton issued insults; demanded people who held that view "be quiet"; refused to debate; and became madder the more it was insisted that others might not share her opinion. She embarrassed herself by asserting that she knew - knew no less - that Gabb wasn't a parent simply because he believed other people's kids were not hers to control, and when the host revealed that Gabb was indeed a parent, simply called him names and became even more insulting. 

This, sadly - in fact, soul-destroyingly - is modern Britain. A place packed full of arrogant people who feel it perfectly acceptable to interfere in every aspect of the lives of others. If you disagree, or resist, they will shout and scream; make a call to their own delusional authority; and denounce you as a heretic or anti-social abuser. 

We used to have a few of these prodnoses dotted around, but they're everywhere now. Self-aggrandising, aloof, condescending of others, and entirely dismissive of choices different from their own.

It takes a special kind of rancid finger-wagging cocknostril to insist that government punish other families for making different choices than the ones Jamie's gullible simpletons think they should.

I'd say their type are as beneficial to society as thrush and I despise them with the power of a thousand suns. So congratulations to the UK government for effectively inviting them to stick their head even further up Jamie's ample arse so we don't have to listen to their snobby, ignorant, spiteful shit anymore.

John Prescott Condemns Labour School Meals Policy

On Tuesday, John Prescott constructed a tweet that was quite amusing.


Y'see, I think he was trying to imply that this government has had a detrimental effect on school meals.

He was referring to this article in the Indy.

School meal portions are being shrunk, leaving children to go hungry, teachers and parents have warned. Smaller portion sizes caused by cost-cutting are reported in schools across the country and are of particular concern, given the increase in the number of impoverished pupils who rely on school lunches as their only hot meal of the day.

"Children are going hungry in schools and we all know what hunger does to your ability to learn," said Mary Bousted, the ATL's general-secretary.

In the ATL survey, teachers warned that private providers, who are often hired to supply school meals, were cutting portion sizes to make their budgets go further and win new contracts.

Very interesting John, because I remember an article in The Times - now sadly behind the paywall but quoted for posterity here - which might explain part of the problem schools now find themselves in.

The future of school meals is in jeopardy because only half of secondary schools are on course to comply with stringent government standards, catering leaders will say today.

This could bring about the demise of hot meals in secondary schools, as caterers struggle to cope with the expensive and time-consuming restrictions. From September they will have to buy costly computer equipment to calculate the nutritional content of every meal. Each dish must meet 14 standards, including calorie content, fat, proteins and vitamins.

Caterers say that the obsession with raising the quality of school food, begun by the TV chef Jamie Oliver, has been taken too far by ministers.

Ministers who, in March 2009, were ones who rubbed shoulders with a certain John Prescott.

This may come as a bit of a stab in the dark, but could it be that the laughable over-reaction by his own side, after prompting by that self-absorbed idiot Jamie Oliver, has led to this - consequentially unintended, some might say - state of affairs?

Back in 2009, when Prescott's lot were in charge remember, things looked so rosy with fake charities positively gushing at how brilliant they were.

A spokeswoman for the School Food Trust, which devised the nutrient standards, said: “They are challenging but there is a very valid reason for them. It is important that they are in place to ensure we promote the health, wellbeing and achievements of children. The School Food Trust has worked with caterers from a number of different school settings. All have proved that through hard work and engagement with students they have been able to produce a compliant, appealing, tasty and varied menu.”

They're playing a different violin now, though.

A spokesman for the School Food Trust said: "Our research proves that school food is particularly sensitive to changes in price. In these tough financial times, access to decent food for children has never been so important."

Very true.

Perhaps, then, you shouldn't have connived with Labour and that Oliver twerp to burden school meal provision with so much cost that - surprise, surprise - they are reducing portions to fit in with your ridiculous pronouncements.

Good grief.

David Cameron: Clock-Watching Puppet Prime Minister

Is David Cameron the most naïve and manipulated Prime Minister this country has ever seen? Or is he just buying time strutting around number 10 - following unavoidable orders from unelected supranational bodies - until he can command the same fees as Tony Blair?

It has to be one of the above following his latest astonishingly illiberal utterance.

Denmark recently became the first country in the world to impose a surcharge on foods that contain more than 2.3 per cent saturated fat. The levy targets high-fat products such as butter, milk, cheese, pizza, meat, oil and processed food.

Mr Cameron told the Conservative conference that a similar move should not be ruled out in the UK.

“I think it is something that we should look at,” he said in an interview with Five Live. “The problem in the past when people have looked at using the tax system in this way is the impact it can have on people on low incomes. But frankly, do we have a problem with the growing level of obesity? Yes.

“I am worried about the costs to the health service, the fact that some people are going to have shorter lives than their parents.”

Firstly, it must be pointed out that Cameron has swallowed one of the biggest lies ever to be placed in front of the British public with that last sentence. He may have wisely downgraded superlative fucktard Jamie Oliver's quite absurd claim that "this will be the first generation in which children are predicted to die before their parents", to just some children. But then, there will always - in any generation - be some children who die earlier than their parents, and our ever-increasing longevity as a population shows that anyone trying to force such a nonsensical terror on us is quite loopy. Brendan O'Neill put it best last year.

The Oliver campaign summed up so much that was wrong with the frequently illiberal and patronising political agendas of the Blair and then Brown regimes.

It ... captured the New Labour government’s reliance on fearmongering over facts in its campaign to make us all change our behaviour. The Oliver campaign was built on the utterly unfounded, pseudo-scientific idea that today’s children would die before their parents if they didn’t start eating Oliver-approved Italian-style food instead of the stodgy so-called meat invented by Bernard Matthews. Oliver repeated this shrill, evidence-lite ‘children dying’ shtick in his response to Lansley yesterday – scaremongering disguised once more as ‘science’.

The reference to Lansley is that the Health Minister had, at the time, quite rightly dismissed Oliver's narcissistic hyperbole as being emotional poppycock which has no place in making policy.

Cameron yesterday swept all that away in siding with the old New Labour approach of substituting validity with, err, whatever self-serving berks with loud-hailers are barking about at the moment.

This is a total abandonment of the 'nudge' principle which he had trumpeted prior to the General Election. And how the blithering fuck does this square with the Coalition's promise to restore civil liberties and end the incessant nanny state mentality?

Don't even attempt to answer that, it'll raise your blood pressure to unacceptable levels and I'm not insured against your no win, no fee claim.

The explanation, of course, is that his hands are tied, as a must-read article at The Economic Voice describes.

It has now been announced that there is a global discussion on having a fat tax. However, nobody told the public that discussions about taxing our most popular foods commenced some time ago by unelected bureaucrats. Is this what now passes for democracy? All EU Countries signed up to the European Charter on Counteracting Obesity at the Counteracting Obesity Conference in Istanbul, Turkey in 2006. That event was promoted by the World Health Organization, so expect to see similar programs in other regions. The treaty commits signatory nations to “economic measures that facilitate healthier food choices”, which is precisely what we see here in Denmark.

Is it becoming a bit clearer now?

And for those hoping to get Danish butter exports on the cheap, think again. The ironically named Hungary has already jumped on the bandwagon with its own fat tax. It has also been proposed for the UK by the BBC and others. We even see a fat tax discussed for the USA.

There is also currently a bill passing through Parliament called the Public Bodies (Sustainable Food) Bill, which will enforce low fat, high carb diets upon all public institutions, including schools, hospitals, care homes and prisons.

This is a done deal. You have as much chance of stopping it - with your one cross in a box every five years - as you have halting a four-tonner hurtling up the motorway at 90mph by throwing Doris the lollipop lady in front of it and telling her to adopt her fiercest stare.

We who lurk on this blog might be secretly preening ourselves that the same demonisation meted out to smokers - which we did warn, repeatedly, would be coming to others very soon - is now being driven at a very fast pace towards lardies, but then it's not just they who will be punished with a fat tax, is it? Commensurate with the modern way of politics, we all will. Whether you're fat, average, or stick thin, if you enjoy consuming products which have a fat content over an arbitrary level decided by government ... government thieves are going to collectively rob you.

We're firmly into post-democratic territory here. And this is without even a passing mention to the widely-accepted shortcomings of the BMI system used to gather 'evidence' of imminent adipose armageddon, nor of the debate that is still raging as to whether fat - or salt, sugar, carbohydrates - can be made a culprit, whether a tax would make a blind bit of difference, or even whether there really is that much of a problem in the first place.

Talking anecdotally, I'm currently in the process of a second year of secondary school open days which many of you may identify with. We parents trudge around mostly similar schools to be presented with their best facets as the state sector - who all follow the same curriculum and enjoy egalitarian funding - try to create the illusion of some kind of competition by showing off their best graphs and happy, smiling children. Thing is, just like last year, I certainly don't seem to be witnessing a whole load of heavyweight kids. Perhaps they lock them in the basement or something, I dunno, but the year 7 & 8 'tour guides' I've seen in the past couple of years are more likely to have been painfully anaemic than obese. I've got a couple more to go yet this time round, but am tempted to pack my pockets with a few Mars bars to shovel their way on the sly rather than nag them to start eating butternut squash and lentils.

What we really need from a government who boasts of restoring civil liberties and curtailing the nanny state, oddly enough, is a PM who will stubbornly reject further intrusions into our current liberties and stand up against nanny statists.

Instead, we're landed with a middle-of-the-road consensualist, willing to be a puppet to unelected eugenicists by throwing the odd juicy tidbit at slavering health bullies, as he watches the clock and marks time before the book deal and lucrative world speaking tour.

What ever happened to that promise of change?

Don't Come Back, Jamie

Daily Mail January 2010:

A spokesman for Jamie Oliver, who has championed improved nutrition in schools, said: "He doesn't like the whole kind of food police, we must ban everything, point of view"

Daily Mail April 2011:

Victory for Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution as schools chief goes on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to agree to chocolate milk ban

The British TV personality appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night with L.A. schools superintendent John Deasy to announce plans to ban flavoured milk from schools' menus.

Good grief.

Suffer The Children

Gawd blimey, Jamie Oliver, you've right gorn and done it now, ain't ya, and no mistake.

Regulations put hot school meals at risk

The future of school meals is in jeopardy because only half of secondary schools are on course to comply with stringent government standards, catering leaders will say today.

This could bring about the demise of hot meals in secondary schools, as caterers struggle to cope with the expensive and time-consuming restrictions. From September they will have to buy costly computer equipment to calculate the nutritional content of every meal. Each dish must meet 14 standards, including calorie content, fat, proteins and vitamins.

Caterers say that the obsession with raising the quality of school food, begun by the TV chef Jamie Oliver, has been taken too far by ministers.

Too fucking right it has!

An example of dish that would meet the nutrition requirements is a chicken and vegetable stir fry with brown rice and green cabbage. A typical portion would contain 411 calories, 6.3g fat and 20.6g protein. Burgers with chips and baked beans will disappear.

Listen sunshine, you may well be able to rustle up a nice healthy meal in minutes using only the freshest ingredients for your kids, but I don't reckon a mass-catering organisation is going to be capable of doing the same under such restrictive circumstances. We're not talking Agas and rustic copper pans here. I don't think Mrs Ramsbottom on minimum wage is going to be doing a book signing of her best kiddie recipes very soon, do you?

It's not entirely the fault of the irritating mockney twat, just another example of a good initiative taken to ridiculous extreme by public sector morons who, let's face it, don't seem to have anything better to do than believe healthist propaganda and follow it to the logical dead end. In this case, it is doubly perfect for them as some cheeky celebrity chappie they saw in Heat magazine says it's the right thing to do.

Except he didn't. He advised getting rid of the shit in school meals (too right) and providing a balanced diet. Balanced does NOT mean eradicating every food that kids tend to want to eat.

[Neil Porter, chairman of Laca, said] “We have to meet 14 nutrient standards and will have most problems with zinc and iron. Liver and spinach are the best sources but these aren’t the most popular items in school. We would be providing something that they shun, in order to tick a box.”

I love liver now I'm a 40 something, but I didn't start eating it again until I was in my 30s after poor quality examples were rammed down my throat at school, same with spinach and those stews that had meat which contained the fatty white tubes {shiver}. The competitive tendering required from school providers is so cut-throat, having to deliver wholesome meals at a tiny price, that you can dictate the ingredients, but the quality is never going to be anything like that served up to jovial Jamie's little darlins', Poppy Honey & Daisy Boo (I didn't make those names up), especially since school meal providers are quite simply not allowed by Elfin Safety to buy ingredients from the local farmers market like Jamie (the cheeky scamp) does.

Again, as we have come to expect from the health Gestapo, this is idealistic nonsense and will only serve to push kids into an equal and opposite reaction. Oh yeah, and the food will be more expensive as the overheads for the providers are pushed ever skywards.

The result, quite obviously, is going to be a mass desertion of school food in favour of packed lunches. Teens, who can exit school, will simply pop down to the local chippy. Way to go, you hectoring goons, you've just placed an unsustainable burden on school meals providers, thereby costing jobs, whilst simultaneously decreasing uptake of the 'health options' which you have arbitrarily decided should involve no option whatsoever.

So who devised these barmy rules that disagree with a modicum of 'treat' food for kids once in a while? Why, it's a fake charity called the Food School Trust, of course. Quelle surprise!

A spokeswoman for the School Food Trust, which devised the nutrient standards, said: “They are challenging but there is a very valid reason for them. It is important that they are in place to ensure we promote the health, wellbeing and achievements of children. The School Food Trust has worked with caterers from a number of different school settings. All have proved that through hard work and engagement with students they have been able to produce a compliant, appealing, tasty and varied menu.”

Firstly, if the SFT has worked with caterers so closely, why the fuck are the caterers pretty hacked off with this nonsense? Could it be that the SFT aren't listening? Perhaps, seeing as their entire being is exhibited on their web-site.

The School Food Trust was established by the Department for Education and Skills in September 2005.

It won't surprise you to learn that this 'charity' receives nil voluntary donations, yet receives turnover of nearly £9m per annum which helps fund 6 employees earning a salary of £60k or more.

Secondly, why the fucking hell is a school a place to promote health? I may be a bit of a maverick, but I always thought schools were a place for teaching kids to read, write, add up and learn stuff that parents can't teach, but that life choices and skills were up to parents to instil.

Yet more from the single-minded fucktards at the SFT. One of their stated aims (page 5) is to ...

Increase the take-up of school meals.

A laudable goal, no doubt, but hardly in keeping with removing choice from the menu, and pushing up costs for providers (and therefore end-user price) by way of unrealistic adherence to a misguided ideal. They might as well have just advertised McDonalds.

You know what would be really 'pukka' Jamie, me ole china? How about stopping these geezers in their tracks and telling them that their over-arching idealism is not what you advocated, that kids aren't lab rats, that parents should have a say in what their kids are served at school, and that your well-meaning campaign has been hijacked and is going a bit Pete Tong?

Then, once you've done that, you can sell another book on the subject, as you usually do.

None Of Your Business, Joan

I was going to pass this little piece of fuckwittery over, but I feel it's cathartic after the weekend's shenanigans.

Regular readers will know that the flaming red mist-o-meter means that Puddlecote emotions are running high. Look away now if you don't like words like fuck.

Does anyone know where I can contact Joan Smith? As I'd like to shovel mushy peas through her fucking letterbox.

The death of someone who made a good living out of providing self-righteous middle class fucknuggets with quality food (nothing wrong with that) is seized upon as a chance for Joanie to have a superior rant at we who prefer what we, er, prefer.

We've all got to change according to Joan. She is deeply offended by the public's refusal to bow to her fucking demands.

For all that Rose Gray did, much of what people eat is pre-cooked rubbish

Joan, it's none of your business what others eat, love.

But the fact remains that most people in this country are overweight or obese, much of what they eat is pre-cooked rubbish, and Tesco has had more influence on their eating habits than the River Café.

We all know who Tesco are, but what the living fuck is River Café? And why in buggery should it cut more sway with us than a universally accessible business where we tend to buy a lot of our food?

Those not as elitist as yourself would dearly love to be on first name terms with the proprietors of River Café, or any other pricey right-on eaterie, but I can bet that once we turned up en masse you would be out the door faster than Wayne Bridge if John Terry popped up in his local.

And. "The fact remains that most people in this country are overweight"? Really? Do fuck right off, you hideous prick. If over 50% of the country is, by your terms, overweight, that makes them normal. The minority are then underweight.

I don't agree, even remotely, with your sources, but then you don't give any. Merely a righteous view on how you wish others to live.

Listen, Joan, I don't make the rules, but in a democracy we are continually told that the majority wins. It's used repeatedly against other lifestyle choices, so what's good for the goose is good for everyone else. You can't pick and choose.

Fatten up and join the rampaging horde, bitch. Or just shut the fuck up.

I'm sorry about this, loathing Tesco as I do, and I wish the general public paid more attention to the good guys of the food business. But the River Café is expensive and cheap food is regarded as a human right these days; burger chains compete to advertise price cuts on bus shelters as though nothing else actually matters. Jamie Oliver, who once worked at the River Cafe, has hectored and cajoled the inhabitants of South Yorkshire without managing to achieve a lasting change in their eating habits. Fried chicken, meat pies and curries dripping with clarified butter still reign supreme.

You loathe Tesco because they give the public what they want? What kind of perverse harridan are you?

You abhor people because they eat what they want and not what you decide they should? Who made you the judge, Joan?

It's none of your fucking business what others eat. No, not just a little bit, a lot. The eating habits of others should be as alien to you as the sexual practices of a Brazilian transexual midget. It is quite simply not your concern.

This is an egregious example of the quite astoundingly elitist, more-equal-than-others thinking to which we have grown accustomed. But normally, it is advanced by the mob rule of majority over minority.

Smith shows that the righteous don't care whether they enjoy majority approval or not. They will bludgeon their selfish notions through by any means possible.

You 'loathe' Tesco, Joan? Stand outside, picket the place, and see how far you get, you horrendous bint.

But then, when have those who wish to impose their morals on us ever done that? They just mainline into the consciousness of the chimps at Westminster and bingo! We proles must comply or die.

Jamie Oliver can fuck right off too.

Staines Passive

It's not my usual style, but I simply have to do a bit of a Julia because, as bizarre consequences of the smoking ban go, this is a doozy.

A woman has claimed she was not allowed on a bus in Staines after witnessing and challenging a driver who was smoking in his vehicle.

Lesley Dove, 45, was with her husband Paul, and children Jonathan, 16, Aurora, 14, and Lucy, eight, on Sunday (28) at around 5.30pm when she tried to board the 290 bus at Staines bus station to get back to her Hampton home after visiting the town.

She claims as the bus was parked, she saw the driver inside the vehicle finishing off his cigarette, while a passenger was sitting inside.

She said: "Without being aggressive I told him he wasn't supposed to be smoking on the bus, as it was against the law of the smoking ban."

I know you may be thinking that she is just an interfering busybody, but you'd be entirely wrong. There was a bona fide reason for her intervention.

Mrs Dove said she is anti-smoking because her mother smoked around her when she was young.

She claims she gets coughing fits, and sometimes chest infections when around smokers, and feels that not enough people uphold, or are educated about the smoking ban.

Fair enough.

If it affects her that badly, best she get the next bus then.

"When we went to get on the bus, he said we were not allowed on, so we had to wait for half an hour in the cold for another."

Err, why would you want to get on a bus when you're going to suffer so badly? Surely a little bit of cold is preferable to the torture of being on a bus, where someone has smoked, if it could lead to a load of hacking and potential chest infections?

Come on, woman, show some consistency. How did you get by in life before Westminster fools passed a charter for your ilk to lecture and pontificate to others? Must have been hell.

Lastly, why were you complaining about one guy smoking a cigarette on a bus, ventilated generously every time the large doors regularly open and close, when you were standing in a fucking bus station surrounded by gallons of carcinogenic engine emissions.

"People starting butting in and having a go at me, and I started to get quite frightened, and my youngest daughter started to cry. It was very upsetting, because all I did was try and make sure he upheld the law."

Eh? The ban is universally popular. Why on Earth would they be getting irate at you? That is so damn unlucky. You've met the only people in the country who think differently ... acording to the government.

Or could there be something more to this story?

A spokesman for bus company Transdev said: "We are aware of an alleged incident concerning a driver smoking on a route 290 bus at Staines Bus Station, on 28 March 2010. Smoking on any London United vehicle is strictly prohibited. The matter will be investigated fully."

Of course, prior to July 1st 2007, the situation wouldn't have occurred in the first place. Lesley would have boarded without turning a hair, no-one would have died, no-one would have cried, no-one would have been stressed or scared, no-one would be under investigation, no-one would have waited in the cold, no-one would have been arguing at the bus stop amongst themselves. Just like thousands of other bus journeys Lesley has taken in her 45 years on the planet.

Another example, as I've alluded to before, of the emnity, division and spite, sometimes resulting in violence, which has been created out of thin air by this government, purely for ideological reasons.

I think I shall repeat Labour's mantra again, inspired by Francis of Assisi.

Where there is harmony, may we bring discord. Where there is truth, may we bring error. Where there is faith, may we bring doubt. And where there is hope, may we bring despair.

UPDATE: It looks like Lesley Dove is a bit of a committed righteous health nut.

Lesley Dove
Member of The London Vegan Meetup Group

Vegan from Hampton, wants to meet veggies and vegans, especially locally, and other veggie and vegan families too.

She hates Jamie Oliver - nothing wrong with that, but - for believing that animals are food!

Umm, actually no, if Jamie Oliver supported animal rights, he would not be encouraging people to eat animals whether they were British or foreign, kind of obvious isn't it? True supporters of animal rights believe that animals are not food.

And she was active in the campaign against MMR on natural remedies grounds, even pitching up on the BBC web-site 9 years ago. Yep, it's definitely her.

If she wasn't hectoring, she wouldn't feel alive. No wonder the locals are probably sick of her.

Just a mischievous thought, but if she ate proper food, perhaps she'd be a bit more resilient to a few wisps of smoke, no?

UPDATE 2: Thanks to an anon in the comments. Lesley is a raving anti-smoking nutjob with a tendency to involve the press.

I am getting in the local press about it this week or next week though! They took my photo with my kids outside the centre on Tuesday for the paper, and I am fighting this because it should be my right as a local resident for my local community centre to be accessible to me.

Go read the lot, you'll be amazed. Even her vegan friends think she is loopy.

A Triumph For Repulsive Anti-Social Snobbery

"... and I realised with horror that I'd seen this awful thing before", Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds

Back in 2006, government passed legislation to usher in a new age of intolerance and snobbery. It had taken around 30 years for the Godber Blueprint to take effect, that is “to foster an atmosphere where it was perceived that active smokers would injure those around them, especially their family and any infants or young children who would be exposed involuntarily”.

This, of course, was the smoking ban. Based on a pre-planned lie and brought to prominence by way of three decades of slogans such as "smokers stink", it played upon a latent dislike of smoking and smokers amongst the dregs of our society. It was an incessant onslaught which turned a nation comfortable with co-operation and tolerance into one where to openly hurl disgusting insults and threats at otherwise law-abiding and productive members of the public was actively encouraged.

It was a victory for the army of fanatical single issue state-funded tax-spongers who prey upon the borderline insane mentality of the revolting; the contemptuous; the arrogant; the pinch-lipped; the selfish; and the proudly anti-social.

A clusterfuck of the abhorrent; a circle-jerk of the hateful and nauseating.

These days, as Snowdon points out in City AM, it doesn't take anywhere near so long.

It has taken several years of the most ludicrous, unscientific hysteria about a single ingredient to get us to this point, but this is the result: a reverse Robin Hood tax with a dismal track record in every country in which it has been tried being presented to the public as a health policy. 

It would be laughable if it were not so pathetic.

The sugar tax is born out of the same vile and scum-infested middle class base as the smoking ban. The only difference being that back then it was smokers, now it is the overweight. The precedent was set a decade ago, a precedent which gave a green light for the most hideous in society to point fingers, criticise the choices of others, publicly vomit insults, and demand government force be brought to bear on people who they feel offended at seeing. That's all, just seeing!

All that's required is a section of the population eaten up by bigotry, and a handy figurehead to produce junk science, spit vitriol, and wildly exaggerate. With sugar it was this guy.

I have some previous with Prof [Graham] MacGregor. Earlier this year, I went head-to-head with him on Andrew Pierce’s LBC show. The topic: a proposed sugar tax. I went first and made the case that it was our responsibility to look after our own health and that it is the responsibility of parents to look after the health of their children. This opened the floodgates of condescension. I was talking rubbish. He had worked with poor people in deprived areas and they cannot look after themselves. It was the responsibility of people like him to look after them as he knows better. 

At the start of questioning by MPs on the Health Committee, I knew what was coming. Naturally, he favours a sugar tax, and he fully expects it to start low and increase year-on-year. Don’t be surprised when Prof MacGregor calls for 700 per cent, roughly the same as cigarettes. 

This was just the start, though. As he started moving up through the gears, Prof MacGregor revealed that he doesn’t just want sugary drinks taxed, he wants those with artificial sweeteners taxed too. Even though a sugar tax would be regressive, he attacked Jeremy Hunt for calling it that, and described it as a “desperate ploy” on the Health Secretary’s behalf. He openly displayed his hatred of the food industry. He wants all advertising of unhealthy food banned, and thinks the food industry kills more than tobacco manufacturers. 

As he was cruising in top gear, he also came out with this gem. Prof MacGregor has worked in Tooting amongst the socially deprived, and he claimed that everyone living on the estates in Tooting is obese. Not just some, the majority, no, everyone.

To the vast majority of us MacGregor is a crank who makes shit up about his personal irrational prejudice about a pretty minor problem because he's a revolting, froth-mouthed cocksnorter of biblical proportion, but when heard by fellow gut-wrenchingly repellent snobs, it's an invitation to be the most vile they can be.

Jamie Oliver, a man perfectly described by the Speccie as "a chef whose own waistline has expanded as fast as his ego", exemplified this ugly triumphalism over those he feels are inferior to him when interviewed by the BBC.

Jamie Oliver had a little #sugartax dance on BBC News https://t.co/mZa1XJLsVf #Budget2016 pic.twitter.com/ZhvV1p5G8p

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) March 16, 2016

With these two sickening people leading the charge, is it any wonder the foul and the loathsome come crawling out of the woodwork.

Anyone who drinks fizzy drinks, diet or otherwise, every day is an idiot. Water is what hydrates us, anything else is a waste of money.

— Kirstie Mary Allsopp (@KirstieMAllsopp) March 17, 2016

The #SugarTax is not a tax on the poor. It's a tax on poor parenting. If you don't want to pay it, don't give your kids fizzy drinks. Simple

— Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) March 16, 2016

@jamieoliver @hmtreasury should have put a levy on stupid people who allow kids to drink this rubbish!

— Nick Bamford (@nickbamford) March 16, 2016

You're not making a choice anymore, instead you're a shit parent; stupid; an idiot ... for knowing your family better than the judgemental and the obnoxious. You are lazy, and they are damn well going to tell you so because, well, they're the apocryphal perfect people whose snobbery and crass ignorance makes them think they are entitled to 'cast the first stone'.

Well, they're not, they're absurd self-regarding shitgoblins, but slack-waisted Jamie is their God and they're on a roll now. So why not demand more, eh?

@cjsnowdon no, this is just the start of the war on unhealthy food. That's why it's being fought so hard.

— Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) March 16, 2016

@sarahwollaston @Childrensfood @actiononsugar cutting some sugar in colas is good news but we need to cut it more. Good 1st step, long road

— Professor Tim Lang (@ProfTimLang) March 16, 2016

#sugartax is all well and good but why no minimum alcohol pricing?. Alcohol related disease major burden on society it ruins lives.

— A.Farooq (@AbdulFarooq95) March 16, 2016

Osborne didn't usher in any new success for 'public health' yesterday - for the simple fact that a sugar tax has never worked and, as admitted by those who favour it, never will - but he certainly delivered multiple orgasms to the most deranged and repugnant in our country; the type you would hide behind the sofa to pretend you were out if you saw them park outside your house. If pandering to the vile and intolerant was the purpose, the upper class boy Osborne did exceptionally! He enthralled his fellow pompous and snooty middle class minions and stuck it to the less well off good, so he did.

Or, as Alex Deane succinctly describes it in The Telegraph.

Virtue-signalling politicians, bureaucrats and celebrities feeling tremendously good about themselves because they’ve bossed the rest of us around, and imposed a stealth tax on those least able to afford it.

It's not a step forward for the health of the nation, but instead a triumph for repulsive anti-social snobbery and the most obnoxious human faecal matter we have the abject misfortune to share our everyday lives with.

The worst thing by far about the sugar tax is how happy it made some ghastly people.

— Jackart (@VeryBritishDude) March 17, 2016

Quite. It's like 2006 all over again.

UPDATE: Here's an interesting perspective from a statistician.

But whatever they spend it on, they would have preferred to spend it on sugary drinks, so we are again making them worse off in terms of the things that they value. 

All these considerations are trivial for people on high incomes. They may not be for people on low incomes. What seems certain is that the costs of the sugar tax will fall disproportionately on the poor. 

You may think that’s a good idea. George Osborne obviously does. But personally, I’m not a fan of regressive taxation.

Unlike all those odious snobs above.