A Ban If It's Law, A Ban If It's Not

In answer to a parliamentary question tabled by Liz Saville-Roberts of Plaid Cymru yesterday, the government's Home Office spokesperson, Victoria Atkins, gave us a small glimpse into how the choices of staff and the public are treated with contempt by the elites, and how they really only have themselves to blame for some of the abuse they receive.

Saville-Roberts asked which Home Office premises do not operate a no-smoking policy. It turns out that not only is the answer none, but that the Home Office has been massively gold-plating restrictions demanded by the smoking ban.

Victoria Atkins The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, Minister for Women 

The Home Office supports the right to work in a smoke-free environment. The Health Act 2006 and similar laws in Scotland and Wales ban workplace smoking. 

Home Office staff must not smoke or use e-cigarettes anywhere on Home Office premises including: 

• buildings, vehicles and land – this includes all walkways, access areas and car parks
• outside entrances and exits of buildings
• private vehicles parked on Home Office premises

I really don't know where to start with a policy as hideous and daft in equal measure as this.

Why Atkins bothers to cite the Health Act 2006 is baffling because that merely bans smoking in any building that is more than 50% enclosed, it has absolutely no bearing on all the extra restrictions she seems proud to boast about. The justification given in that Act was that there was {cough} scientific 'evidence' that passive smoking harms bystanders in enclosed public places, otherwise politicians would have never dreamed of removing the right to use legal products, oh no! It was merely to protect those poor bar workers. They had no choice, see?

So where did the idea that bans outside in "walkways, access areas and car parks" should be included come from? Where is the {cough} scientific 'evidence' for banning smoking "outside entrances and exits of buildings"? And how does banning an employee smoking in their own parked car, alone, "support the right to work in a smoke-free environment"? Surely, to borrow from one of the most clichéd anti-smoking tropes of all time, the Home Office's right to protect an employee from their own secondhand smoke ends at the door of their own fucking vehicle.

It's not really about health, is it?

What's more, how is also banning the use of e-cigs in all of those places conducive to a "smoke-free environment" when they don't emit any smoke? In the past year or two we have seen Public Health England advocating for vapers being afforded somewhere in the workplace to vape, the government's Tobacco Control Plan clearly stating that vaping "should not be included in policies which ban smoking", and the Science and Technology Committee recommending that "rules around e-cigarettes should be relaxed so they can be more widely used and accepted in society".

It's scary that a policy so devoid of common sense has been written by a department which is tasked with our security, because its terms mean that although soldiers can face live firing on Salisbury Plain, they'd better not even think about having a smoke or a vape while they're there or they could face disciplinary action. Utterly absurd.

It's like different departments of the government don't even talk to each other anymore. How can you take politicians seriously when, on the one hand, you have health departments giving out guidance and a Home Office Minister trumpeting on Hansard about how they are proud to be completely ignoring it?

It also tells us that the smoking ban was a quite hideous piece of legislation which lifted up a rock and let every belly-crawling prohibitionist maggot slither out and run riot. I am pretty sure that prior to 2006 the Home Office wouldn't allow smoking in its offices, but the green light the Health Act gave to civil service regulators desperate to regulate something - anything - has led us into this situation where smoking is banned even if you are sitting at nose level with a car's exhaust pipe, and every weapons-grade bigot with an axe to grind about other people's choices is encouraged to chip in their personal gripe and a policy will be drafted to ban it. It's becoming the national sport.

Whether there is a law against it, whether there isn't, and even when the very government itself would prefer the opposite.

There has been a lot of talk today about how politicians are receiving abuse on social media and how it's very, very bad. But those are just words. Politicians and the system they have administered - badly - in recent years are attacking the public like no other time in history. Their ratchet has gone only one way for the past decade or so, if they want to gain a bit of respect, perhaps they might consider recommending a relaxation of pointless and draconian bans and restrictions instead of forever dreaming up new ways to beat the public about the head for simply wanting to use legal products.

Where is the cabinet minister who will stand up and declare that, you know, the public is there to be served. Not a target to attack and be moulded into something they'd rather not be? And maybe that the public might appreciate not being told what to do. Every. Fucking. Day!

Further reading along the same lines today here: "This will leave the Government in the absurd position of officially advising people to drink pure orange juice as one of their five a day while banning adverts for it because it is junk."

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.   

The Snobbery Of Banning Sweets At Checkouts

On an otherwise glorious day of electrifying sunshine and impressive football success, let's nail this distasteful sophistry from the embarrassing Department of Health and its massed ranks of tax-troughing government lobbyists, shall we?

Via the BBC:

[Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt] said the cost of obesity was too great to ignore. 

"Parents are asking for help - we know that over three quarters of parents find offers for sugary sweets and snacks at checkouts annoying. 

"It's our job to give power to parents to make healthier choices, and to make their life easier in doing so."

Parents are asking for help to, erm, say no? Government is now passing laws - and effectively creating criminal offences - because some parents find something annoying?

Jesus Christ, I find Coronation Street annoying but it's a minority view. So is the annoyance at the display of sweets at checkouts. And how do we know this? Because if it was a widespread problem with consumers, businesses would have got rid of them decades ago. The Conservative Party should know this, but then they seem to have abandoned conservatism in favour of big state interventionist stupidity of late.

The overwhelming majority of parents are perfectly able to say no to their children. The overwhelming majority of consumers are fine with sweets being sold at checkouts, maybe even finding it a nice impulse buy as a treat after doing the chore of a weekly shop. What is absolutely certain is that banning sweets at checkouts will have no impact whatsoever on the prevalence of obesity, nor on an 'epidemic' which is entirely fictional, and it won't save the NHS one penny of a gerrymandered and fictional cost.

So what is really going on here? Well, it's just good old-fashioned snobbery, as I have written about on very many occasions in the past couple of years.

If you questioned these parents who are apparently "asking for help" and asked why their parenting skills are so pathetic that they can't say no to their children, I wager you'd find that they tell you they're brilliant parents! And how dare you suggest otherwise! They are more concerned about "our children", as in everyone else's children.

Tom Paine wrote most eloquently about this a few years ago when discussing a quite rancid authoritarian snob who was rightly termed "the all-round worst person at the Battle of Ideas" of 2012.

My choice is Dr Michael Nelson, director of research and nutrition at the Children's Food Trust (a "social business" working with the "charity" the Schools Food Trust). ... it wasn't the advice he would give parents as to what their children should eat but his contempt for their ability to make choices and their right to do so that was the problem. He ... complained that parents (as witness the contents of packed lunches they sent with their children to school) could not be trusted to make good choices for their children's health. Government attempts to improve nutrition by requiring catering contractors to offer healthy choices had failed because those choices were simply not taken up. If we care about "our children" he said (oddly as he and I have no children together) then we must help parents who;  

...we know from experience do not themselves have the the power of executive decision when it comes to their own diet... 

In other words, these people are too stupid to be parents. I asked myself (but did not dare to articulate the suggestion unless it gave him ideas) why he stopped short of taking all of British childkind into care. After all, their parents are too stupid to raise them properly and are jeopardising their families' health irresponsibly.

Now, if you put the views of Dr Nelson to those who Hunt says are "asking for help", you would find that they would agree. It is not their own kids they want help with, but other people's. If you don't believe me, try this experiment. As above, if you hear a parent say they are in favour of this policy, ask them why they are so bad at parenting they need a law to help them say no. I guarantee you they will instantly talk about other parents and children who are not their own.

How a Conservative government has contrived to place itself in a position where one of its core beliefs - personal responsibility - is being obliterated by its adherence to the vile and the judgemental in society who like to tut and sneer at other people's lives, is a mystery.

Still, at least it's made them popular with the tax-sucking bastards who pander to society's most repulsive snobs, eh?

Government's New Plan To Halve Child Obesity 'Is An Absolute Travesty', Say Health Campaign Groups

For pity's sake, when will these oak-brained politicians realise that appeasing 'public health' only excites them more? Just ignore them!

Fucking idiots. 

Scotland Plans To Gold-Plate The TPD And Further Restrict E-Cig Advertising

Yesterday I wrote about the tobacco control industry's habit of cherry-picking evidence and - more recently - disbelieving real life evidence because it doesn't agree with their wild, junk science-led fantasies of how the world works.

Today sees a new low, though, as the Scottish Government released its Tobacco Control Plan. Snowdon has highlighted some of the blinkingly barmy aspects of it, so do go read his piece.

He said that he had only skimmed it and that there is bound to be more crazy in there, and he's correct. There is. For example, how much does this send your hypocrisy detector buzzing?

In the ministerial foreword, Minister for Public Health and Sport Aileen Campbell boasts about NHS services and how "there are new, more effective medications and our services are now more e-cigarette friendly", while further down the document it states:

On the basis of current evidence vaping e-cigarettes is definitely less harmful than smoking cigarettes. So, e-cigarette use as a means to quit should be seen by health professionals as a tool which some smokers will want to use. 

It also says about "smokers in mental health settings":

Raising awareness of the need to take a new approach in these settings and particularly about the possibilities which e-cigarettes being made available in appropriate non-NHS prescribed ways could have a big impact on the physical health of these patients.

So what are they going to do about these products which they have obviously recognised as being something which smokers are choosing to use and which have led to smoking prevalence tumbling?

Well, they're going to ensure that almost no-one knows about them, of course.

Providing protection through regulations and restrictions 

We will consult on the detail of restricting domestic advertising and promotion of e-cigarettes in law.

The key word there is 'domestic' because the EU's article 20 of the TPD specifically banned cross border advertising, therefore broadcast and online media. Domestic advertising such as posters, leaflets, direct mail, cinema and ads on buses are not covered by EU law.

So, the Scottish government is consulting with a view to gold-plate the EU regulations by placing further restrictions on 'domestic' advertising; that very e-cigarette advertising which is currently not burdened by the ignorant, lobbyist-led stupidity of Brussels.

With the UK's advertising regulator recently having given evidence to the UK government's Science and Technology Committee that they are looking at allowing e-cig vendors to make truthful claims about the safer nature of vaping - as in, relaxing the regulations - the Scottish government is planning to go the other way and make sure as few people know about vaping as possible.

The Calvinist puritanism being displayed in Scotland right now is jaw-dropping, but this takes the biscuit. We have a tobacco control plan for England committing to "maximise the availability of safer alternatives to smoking", at the same time that Scotland has decided it only wants safer alternatives available via state-run channels. If they can't control it, they'd prefer you don't even try.

There are also sinister hints that they intend to go even further down the rabbit hole of anti-vaping moral panic.

Over the course of this action plan it is likely that the markets for e-cigarettes and novel heated tobacco products will develop further. This could mean that the current focus of tobacco control enforcement changes over time to take account of these newer markets. For example if there were changes to the law on restricting the sales of non-nicotine containing e-liquid for e-cigarettes this would have implications for enforcement.

If markets for e-cigs and heat not burn increase, that is a good thing! But not for Scotland, it seems. There is also a hint there that there might be more regulations on the horizon for nicotine free e-liquid, again not covered by the EU TPD.

Have I got your attention yet, Scottish vape reviewers? Yep, that could be the end of short fills.

There may also need to be programmed initiatives on ensuring e-liquids are authorised products ...

Well, considering the TPD created a new category for e-cigs so they are already kinda "authorised", could they mean yet another gold plate layer on top of EU regulations? Or maybe they just mean the whole hog and enforced medicinal licensing. We shall have to see.

... and perhaps even on whether these age-restricted products are being marketed in a way which primarily appeals to young people. 

They've really swallowed the anti-vaping Kool Aid in bucket loads, haven't they?

And as for this ...

During the summer of 2018 we will work with health boards and integration boards to try to reach a consensus on whether vaping should or should not be allowed on hospital grounds through a consistent, national approach.

It's not illegal, it's not dangerous, the same document talks about smokers using e-cigs to quit. Where is the debate?

I reckon the best take I can offer to you is that if you are Scottish and a vaper, remember that ASH Scotland - who will have advised the government in detail on production of this plan - is not your friend. Neither, I would suggest, is the SNP. Worth remembering next time some politician asks for your vote.

Like Snowdon, I have only skimmed the document and - like him - I think "these people are off their heads". I'll leave it there for now, though, but I'm sure I'll be coming back to this utter insanity, maybe tomorrow. Watch this space. 

Banning Things People Want To Buy

Last week the Washington Examiner carried a very astute article by Tim Worstall. The main point he makes cannot be emphasised enough because it cuts right to the heart of why bansturbators are bansturbators.

Local mayor wants to ban McDonald's, therefore admits people want McDonald's

The thing is, the ban (in the form of adamantly denying planning permission) is just proof perfect that the mayor knows that his constituents actually want a McDonald’s. Banning something always is an acknowledgment that people want that thing. 

Consider what happens if they don’t want that item? No sane businessman tries to provide it, and the insane one who does try goes bust very quickly. The absence of consumer desire means that the thing doesn’t need to be banned. And the need to ban shows precisely the opposite: the existence of that consumer demand. 

There’s no reason at all to ban some consumer choice other than the knowledge that if it were available some would pick it. Given that this is obviously so, we liberals should be telling the progressives to go boil their heads. Really, why are you trying to ban something that people so obviously desire?

Why are they trying to ban something that people so obviously desire? Well, it's precisely because people desire it. That's it.

This is true of every so-called 'public health' campaign that has ever been embarked upon. The smoking ban was not about health, it was simply because intolerant people didn't like others who smoke. The desperate wriggling by health zealots to pretend passive smoking is a thing - most recently outside for which there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever - is regularly betrayed by cheerleaders of the ban gloating about how smokers now have to stand outside and talking about how they never have to wash their clothes again. It was a pre-meditated attack on other people driven by anti-social snobbery.

Entire highly-paid 'public health' movements have grown up around pandering to the irrational prejudices of a hideous minority of pompous, curtain-twitching finger-waggers. The sugar tax isn't about health, because it will have zero effect just like it has had zero effect anywhere else in the world. It is about a bunch of elitist snobs insisting the state stop others from enjoying drinks that they personally don't like. In any other area of government policy, it would be shocking to propose regulations which punish the poor, but the sugar tax will do precisely that and politicians are crowing about how good it will be at doing it. In fact, it is a proudly-trumpeted feature of the policy.

Likewise minimum alcohol pricing which directly targets drinks the less well off tend to drink. The rich will be completely unaffected either because they don't drink those 'common' drinks or because the impact on their disposable income is negligible.

Can you imagine an MP proudly announcing a policy to absolve the rich from taxes and putting the burden exclusively on the poor? He would be drummed out of polite society in very short order - yets that is exactly what 'public health' advocates on a daily basis.

In the case of vaping, it's even worse. Health campaigners care more about banning far safer e-cigs than they do about smokers deriving improved health benefits. They would actually prefer that smokers die than allow something to be sold that millions of people would like to buy.

In pursuit of securing the approval of some of the most vile and disgusting in society, politicians are clambering over themselves to ban products for the sole reason that a majority of people want to buy them, as Timmy describes.

It’s that very insistence on not allowing us to make the choice which proves, perfectly, that those denying us think we actually want what they’re not going to let us have.

There can be nothing more vile than that.

And, I'm sorry, I'm not buying this idea that 'public health' does this because it is a well-meaning but flawed movement. They know exactly what they are doing. We see it in the deliberately manipulated junk science; the press released scare stories which bear no resemblance to the research they have conducted; the blatant denial of truth; and the frenzied assaults on anyone who might dare to offer a differing opinion.

There is no public clamour for 'public health' initiatives. They are driven solely by those employed in that industry in order that they can profit from banning things that the vast majority of the public have proved they want to buy because they vote with their wallets and purses. If the 'public health' movement was confident that its messages were robust, it would simply deliver information to the public and the products they deem to be unacceptable would slowly wither and die. They don't because they know that the risks are so minimal that the public will make a calculation - as they have always done - between the enjoyment they derive from buying the products and the risks .. and would probably go on buying them.

Hence why 'public health' must obfuscate, lie, manipulate data and research, silence dissent and - most importantly - never engage with the public. 'Public health' is not only a huge drain on the productive part of the world's economy, but is also a net negative to society in general by causing division and obliterating the public's enjoyment of life by banning things simply because the public wants to consume them.

Of course, those in 'public health' might disagree but there is a perfect test to decide if they are correct. Let's defund the bloody lot of them and see if the public makes up the shortfall. See, just like a 'public health' ban is not required if people really don't want to buy something, so funding is completely unnecessary if the public properly valued 'public health'.

Go to it, politicians, believe me you'll be popular if you do. Just think of those majorities you could benefit from. 

Screw Bar Workers, What About Middle Class Diners?

Remember that there smoking ban that was all about protecting bar workers from the terrors of secondhand smoke? Well apparently now it's more about protecting middle class pub diners from being slightly inconvenienced. But then we kinda knew that all along, didn't we?

Smoking ban to be extended to outdoor areas where food served 

The Government is to extend the ban on smoking where food is served to include outdoor areas.

Fine Gael Senators have tabled a private members motion calling on the Minister for Health Simon Harris to change legislation or issue directions via a statutory instrument to address the gap in current legislation. 

The initiative was spearheaded by former minister for health James Reilly, who has said it should no longer be acceptable for people to smoke where others are eating.

Personally, I don't know why they don't eat inside if they're that bothered. They were given every fucking indoor space in Ireland in 2004. It seemed quite important to them back then.

An unintended consequence of the smoking ban has been the prevalence of smokers in the outdoor areas of bars, cafés and restaurants, Mr Reilly said.

It was quite obvious that this was the only possible consequence. In fact, it was a feature of the legislation, not a bug. Who's to blame for that you hideous prohibitionist fuckstick?

“Anyone spending their hard-earned money in a restaurant or café should be entitled to enjoy their meal in a smoke-free environment.”

Why? Do they own the business? Why are they 'entitled' to anything more than other customers who pay the same money for the same goods and services? Smoking outdoors is not harmful so it should be up to the business to decide, not a sweaty, gurning, obese dangle-belly politician with a pathological downer on smoking.

But the idea he should butt out of business decisions "horrifies" this particular odious walking heart attack.

Forest’s John Mallon told RTÉ’s Today with Sean O’Rourke show that the market should decide if restaurant owners are willing to make this decision. 

However, former Minister for Health James Reilly, who is calling on the Government to extend the ban on smoking where food is served to include outdoor areas, said he was horrified at the suggestion that the market decide health policy. 

Mr Reilly said it was no longer acceptable for people to smoke where others were eating.

No it's not. Most people couldn't give two shits about it. Only vile bloviating pissbags care that much. And if their limp sensibilities are offended so much, perhaps they should go have lunch with Aunt Maud in the local day centre instead, a pub is really not the place for them, or shouldn't be anyway.

But this, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the pièce de résistance in the latest piece of anti-smoking lunacy dressed up as health concern.

Mr Reilly said he was not saying there shouldn’t be outdoor areas for smokers, just that the area should be separate from where food is being served. “This is a killer product.”

So it's only a killer product when there is food around? Do these cretins ever listen to themselves?

It's quite simply just yet another 'public health' attack on things that those 'common' people enjoy. It's a class war by the elite directed at those who they find a bit icky. Snobbery of the very worst kind, driven by a nasty overweight fascist who should look in the mirror occasionally and sort his own health out before passing bullying legislation against others. They never cared about bar workers, it was just a ruse. Now they care so little about them they are happy to see their employers go out of business so middle class snobs can enjoy their one two-for-a-tenner meal once every two months without being bothered by those frightful regulars who keep the pub afloat.

The Augean Stables had nothing on the amount of effluence swilling around 'public health' circles at the moment. It's going to be a Herculean task to rid the corridors of power of nasty dictatorial arse-wipes like Reilly. Where are the brave politicians who will stand up for the people and just say fuck off?

May God rot every one of these vile meddling bollock-chinned bastards. 

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.

More Vile Lunchbox Snooping In Yorkshire

Some cynical types hinted in the comments under my last article about a Bradford School's ban on sausage rolls - which really ground my gears if you hadn't noticed - may have had more to do with the pork than health.

Sadly, it seems it's not that simple, there appears to be something very rotten in the county of Yorkshire.

A fed-up mother of four, whose children attend Westgate Primary, in Otley, says she is considering launching a petition urging the school to review its strict packed lunch policy 

The mother, who does not wish to be named, said: “The teaching assistants take at least half-an-hour inspecting children’s packed lunches in the morning while wearing rubber gloves.  

“Kids as young as eight are being given the responsibility to ‘advise’ and tell on their friends if they have inappropriate items in their lunch. 

“If an item is removed it is bagged-up with the child’s name and given to parents at the end of the day.

Teaching assistants acting like prison guards; young kids egged on to become snitches; confiscating perfectly legal and benign products? It's quite staggering and shows just what a cancer the rent-seeking 'public health' industry is to have driven our public sector institutions to such insanity over fripperies.

As I said last week, a child's lunchbox is firmly in control of the parent and - as such - is a private space between the child and home and therefore out of bounds to teaching assistants, so I really struggle to understand how any school can believe this is acceptable behaviour.

Incredibly, the school head seems to think it is, though.

Helen Carpenter, headteacher at the school, said: “Encouraging healthy eating amongst our pupils is really important to us here at Westgate Primary School, therefore we have adopted a packed lunch policy, like many other schools, with a view to ensuring our pupils have a healthy, balanced and nutritious lunch."

And there's that word 'encouraging' again. Mandatory lunchbox inspections, the use of informers and forced confiscation is not encouragement' by any definition of the fucking word. It is hardline coercion. You'd think a teacher - even a hellbeast as vile and gullible as this one - would know that.

You'd also expect her to be using school resources better. There is no point her, or any other teacher, squealing about how their budgets are squeezed while they are wasting time and money on such vacuous and sinister nonsense.

Still plenty more to cut in her school's budget, of that there is absolutely no doubt. 

Psst! Come Here Little Boy, Lemme Look In Your Lunchbox

A Bradford teacher, pictured today

Considering the habit that the 'public health' movement has of dressing their puritannical snobbery up as some kind of concern for kids (which it isn't, kids are just a tool they use to further their rent-seeking agenda), there is nothing more vile than when their policies actively contribute to detracting from the enjoyment of childrens' lives.

Here is one such example, via the BBC.

Bradford school bans sausage rolls from packed lunches

The new policy at Shirley Manor Primary Academy in Bradford states parents will be called if banned foods are found in packed lunches.

By "banned foods", they mean things that are readily available from every supermarket in the country, some of which - like sausage rolls - that have been in the British diet for hundreds of years.

[The policy] states pork pies, sausage rolls and pepperoni sticks should not be included and neither should fruit squash or flavoured water.

I'm wondering if these educators are aware of how brilliantly they have mirrored the antics of Mr Bumble, the "cruel, pompous beadle of the poorhouse" which Dickens used to "characterise the meddlesome self-importance of the petty bureaucrat".

Because that's exactly what these odious teaching professionals are. This part - carefully worded to mask their bullying - is particularly vile.

The policy says pupils are encouraged to show their packed lunches to staff before and after they have eaten.

Encouraged? What if they say no? Are they left alone to go about the rest of their day? I think we all know the answer.

The reason these bansturbating teachers use the weasel word "encouraged" is because they know that a kid's lunchbox is a private place between the parent and their child. It has always been a little piece of home brought into the school. How many Mums have packed their kid's food along with a little note to their loved one to keep the parental link during the day? By wanting to peer inside what should be between parent and child, this Bradford school is forcing its way into private family life.

They know this, or else they would have used the word "ordered" instead, because that is precisely what they mean and it is exactly what it will be in practice.

Yes, teachers are bestowed the role of in loco parentis while kids are at school, but it is only a role given by consent, and only in areas where the parents can have no control themselves due to their being absent. The lunchbox does not fall into that category because, well, parents know what their kids like to eat far better than a teacher, they give their permission for that food to be eaten, and they also paid for the fucking contents. They are very much parents in that space and teachers have no right whatsoever to interfere with that. None. Whatsoever!

You should go read the policy, it's a work of art. It kindly says that "parents and carers will receive a letter detailing healthy choices that are permitted in a packed lunch". If I was a parent at that school, I'd be writing back to say that what is "permitted" in my kids' lunch is what I fucking choose to put in it.

In a decent educational establishment this policy would be pinned to a wall as an example of what not to do if you want to avoid being seen as a seedy, heartless curtain-twitching cunt. What's more, it has taken man hours to produce, which is odd considering today the BBC also tells us that there is a teacher complaining about school funding, saying "the system is under massive duress" due to "not enough money, not enough teachers".

Well, considering this Bradford school is fannying around with obnoxious and sinister shit like peering into kids' lunchboxes to see what they can take away to make the kids cry, it tends to suggest they have ample resources. If not, they'd be using their time more efficiently by focussing on teaching rather than what Mum put in a Disney lunchbox they shouldn't be snooping into anyway.

What with Jamie Oliver being the modern equivalent of the dinner lady serving up gruel, and teachers confiscating sausage rolls, Club bars and Fruit Shoots, I bet it's a real blast being a kid these days. Wouldn't it be nice if, occasionally, these bollock-chinned prodnoses actually thought of the things that children enjoy rather than their own lofty self-importance?

An Object Lesson In Snobbery

A couple of repulsive snobs have been whining in The Times about the government's obesity strategy. It is probably the most draconian in the world, but that's still not enough for these two interfering weasels.

Theresa May dropped crucial features of the childhood obesity strategy because she does not have children, a leading female restaurateur has suggested. 

Thomasina Miers, 41, claimed that if the prime minister had had children she would not have allowed measures such as banning junk food advertising and preventing supermarkets pushing sugary foods at children to be dropped.

Rudely bringing May's childless status into the debate has led to condemnation from some quarters, but this is far more offensive in your host's humble opinion.

“Part of me felt that if you had had children you would not have done that, because it is so important that our children eat [healthy food],” she told an audience at the Hay Festival.

Erm, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from feeding your children healthy food, Thomasina. Oh, but you don't mean your children, do you? You mean other people's children, isn't that right you meddling fuck?

Here's a plan, Thomasina, why don't you look after your children, and we will look after ours. OK?

She's not alone in being a tedious, pinch-lipped prodnose though, there's this rancid curtain-twitcher as well.

Rosie Boycott, who works with various food organisations and advised Boris Johnson on food strategy when he was mayor of London, said that the prime minister appeared to have “kicked out the bits about children”. 

Ms Boycott added: “She [Mrs May] would say that she doesn’t want to be part of the Nanny State but I think that if you can’t be a nanny to your children . . . It should be the same as saying ‘do not run across the road.’ ”

Rosie, Rosie, Rosie. You can be a nanny to your children as much as you like, there is no law against it. But when you say "our children" you're being an intrusive snooper just like Thomasina, aren't you?

Rosie, you nanny your children, and leave the decision whether we want to nanny ours up to us, eh? When you start providing for my kids' food and paying for their upbringing you can decide how they live. Until then, have a Coke and a smile and go fuck yourself.

The double act ended on a flourish as the piece came back to Thomasina adding some stunning ignorance to her obnoxious prying into the lives of others.

Ms Miers said that while she did not believe in “big government” she thought it “has got to have more balls” adding: “I feel that this stranglehold that the big supermarkets have on our food system is not helping. People have to have access to fresh fruit and vegetables; it is mad that they don’t.

Have you ever seen a supermarket which isn't packed to the gunwales with fresh fruit and veg? Where does this preposterous woman shop? Venezuela?

It is astonishing that these vacuous pecksniffs believe they have the right to dictate how others live their lives, but it beggars belief that governments tend to indulge their vile snobbery. The only problem this Times article highlights is the one of legions of people like Thomasina and Rosie poking their unwanted noses into everyone else's business.

Far from being condemned, Theresa may should be congratulated for not caving in to shrill, pompous, loathsome shitehawks such as these two. 

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. 

A Good Aussie Speaks Up, Again

As another entry in an occasional series, let's look in on Sydney Australia for more outstanding parliamentarian contributions from this blog's chum, Peter Phelps.

If you've not heard of him before, my introduction from October last year might help.

Those with a good memory might remember Peter Phelps, an Australian politician and Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council. Phelps is notable for being incredibly principled in defending liberal values in such an illiberal environment as NSW, and in a chamber which is situated in nanny state central Sydney. As such, I was thrilled to unexpectedly meet him in July during a coffee break at a Royal Society of Medicine event on over-regulation of pleasure. 

Last year - when he was government whip no less - I wrote about how he casually entered a chamber packed full of variously ignorant prejudiced prohibitionists armed only with insults, smears, innuendo, wild assumptions, and downright lies, and placed in front of them simple incontrovertible facts about e-cigarettes. 

And arguably won hands down.

That article was about how he was speaking at New South Wales's "Inquiry into childhood overweight and obesity", and bedevilling a dried-up crone who believes kids should be deprived McDonald's, Coca-Cola and chocolate because, erm, because she knows better than a kid's parents how to bring up their own kids.

Well our Peter has been doing the same again last week, this time revealing some inconvenient truths to politicians in his state who feel it's their job to dictate what people eat and drink. Which, of course, it is not.

The real problem is that, in fact, there is no obesity epidemic. The obesity epidemic is a myth, especially an obesity epidemic amongst children. For example, the most current report of the Australian Bureau of Statistics says: 

Around one in four children … aged 5-17 years were overweight or obese, similar to 2011.

That statement made me go back to the 2009 ABS report, which said: 

In 2007-08, one-quarter of all Australian children … were overweight or obese …

So I went back even further and noted that this number has not changed. The obesity epidemic is so great that there has been no real change in the number of overweight or obese children. I went back even further and found that, based on children's body mass index [BMI], from 1995 onwards—in other words for the past 20 years—there has been no substantive change. Indeed, the ABS makes the point in its 2009-10 yearbook that differences between the numbers in 1995 and 2007-08 are not statistically significant. 

That means that there is no statistically significant difference in the number of overweight children between 1995 and 2007-08—and by implication at the current time. The whole idea that there is an obesity crisis or an obesity epidemic is complete and utter bunkum.

It's almost like politicians don't even read the statistics that are collated for them at huge expense to the taxpayer, isn't it?

The result of all this propaganda, of course, is that the New South Wales parliament wants to restrict certain popular food and drink items from being sold in school canteens, in order to tackle an obesity 'epidemic' which doesn't actually exist except in the fevered, grant-thirsty minds of state-subsidised 'public heath' snobs.

They are saying, "It is not about restricting choice, but we're going to restrict choice." (it's true, see here - DP)  Is there a more Kafkaesque press release than this? "We're not restricting choice; we're just restricting choice." That is the sort of nonsense we face.

Phelps then goes for the jugular, in amusing fashion.

Welcome to the New South Wales education system where, in health and personal development classes and sex education, students can be told, "It's okay to fellate your boyfriend three times a week, but because of health requirements you can only have a sausage roll once every semester."

And whose fault is the latter (I'm certainly not going to comment on the former!)? Well, Phelps knows that - as we do - very well.

Who are the people pushing this nonsense? There is a willing cohort of public health activists who are always ready to fabricate a crisis to get on the public teat and get a bit of Government money. 

[I]f you look at the arguments that are used more often than not and the statistics for soft drinks—and I recognise the member's comments on sugar taxes—you will see that it is not based on any real evidence. In Australia there is a declining consumption of sugary drinks in the entire population and most notably amongst children. The only real growth in soft drinks happens at the level of those aged 50 and over. Why does this happen? Because there are people who believe that your body belongs to the State. It is the mantra of public health totalitarians everywhere. It has unfortunate resonances with the totalitarian regimes of Europe in the 1930s, whether of a red or a black variety. Both basically said that your body belongs to the State. When we accept that as a basic premise, we have lost the true meaning of what it is to be a classical liberal in this day and age.

Damn right!

And, as Phelps also points out, this is a hark back to the principle of sumptuary law, whereby poor people are deemed not worthy of consuming what rich elites do without a care. In other words, naked and unabashed, bigoted snobbery.

Of course, when you call out such bigots and snobs, they don't react very well, as Australia's state-funded broadcaster eagerly reported (click through for video clip).

There are now calls for Premier Gladys Berejiklian to pull Dr Phelps into line after he criticised his own Government's new healthy school canteen strategy. 

The Opposition's health spokesman, Walt Secord, said Dr Phelp's remarks crossed the line. 

"I think it's time the Premier acted on Dr Phelps ... he does this on a weekly bases he just makes outlandish, outrageous comments and he is beginning to treat the Parliament like a 1950s locker room," he said.

We don't want none of that truth thing in parliament, now do we? He has to be removed or, before you know it, the public will be able to make their own choices without being hectored by tax-sponging control freaks waving shrouds and junk science ... and then where would we be?

Well played Mr Phelps, again, the world sorely needs more truth-telling myth-slayers like you.

See also: When political correctness matters more than common sense - Spectator

A Nanny State Shop In London

The awesome guys from Students for Liberty paid London a visit on Thursday. If you are not aware of SfL, they are a global movement of students campaigning, as it says on the tin, for the protection of our freedoms ... and they are delightfully passionate about it.

Regular readers will remember that a contingent from SfL travelled to India to present the World Health Organisation with an award for being "The Least Transparent Organisation in the Galaxy" in November, and they have also campaigned against nanny statism in a number of major global cities.

On Thursday, they opened a pop-up nanny state shop in Cheshire Street, Shoreditch, so I sauntered up there to get a glimpse of our future.

Sitting at the top of Brick Lane with its many convenience stores and fast food outlets, it was a good choice of location by SfL. With plain packaging already in place for tobacco, and the 'public health' racket already discussing the same treatment for alcohol, sugar and fast food, it is not outlandish to suggest many of the shops in the vicinity could see shelves like this someday, and not in too distant a timescale either.

In fact, as someone observed on Thursday, if anything SfL's packaging and point of sale displays are far too attractive ... to be realistic, and true to the perverted imagination of vile 'public health' gravy train riders, they should carry pictures of rotting teeth, obscenely obese people and diseased livers.

After being given a tour by the guys at the shop, and a glass of water (natch) to soothe my thirst on a warm day, I said goodbye clutching a memento of the place that they kindly gave to me (a practice that I fully expect some charmless 'public health' trougher is already thinking should be banned just as giving away free tobacco is now).

Sadly, the shop was only open for the one day, but it was pleasing to see SfL replicating their nanny state store in the UK after a couple of previous incarnations across the Atlantic. If you couldn't make it on Thursday, there is a panorama of it at this link that should work OK.

Alternatively, here is a short film of one they made earlier.

If you want to learn more about Students for Liberty, or are a student yourself and would like to join them, click here and have a browse. 

All Aboard The Gravy Train

Fancy a glimpse into the tiny, self-proclaimed David v Goliath 'underdog' world of 'public health'?

Up and down the country there are people being paid hefty sums of your taxes to work full-time telling you what you are allowed to consume with your own post-tax cash.

For example:

World Obesity Federation Executive Director 

The Role

We are looking for an outstanding Executive Director to work with our members, trustees and staff to achieve our vision to drive forward global efforts to reduce, prevent and treat obesity. 

Salary: £65,000 to £80,000 depending on experience. 

Minimum years preferred: 

In the Not for Profit sector 5-10 years.

Those who have experience in economy-boosting industry need not apply. Only tax-scrounging parasites are fit for this job.

If that's not your bag, how about ...

Programme Manager
Public Health England 

Salary
£50,154 - £61, 976 per annum 

The post holder will provide public health expertise relating to tobacco control, helping to drive forward the delivery of organisational objectives in this rapidly developing field. 

key working relationships 

• Department of Health • NCSCT • Regional Offices for Tobacco control • UCL Health Behaviour Research Centre • UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies • Local Government Association • Association of Directors of Public Health • Chartered Institute of Environmental Health • Tobacco Control Collaborating Centre • Action on Smoking and Health

Up to £61k, not a bad screw is it?

If you're not a hideous anti-smoker, there's always this non-job instead, you might even get to meet Jamie Oliver and playfully tug on his double chin in your professional life.

Senior Scientific Officer (Sugar Reduction) 

£38,207 - £45,769 per annum 

The Diet & Obesity team is seeking to recruit a senior nutrition scientist (SEO), to work within the Dietary Improvement team and take forward the reduction and wider reformulation programme specifically focussed on the nutrients of concern including sugar, calories, salt and saturated fat. 

Circa £40k for ensuring that kids' treats are made smaller? What's not to like?

There are tons of deliciously-remunerated roles here, go have a look and knock yourself out. There's a whole ton of gravy on that train, just waiting for you to tuck into if you have an authoritarian bent and are not afraid of taking money from taxpayers in order to bully them.

Remember this kind of thing when the public sector talks about those "savage cuts", won't you? 

If You Believe They're Just Guidelines, You're A Fool

It's a constant source of astonishment to me how a huge section of society seems so incredibly incompetent at learning the lessons of history.

Take yesterday's story about 'killer' toast and roast potatoes, for example. It is pretty clear to anyone with reading skills and an education which included comprehension tests that the risk of cancer from toast and pizza ranges from negligible to non-existent. However, whenever these hysterical scares are published, they are always accompanied on social media by comments from smug, bovine cretins who claim it's just advice and why should we be concerned.

Well, this might be a clue.

Pubs and restaurants could soon be fined for serving well-done items such as triple-cooked chips or thin and crispy pizza under a second phase of the Government's crackdown on burnt food.   

Following the launch of a major public awareness campaign yesterday to help people reduce "cancer-causing" acrylamide in food, the Telegraph can reveal that food safety watchdogs are planning to extend the warning to every food-serving business in Britain.  

Under a new European Union food hygiene directive, due to be adopted in the UK by the the end of 2017, pubs and restaurants will be told to take reasonable steps to reduce acrylamide in food or face enforcement measures.

Now it becomes clear, doesn't it? Yesterday's 'guidance' from the Food Standards Agency wasn't so much a "mind how you go" piece of sage advice for the domestic chef, but more a piece of scaremongering to soften us up for yet more authoritarian nanny state interference in our lives and choices, instigated by the EU and faithfully followed by cowardly British public sector toadies.

I expect some dullards will say that this only affects businesses, but I'm sure I don't need to remind readers here that the pubs and restaurants involved will pass on any fines, or insurance against fines, in their pricing or - just as bad - stop serving up food as their customers prefer it to be served. Successful hospitality businesses thrive by producing what the customer wants to consume, unless of course the state comes in and spanners it all up.

The result will be higher prices and/or food that isn't quite as tasty as you'd ideally like it to be. Whichever way you slice it, the public loses ... and all due to junk science promoted by regulators effectively transferring your loss into a financial benefit to their pockets.

It's far from the first time too. Just last year we had the same kind of ignorant bleating that Silly Sally's corrupt re-jigging of alcohol advice was just an exercise in issuing guidelines, you didn't have to follow them and it wouldn't affect you if you didn't. Yet barely a breath was drawn before those same 'guidelines' were being used to inflate the figures on hazardous drinking in order to demand advertising bans, sales restrictions, taxes and minimum alcohol pricing, it was just a tool; a means to a pre-determined end.

It's hardly a surprise. Scroll back to 1971 when the government came to a deal with the tobacco industry to include messages on cigarette packets and you were benignly advised "WARNING by H.M. Government, SMOKING CAN DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH". What's the problem, eh? You could just ignore it, it's only guidance. Similarly in the 1990s 'public health' was merely educating us that passive smoking could be a problem, no-one was going to obstruct your liberties, it was just a little bit of unobtrusive advice.

Look, if you are one of those who really believes that the insanely lucrative and parasitic global 'public health' Goliath only exists to gently guide you, you are mindfuckingly gullible and your opinion on these kind of issues is about as inspired as a knitted condom is to birth control. There has never been anything remotely altruistic about 'public health', history shows us that. Every move they have ever made has simply been to facilitate something else more draconian; more obscene. To take the "next logical step", and every time that step is taken our lives suffer by becoming more oppressive, expensive or mostly both.

If the laughable notion of deadly roast potatoes helps wake the public up to the repulsive curse of public health fanaticism, that would be great. But I reckon it'll be the same old rolling of eyes around water coolers, in pubs and in every bus queue up and down the country; they'll laugh at the stupidity and just ignorantly mutter about how they're just guidelines as the noose gets gently tightened yet again.

If only we had examples from history to show that 'guidelines' never stay that way, eh? Good grief. 

More Cuts Required For The Good Of Public Health

So today's vitally important 'public health' message from our cash-starved 'austerity' government was about the colour of toast. Yes, really.

The awareness campaign, entitled Go for Gold and backed by athlete Denise Lewis (geddit?) was faithfully shared by state-run Nanny Beeb.

Bread, chips and potatoes should be cooked to a golden yellow colour, rather than brown, to reduce our intake of a chemical which could cause cancer, government food scientists are warning. 

Acrylamide is produced when starchy foods are roasted, fried or grilled for too long at high temperatures. 

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) recommends carefully following cooking instructions and avoiding browning.

If you're a hypochondriac - and/or are gullible with no understanding of risk whatsoever - you will naturally be terrified on hearing this new information. The truth, however, is in plain sight within the article, not once but twice.

"However, Cancer Research UK said the link was not proven in humans." 

"as yet there is no conclusive evidence."

No, and as David Spiegelhalter points out today, it's not for want of trying either; a massive report by the European Food Standards Agency found nothing worrisome in 16 studies and 36 publications they analysed. Spiegelhalter also went further and questioned the wisdom of the FSA publishing such advice in the first place.

Reactions to Go for Gold may range from the extremes of encouraging obsessive concern in the worried-well, to irate editorials on yet another intrusion from the ‘nanny state’. More worrying, people may just consider this yet another scare story from scientists, and lead them to dismiss truly important warnings [...] the FSA provide no estimate of the current harm caused by acrylamide, nor the benefit from any reduction due to people following their advice. To be honest, I am not convinced it is appropriate to launch a public campaign on this basis.

That didn't matter to The Sun though, who slapped the tale of "killer" toast on their front page as an "OFFICIAL WARNING", no less.

So there we have the UK's most respected news broadcaster and the country's best-selling newspaper both parroting absolute codswallop which will be believed by millions (Mrs P tells me that some of her white collar office colleagues did today).

Those of you with long memories might remember a similarly hysterical Sun headline from August last year - also a result of irresponsible junk science - which was equally devoid of truth, an original of which has been kept by Professor Peter Hajek who waved it at a South Bank Uni audience last week as an example of "total nonsense".

Now, there are quite a few things to note about the increasing absurdity we are seeing from 'public health' studies and campaigns.

Firstly, it is very easy to dismiss The Sun's front page today as gutter journalism, except that the BBC also prominently covered it over all platforms despite the health risk being so negligible as to be unworthy of comment. The cult of self-perpetuating 'public health' is now so entrenched that supposedly respected news sources will vomit it out as pliantly as derided red top rags. Irresponsible clickbait in journalism is now endemic.

This moves us onto the second point. I find it quite ironic that the 'public health' industry is packed full of lefty ideologists who consider The Sun and the Daily Mail to be abhorrent shitsheets which will print any old garbage, yet they are in the front line for spreading ignorant junk science. This should, surely, flag up a message as to how corrupt and shabby the output of tax-sponging 'public health' professionals really is.

Thirdly, we are living in an age where brows are being furrowed at the prevalence of "fake news" and how so many gullible individuals are susceptible to it. Well, when you have supposedly credible authorities such as the FSA producing contemptible and evidence-free arse-gravy reports of killer roasties, anything else is possible, isn't it?

Fourthly, while the media's attraction is the page views they will gather, it's quite clear that the FSA is guilty of confusing the public with the similarly selfish motivation of pursuing salaries. The NGO is state-funded, with a gov.uk web address, but on this evidence seems more concerned with being seen to be doing something than actually weighing up if the information will have a beneficial effect on public health and well-being.

Which leads us onto the final point, that if the FSA has time and resources to waste on such trivial crap, we need to see far more cuts to public sector spending. There has been no benefit gained for the public's health today, all that has happened is a bunch of overpaid rubber band-flickers have panicked many people and caused a large proportion of the public to make choices which make their lives just that little bit more miserable for no reason whatsoever.

More cuts required please Mr Chancellor, the public's health and enjoyment of life depends on them.