New Labour's Child Catchers

The UK Orwellian NewLabour state is desperately rolling out the quite sinister National Children's Database designed to contain details of and track everyone in the UK under 18.

One wonders how long it will be before they decide to keep the details for life...

The alleged reason for it is to enable "more co-ordinated services for children" and of course to ensure none slips through the net like Victoria Cimbie.

It is questionable if such a database would in fact have prevented her death, or that of baby "P", local co-ordination, lower case loads and effective working practices would almost certainly have far more impact and cost far less.

In the same way they try to uses the fear of terrorism to justfy a national ID database. It is well known thatID cards would never have prevented the London Tube suicide bombers. Or those who attempted to bomb busy London clubs and attacked Glasgow Airport.

This governemt though seems to have only one kneejerk reponse, cataloguing, regimentaion and control of the ordinary citizen - and it seems their children too.

It is terrifying to think of the numbers of people who will have access to what should be private details of our children. Will all council employees be vetted in the same way as youth workers? No. The potential vulnerability that access to this data lays children open to is truly concerning.

Then there is the potential to just loose the details releasing them into the public domain.

The way local councils have misused anti terrorist laws gives an indication they are not to be trusted with our children's details, that are effectively also our details. How long before they routinely check them to establish where you live for instance?

Those who take comfort that these are the twilight days of New Labour and hope the scheme will die a death with their electorial demise are probably fooling themselves. Once rolled out could an new incoming governemnet be trusted to remobve such a big state friendly tool of control?

Maybe the economic facts of life might make a difference. The database is currently slated to cost £224 million, as with all such things this will be underestimated by a whole order of magnitude. Perhaps in the end it will prove to be too expensive.

UK State clampdown on employing illegals

Well New-Labour’s kakistocracy is clamping down on firms that employ those (sub text - nasty foreign spongers) illegal immigrants. They made it illegal to employ illegal immigrants, they prosecuted companies that did and now they are going to pillory the employers by ‘naming and shaming’.

The lie they tell to justify this?

Apparently it’s all to help crush major organised criminal enterprises that use international people trafficing networks to smuggle people into the UK, as a supply of illegal labour. Any way the employers deserve it. They are unscrupulously undercutting the labour market by avoiding paying taxes on wages, that are below the minimum wage anyway. Why, surely virtually stealing jobs from the honest hardworking indigenous population...

...who find they make as money on benefit doing nothing than they could from such jobs as the immegrants are doing.

That’ll help drive up the cost of food and services. Is anyone out there using more than just a single brain cell to parse these excuses?

So we take one step back from the spin and lies.

The real problem is that New-Labour have effectively lost control of the UK’s borders. For years if illegal immigrants decamped from trucks and were caught they would be given instructions to make their way to reception centres and directions, the vast majority of whom promptly vanished. Those that were not caught vanished also.

Rather than have an effective system (this is New Labour here) they persecute hapless lorry drivers and employers, trying to force them to make up for government incompetence and despite a massively ramping tax burden state under funding.

OK. Now lets take another step back. Is there one? Yes.

Why is this a problem? Why are illegal immigrants a problem? Why are they illegal in the first place for that matter?

They claim benefits from a system they never contributed perhaps? Drain the good old NHS of resources when they never paid anything into it? Jump the social housing queue? Etc. etc. etc.

The underlying reason is that in sufficient numbers immigrants are a problem for a ‘cradle to grave’ welfare state, with universal entitlement like the UK’s, designed to run in isolation. Such a system also undeniably makes the UK much more attractive to economic migrants exacerbating the ‘problem’.

Without a welfare state that is constructed in the way the UK’s is immigration would become much less popular. Immigrants would not be a drain on the public purse either. They would either contribute to the economy and stay or not. If not they would not be able to survive here and would leave. If they committed crime then, tried, imprisoned then deported.

All that would be left would be boarder security issues and any social problems left.

Maybe that’s why New-Labour are so keen on the ID card and illegal immigrants (Oh - and of course the ‘War on Terror) will be their excuse to justify it…

Can a child really be detained for being overweight in London?

I heard something disquieting on the radio. It was Friday just before 2 pm, one of those radio phone ins on LBC.

The caller Identified himself as a Metropolitan Police Officer. The discussion was centred around how much police time is taken up with paperwork – A truly staggering amount these days by the sound of it.

What concerned me was when the officer mentioned some sort of initiative called something like ‘Every Child Counts’, you wonder who thinks these ghastly titles up.

He was holding it up as something that eats up police time unnecessarily, but as he explained it, it sounded more than a little sinister. It bothered me that he was apparently quite willing to implement it with little concern for civil liberties, but only objected to it as a poor use of police resources.

The idea is apparently some draconian Nanny State version of concern for child welfare.

The scenario offered on the radio was: An officer sees a ‘child’ (presumably anyone apparently under the age of 17) they judge to be overweight out in public on their own.

Said officer Stops the child (on what grounds was not made clear). The child would be required to provide full details of name age address, parent’s details, etc. – again why on what grounds?

The officer would then feed the details into the ‘system’ for onward transmission to social services and possibly interview the parents, presumably after having taken the child home.

There may be more criteria involved, time, location, age. But from what the officer said it could as easily happen to a 12 year old child minding their own business on the way to a football match, in the park, on a Sunday afternoon.

If this is actually the case then it is absolutely outrageous. Truly an example of the burgeoning New-Labour fascist state at work.

A young person, detained, though presumably not officially arrested unless the officer is doubtful of the details given to them, prevented from going about their lawful business – apparently for the crime of being a little overweight.

It would be interesting if anyone can verify this or deny it.

New Report critical of UK asylum system

The independent Asylum Commission haspublished a report critical of the way asylum seekers are treated in the UK.

The system does seem to be far from satisfactory. It takes far too long to make decisions and implement them, keeping people in limbo. It does not appear to consistently implement those decisions when they are made. The decisions do not always seem to make sense to a ‘layman’. It is actually illegal to employ ‘illegals’ and the punishments for doing so appear to be becoming increasingly draconian, so they cannon provide for themselves.

It must be said that many of the cases of asylum seekers that one hears about look far more like economic migration than actual genuine asylum seeking.

This impression is bolstered by the undeniable fact that the UK has many more‘asylum seekers’ than any other state in the EU. The natural question that arises is: If all these people are genuine asylum seekers, then given that many have to travel through large areas of Europe to get here, why do they not claim asylum at the first opportunity, as they are supposed to?

One can’t help but wonder if the welfare state is part of the attraction - and part of the problem. It is the nature of the system that actually makes it a problem. The chance of enjoying the ‘benefits’ of they system is an undeniable magnet. The drain on the system caused by large numbers of people who have never contributed to it is a problem, a serious one in certain areas.

If there were no welfare state, or broadly it could not apply to those who had not significantly contributed to it, this would remove the ‘drain’ and much of the problem. It might also make the UK less likely to be a preferred destination. In addition those who came in reality as economic migrants could be honest about it either working and contributing to society, or go elsewhere, possibly back home.

Surely those willing to work hard to honestly obtain a better life and who want to become British and adopt our values might be considered to be more of an advantage than a disadvantage.

It seems it is only under a social welfare system like ours, designed as if it operates in isolation, that this would be a problem at all, before the advent of the welfare state it would not have been. One wonders if this might be a main driver behind New Labour’s desperate desire for a compulsory national identity card system, that and their apparently compulsive desire to regulate the population, in as many aspects of their lives as possible.

Before the advent of the welfare state incomers who did not contribute to, or preyed on society, would have found it uncomfortable, even impossible to stay and left, or fallen foul of the law and been forced to leave. The Honest and hardworking would have settled and become British. In any even there would have been no ‘drain’.

NICE advise alcohol ban for expectant mothers

NICE (the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) who withhold life saving treatments to save the Government money are changing the advice they give to pregnant women concerning alcohol. Up ‘till now they have advised that small daily amounts were fine, a unit of alcohol a day.

Now the health facists are insisting women should not drink any alcohol in the first three months of pregnancy.

When pressed NICE conceded the change was not on the basis of any actual evidence – but, for puritanical political social control reasons. It seems they just feel people are drinking too much these days so arbitrarily decided to change the advice.

Typically New Labour’s Chief Medical Office, Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, was enthusiastic about the change.

The advice is of course largely useless, as it is likely many women will not actually initially be aware they are pregnant. So, even if they are inclined to be dragooned by the State, who clearly think they know better than the rest of us lower orders, they will be unable to obey these instructions without going permanently tee total.

NICE’s Dr Gillian Leng said people - particularly women, were drinking more and they wanted to send a "clear message"; "Women should be advised not to drink."

So what it boils down to, is that these people, who make life or death decisions, about whether we can have treatments or not, just don’t fee that the average woman is actually up to making a sensible, informed decision, based on actual evidence, for themselves.

Vicount claims ‘action’ is needed over ‘unregulated’ sat nav information

It seems that Crossbencher Viscount Tenby is concerned that "unregulated information" on satellite navigation systems was "causing" juggernauts to get stuck in narrow lanes unsuitable for them - and he wants come of that good old Statist Government action to solve the problem - and save the pathetic proles from themselves.

These things do happen from time to time and are reported with relish. Still I was under the impression that users of such systems were not actually compelled to obey them when they can see with their own eyes - and common sense informs them, that a gap is too narrow, or a bridge too low for their vehicle. Such errors of judgement, in extremis, are covered by the offence of driving without due care and attention. Is it possible Viscount Tenby believes otherwise?

Maybe he should address the terrible problem of "unregulated information" on ordinary maps, that, based on his logic, we must suppose ‘caused’ such incidents prior to the advent of Sat Nav systems. I recall reading tales of the odd bus taking their top deck off on a low bridge long before the advent of Sat Nav.

His use of the word ‘unregulated’ is worrying and perhaps telling, it implies he believes the information we are allowed to have access to should be ‘regulated’ - state regulated.

If there is a demand for such a facility it will probably be supplied quickly enough by the manufacturers as a 'bells and whistles' selling point. It does not need State intervention, very little actually does.

Tesco willing to work with the UK State (thus logically against it’s customers) on banning 'cheap' alcohol

It is interesting to note that Tesco appear to be cravenly responding to New Labour’s, authoritarian, patrician, health fascist line, that supermarkets are selling alcohol to the proletariat too cheaply.

At first thought one might wonder that some are willing to go along with anything and conjecture they may be hoping for a position of relative authority over the other prisoners in the concentration camp.

It is also quite possible that they are just boxing clever by responding to the likes of Professor Julian le Grand, when they know the only route is really even higher punitive taxation.

This is undoubtedly where the government would desperately like to go, but even they clearly realise that, without first demonising alcohol and all those who sell and drink it, this may be a step too far - even for New Labour supporters. That is why they now have their like minded medical glove puppets whipped into doing a chorus line on the subject.

Tesco's executive director for corporate and legal affairs, Lucy Neville-Rolfe, pointed out that it was actually really in the State’s hands as: "We can't put up our prices because people will simply shop elsewhere - it could be commercial suicide - and we (the supermarkets) can't act together to put up prices because that would be against competition law.”, in other words a price fixing cartel and "Supermarkets are not allowed to act together to put up prices because that would be bad for the consumer."

Tesco knows perfectly well the government can’t bypass that - or they would run afoul of the real law of the land in this respect - the EC and the European Court.

It is possible they are betting both ways… any further such pronouncements though - and I will be voting with my feet, on principle.

le Grand calls for UK supermarkets to be banned from selling alcohol

The ‘Chair’ of the Department of Health mouthpiece, Health England , Professor Julian le Grand is at it again.

This time he wants to ban the sale of alcohol in supermarkets, because he clearly doesn’t think adults are capable of managing their own alcohol intake, one suspects he believes unlike him and his elite cronies.

He puritanically sees alcohol as "adult candy" and apparently believes that customers are being ‘seduced’ into buying alcohol, on offer, on their way around the supermarket.

One might be tempted to wonder if he has a relative that runs an off licence ;-)

He also believes the price of alcohol is “disgracefully low" and there should (magically?) be a "dramatic rise" in prices - one presumes he would wish to rectify this by means of yet more taxation.

He seems incapable of understanding, or maybe doesn’t know, that there is no such thing as a “disgracefully low” price, without interference from his ilk the market sets the price. One suspects he would prefer it if the state controlled and set the price of all goods and services.

I have news for him. He may get his wish, at least in the short term and for beer, due to market forces.

The director of food at the British Retail Consortium, Andrew Opie, reacted angrily to what they pointed out was a ridiculous suggestion.

He pointed out that no one buys alcohol accidentally and drew attention to something anyone who regularly shops in a supermarket will have probably noticed: “Supermarkets have the best record on preventing under age sales and are helping to drive a culture of sensible drinking."

New Labour - Is it time they went?

New Labour was looking pretty tired when Tony Blair was still in charge. They thought getting rid of him might mend their fortunes. It seems they were wrong. Now we know for sure it wasn’t ‘just’ Tony Blair at all.

First there was their Government by increasingly empty sound bite and spin.

Since then, they have definitively demonstrated their manifesto promises can’t be relied on, by Gordon Brown’s betrayal of the electorate over his utter refusal to allow a the promised referendum over European Constitutional ‘Treaty’ – Demonstrating New Labour’s word can’t be trusted.

Brown then demonstrated a contemptible opportunistic vacillation over weather he should call a ‘snap’ election, allowing his minions to make preparations, brief and bluster at first in favour, when they thought they could win comfortably, then pulling their necks in when they thought things might be a bit closer than they liked. Finally his bottle went and he precipitously called it off . There he trashed his reputation for nerve and decisiveness.

Then their handling of the problems of the Northern Rock. As it is more by luck than judgement if the Virgin deal goes through they should eventually get their money back, the shares will be worth something again in the long term and the employees will keep their jobs, but if the Government had handled the matter more adeptly the public money would not have been hazarded in the first place. Yes economic factors were involved and the management of Northern Rock business model was also at fault, but New Labour demonstrated they could not handle a financial crisis without having a crisis themselves. This has sunk their reputation for financial competence.

They have managed to loose the personal details of millions and millions of citizens with their loss of the child benefit data. This is not the only case, just the most prominent. Other details have been lost on several occasions and some were sent to contactors and had to be returned. And these are only what we are aware of. New Labour’s Darling glove puppet chancellor, twisted, turned and made explanations to parliament that were frankly untrue, pathetically trying to blame a clerk a long way from Westminster, the best light that can be put on his performance is that he is incompetent and so are his officials, but then they already demonstrated that by loosing the data in the first place. And they expect us to trust them with a national ID database they will let every Tom, Dick or Harry, junior council clerk, trawl through at their leisure.

Then there is their holier than though posturing over finances. They bring in a new system, trumpeting their virtue - and then break the rules themselves. Firstly there is the accusation of selling honours to enrich the party coffers where the police find insufficient evidence. Then this matter of the secret donations laundered through third parties, in at least one case is seems, by subterfuge. So much for honesty, probity and trustworthiness.


They have mismanaged the health service. It has had billions poured into it to no obvious effect. NHS Hospitals today are riddled with super bugs, where if you can get treatment it is a real threat. People are refused treatment because the hospitals have a policy against their lifestyles. All to the extent that those who can go private, or abroad for treatment.

State education has had it’s reputation destroyed. People no longer trust the exam system to be an honest indicator or ability or achievement. Again it seems so much so that people are willing to beggar themselves to send their children to a good private school if they can’t gain admission to a reasonable state school. Every interfering initiative or new target only seems to make matters worse.

Then there is the creeping slide towards some sort of soft fascism with their manufacturing alarming statistics in order to justify intrusion, social engineering/controls and increased taxation over aspects of our lives that should be nothing to do with the state. Threats of increased taxes on ‘fattening’ foods, alcoholic drinks, even dustbins, etc.

Endless un-needed duplication of legislation in order to appear to be doing something.

They ignore petitions when it suits them, no matter how many people may have signed them.
The catalogue seems endless. This isn’t a blip - it’s the way it is.

Gordon Brown ‘Concerned’ about Liberty

It seems that Gordon Brown has become sufficiently concerned that the public has finally noticed Nu-Lab’s Big Brother/Fascist-Lite tendencies, to try a little spin to cover them up.

He is apparently concerned about Liberty – One suspects more normally Taking Liberties, in the literal sense.

Of course he would also like to distract the sheeple from such things as: His shilly shallying around over and election and then pathetically trying to claim it was not because he thought he might come off badly that he bottled it. His broken promises over the EU Constitution that is taking another step towards making parliament an irrelevance. Dave and ‘the party formerly known as the Conservatives’ overtaking him in the polls.

Of course he is trying to suggest it was all down to that nasty Blair person’s Government, that was nothing to do with him and things will be different now he is in charge. Trusssst in meeeee Mowglie…..

He of course justifies much of his move towards a total surveillance society, identity cards, DNA testing, etc. on the need to keep us all safe from terrorists. Leaving aside the question of what by the time he has finished will be left of the relatively free society we once enjoyed. The terrorists are winning, even when they fail, by changing or way of life and making our society more like their societies.

Showing rather more of his true colours he insisted he would not compromise the security of the nation. There would be tougher counter-terrorism laws before Christmas. Thanks! Just what we always wanted :-(

He is even threatening us with a debate about a British Bill of Rights and the possibility of a written constitution.

The direction they have been going in one fears that any Constitution Nu-Lab had a hand in writing would be a fascists charter. Still he could always call it something else and argue it wasn’t really a constitution after all ;-) The fact is that any British constitution may be about as relevant as a Town Council’s policies, being subservient to the real EU “Not a Constitution, honest Guv’”.

He also seems to have conveniently forgotten that we already have a perfectly good Bill of Rights - and have done since 16 December 1689 when it became statutory law. But maybe it contains ;-) the wrong sort of rights, by Gordon’s standards…

Maybe he also forgets that Constitutions and Bills of rights are not normally graciously handed down to the citizens by the likes of him and almost certainly wouldn’t be worth the paper they were written of in they were.

Mind you – If he is interested in Constitutions and Bills of Rights then there is plenty of discussion out there on the subject.

UK Report claims obesity is society’s fault

It seems what is billed as the ‘largest ever UK study into obesity’, drawn up by the Government’s ‘Foresight Program’ contributed to by 250 ‘experts’ and predictably backed by the Nu-Lab government is claiming that being overweight (by their definition) is now normal.

They say we now live in an "obesogenic" society. Then getting their crystal balls out they predict that dramatic, comprehensive action is needed to stop most of us becoming ‘obese’ by 2050.

And where is all this heading? Well they argue the individual can’t be held responsible for being ‘overweight’ so - and here is the bit you should be scared about - government must act for the individual. And so the UK takes another lurch towards the fascist state.

So that’s nice we ale all now apparently pathetically unable to save ourselves and too daft to see we need to. Still it’s reassuring to know there are strong people willing to inflict some tough love on the rest of us, able to save us from this insidious plague?

If you have a ‘fat’ voting block it might not be so easy to deny the overweight treatment under the NHS and there are dire predictions it could cost the economy and the NHS.

Sir David King the government’s chief scientific glove puppet advisor is worried that: "There is a danger that the moment to act radically and dramatically will be missed," - let’s hope so for all our sakes.

Dawn Primarolo Nu-Lab’s Public Health Minister stated the government would be holding further consultations on how to proceed. She felt was premature to say if the same ‘shock’ approach used in anti smoking propaganda would be used, or whether a tax on fatty foods might be considered.

Now let’s look at those stats, because behind every government imitative to restrict our individual liberty and take ever more money from us there are dubious government stats.

What they do not mention when they say how the percentage of the adult population that is obese has risen over the last 12 or so years, is how the ‘baby boomers’ by their very existence are distorting the figures. Maybe they haven’t worked it out themselves.

The post WWII ‘baby boomers’ are getting older. They are well into the middle aged spread years. The age where they cut back a bit on Sunday football and squash. They may not be putting on much more weight than anyone their age did 30 years ago.

But they make a significant lump of the population, a lump depending on how you measure it of around a 125,00 more people around the 30/35 to 55/60 age range. As they age and put on weight it will increase the percentage of the population that is over weight and the percentage of the population that is over a certain age.

Lots more 20 mph limits, many to have ‘safety’ camera revenue raisers

The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (Pacts) want to institute many more 20 mph zones and are arguing for average speed cameras to be installed in them.

They say Local Authorities are keen to introduce them.

Not half (as they say), set to a hair trigger they could be a highly lucrative new source of stealth taxation on the motorist.

Apart from the desire to take your money, what is one of the main ‘drivers’ for this further state persecution of motorists?

What else but NU-Lab Government targets. It this case of reducing deaths and serious injuries on the roads. Sounds laudable enough, but don’t they all. I guess they don’t believe their own “If you hit me at 30 mph…” propaganda any more…

More to the point - exactly what proportion of those killed, or seriously injured, on the roads are actually in a 20 or 30 mph zone when it happens?

Also how exactly do the define ‘serious’? Is it the same sort of trick they use reckoning ‘problem’, or ‘binge’ drinker figures?

Lies, damned lies and politician’s statistics.

It would probably be even more effective if they made it law that any cars in the zone required a person walking in front of them with a red flag. They could make it compulsory to hire a, council provided and licensed, trained flag bearer. They could then hire out the unemployed as flag bearers a condition of collecting their benefits.

Several birds with one stone including a massive reduction in unemployment figures and the ability to tax all motorists using the area if they exceed the speed limit by one and a half miles an hour or not.

Let’s hope they don’t think of that…

Recommended Read

If you have not come across it I must recommend ‘FAT’ by Rob Grant, Published by Gollancz. ISBN 978-0-375-07820-8

Set in the UK, in a scarily (barely) immediate future, who’s probability wave appears to be in the process of collapsing, as Schrodinger might say, even as I write.

It is a good read - funny and also makes some seriously telling points.

In his preface he says:

” When somebody does something you don’t like and then tells you they did it for your own best interest: run. Run till you drop. And don’t look back” - Excellent advice…

Parents left with limited options now make more use of A&E

This one is an absolute classic. Dr Patricia Hamilton head of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, is complaining that parents in the UK are now more willing to take their child to A&E with a minor problem, such as a fever, instead of dealing with it at home or calling their GP.

Oh really! She might try the experiment of calling NHS direct out of office hours herself. She could claim she had a small child and they were running a fever. She would find that the advice she was given, especially if it is filtered through non-medical parental perceptions, was effectively to go straight to A&E, do not pass go, do not collect £200.

Now most people are very reluctant to go to A&E. Despite the frankly untrue claims of being seen within some fictitiously tiny amount of time, we all know that it can only be counted as a personal miracle if you are really seen within 2 hours, as opposed to being assessed by someone - possibly a cleaner :-) - and then put to the back of a very long queue behind a retarded thug barely retraining their natural urge to random violence and a 15 year old single mother with a flat head and one continuous eyebrow. Recent personal experience you will no doubt deduce…

So the average parent, or indeed anyone sensible, would have to be pretty desperate to use the average A&E at all and would probably be more that happy to take even advice from their own GP as an alternative if it were actually possible to speak to them.

So then not more willing then, just faced with fewer opportunities to avoid it.

So perhaps she really needs to direct her comments to the incompetent Governmental department in question or ditto hospital ‘manager’. Then she could be given duff advice and told to wait uncomfortably for and indefinite period.

Whilst complaining about parents actually using A&E she also took the opportunity to get in a plug for the Government’s propaganda line on the (probably soon to be crime) of childhood obesity and on the ever encroaching ‘menace’ of child binge drinking.

At least the latter has regulations and laws, that if actually enforced would work well enough to prevent it, though this is unlikely to stop the government from passing a whole raft of entirely pointless unnecessary legislation that will cause some unexpected consequences far worse than the so-called problem.

A UK Council bans pool lending swimming aids

A UK Borough Council at Bournemouth has banned it’s swimming pool staff from lending out inflatable swimming aids, on the grounds of Health and Safety.

They say unless the pool can guarantee they are bacteria-free. They should not lend them out.

It would probably be very difficult to absolutely guarantee that they were bacteria free if they were brand new and still in their packaging. One presumes the chlorinated water would take care of most bacteria that were unfortunate enough to be immersed in it though.

One disgusted parent said "This is the nanny state gone mad.” another said : "Mums and dads have been blowing up arm bands and rubber rings for decades without people keeling over from contagious illnesses."

One wonders if they have taken into account the terrible threat of catching a verruca or athletes foot?

One could be forgiven for suspecting this is driven more by a deep concern over the threat of potential litigation than concern over health.

Government Researchers call for tax on fatty foods

There are Food Nazis everywhere - UK Department of Public Health researchers, at Oxford University, are claiming that more than 3,000 fatal heart attacks and strokes could be prevented in the UK each year if Value Added Tax (VAT) was slapped on a vast range of foods.

Dr Mike Rayner, who worked on the study, said: “the time is right for more debate on the issue of 'fat taxes'”

Such a tax would, of course, be music to the ears of the EC who are pushing to completely remove the UK’s zero rated category for VAT applied to such things as books and some food.

It is absolute unalloyed health fascism. They want to force you to do what they believe is good for you – and it will cost you money.

Basically they plan to drive up the price of ‘unhealthy’ foods through taxation to the point where people are effectively forced to resort to more ‘healthy’ foods. They calculate this would initially inflate household food bills by 4.6%.

There is no pretence that they imagine the average individual is capable, or entitled, to manage their own eating habits, or by extension even own their own bodies. Even if their claim is true their proposal is still something to be vigorously resisted on principle alone.

Downing Street's strategy unit was reportedly flirting with the idea in 2004, but Tony Blair rejected it.

Such a move would probably suit any government wishing to make concessions to the EC by falling in line, by providing something else to blame the move on. Something like saving the NHS from the criminal recklessness of the general greedy fat over eating population who gain weight specifically to drain the coffers of the NHS. Though it would lead, rightly, to accusations of nanny-statism.

Maura Gillespie, of the British Heart Foundation, indicated that they aren’t yet convinced by the idea saying: "Further evidence is needed on the effect of targeted food taxes before we can support a 'fat tax'."

The thing is though , to some extent all this is only playing with statistics. No matter what, until they come up with a way of indefinitely extending healthy life, you are just shifting the balance of the causes of death around. One less heart attack will be one more stroke, or Alzheimer’s. Even if you could live forever it would be stats on what accident finally did for you.

Eventually some Health & Safety Fascist would be banning you from using plastic eating utensils because they were too dangerous to you any anyone nearby.

English Smoking ban an excuse to ban cigarette breaks

A report is warning, that many employers, may be planning to use the July 1 smoking ban in England, as an excuse to crack down on workers taking cigarette breaks.

It was warned that such a move could spark disputes and/or result in desperate employees being forced to secretly smoke in the workplace.

The report, by law advisors Consult GEE, surveyed employers - apparently over a 3rd are planning to use July’s ban on smoking in public places as an excuse to ban cigarette breaks.

Stuart Chamberlain of Consult GEE warned:

"Employees will struggle to fight any bans on their smoking breaks because they are not entitled to them. It could be that they try to claim a breach of the Working Time Regulations, which grants staff working for a minimum of six hours a day 20 minutes break. However, it will prove difficult for an employee to succeed in the employment tribunal with such a claim."

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) felt that banning smoke breaks could be regarded as "excessive".

It would seem draconian for an employer to attempt to stop an employee having a smoke in the breaks they are actually entitled to.

Also one has to wonder what the likely resulting impact on customer relations would be when employees become less relaxed when dealing with any customer – let alone a difficult one.

Dr calls for more Nanny Statism.

Dr Matt Capehorn, who runs an obesity clinic at Rotherham in the UK, is planning to demand that allowing children to become obese be designated as an act of neglect, at the British Medical Association’s annual meeting this month. He wants social services to be able to take action against the parents.

Speaking to the BBC he said: "My colleagues and I were concerned because we noticed a discrepancy in the way society, the medical profession and the courts treat an obese child compared with a malnourished child. There is outrage if a child is skin and bone but it only happens in extreme cases with obese children."

Quite right too! Allowing a child to eat too much may be stupid, it may be weak, but it is not deliberate neglect. You might as well blame parents for neglecting anorexic children.

Kids love to eat unhealthy fattening stuff. It’s often quite a trick to keep them off of it and out playing, without having to worry about Crack SS (Social Services) units kicking your door in.

Certainly, in some extreme cases, it might amount to neglect - but it is a dangerous and worryingly authoritarian step Dr Capehorn is pushing for. Maybe he would like to turn the local authority’s anti smoking ‘police’ against evil parents buying their children a burger in the High Street, once they are up to speed…

Health Minister denies NHS anti smoker 'witch hunt'

Plans to get smokers to quit before being given surgery are not a form of "health fascism", argued Health Minister Lord Hunt, after he was urged to step in and overrule plans by local NHS trusts, which peers feel look like part of an anti-smoking "witch-hunt".

Yesterday, Conservative Lord Naseby raised the matter of an NHS primary Care Trust wanting smokers to give up, before having surgery, as managers felt it might improve recovery time. He pointed out that it was one example, of several similar proposals, for smokers, as well as those which targeted obese people.

He observed "there are all sorts of activities which, if stopped, would save the NHS money and ensure that people got better treatment."

Independent Labour peer Lord Stoddart pointed out that smokers paid much more in additional taxation than non smokers when they bought tobacco products and were "entitled to at least the same treatment as others".

He demanded to know by what right the "twenty five percent of adults who smoke - and the millions who are technically obese - all of them have paid their taxes and national insurance - are to be denied certain NHS surgery".

Lord Tebbit enquired how Lord Hunt would feel if similar rules were being applied to people, for instance whose sexual habits, "make them vulnerable to particularly unpleasant sexually transmitted diseases".

Lord Hunt avoided the question, blustering that it was "quite ridiculous" and in any case "This is a completely different issue"

Lord Stoddart asked Lord Hunt to use the NHS Acts to overrule the "discriminatory action". Adding, "There is an impression that there is a witch-hunt against smokers in particular.".

Lord Hunt argued that it was a clinical judgement, in the patients' interests and did not amount to a ban on smokers. He indicated that it had not been drawn up by the government but by Doctors and in any case it had not yet been approved.

He went on that it could mean fewer heart and lung complications, faster wound healing, faster bone fusion and shorter stays in hospital and said "This is not health fascism, it's not about discrimination against smokers, this is about what's best in the interest of the patient in terms of clinical judgement, and that is how it should remain."

No wonder the Government would like to emasculate the House of Lords, a difficult lot who tend to say “Now hang on a minute…” at inconvenient moments.

Now, since the subject of ‘health fascism’ came, up an observer might think that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck….

As for the “it hasn’t been approved yet” argument! Yet is the operative word and they were trying to ensure the proposals never were. We can be sure they will come up again – and again – and again…

UK DoH advises against any Alcohol

The UK Department of Health is now advising that pregnant women - and those trying for a baby - should avoid alcohol completely.

Previous advice was not to drink more than one, to two, units of alcohol, once, or twice, a week - and be sure not to get drunk at all.

The Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Fiona Adshead stated:

"We have strengthened our advice to women to help ensure that no-one underestimates the risk to the developing foetus of drinking above the recommended safe levels.”

There appears to be no new evidence and no new studies to suggest the previous advice was unsafe.

From what Dr Adshead said, it appears reason they are changing the government line is because they think many women are unable to understand the previous advice - so they have decided to recommend against all alcohol?

So then, this looks rather like another example of the nanny state treating us as if we are all idiots, incapable of making sensible decisions ourselves.

Just because there may be a minority who cannot, or will not, look after themselves it does not mean all of us are not capable.

What next? Compulsory padded mittens and no cutlery?