You go and live there and try to stay thin

You go and live there and try to stay thin.This is the old story of what happens when markets are not properly regulated: they screw the poor. How is that a meaningful form of libertarianism? In this instance, markets deny the choice of healthy food to the very people who need it most.Labour has been slowly articulating an alternative: they have considered offering government subsidy to supermarkets if they agree to open stores selling cheap, fresh produce in the heart of food deserts. At first, the idea of the Government warning you about the risks involved in a poor diet sounds patronising. This creates meaningful choice as opposed to the chimerical choice offered by the markets. As with all their good policies, the Government has been too slow and too halting in its implementation – but it contains the roots of a decent social democratic policy.Let’s look at another area where government action can make choice more meaningful – and healthy living possible. In disadvantaged areas, the nearest food store is usually a corner shop with no fresh food. The rise of out-of-town supermarkets has made these nutrition-free zones even larger and decent food even harder to get to.I’ve seen this where many of my relatives live.

If you can’t afford a taxi back from the supermarket miles away, it’s literally impossible to do any decent shopping; there just isn’t any fresh food on sale within travelling distance, so you settle for stacks of frozen and tinned food from the local corner-shop It’s like being trapped in a sea of lard. Others pay for your treatment so they have a right to tell you how to go about your life Actually, they have a duty. Very soon the Government will be (what’s the most ridiculous thing you can think of?) … He went on: “In our consultation, people made clear they often want to change but lack accessible help and advice.” He had several unbearable remarks for us. “We need everybody to have the chance to make healthy choices – not just the better-off.”How completely demoralised, subjugated, disinherited can the British people be? Our culture is awash with accessible help Advice is everywhere. How can such active, enabling governments have created such bandy-legged dependency?The Tory performance (let alone attendance) was lamentable Make that pitiful Make that floggable.

They should be stripped to the heels, tied to a grating and flogged All of them. Whether they like it or not.Because Oliver Letwin has failed to make “the moral case for low taxation” the Tories don’t have any base from which to attack this sort of thing. They whine that more should be done, that they’d do more, that doing more is nannying but that they’d do more anyway.Dr Reid said: “A child born in Manchester lives at least seven years less than a child born in Chelsea.” What is the Tory answer to this nauseating rubbish?When socialism has socialised health – you (I’m talking to you!) have a duty not to be fat, not to smoke, not to contract sexual diseases Your selfish behaviour directly affects others You take up scarce resources You are a nuisance. The rhythm of family life – from bonhomie to boredom, irritation and rage – has been enacted and now it is time to return to normal life.Useful farewell-related sentences: “No, apart from the glass-throwing incident, we really had a great time.” “We’re spending next Christmas in the Azores.” “That’s it, never again. Why should Elton John be the only one to benefit?Dr Reid told us that new opportunities were creating growing inequalities and more casual sexual relations (heckle: “Speak for yourself!”).

A billion quid is to be spent on officials (possibly armed) whose job will be to patrol sink estates yelling: “Stop stuffing your gob with burgers you useless gutsers! Oi! Knee tremblers! No! And put that fag out!” Like rich people have. “The public” is getting a new telephone, online and digital TV information service to help it “make healthy choices”. It is getting a “whole school programme” to put “health” on the curriculum. “Hooray! Antonia got a B in Chlamydia!” “The public” is also going to be intensively advised not “to catch.. unwanted pregnancy” (that’ll work, it always has before) And it is being provided with “NHS health trainers”.