Instead of levying sin taxes, Government must sell war on fat as a life-saver
IF Covid-19 cannot convince Britain to lose some weight nothing will.
Here is a disease which is much more likely to kill you if you are overweight or obese — as well as past middle-age.
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It is no surprise to see the nanny state brigade leap on it as their latest excuse for higher taxes on sugary products.
The fatal flaw is they don’t work, unless you count as a “success” cowed manufacturers destroying the taste of their products by removing some sugar.
When it comes to the actual objective, cutting obesity, they have failed both here and abroad.
They merely raise the cost of living for all, fat or thin, while impacting the poorest hardest.
Obesity and diabetes can be reversed by radically cutting daily calories, exercising more and then changing your lifestyle for good to keep it off. That’s how Adele lost seven stone.
In The Sun next week, ex-Towie star Mark Wright shows how he transformed himself from chubby kid to superfit TV hunk.
He might even have some pointers for Boris Johnson, who blames his near-death Covid ordeal on his weight.
But we are happy to see the PM reject siren calls for new sugar taxes.
Instead his Government, more than ever, must sell weight loss as the life-enhancer and life-saver it is.
The two Rs
WHY are we being governed by an “R” infection rate that includes care homes?
As tragic as their death toll is, they skew this crucial figure and the public perception of the risk to everyone else. That will be lower than the overall rate — and is said to be substantially so in London.
The apparently rising “R” released on Friday reflects restrictions three weeks ago, has nothing to do with the lockdown being eased . . . and includes care homes and hospital infections.
This matters, for millions of workers.
And for teachers, whose risk from returning to school is being exaggerated by their unions even though it is statistically tiny, as Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jenny Harries says.
Our tentative steps back to freedom, back to work and towards rebuilding our economy must not be delayed by how many old folk are still catching the virus in care, as heartbreaking as that is.
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More, Rishi
THE Covid bill is vast, but Rishi Sunak must find more for the self-employed.
The Chancellor handed them a lifeline in March, but it ends in a fortnight. And we now know they are likely to be the last back to work because so many of their jobs need personal contact, making social distancing all but impossible.
The bailouts for employees are in force till the end of October.
Millions of self-employed people rapidly need a similar guarantee.
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