THE SUN SAYS Deranged campaigners ignore the fact childhood obesity is NOT rising – and hasn’t for years
THE brainless panic over sugary treats ignores any inconvenient facts. For example, that childhood obesity is NOT rising and hasn’t been for years.
NHS statistics show the proportion of obese kids peaked 15 years ago, fell markedly, then flatlined after 2011. Sugar consumption is way down on 40 years ago. Children’s teeth are improving.
One thing HAS increased: the percentage eating five fruit and veg a day.
Yet deranged campaigners demand new taxes on chocolates, sweets and biscuits to curb our “escalating childhood obesity epidemic”. There isn’t one.
Why do the meddling zealots of Public Health England or “Action On Sugar” even get a hearing? Why aren’t they just laughed at when they suggest calorie limits on occasional restaurant meals
Because it’s January and everyone feels guilty about Christmas scoffing. Because campaigners were emboldened by the Tories’ shameful fizzy drinks tax, even pronouncing its “success” despite zero evidence it made anyone slimmer.
They smell a weakness in Downing Street for nanny-state levies and other potty measures hitting the poor hardest.
The Government insists it has no plans yet for new food taxes. But it has already caved in to this hysteria once.
Why wouldn’t it again?
Reverse ferried
SPARE us the leftie hand-wringing over the illegal migrants sailing across the Channel.
Genuine asylum-seekers fleeing persecution would seek safe haven in the first EU country they reached. These were camped in France and just decided we looked a better bet — or a softer touch.
As for their apparent destitution, they managed to pay small fortunes to criminals who facilitated their sea voyage.
Britain welcomes migrants who arrive legitimately. We should take our share of real asylum-seekers who do the same. But we SHOULD be “hostile” to illegals.
Yes, the numbers arriving in Kent are small — so what? If they are warmly welcomed, many more will risk it and drown. Who will the Left blame then?
Home Secretary Sajid Javid was commendably blunt. But let’s see action.
Ship them straight back to France.
We MUST show them and others that the expense and risk are for nothing. This evil trafficking operation must be destroyed.
Yeah, rights
IT is staggering to hear Labour champion human rights while the world’s worst abusers are the socialist regimes they adore.
Frontbencher Emily Thornberry contrives offence at Jeremy Hunt talking up Singapore’s low-tax economy, because it has a poor record on free speech.
Yet she and her Corbynite mates romanticise Cuba — where dissent ends in jail — and Venezuela, where the security forces murder starving citizens.
The hypocrisy is sickening.
ROD LIDDLE
Singing for our supper
Our Foreign Secretary has just landed in Singapore to drum up more trade for Britain post Brexit.
This tiny country – just a city state – is a major economic force and an important ally.
It’s also a good lesson for those whining lefties who blame colonialism for the desperate plight of Africa.
Singapore was founded as a British trading post exactly 200 years ago. It was under British control until 1963.
It has a booming economy, one of the world’s highest life expectancies and a top standard of living.
So it’s not done too badly, has it?
The truth is colonialism is NOTHING to do with the failure of African countries. It’s about good government.
Albert 'Pride' Square
There's going to be a gay bar in EastEnders.
This is an innovation dreamed up by the new script editor, Kate Oates.
It’s intended to make the programme more closely represent the area in which it’s set.
Ha! Here’s a tip, Ms Oates. If you want EastEnders to truly reflect the borough in which it’s set – Tower Hamlets – you need a few more sweeping changes.
Fewer than a third of Tower Hamlets’ residents are white British, so that’s most of the cast gone.
Almost 40 per cent of the people there are Bangladeshi, so the programme should be broadcast in Bengali, not English.
Come on, Kate. You want EastEnders to be more real?
Then make it REALLY real.
'Bon voyage, mon ami'
With every day that passes, more Iranians arrive at Dover floating in upturned tins of Quality Street.
Quite clearly, the French are doing nothing whatsoever to deter them.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they were actually herding them on to the dinghies.
“Go on, monsieur, you can see the cliffs over there. It’s not far. Bon voyage, mon ami.”
It’s another two fingers from the hopeless French because we’re leaving the European Union.
What we should be doing is towing the migrants all the way back to Calais.
I know living in France is probably a “cruel and unusual punishment” under United Nations laws. But it’s time the French took their responsibilities a bit more seriously.
Parking chaos
Let's be honest. It’s not just whichever oaf parked Paul Pogba’s car in that disabled bay who is doing it.
When I go to my local supermarket, all the disabled bays are full, every time.
No stickers in the car windows.
And the people inside the store don’t seem to be limping very much. Sometimes I fantasise about waiting by their cars, with a hammer, for them to emerge with their shopping.
“Disabled, huh? Well, you are now.”
But one of the problems, I think, is that we have too many disabled bays.
And so people don’t take them seriously.