Red Dave’s Fat Tax

It’s hard to keep up with all the stupid things the government is doing. They’re like a drunk teenager desperately trying to give the impression of sobriety, trying to explain why their best mate is snoring loudly on the settee without using the nonsensical lie about the cat from last week. At the same time as frantically trying to reassemble the National Health Service they knocked over on the way in. Still, as long as their parents don’t find out about leaving their house keys and wallet in a bin they should be ok.

In all of this, it would be easy to miss Cameron’s floated idea last week that the government might bring in a ‘fat tax’: a tax on fatty foods in a bid to tackle obesity. But no one really cared, except for Terry Wogan. There were bigger fish to fry. Or Foxes, as it turned out.

I, however, was a little taken aback. It seems like the kind of proposal that, had it been suggested by Miliband, would have had the press rubbing their hands with glee at the chance to run another ‘Red Ed’ headline.

And you know what? They’d have been right to do so.

A tax on fatty foods is exactly the kind of narrow-minded left wing approach Labour needs to avoid. It’s the reactionary response of the unthinking left. “There’s a problem? Let’s tax something! Can we tax people per cubic centimetre they take up? What can we tax?! QUICKLY, GOD DAMN IT.” It’s a natural response for too many, in this case appealing only to the smug foody types you can be sure it won’t affect. It appears to take little notice of either cause or result.

People need to get past the idea that there are one-solution-solves-all policies. It’s comforting to think that many problems can be solved with one swift piece of legislation, but it just isn’t the case. Such a simple approach to tackling a problem is crass at best; you may as well call this ‘A modest proposal for the prevention of obesity’.

It’s a government peering over a pair of half-moon spectacles, eyebrows raised, and intoning “I really don’t think you should be doing that” in the kind of condescending manner that makes you want to have a deep-fried burger with a crisp and chocolate relish.

I’m no libertarian. I am not the kind of person to go around complaining about the smoking ban or describe tax as “legislated theft”. I think things like ‘political correctness’ and, more pertinently, the ‘nanny state’ are used as pejorative terms for overall positive actions. It’s not hard to support these ideals if you consider the alternatives. But I’d prefer if we treated people like grown-ups while we were trying to help them. Let people know what’s unhealthy, sure. Tell them how they should eat if you think it’ll help. But don’t make them. I don’t want to end up in a world where only the rich can afford to have a greasy takeaway or drive a car, because the government deems those things “bad” and has taxed them accordingly.

But here we are, not with it being suggested by someone on the left, but by our Conservative Prime Minister. It is then, perhaps, surprising that Cameron would ponder this at all; he has never struck me as being Red Dave. Perhaps I’ve been caught unaware, and it has been unilaterally decided that fat people caused the global financial crisis, so now it’s theirs to fix. Maybe the economy is not growing because they keep sitting on it. That £6 billion hole in Osborne’s deficit reduction plan used to be filled with jam sandwiches. Or have people been taking the phrase ‘fat cats’ too literally and this is actually a proposed tax on bankers? Because, frankly, fictitious cats have had a tough time this past fortnight.

Or perhaps Cameron was trying to call Miliband’s bluff, waiting for Ed to pledge his support, and then drop it. Let it be Labour’s left lurch. Nothing to do with us, guv.

It would be good if Miliband could come out and say that a fat tax is a dumbass idea. It’s yet another example of Cameron punishing the poor. Prices are going up anyway and wages aren’t, why would we take more money out of the ordinary person’s pocket? In Denmark they’ve tried this and the price of a small packet of butter has risen by 25p. Scientists can’t even agree if it’s helping. People can’t afford it.

But Cameron and his pals won’t have thought of that. It’s quite hard to think of stuff like that with a traffic cone on your head.