Greg Fell - Britain's most pointless man?

Our old fiend Greg Fell has been busy getting billboards banned in Sheffield in what even he admits is a pointless endeavour. 

 

There are over 130 directors of public health in England and it is nice work if you can get it. The job comes with a six figure salary and you don’t need a medical degree. So long as you can turn up to meetings and drop phrases like “health inequalities” and “commercial determinants of health” into conversation, you’re in clover. Not knowing much about infectious diseases proved to be a handicap when COVID-19 emerged in 2020 and public health directors were left twiddling their thumbs while they waited for instructions from central government, but Greg Fell spotted an opportunity. When Boris Johnson closed the pubs on 20 March, he suggested that “whilst we are implementing emergency legislation why not go really far and ban tobacco sales”. Exactly four years later, the government brought forward legislation to do precisely that.

With COVID-19 in the rearview mirror, there is a palpable sense of relief among directors of public health that they can get back to lobbying for petty interventions in private lifestyles. Last December, Wakefield’s public health director complained that legal action from Kentucky Fried Chicken was “thwarting efforts to stop fast-food outlets near schools” in his area. There was happier news in Sunderland where the council managed to prevent a Mexican takeaway shop from opening and the public health director’s annual report focused exclusively on the “commercial determinants of health”. They are so back!

 

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