The endless "public health" playbook

Yawn. 

 

Food industry lobbying is leading Labour to drop public health plans, experts say

 

How could they possibly know that? Lobbying is virtually impossible to measure and there is no way of knowing whether it is effective or not. The fact that politicians side with one special interest over another does not prove that it was the lobbying wot won it. And even if the lobbying was effective, it only means that the politicians were more persuaded by one set of arguments than another. So what?

 

Labour has scrapped ambitious plans to tackle Britain’s growing toll of lifestyle-related illness after lobbying by food and alcohol firms, health experts have said.

Ministerial inaction on ill-health caused by bad diet, alcohol and smoking is so serious that the NHS could collapse as a result of conditions such as heart disease and diabetes, they warn.

 

The NHS could collapse as the result of government not doing what these people want, could it? Actually collapse? Who are they anyway?

 

The charge against ministers has been made by Sarah Woolnough and Jennifer Dixon, the chief executives of the influential King’s Fund and Health Foundation thinktanks.

 

The King's Fund exists solely to pressure governments to pour more money down the bottomless pit of the NHS, as far as I can see. It never used to get involved in campaigning for illiberal lifestyle regulation, but it is now run by Sarah Woolnough who turned Cancer Research UK into a lobbying outfit, so that is sadly changing.  

 

"There is a long history of lobbying from the food, alcohol and tobacco industries weakening and delaying measures that would improve people’s health."

 

It's a shame they're not as effective as the single-issue pressure groups that work night and day (or rather 9 to 5, except weekends and bank holidays) trying to relieve consumers of their freedom.

 

They have said Labour are repeating the mistakes of previous governments by letting “vested interests” wield too much influence and water down planned policies.

 

Plain packaging? The sugar tax? Banning disposable vapes? Which of these was "watered down"? Banning supermarkets from putting tasty food at the end of aisles? Banning everyone born after 2008 from ever buying cigarettes, cigars or Rizla? Where is the evidence of industries wielding too much influence when these were announced?   

 

“And once again long-promised restrictions on junk food advertising have been delayed while Labour’s proposals to extend smoking restrictions to outdoor areas of pubs and restaurants were squashed,” Woolnough and Dixon say in a joint blog.

 

The "junk food" advertising ban has been delayed by three months because the legislation was so badly written it would have prevented McDonalds from advertising salads. It will now take effect in January 2026, but the industry has voluntarily agreed to stop advertising HFSS food in October anyway. Is that going to make the NHS collapse?

 

“Minimum unit pricing for alcohol – successfully implemented in Scotland ..."

 

 – and a Clean Air Act, regularly promised by Labour in opposition, have both failed to materialise.”

 

I don't think the latter has anything to so with "the food, alcohol and tobacco industries" while the former had more to do with Westminster politicians looking at the alcohol-specific death rate in Scotland and concluding that minimum pricing is a policy they can do without.

 

Woolnough and Dixon single out the health secretary Wes Streeting’s threat to food firms in February 2024 that he would use a “steamroller” to force them to reformulate their products by putting less fat, salt and sugar in them. He has not acted on that pledge while in office, though, and instead published weaker plans intended to promote the take-up of more nutritious food.

 

He's going to literally fine supermarkets if they don't sell people less sugar, salt and fat. Are you lot never satisfied?

 

The answer, of course, is that they are not. They also want a ban on alcohol advertising (which wouldn't work). That, combined with an outdoor smoking ban, will supposedly be enough to stop the NHS collapsing. It's bollocks, obviously. Neither policy will have any measurable effect on the NHS workload and it is impossible for something that receives £200 billion a year to "collapse". What we need is for someone to deal with the NHS's horrendous productivity problem, but that would require a bit of effort rather than a finger-wagging blog post.

 

Even if the government capitulated to this wish-list, the King's Fund and the rest of the nanny state blob would be back five minutes later with another list of "bold" and "brave" policies to save the NHS from collapse. They will make an unreasonable demand. The government will decide against it but do lots of other things they want. They will then accuse the government of succumbing to industry lobbying and the Guardian will write it up as a story. It's just so boring and predictable now.

The lesson of the last fifteen years is that the amount of screaming the government will be subjected to if it does nothing that 'public health' lobbyists want is identical to amount of screaming it is subjected to if it does most of what they want. They will accuse politicians of being in the pocket of various industries. They will accuse the Health Secretary of being weak. They will claim that the NHS is going to collapse. 

It is the same script regardless. The government gets no thanks for capitulating to them again and again. Their list of demands is endless and their autistic screeching is loud and constant regardless of what any government does. On tobacco and food, in particular, no government in the world has done more to appease these fanatics in the last two decades. It hasn't worked. The obvious lesson is that politicians should stop trying to appease them. The only thing that is likely to make them shut up is a government that makes is clear that it will not be giving into any further demands.

There is a hint in DHSC's response to this latest outburst that Streeting is losing patience with these people.

 

The Department of Health and Social Care rejected the thinktank bosses’ criticisms. A spokesperson said: “We are legislating to make sure children today can never legally smoke, introducing a ban on high-caffeine energy drinks for children and new rules to make baby food better for families, preventing fast food shops from setting up outside schools, banning junk food adverts targeted at children, introducing supervised toothbrushing to prevent kids teeth from rotting, a Healthy Food Standard to make the healthy choice the easy choice, and investing an extra £200m in the public health grant after years of cuts.”

 

"Yeah, but apart from that, what has the government ever done for us?"

 

 

 

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