Mr Balls has joined the impressive list of bossy Ministers telling people how to lead their lives. He wants to stop the school lunchtime chip run, and approves of Councils preventing people setting up fast food outlets near a school.
We are told we need eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, but not apparently potatoes cooked in one way.
Before fulminating against the ever popular potato chip, did Mr Balls investigate the amount of fat in mashed potato compared to low fat chips? Should he now go on to ban mash as well? Has he examined how much fat there is in a salad covered with dressing? Perhaps all dressed lettuce leaves should also be banned within a quarter mile range of schools? Is he about to ban gravy for containing fat from cooked meat?
Chips are one of life’s simple pleasures. By all means encourage low fat ones, and by all means find other things to add variety to diets. But let’s not ostracise the chip. It will just make it more popular with adolescents who like its flavour, by giving it the added piquancy of adult disapproval.
October 30, 2008
In Mr Balls's warped mind there may well be adults hanging around the school gates preying on our youth, tempting them with bags of chips, or chip shop vouchers encouraging them to a life of obesity.
I despair, I really do.
October 30, 2008
Of course Ed Balls is correct. All school children should fill in a form for every piece of food that they put in their mouths. Nutritional and calorific values should be ascertained before eating. Infringements of the rules should be punished by a week in the custody of a TV chef.
October 30, 2008
our senior school lunch time diet was
i) crisp sandwiches
or
ii) egg fried rice from takeaway
or
iii) chips
mainly because the school meals were so bad
never did us any harm (well it probably did but less harm than eating the rubbish the school provided would have done)
October 30, 2008
If our innumerable Ministers were not doing something, one might have to ask what they were there for at all…
October 30, 2008
Mr Balls looks like he's had the odd bad of chips himself. Perhaps, John, you could let him into your dietary secrets, having maintained your whippet physique through many potentially unhealthy parliamentary years. I see a cookbook and exercise video out in time for Christmas, if you hurry.
October 30, 2008
Of course, the unforeseen consequence of this proposal is that, any adult living near a school, will also be unable to buy chips locally, which as I understand it, are still a perfectly legal product.
Nanny Labour will not be happy until we are all fully controlled drones, imagine the future under another Labour government, going into a chip shop, not near a school of course, and asking for fish and chips, the assistant asks for your EUSSR ID card, complete with micro-chip, she puts it into a machine and says,
"The reader says you purchased chips two days ago and therefore if I served you today you would be over your government approved limit of one portion a fortnight….Your purchase is declined….."
Good diet and nutrition starts in the home, the problem we have is second and third generation of people that were never taught how to cook……I suggest our Home Secretary would be more useful if she returned to teaching home economics, atleast that would help kids to learn to cook rather than just having a "Ding" dinner from a microwave…..Perhaps she will take up the option when Labour are kicked out at the next election.
October 31, 2008
"Of course, the unforeseen consequence of this proposal is that, any adult living near a school, will also be unable to buy chips locally, which as I understand it, are still a perfectly legal product."
What makes you think it would be unforeseen? Such an impact on adults would be seen as a beneficial consequence that the likes of Balls intended. After all, an adult may buy a bag of chips and actually give some to his offspring.
A few years down the line we would probably see serious proposals to restrict adult access to fast food outlets, this suggestion re schools being cited as a precedent for such a resriction of personal freedom. I can hear the cry now: "Can we really allow such behaviour – which would be cited as self molestation and harm aswell as abuse of children by their parents – in a civilised society in the 21st Century?"
Object to such proposals and you would most likely be howled down with scare stories about the impact on NHS budgets. That claim – the cost to the NHS – is increasingly used to override any concern for personal freeedom and responsibility. Once the NHS was a service that operated for the benefit of the individual user. It increasingly seems to me that we are here for the convenience of the NHS: to provide funds for its operation as it (effectively) bosses us around over our life styles and personal choices.
And I really don't think Labour will loose the next election. The opinion polls are very volatile – look by how much the Tory lead has fallen over the last month or so. I think a lot of people have to prepare themselves for a shock as Labour romp home with a decent majority and embark on another 5 years of misrule.
Life sucks someitimes.
October 30, 2008
JR: "Mr Balls has joined the impressive list of bossy Ministers telling people how to lead their lives."
Lets not forget this is not an exclusively Labour phenomena, I recall Edwina Currie decimated the poultry industry with her stupid advice not to eat eggs.
For Mr Balls I have two words, which I expect Mr Redwood will not permit me to use on his blogg, so I will put them in code: **** ***!
October 30, 2008
LICENCE TO EAT CHIPS REGULATIONS (BALLS) 2008
The undersigned is hereby authorised to purchase chips; (a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family fragmented into pieces not greater than one square centimetre in area as specified in the CHIP FRAGMENTING (HUMAN CONSUMPTION AT AN ELEVATED TEMPERATURE) DIRECTIVE: EU/BALLS 2008/5ADAY/and fried in a heat transmission fluid extracted from vegetables).
IT IS OFFENCE TO USE THE HEAT TRANSMISSION FLUID FOR THE PURPOSE OF COOKING CHIPS KNOWN A "LARD" THAT MAY HAVE PREVIOUSLY BEEN USED TO PREPARE "MARS BARS" IN CERTAIN NORTHERN DOMICILES.
THIS LICENCE MUST BE PRESENTED TO A PURVEYOR OF CHIPS SUCH PURVEYOR HAVING BEEN DULY LICENCED FOR SUCH TRADE BY THE HEALTH AND SAFETY AT CHIP SHOP REGULATIONS (HSE)(More BALLS) 2008.
IT IS A FURTHER REQUIREMENT THAT A MEANS OF IDENTIFICATION SHALL BE SHOWN TO SUCH LICENCED PURVEYORS TO ASSURE SUCH PURVEYOR THAT THE PERSON PURCHASING RENTING OR LEASING SUCH CHIPS IS NOT OF SCHOOL AGE AND TO CONFIRM THAT SAID CHIPS SHALL NOT BE PURCHASED FOR THE CONSUMPTION OF SUCH PERSON THAT ONE COULD HAVE REASONABLY ASSUMED WAS OF SCHOOL AGE.
IT IS AN OFFENCE TO PURCHASE CHIPS BY PERSONS NOT HOLDING A CURRENT VALID "CHOLESTEROL CONSUMPTION LICENCE" UNDER EU DIRECTIVE EUDGTRLFDD567/UEOCNNNDT/TOTAL-BALLS 2008.
IT IS AN OFFENCE FOR PERSONS WITH BODY MASS INDEX GREATER THAN 25 TO PURCHASE CHIPS UNLESS THEY HAVE AND HAVE HAD FOR ONE YEAR A CHOLESTEROL COUNT OF LESS THAN 5mmol/l, and an LDL level under 3mmol/l.
NON-SOCIALIST EATING STYLES CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH. THE USE OF PHRASES SUCH AS "FAT BA***RD" AND "LOOK AT THE A**E ON THAT" ARE HEREBY PROSCRIBED BY THE ABOVE REGULATIONS AS THESE MAY CAUSE OFFENCE TO PERSONS OF CERTAIN CULTURES KNOWN TO FREQUENT CHIP SHOPS.
October 30, 2008
Acorn, the work of a genius. If you so permit, I would like to reproduce on my blog – with accreditation to your good self.
It may just spawn a new theme….
October 31, 2008
Feel free to use.
October 30, 2008
Sorry to shake you from your comfort zone, but before you and your commenters continue your predictable dogmatic sneering, perhaps you could explain how you would combat the problems of child obesity?
October 30, 2008
Make the fat ones run more often.
October 30, 2008
I think we were mostly harking back to a time when the govt didn't interfere and hardly anyone was fat. So we're working out how to get back to that point.
None of us particularly like the unimaginative alternative which is to employ another army of civil servants at great cost to us to boss us about, headed, ironically in this instance, by the fattest bloke in cabinet. The only things we can be sure of is that the problem won't get much better, and that council tax will increase to pay for it.
We note the ruinously expensive trend through the whole of govt, which is to attack every problem by legislation of detailed petty interference in our lives. In Mr Redwood, we feel we have a kindred spirit. In the rest of the Conservative party, we're not so sure.
October 30, 2008
By allowing children to be children again…..Not wrapping them in cotton wool, allowing them to walk to school, allowing, nay encouraging them to take part in competitive school sports, re-instating school playing fields, teaching them to cook so that in the future they can teach their children the benefits of a healthy diet…..Need I go on?
October 30, 2008
Dennis; yesterday I had my once a fortnight visit to Burger King – I am a big "whopper" fan. A teenager with her mother and possibly her grandmother sat a few tables from me.
The youngster consumed a burger and a large Coke. She proceeded to consume the remains of her mothers meal and the unfinished Cokes of her mother and grandmother.
The girl was considerably overweight; was wearing the currently fashionable shorts with heavy denier tights. She had legs that would not be out of place on a Hooker; a Prop or a Lock forward.
Her condition, I assume, was of no consequence to either her parent or grand-parent as they willingly let her hoover up the remains of their meals. But, she may win prizes for re-cycling food waste.
October 30, 2008
Parental responsibility. How does that sound?
Too often the cop out is that kids won't eat healthy stuff. And yet I have two children who in the last few years have become increasingly disinclined to eat things like chips. Why? Because his mother has gently and persuasively encouraged him to look at the bad side of such foodstuffs. A quick nod in the direction of their overweight father probably helps aswell!
Maybe also discouraging video gaming for umpteen hours every day and looking more to sports to filll their time. And kids dont have to have a tv in their bedroom.
One might also note that achieving a rigid social engineering objective at the expense of personal freedom is not always a good thing.
I wonder how long it will be before the govt starts to forcibly close down chip shops and such like using anti terrorism powers on the pretext of some spurious argument about the owners terrorising young children into eating their chips and ionjuring their health. Yes I know it sounds stupid but then in Poole not long ago antiterrorism surveilance powers were used to help the LEA spy on parents applyiing for school places in the area. And then there is the recent use of such powers re the Iceland banks. Such happenings would have sounded absurd just 2 or 3 years ago.
October 31, 2008
I think the govt. may well be stymied in any attempt to shuit down chip shops. Most are run by "immigrants" and it wouldn't look good for Gordoom's diversity targets in the fast food industry.
October 31, 2008
Fair enough. But Ball's proposal stops new chip shops starting up. So why cannot that be portrayed as inimical to the interests of immigrants who, on pat trends, have a tendency to move into this industry? And it is not that far a move from saying that new chip shops cannot be opened to saying that current, existing chip shops be closed down. Balls has already ridden roughshod over the market and the notion of private property rights with his suggestion.
October 31, 2008
I'm wholly certain neither Mr Redwood nor anyone in the conservative party would claim this idea, but I'd make it a tad more financially difficult for benefit recipients to have children. If you care to look at the stats you may discover that the middle classes more or less give their kids the five a day and take them off to football hence obesity really isn't a problem for them, this is a problem of the Jeremy Kyle generation ~ and who funds them?
October 31, 2008
This sounds danegerously like Sir Keith Joseph’s suggestion (back in the early 70’s as I recall) that the reproducive habits of the lower classes should be curtailed. It went down a treat then aswell ….
Reply: An idea the Conservative party rightly condemnded and did not implement.It is difficult to parody this government, as so many of the stupid things they do do.
October 31, 2008
Indeed, it was Sir Keith who perhaps injudiciously made similar remarks. It is thought they did for his leadership ambitions. The odd thing is, this is in my view, one of those obvious truths that more or less everyone privately accepts but simply cannot possibly say.
October 31, 2008
Apologies. I didn't mean to imply the conservantive party ever adopted this as policy. I was just noting the similarity between what Sir Keith Joseph was reported as saying and what the poster said. Nothing more.
October 30, 2008
re "how you would combat the problems of child obesity" for a start the state subsidised swimming pools and sports centres should be forced to use timetables which
i) allowing working folk a chance to them for themselves
ii) allowing working folk with kids time to take their kids
sadly many of our state sponsored sports facilities nowadays have timetables firmly aimed at the non working population
for a second we should bring back cycling proficency tests and encourage cycling to school
for a third we should teach cookery better in schools
for a fourth we shouldnt continue to incentivise those least able to bring kids up to have them whilst putting heavy disincentives in the way of those most likely to make good parents from having any, the vast majority of potential decent parents are not having kids, and yet we have wastelands of kids being born to unsuitable parents, there needs to be some fairness brought back
and fourthly the state should keep its nose out of it in most other regards
October 30, 2008
How those lefties laughed and mocked when i said Labour (EU) would ban fish and chips.
"Youve been reading the daily mail too much"
etc etc
Reasons i predicted EU wouldnt like fish and chips
1. Killing fish is an evil, nasty Tory act of oppression. Fish have rights!
Plus some other less important stuff about eco systems and biodiversity make it unsustainable.
2. It is considered a national dish, so high up on the list of targets
3. Desire to nanny and control/play god. They plan to ban so many other things: cigarettes, alcohol, eating meat, driving a car.
No proles eating unapproved products. salt. sugar. cholesterol. FAT. smoking. health. alcohol. cars. Arrrgh.
Just remember kids, junk food is a junk science.
Too much McGordon burger is bad for your blood pressure, but dont expect a refund on its multi-billion dollar price tag.
October 30, 2008
I think Mr Balls has had his chips. Soon please soon
October 30, 2008
Perhaps Dennis Johnson would tell us why the government should interfere in everyons lives. That is NOT their job. They have a specific remit, Defence of the Realm, Law and Order (thats a laugh for starters), and to permit Her Majesty's subjects to live free of fear. Many people died to obtain the freedom we had and now it is being stolen from us by the politicians, who seem to have forgotten that they serve us, not the other way round.
October 30, 2008
"Combat the problems of child obesity?"
Which problems would that be exactly then? I am a governor at a primary school of well over 400 children. I do not recall seeing any obese kids there. It must be a very exclusive state school.
Here is a tip: not everything you read in the newspapers is true.
Here is another tip: politicians rarely tell the truth.
Maybe one way to "combat" would probably be to let parents be responsible for their kids, and not have some Balls (not exactly the thin type by the way) meddling in.
Imagine that: actually being responsible for oneself.
October 30, 2008
Hello Mr Johnson
The government should advise & inform. Then it should mind its own business!
October 30, 2008
Meanwhile in the real world:
Round here (the Fens), Lincolnshire never went Comprehensive. this means that poor people can go to the two excellent Grammar Schools at Spalding, Lincs. And they do.
Meanwhile, here in Wisbech, you have to pay to go to the Grammar. So, if you are rich enough (Recession?) to afford some £10,000 p.a., you get to University. And if not, not.
Mr Edward Balls has decided to spend our way out of recession by joining the two Spalding Grammar Schools into one which, of course, will be much bigger, have no history (the other two go back to Tudor times), have no traditions and which will be slightly smaller.
This, he reckons, will benefit the "Comprehensives" in the area.
And what does he know about education? Isn't he meant to be a genius economist, for heaven's sake?
As we found out here in Wisbech, it is all too easy to take an excellent school away from the poor. In Peterborough, nearby, the Grammar School is now a Comprehensive of some 3,000 pupils! And, no, it is not going to work, in spite of the shiny panels on the outside.
October 30, 2008
(On reading this through, I can see it being misconstrued as a comment on the above (true) comment by Monoi. No, I mean the real world outside London.)
October 30, 2008
It always comes across as somewhat strange that conservatives often complain about the Nanny State (two refs above) when they are the most likely to rely on nannies to bring up their children.
Candida Jones wrote a a piece in the Guardian G2 about one afternoon of her holiday in Corfu being spoiled by George Osborne turning up in a boat with his family and disturbing the children innocently playing from the jetty.
What stirred the slumbering class dislike in me,was the description of the nanny bringing up the rear carrying the bulk of the picnic gear. Do you really need a nanny when both parents are around?
And are n't boarding schools just a way of shuffling out of one's parental responsibilities?
The Conservative Party had a care once to select and promote grammar school girls and boys to bridge the class divide but the upper class (caste?) seems to be growing more confident in asserting itself now, (which is bound to end in disaster because of the upper class twit factor).
Reply: there are many Conservatives like me who came from modest beginnings and had no nanny nor expensive school place. There are quite a few in Labour who had these privileges, but we do not criticise them for that.
October 31, 2008
Ah the old class argument that worked so well for Labour in Crewe and Nantwich zzzzzzzzzzz
October 31, 2008
Well said Mr Redwood, and if I might add to that, my father drove lorries, mum worked in retail, no nannies. so perhaps we can at last do away with the pathetic outdated stereotypes.
For example, Mr Blair's alma mater, Fetes college, was some way from the dire comprehensive I was forced into.
October 31, 2008
I was trying to make a general,historical point about the regression of the Conservative party into its past of upper-class foolishness. At one time people of modest background like Margaret Thatcher,Edward Heath
and John Major were rapidly promoted but now the Bullingdon Club is the main source of its leaders, an outfit so oafish that "arch-snob" Evelyn Waugh disapproved of its destructive ,philistine anti-intellectualism.
I can certainly recognise the strength of feeling in Stuart Fairney's remarks but his Conservative Party is not dominated by people of his class any more.
There is a point to be made that good politicians transcend their class: Churchill was an ardent land-taxer, probably the best and most eloquent of the small handful that made it into the Commons.
But it is not appropriate for politicians of this class background (and they are in all the parties though the Tories have the greatest number) to lecture the public about responsibility for their children while themselves sub-contracting this responsibility to nannies and boarding schools.Stuart Fairney is right to complain about his comprehensive school but public schools with their bullying and other emotional distortions are no picnic.
It is hardly good for the future Chancellor to be dropped on his head
by Bullingdon Club hearties taking exception to his family's involvement in trade ( insofar as they are capable of any joined-up explanation for their behaviour).
November 1, 2008
I honestly don't obsess about someone's background and I find such views very 1960's labour, almost archaic. It matters not to me if your father was a baron or a bin-man, it is simply a question of how light a hand you propose to govern with.
October 30, 2008
@Dennis Johnson….two words should suffice…."Talking Balls".
October 30, 2008
Those Lardy's in Parliament are the last people who should lecture us on Obesity.
October 30, 2008
Do we need more size zero models to encourage our kids not to be fat
October 31, 2008
John
I think you should talk about chips more often if you look at the number of replys you have had.
It just shows how much people dislike this Labour government interfearing in things they should not and at the same time not doing what they should. They should not be telling us what to do but sorting themselves out.
There have been many good suggestions in the comments of what they should be doing.
Reply: I will talk about a range of issues. I have written a lot on the financial crisis recently because it is so important, so fast moving, and is not being analysed sensibly by a lot of the traditional media.
October 31, 2008
I totaly agree with you.
October 31, 2008
Perhaps suggest the government stipulates that any developer who's bought school playing fields must build, not only some affordable housing, but also a shop selling healthy lunchtime snacks. My guess, would be, a great many government ministers wouldn't be able to spot what's wrong with this idea.
October 31, 2008
re "Reply: there are many Conservatives like me who came from modest beginnings and had no nanny nor expensive school place. There are quite a few in Labour who had these privileges, but we do not criticise them for that."
maybe
but there are no conservative front benchers, i can hardly think of any MPs at all, who have obvious working class or regional accents
it doesnt give the impression of a meritocracy
i think this is one of the big presentational issues the conservatives need to think about
positive discrimination for women is one thing, but to get a better reflection of the country we need a much better balance of folk in other ways
not that labour is perfect
one of the reasons the state school system is so bad is that the political leadership often opt out when it comes to their own kids
not many conservative MPs live across the social divides in the way that some of the rest of us do
and having been bought many a beer by a conservative MEP on his expense budget i think i have a little visibility of how out of touch they are
conservatives really do have lots of supporters who are more representative, i only wonder why they are not more visible at the higher levels
just food for thought
October 31, 2008
David Davis, Norman Tebbit, Mr Lamont, John Major. Margaret Thatcher (I admit these are from an earlier generation of Grammar Schools).
God forbid that anyone should try and be like, say Ruth Kelly with her feeble attempt at talking "working class".
Or Tony Blair with his carefully dropped "t".
Or the BBC people who carefully stress the first syllable of every word and deliberately shorten every "a".
Pseuds corner fools nobody.
Once you are in the Upper Class of the Politico-Meeja-Sport-Entertinement indoostreh, you are a changed person……..
They are they there because the do not want to be like everyone else.
It is an elite.
October 31, 2008
@DBC Reed, what exactly is the link between the nanny state and having a nanny?
It is one of the most moronic comment I have read in a long time.
And when the 2 parents are working, a nanny is a very practical way to help with children. It certainly does not mean that you give up parental responsibilities, but I guess it is probably a concept which is too complicated for you to understand.
After all, you believe someone called candida writing in the guardian complaining about Osborne using a jetty for his boat! What is a jetty for, remind me?
October 31, 2008
Chips and blue pop are part of the diet for the average school child, but who would like to see a fast food joint in every school? Not everyone is able, or wants to influence their child's eating habits. Some just grow up like weeds. Crack with your jellied snakes son?
November 1, 2008
This policy is utterly insane; it reminds me of Mao's China. When will our home food intake will also be inspected (by hidden cameras dedicated to catch terrorists)? And how will we be penalized when we'll indulge?
November 2, 2008
This concern for health from a government that introduced 24 hours drinking. vHow hypocritical can they get.
November 1, 2008
This concern for health from a government that introduced 24 hours drinking. vHow hypocritical can they get.
November 2, 2008
This policy is utterly insane; it reminds me of Mao’s China. When will our home food/alcohol intake will also be inspected (by hidden cameras dedicated to catch terrorists)? And how will we be penalized when we’ll indulge?