The main man himself, Mr Jamie Oliver, is the self styled food conscience of the UK. Personally, I think he’s great. Lots of people in his position could just open a few restaurants, do some reality TV bollocks, skim a few quid off it, and live a happy and uninterrupted life. But starting with his School Dinners project and now his war on sugar, it’s about opening people’s eyes to look through the marketing and the packaging and see exactly what we’re eating. It’s lead to a big push for a sugar tax on food and drinks in the UK. But is this actually going to get the go ahead?
On the basis of it, I’m all for it. I work in wine, which gets the arse taxed out of it. I don’t smoke, but ciggies are highly taxed too. They’re what are called the “sin taxes”. The whole point is two fold. One, the higher price is meant to discourage people from buying so much of it. Second, if you do want to keep buying it then the extra tax revenue goes to the fund the extra healthcare you’re going to need somewhere down the line. Ok, everything in moderation, you should be ok, but lots of people out there don’t know the meaning of the word.
Obesity is a ridiculously huge problem now in the UK (no pun intended!). A mixture of shitty diets and lack of exercise (selling off all the school playing fields was another of Mr Blair’s masterstrokes) has left the nation’s kids well and truly rotund. Sorry to say it to my American friends, but it was always a running joke about the size of their countrymen. Well now the jokes on us. And something has to be done. So why not a “sin tax” on certain foods?
The big argument against it is that it’s a tax on the poor, because it’s targeting the food they eat. What a stupid f@$king argument that is! Surely the whole point is to get them to stop eating so much of this shit and change their diets? Why should a can of coke be 50p and exempt from a sin tax given its undoubted health detriment?
All we need now is for the government to stop making stuff up to convince the public (a huge and understandable gripe for those against the tax) and just say it like it is. We’re eating too much crap food, it’s making people ill, so we need to do something. End of.
Cheers
P.S. Sorry about the rant! 🙁
