Liberal Vision

Move over tobacco there’s a new bad boy in town..

Tobacco has a rival for being the baddest guy in town.  Not alcohol. Not chocolate. Not Fat.  It’s sugar !

A report over on the BBC website tells us that  Prof Robert Lustig, from California Universitry (obviously), argues in the journal Nature that sugar is the new demon.  Sugar he says is as damaging and addictive as alcohol or tobacco and new policies such as taxes are needed to control soaring consumption of sugar and sweeteners. According to the professor

“It [sugar] meets all the criteria for societal intervention that alcohol and tobacco meet.”

The BBC report goes on to say… “The researchers acknowledge that they face “an uphill political battle against a powerful sugar lobby“.  But…“with enough clamour for change, tectonic shifts in policy become possible”.

Can you see just how wonderfully well the anti-tobacco industry’s little tricks can be so easily adapted to other food stuffs . Tell people its “addictive”, talk about  “evil corporate companies” (Big Tobacco must more impressive than “powerful sugar lobby” but heh), create a “clamour for change” (that’ll be another two universties agreeing with the first one and all their mates making loud noises). And hey presto you have more than enough to convince the Government that it has to “take action”.

Any suggestion that tobacco control is not leading a huge pack of health lobby groupies, eager to apply any anti-tobacco  successes to their own particular cause and using much the same methods to achieve them, is just laughable.. These Sugar guys are practically using the whole anti-tobacco script unedited goddamnit!.

Of course this report is from a Californian University (I think the same one that had their dabs all over a tobacco plain packaging report some time ago). But don’t get too complacent here in the UK.

Dr Peter Scarborough of the British Heart Foundation,  has already come out today saying that taxing only one type of food could have unintended consequences, such as people cutting back on fruit and vegetables to save money for other purchases. But…(my emphasis)

“If you tax fat, salt and sugar, combined with subsidies for fruit and vegetables, you’ll get healthier diets.”

So that is a fat tax, a salt tax AND a sugar tax. When will it end? I guess when we all put our foot down and say no.

Tags: Prof Robert Lustig, sugar tax, tobacco. plain packaging

Get message into Lib Dem Away Day…small could be huge

The Liberal Democrats have an away day today – and two years into Coalition their eyes must be firmly now on where they need to go for the remainder of this parliament if they are to have any chance of lifting themselves of the sticky 10% they are currently hitting in the opinion polls.

I think the world and their aunt now concur that being seen as a “brake” on the excesses of the Conservatives is not going to work. It is too negative, and, frankly just too lame. So we need something more positive.

Mark Littlewood (Director General of the IEA and Liberal Voice of the Year) was on the BBC’s Daily Politics today talking on this very subject and championing the idea that the Lib Dems should be the party that champions the cause of  small and medium sized businesses (SMEs)..

Yep – we agree with that.  Shortly after Lib Dem Conference we said the self same thing here at LV... Here is an excerpt from the post..

“So where should the Liberal Democrats be going, who should they be talking to and what policies should that then deliver?

It’s obvious isn’t it ? Small and medium sized businesses. The Conservatives are the friends of big business, the Labour party now firmly under the control of the Trade Unions is also increasingly obsessed with big business (whether workers of large public sector organisations or private enterprise). Ed Balls may have made overtures to small business in his speech on Monday. But referring to my earlier point – no one really believes that Labour is the party of small business or the entrepreneur. It’s just phony.

The Liberal Democrats on the other hand can legitimately claim the position of defender of the small. The most meaningful boost we have had in the polls recently came at the height of the Murdoch inquiry. It reminded the nation that we are not, nor ever have been, in the pockets of big business interests (media or otherwise). We argue for localism over big government. We stand for modernisation not protection of the status quo (and believe me the entrepreneur revolution is well and truly upon us). We are internationalists not protectionists. If any party should be able to win the hearts and minds of small business it should surely be the Liberal Democrats.

And if there is a group of people that every party should want to win it is small business. Small business is huge. There are about 23million people working in small and medium sized businesses. They are shopkeepers and entrepreneurs, lawyers and designers, engineers and specialist manufacturers. They are our kind of people. (And they are much more likely to operate close to where their goods/services are used which will keep the greener ones amongst us happy).  SME’s are small and nifty. Able to downsize and up-size quickly according to market conditions. They are canny,resourceful, and flexible. They are also the engine room for economic growth. Who wouldn’t want them in their camp? All they really want is for Government to stop standing in their way…..”

Do you think that the message is getting through yet?

Tags: Daily Politics, Liberal Democrats, Mark Littlewood, small business, SMEs

Mark Littlewood: Liberal Voice of the Year

Congratulations to Mark Littlewood, formerly of this parish, for winning LDV’s Liberal Voice of the Year.

As we posted hear a couple of days ago, we thought Mark was a deserving candidate – but even we were somewhat surprised by the decisiveness of the vote.

Mark Littlewood 32%

The Occupy Movement 13%

Ken Clarke 13%

Mohamed Bouazizi 11%

Nick Davies and the Guardian 10%

Ai Weiwei 8%

Hugh Grant and the Hacked Off Campaign 6%

Hilary Rodham Clinton 4%

Barack Obama 3%

Tags: IEA, Lib Dem Voice, Liberal voice of the Year, Mark Littlewood

Government priorities gone bananas

I was reading Professor Philip Booth’s excellent blog post yesterday on David Cameron’s red tape challenge to ministers. Here is an extract that caught my eye.. (emphasis is mine) .

“Of course, this is just what we need – more employment regulation. It comes in a long line of announcements and enactments over the last two weeks about executive pay, council house tenancies, the disastrous implementation of the moratorium on employment regulation for small firms, alcohol regulation, the extension of employment rights to temporary workers and the regulation of the scrap metal industry. I am wondering if I have misunderstood the government’s red tape challenge – is the challenge to ministers to produce as much red tape as possible? “

And I found myself cheering his point that..

“If somebody is not very clever but good at building networks, why should they be looked down upon more than somebody who is clever but not good at building networks? The hard work that one puts into networking is not obviously less virtuous than the hard work that one puts into developing one’s intelligence. The good luck that comes from being born with a good brain is no more virtuous (indeed it is not virtuous at all) than the good luck that comes from being born with a set of well-networked parents.”

But that is perhaps because I was not a particularly brilliant scholar but had “the gift of the gab” (though sadly no “connections”). Goodness only knows what job I would have ended up with if my application had gone in “blind” rather than me tracking potential bosses down to seedy pubs to pester them into giving me an interview.

Professor Booth’s point is not that dissimilar to a point I made recently. Why is it that Government seems happy to go after highly paid bankers and CEOs on such issues as bonus’/ pay differentials etc whilst ignoring the vast sums earned by Premier League Footballers, pop stars and the like?  After all the pay differential between the average Manchester United fan and their top players is vast – and the penalty for failure? they get transferred to another team quite often for even more money. Why is it, I wonder, that it’s OK to earn fortunes because you are good at kicking a ball about – but not if you happen to be masterful at running a company? (Note this is NOT a demand that the Government starts meddling in sports pay as well.)

But returning to David Cameron’s challenge – maybe it is time for him to reconsider giving a wider challenge to ministers and put it in really simple terms – since they do seem to be having trouble grasping the point.

“If it doesn’t cut costs, improve effeciency or help business get the economy going, then JUST DON’T DO IT – unless there is a bloody good reason why you have to – Dave”

I know ministers like their headlines, feel the need to be seen to be doing something, but really! Most of us are sitting in our homes wondering what the hell this government is up to? What we want are jobs, an economy that gets going, the clearing of our debts. What on earth has alcohol regulation or executive pay got to do with any of those things?

Mark Littlewood has been asked by the Government to help them on red tape. Perhaps the Government needs a similar expert to help them sort out Government priorities – ( I say “expert” all we need is a person with an ounce of common sense and a large red pen). Here is one example concerning my current hobby horse. Why is Andrew Lansley devoting vast amounts of time, money and resource undertaking a consultation on tobacco plain packaging, when we can sit back for six months and wait for the REAL evidence to come from Australia (where plain packaging is about to be introduced). With the time and resource released he could devote that to sorting out the current crisis in the NHS now- and return to plain packs if/when the evidence from down under suggests that it warrants it. It’s just about priorities. Surely?

Enjoy Professor Booth’s musings – definitely worth a read.

Tags: Andrew Lansley, David Cameron, IEA, Mark Littlewood, Professor Philip Booth, red tape challenge

A little Christmas fun

Here is one minute of Christmas fun. Hope you enjoy….