Sunday 5 February 2012

We know what’s good for you

Spiky-haired Frankenstein's monster lookalike, Health Minister Anne Milton, has provoked fury by “claiming northerners die earlier than those in the south because they smoke too much, drink too much - and ‘jump into bed with each other at the drop of a hat’.”
Public health minister Anne Milton - whose Guildford constituency lies in the Surrey stockbroker belt - argued that 'widespread changes in behaviour' such as stopping smoking and practising 'safe sex' would help lower death rates in the north of England.

At a Commons debate last week about bad health in the region, former nurse Ms Milton said: 'The major part of poor health will be remedied only by widespread changes in behaviour.

'It is this government's policy to encourage people to change how they live.

'We cannot frog-march people out of the off-licence, compel them to stop smoking or force them to practise safe sex.

'Our challenge is to make the case that freedom without responsibility is not sustainable.'
Combining health fascism with rank snobbery, a better example of the deep contempt in which the political class hold ordinary people is difficult to imagine.

Not that her Labour predecessors were any better, although they might have been a little more reluctant to air their private views to avoid antagonising their own constituents, instead preferring to call for more taxpayers’ money to be splurged on the affected areas, as shown by the comments in the article from Chi Onwurah.

A point often missed in discussion of geographical health inequalities is that, during their lives, people who enjoy educational and career success tend to migrate from poorer to richer areas, so the average age of death in Burnley doesn’t necessarily reflect the average life expectancy of babies born in Burnley. And to what extent is this actually inequality between different social classes rather than different geographical areas?

5 comments:

  1. "It is this government's policy to encourage people to change how they live." If that were true, I'd have fewer problems with her pronouncements, but punitive beer taxation is not encouragement, it's coercion.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pointless calling this sad cow any
    names,blame the brain washed dipsticks who ,trudge every 4 or 5
    years to a Polling Booth to vote for the other MPs who are completely divorced from the man
    in the street.
    Wesminster has become little more than a Talkshop whose agenda is
    dictated by pressure groups chattering in South London Winebars.
    Worth a mention,keep your eyes open for the colaborators especialy
    the cap doffers.

    Hope sprins eternal

    ReplyDelete
  3. Just look at the mush on her! Not want you'd want to be left with at the bar. Says it all.

    ReplyDelete
  4. She may not be pretty but I suspect you've done worse. Especially if you hang around Robinsons pubs.

    ReplyDelete

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