Dozens of health and children’s groups have urged ministers to tackle obesity by imposing taxes on foods containing too much salt or sugar.
New levies based on the sugar tax on soft drinks would make it easier for consumers to eat more healthily by forcing food manufacturers to reformulate their products, they claim.
So, what was the effect of the sugar tax? Anyone? Has obesity decreased? Sugar consumption fallen? Health improved? No? Ah, well then….
We have actually tested the idea, see?
And sorry, no:
The health groups believe taxing unhealthy foods such as cakes, sweets, biscuits, crisps and savoury snacks would generate billions of pounds for the Treasury and cut the number of people becoming ill as a result of a bad diet.
You only get one of those two, not both. Either Lossa lots of people eat less bad food and are healthier, or you raise lossa lots in tax because people don’t stop eating the taxed food.. But not both.
Define “too much”.
Thin end of the wedge. There is a group of busy body dick heads who want people to live on a purely vegan organic, no alcohol diet. No meat, no fish, no leather goods, just beans a veg with organic cotton clothes, all dyed using healthy organic dyes.
Just do not ask what kind of mordants are needed for the organic dyes.
And as usual for the dear old ‘Grauniad’, it’s illustrated with a picture of….not food. Sweets. Which no-one eats as their man meal, do they?
It’s not a man meal if there’s no bacon
You only get one of those two, not both. Either Lossa lots of people eat less bad food and are healthier, or you raise lossa lots in tax because people don’t stop eating the taxed food.. But not both.
Or people don’t eat the “bad” food and are healthier, then spend more time at work, earning money to be taxed. then they also do more activities outside work which can then also be taxed. And live longer, so they can be taxed for longer
The health groups believe taxing unhealthy foods such as cakes, sweets, biscuits, crisps and savoury snacks would generate billions of pounds for the Treasury and cut the number of people becoming ill as a result of a bad diet.
Well, that is what they claim. What they want is a ban on non-approved food. This is just the first stage. Claims about tax are merely there to entice the government.
Of course we can see what will really happen based on the example of fags. Taxes are so high that people swap to bootlegged fags and the total tax take falls, with few positive health consequences.
CD,
but a main cause of people being off sick is ‘mental elf issues’. If they don’t get their treats, their stress levels will increase leading to more being off sick leading to less revenue for Reeves to piss up the wall.
Thank you Jimmers!!
Jimmers,
They can have a lovely carrot for a treat.
For the record, I’m not in favour of it. Just trying to highlight what they think will happen.
Tangent: I was talking to a bloke in the pub and he mentioned that he liked to replace the chocolate treat in a ferrero rocher with chocolate coated raw Brussel sprouts and then give them out to kids on Halloween.
These left wing bed wetters would probably nominate him for an OBE……
Ah Tim, that’s not how it works… If a Great Approved Plan By Clever People doesn’t work then it just needs doing harder until it does. Stopping and thinking isn’t Progressive.
Don’t go suggesting that the Clever People are thick as pigshit or that their Great Approved Plan is a steaming pile of the same, that would be wrongthink.
This is from the same people who quite frequently explain that behavior does not change in response to changes in taxes, amiright?
Am I the only one who now buys 2 chocolate bars (on the occasional times when I fancy a sweet treat) because they’ve been reduced in size so much nowadays means one just doesn’t hit the spot?
On the basis that drugs are proper illegal, and they are still available relatively cheaply on just about every street corner, how on earth do the usual suspects think they are going to stop people eating the food they like?
The government should encourage people to point at fatties and laugh.
@Jim
It isn’t stopping them transferring the tobacco supply chain from taxed and legal retailers to your local dope peddler. Chocolate will be next.
I see the junk food/sugar tax thing as a softening up for the real money raiser:
20% VAT on all food. It’s in the peasants’ best interests!
It has nothing to do with food or tax (as Esteban correctly points out) – it’s about power and control. Some people get a boner out of controlling other people. It’s that simple.
Essentially the same article (fronted by the loathsome Dimbleby, almost as bad as the food in his restaurants) is in The Times. I’m still waiting for someone to provide a definition of “ultra-processed food” that doesn’t boil down to “stuff I disapprove of”.
“ The government should encourage people to point at fatties and laugh.”
They could start with their own first with Lammy being a prime candidate.
@Chernyy Drakon – “And live longer, so they can be taxed for longer”
But cost a lot more than they pay in tax due to expensive chronic illnesses of old age. From a purely economic point of view, the ideal population is one where almost everyone drops dead shortly after retirement.
“let’s do something!”
It doesn’t work
“Let’s do more of it!”
“Genius!