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Coffee House Shots

Is it up to the state to tackle obesity?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.42.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 July 2021

⏱️ 21 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The government has been advised by Henry Dimbleby, founder of LEON food chain, to introduce a new tax on sugary and salty foods. While the Prime Minister has distanced himself away from the proposal, it has caused a lively debate in The Spectator's office. Tune in to hear Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Kate Andrews debate the limits of the state when it comes to our health and our diets; how much obesity is related to class; and whether it really is impossible to find vegetables in Tooting.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Subscribe to The Spectator in our end of lockdown sale and get 10 weeks of the magazine, in print and online, for the price of one.

0:08.3

Not only that, but we'll also send you a bottle of PIMS worth £25, absolutely free.

0:13.5

That's 10 weeks of The Spectator and a bottle of PIMS all for just £4.95.

0:18.9

Hurry, though, this offer ends on Monday 19th of July. Go to spectator.com.

0:23.2

UK forward slash sale. Welcome to Coffeehouse shots for Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Fraser Nass.

0:33.7

Earlier today, Henry Dind will be returned with the results of his inquiry into how Britain should be taxing its food.

0:40.0

He was asked two years ago by Michael Gove to consider the wiring behind our food market

0:45.7

and what can be done to make Britain eat healthier.

0:49.4

The conclusions came out today.

0:50.7

He's suggesting basically a tax on salt and a tax on sugar, but formulated in the

0:56.7

same way as the recent tax on sugary drinks, with the hope being that companies substitute the unhealthy

1:02.2

ingredients for healthier ones. So what will the government do about it and what should it do about it?

1:08.0

I'm joined by Kate Andrews and James Forsyth. James, it's funny,

1:12.3

cover of the spectator is the nanny state or nanny Boris today. Doesn't this look like

1:16.9

classic nannying? Because in government, so in opposition, Boris Johnson was talking about

1:22.3

ridiculing these things. He said that if he was in power, he'd tell Jamie Oliver to stuff it and people to eat

1:29.2

what they want. Now we've got Jamie Oliver backing the results of a Dimbledby inquiry, and that

1:36.0

makes fairly, proposes, fairly big intrusions into how people eat and how it's taxed.

1:43.1

Well, Boris Johnson isn't ridiculing the Dimblebee report,

1:45.6

but he's clearly trying to put several kind of port pies of distance

1:49.6

between himself and it, saying today,

1:52.6

after his speech from leveling up,

...

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