Mike Bloomberg Seems to be Inspiring Tory Health Policy. Which is a Problem.

Tuesday, 12th January 2010

If there's one thing Team* Spectator agrees upon it is, I think, that Tory health policy is utterly inadequate and desperately confused. One especially problematic promise, however, is the notion that what we need is a Department of Public Health. How will this work? Well, the inspiration would seem to be Mayor Mike Bloomberg in New York City. This is not Good News:

First New York City required restaurants to cut out trans fat. Then it made restaurant chains post calorie counts on their menus. Now it wants to protect people from another health scourge: salt.

On Monday, the Bloomberg administration plans to unveil a broad new health initiative aimed at encouraging food manufacturers and restaurant chains across the country to curtail the amount of salt in their products.

The plan, for which the city claims support from health agencies in other cities and states, sets a goal of reducing the amount of salt in packaged and restaurant food by 25 percent over the next five years.

So a War on Salt (voluntary at this stage, admittedly) follows the Wars on Smoking and Obesity and further enhances Nurse Bloomberg's reputation as the Big Nanny Who Always Knows Best. Individually, of course, you might not object to any one of these measures; collectively they represent a gross and unnecessary intrusion. Each intervention then becomes the justification for the next one. Sooner or later you've been nudged into a longer, less enjoyable, less free life. Progress?

But is there anything in Bloomberg's record that wouldn't be embraced (and enthusiastically!) by Dave and his chums in the "Progressive Conservative Party". I don't think so. And that's a problem, surely?

*There is no party line, nor any attempt to impose one. Just in case you were wondering.

[Hat-tip: Ezra Klein who, being an excellent lefty, thinks Nurse Bloomberg is just dandy.]

Filed under: Food (85 more articles) , Health (235 more articles) , Libertarians (143 more articles) , Nanny State (6 more articles) , New York (18 more articles) , NHS (136 more articles) , Tories (273 more articles)

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Rhoda Klapp

January 12th, 2010 3:26pm Report this comment

Most diet faddists are single-issue fanatics of the worst kind. They seek to impose behaviour on free people. Neither the salt or the trans-fats are proven dangers to health. Most of us will be fine if we have a varied diet tempered only by our preference.

I see the big story today is some fascist nanny looking in kids' lunchboxes and finding much to complain of. Why is it anyone's business if I send my kid to school with a Kitkat? Will they be round at dinnertime to make sure we serve approved meals? Nasty evil interfering busybodies. Prodnose scum.

Patrick Kidd

January 12th, 2010 8:45pm Report this comment

If NYC doesn't want its salt, can we have it over here please to put on our roads? (likewise, can Paul Collingwood give us back our grit once he's stopped using it in South Africa)

jonten

January 12th, 2010 9:22pm Report this comment

Disagree with you on this. 'Wars' on smoking and obesity is a very melodramatic and sulky way of looking at it. Smoking causes many thousands of preventable deaths, and second-hand smoke is a major negative externality that is appropriately dealt with by a ban of smoking in confined public spaces. Obesity is also bad for you, and so is excess salt consumption. I think, therefore, menu labelling is fine: all it does is improve the level of information available to the consumer when she makes her choice. Being informed about things is a Good Thing.

The semantics of having both a Department of Health and a Department of Public Health simultaneously might need a bit of thought though. To policy wonks 'public health' is a clearly distinct phenomenon from 'health'. But how will your average elf-n-safety-disparaging voter see it? Who's the Dept. of Health for if not the public?!

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