The Tories: Nanny tells you what to eat

The Conservative Party has produced its plans for the Department of Health, covering the treatment of obesity and alcohol consumption.

One of the deeply depressing things about the modern day Tory Party is that despite accepting the need for government to get out of people’s lives, both for political and economic reasons, they seem unable to shed their own ‘government is best’ obsession. Here their spokesman, Andrew Lansley pledges ‘to work with fast-food restaurants and bars... to reduce the size of portions’.

Lansley appears to believe that it is the business of the State to influence or control the amount people eat. The Tories really do need to get rid of these people otherwise nobody is going to believe a word they say about cutting the deficit, but will think them as patronising as the last lot.

Lansley’s other wheeze is that he says most people don’t know what a unit of alcohol is. In this he is correct. Lansley wants to replace it with ‘centilitres of pure alcohol’.

Two problems with this: first, most people don’t know what a centilitre is, either. Second, a 'unit' is a centilitre of alcohol.

Oh Dear. Oh Dear.