Douglas Carswell

Memo to Public Health England: Cutting the fat begins at home

"In the case of nutrition and health, just as in the case of education, the gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for people than the people know themselves." Or so presumed Fabian elitist Douglas Jay in his 1947 manifesto The Socialist State.

Today, as people used to making consumer choices in every aspect of our lives, this view sounds absurd. What is amazing is that our professional bureaucrats still believe it.

Alison Tedstone is one such – in fact, one of 5,000 at Public Health England. People are too fat for her liking, she told us yesterday. So she wants to tax, legislate, and above all patronise us to the weight she considers acceptable.

She demands a duty on sugar, a ban on "supersized" portion sizes, and regulation of cartoon characters in advertising - starting with public enemy number one: the Coco Pops monkey. "Things like those Coco Pop monkeys," she informed the Commons Health Select Committee, "do engage children and affect food preference and choice."

Don't adjust your sets: this is not 1947, when Britain still had food rationing. Dr. Tedstone seriously thinks people will tolerate nanny-state planning by the gentleman in Whitehall today. She really believes cartoon characters are a national priority. She actually expects taxpayers to keep paying her to patronise them.

At a time when the demand for healthcare is stretching NHS budgets to breaking point, we are paying over £300 million a year to be lectured by Public Health England. When hospitals are in financial crisis, we are allowing PHE to spend £48 million on infantilising "health marketing" campaigns fronted by B-list celebrities. When junior doctors are facing pay cuts, PHE's chief executive, Duncan Selbie, is making over £285,000 annually.

I suspect that people don't want to be lectured on obesity by well-fed technocrats living off the fat of the land. They don't need to be told to trim the excess by the pointless parasites of the rent-seeking class. After seventy years of statism, they have learnt the hard way what happens when they blindly trust the experts – on everything from immigration to interest rates. That's why so many don't trust them anymore.

On the other hand, I know that people do want efficient healthcare. Taxpayers do want their money spent properly.

If we really want to improve health outcomes - if we really want to cut the fat – then forget the Coco Pops monkey. Public Health England is the place to start.

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