In England obesity figures are gaining considerable girth. Why? Modern technology, ignorance, and a privileged access to vast amounts of unhealthy food stuffs are compounded by a lack of activity. Oh dear. For many it’s not uncommon to have up to three cans of fizzy drinks a day (indeed, several colleagues at Mr. Wapojif’s day time workplace do this daily all year round), along with several bags of crisps, chocolate bars, and a mug of coffee with three sugars and whole milk. They are, literally, addicted to sugar. Shock horror, then, as the British government could be bringing in a dramatic tax on fizzy drinks in an attempt to steer children away from these evil imbibing ways. Sugar drinks could be slammed with 20p a litre tax to ward off clueless parents. The proceeds will go towards children’s health charities and initiatives. Now here’s a real shocker! The director general of the British Soft Drinks Association, Gavin Pilkington, is against the move! Who would have thunked it? He had this to say, “Obesity is a serious and complex problem, but a tax on soft drinks, which contribute just 2% of the total calories in the average diet, will not help address it.” I don’t need to point out what a spurious sentiment this is. Business spiel response, sir? No never!

The British public have responded to this possibility, and we include a number of their rambling rambles on today’s post. Verbatim, of course. And, er, source notes? They’re all from MSN’s UK website in the comments section. Indeed, sir. Indeed.

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“i think its rubbish, all this about obese and being unhealthy for kids, well let me tell the government a few things, i am now 30 years old with children of my own and from the age of 3/4 years old up till i was at least 16 i ate nothing but chips with something 5 days out of 7 days a week  and was often in places like mcdonalds and chips shops, eating chocolate, sweets, cakes, crisps, everything possibly unhealthy in your eyes and yes i’ve drunk coke for the last  27 years and still continue to do so today and i have had medical check up and i’m the most healthiest girl they’ve seen from my back ground history.  Its not what you eat but what you do is the problems surrounding obesity.This tax on sugary drink is just another way to con money out of people, not cause you care for the children’s welfare, if you cared for our children’s welfare’s then you would be making improvements to education and help families with children instead of taking away child benefit, tax credits, housing benefits making it harder to live with the rise of living as our money doesn’t go up and not to mention forcing single parents to go back to work leaving them no option but to pay out child care cost  which is costly and basically working for nothing and depriving them from being at home with their children whilst a child minder gets to see their child walk, grow and learn is that right………..no it is not. So remember that when robbing the poor to feed the rich !!!!!!! Think i made my point.” Jeanette

“Therell be an oxygen tax by christmas.” Rocka

“how about we put extra tax on these: 1, cars with retail prices over £75,000 (only the rich can afford them) 2, cigars with retail price over £250 (only the rich can afford them), 3, champagne with retail price over £250 a bottle (only the rich can afford them) 4, houses valued over £2,000,000 yep you guessed it only the rich can afford it! i could keep going but i am sure the the average working class man can understand what my point is, in other words tax the wealthy more instead of hitting hard working family’s who are already struggling, another example of why this country is going under!” Ricky Parker

“Em Harold your a nob. and know nothing of what your muntering on about. I too have drunk coke since the age of 13 am now 42. And ate chips most my life and eat junk food at least three times a week. yet am still a mere slip of a lad lol and perfectly healthy to boot, the main reason of kids unhealthy and obseity is plain and simple. Computer games. they didn’t have them around when i was a nipper so we had to go out and play. not now they sit on their fat asses all day and night not seeing daylight or taking in fresh air. so if this is indeed why they are getting fat then hike up prices on your computers and games then. another dottled old man brain washed by the Gov and media. go home old man and watch Miss marple” Dave

“Tax is the politicians answer to everything….. the more money you take out of the pockets of the ordinary man and women in the street, the less money they have to spend on things which may harm them….. and the more money the government has to give to the EU and away in aid elsewhere…. To them it makes sense, especially while we all simply sit back and take it!” Meer Kat

“I reckon that we are about 10 – 20 years away from 1940’s style rationing of all food products “for our own good”.  How about, ‘I disapprove of what you do but will defend to the death your right to do it’?” Christopher – This is actually Evelyn Beatrice Hall’s famous line regarding François-Marie Arouet’s (whose nom de plume was Voltaire) works, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” It was subsequently championed by the likes of George Orwell in the context of freedom of speech. Christopher has taken it out of its context and altered it in his favour. We should point out this is plagiarism and is punishable in England by a stern caning with a celery stick.

“Another excuse another tax when will they give up ,come on people say  NO NO NO You wouldn’t think so but we still have  freedom in this country and our brave service men  giving there lives and limbs to give others that freedom lets not loose ours” Nigel

“Are we to be trusted to be out by ourselves??? this government seems to be thinking up more and more ridiculous ideas to take money off us. This used to be a free country where people could make their own choices without the state telling us how to think and what to do!   Maggie Thatcher was all for rolling back the nanny state, Cameron and Clegg, that well known comedy duo, seem determined to exert more control over us; will the next step be to have personal nannies following us around? or maybe we could all be microchipped or barcoded; that way we could be taxed as we go!” Brian

The Solution

Are these comments beyond vacuous or have Professional Moron got it wrong? Are the government just trying to get more money out of us scumbag proles so they can have a caviar shower in the morning and drink their Mumm champagne for lunch? Should we turn our attention to landing the first person on the Sun instead? All we know is this – eat your greens, kids! Vegetables are cheap, versatile, and very good for you. Groovy!