report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

for at least a year.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...ks-tax-obesity

sorry to me this madcap idea. One its easily avoided there is sodastream. People will just purchase them its like sodastream lobbying for the tax to kickstart its business.

Another is why do the powers create this evil sugar illusion. Mark my word it is illusion you have to question is it really that bad for you. Well anything in excess is but there also things these people not looked into or dismissed. If you search you would question this move.

Those substitutes are more chance cause obesity, yep. Ever wondered why health issues on the increase while we play the artificial is good for health claims. Why we should do more stodies into thes.

You will be shocked to learn they are the real devil why USA and UK becoming obese nations.

Suger personally not the evil its made out to be yes in excess its the devil incarnated. Exactly what aint out there eat too much beef, charrots, banana's. You name it in excess its deadly. On the fight obesity it clearly not its fault. The real enemy to it is our dear old artificial sweetners. Scientist have shown it to be.

http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...711763,00.html

Now we come to dear old sacharrin this had cloud over many years links to cancer. That because after lab test it gave lab rats bladder cancer. If you link to third there may been reason to done this as nutrasweat was coming on the market. So was it discredit rival who knows.

http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...931116,00.html

found this interesting how the war of the sweetners evolved

http://www.janethull.com/askdrhull/article.php?id=022

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

What I want to know is what are we supposed to drink?

Alcohol is frowned on.Coffee and tea are regarded as bad,too much fruit juice is bad for one's teeth.

Which leaves water.Yep very interesting..:rolleyes:

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

I can't remember what movie it was, but there was this movie where someone said that if the doctors had their way, instead of eating food we would ingest old rope and yank that through. It's increasingly starting to look that way. :rolleyes:

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Get doctors or other "experts" to blame ill health on something, then in steps HMG to slap a tax on it.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

My answer to them is very simple.:upyours:

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Teach children how to cook in schools, slowly create a culture where cooking and longer meals are encouraged as opposed to ready meals and snacks. The French have soft drinks, desserts and cheeses which are really high in saturated fat, and McDonald's that'll serve a beer with your burger. The French do not have a problem with obesity.

I don't know all the reasons for this and I don't think anyone has got an exact answer but a lot of it must be to do with their healthier culture around food. They take more time over it, longer lunches, they'll sit down at a proper table for a proper meal more often than we'll do. They snack less inbetween meals because they are more filling and the taste of good food makes the appeal of snacks less appealing.

Teaching how to cook, reducing the desire of quick processed snacks, and spending more time over food would all help a lot.

Unless we do that then we are just going to have to find more rudimentary ways of curbing obesity and one of those ways is to use the tax system. Besides, we can put that money towards the NHS which will increasingly need it if obesity continues to increase.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

agreed maggy they are nutters. Remember 18 pints well if that was water still killer. Guess they better tax ban everything just incase its absued in excess.

Like I said every single thing you put in your mouth is bad if you abuse it.

---------- Post added at 17:32 ---------- Previous post was at 17:21 ----------

I think alot to do with there culture how laid back they are plus plenty Red wine off course.

They still do have obesity like italy not as evident bit exists. Even with perfect environment you still can get those eat to excess.

Another link to obesity rarely looked is rushed lunches. Lack time a person gets to eat food. Some companies who give little time for lunch breaks.

Will france have problem down the road. Will drastically shortened lunch breaks impact on diet. They seen it reduced from one and half hours to half hour.

Said that sandwiches on the rise in france. Two billion sandwiches a year are sold in France. The nation long known for three-course bistro lunches washed down with a glass of red wine is apparently turning to sandwiches, fast food and soft drinks.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-radio-and-tv-17561232

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

If people are too stupid to understand having too much of something is bad forr them and causes them to be obese how are they expected to grasp a tax on their stupidity of choice they will just moan and then carry on as normal. We have to start imparting intelligent thought into people instead of drafting things for the idiot level. I enjoy a nice glass or two of coke as much as anyone but i don't go stupid with it so why exactly should i have to pay for other people's stupidity.

If they have to do anything charge these people when they seek medical attention because of their stupidity will have a much more beneficial affect then a general tax that hits everyone. Oh for the days of personal responsibility when people who did stupid things were the only one's that suffered for it.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

agreed rizzyking but we should not tar all obesity to bad eating sometimes medical reasons. I am underweight can eat anything have bouts loss weight. Happened since born they just tell me to binge ocassionally on stuff should not eat.:D

I am suprised didnt say it was down to people owning horses:D

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Drinking red wine has drastically declined in France over the past decade, as quality wines got too rich for the ordinary man's pocket.

Which they have just had a "health tax" slapped onto if they contain sugar.

Baguette sandwiches tend not to be filled with foul mayonnaise as in the UK.

I've seen that. Many bosses are demanding more time in work, less at lunch. Plus many places have stopped paying for their employees lunches (usually with Luncheon Vouchers).

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Problem is that if they did decide to tax fizzy drinks then the tax would just get swallowed (no pun intended)into general taxation and not used for what it was meant for

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

i propose and extra 20% tax on doctors salaries ,we can call it the how do you like it when its you tax ;)

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Am fed up with getting told they are going to tax this and that and putting minimum pricing on alcohol all because a minority are abusing them.

Punishing everyone for a small percentage of the population.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/21498287

Exactly..Not everyone should be 'punished'.

I'm overweight.I mostly do not drink fizzy pop these daysIf I do it's the low calorie non sugar type.It's not these drinks that cause me an issue with my weight.It's me overeating stuff like fat sugar and carbs.:rolleyes:

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

If they want to do something to help our health full disclosure on labelling would be a good start some of them it's so difficult to work out whats what. This actually wouldn't affect me I only drink coke zero or diet lemonade but just so sick of the whole "tax and legislation can sort everything out" attitude that seems rampant.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Not too sure about labelling either. It isn't easy to be sure about your energy usage and how the various numbers on the packet will translate into your body. I think just being relatively smart about the types of food you eat and steering clear of processed foods would help a lot.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Yeh, but I bet you can't get drunk on any of them though.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

I'd be interested in any ideas on how labelling could be improved.

The key parameter in the context of soft drinks (and this thread) is sugar obviously, however, other than showing the % sugar per 100ml & the amount per serving on the label, it is difficult to know what more can be done?

The difficulty seems to be the interpretation - according to this website

http://www.sugarstacks.com/beverages.htm

Coca Cola is 39g sugar per 355ml can - nearly 11%, while pure apple juice is 26g sugar per 240ml - again nearly 11% sugar. Orange juice is around 10% sugar. Is coca cola 'worse' than apple juice??

Tropicana have recently launched a juice drink range that dilutes pure fruit juice with water, then supplements the 'missing' sugar with stevia, which is classed as a natural sweetener - the orange juice variety ends up as just over 4% sugar - is this 'better' than pure fruit juice or will people just think they can drink twice as much?

In my opinion the principle of 'in moderation' should always be paramount - I don't think we need higher taxation on certain food groups to drive this, just awareness & education.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

I must admit defeat when I read the contents labels, I find them so conflicting, I found diabetic biscuits to contain more sugar than its McVities original biscuit. Some of the figures they put, per this per that, per 100g, per serving, by volume, jeez, it would have Stephen Hawking thinking twice. We need a much simpler method of telling consumers just how healthy food is.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

"Don't eat/drink too much of this if you are a lardass" might work. ;)

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

depends how much you drink.

---------- Post added at 11:32 ---------- Previous post was at 11:31 ----------

They should put posts in front of some of the aisles - "You must be this thin to buy this..."



That would work in clothes shops too

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

I do drink water but I'm not a Spartan or a Stoic so I want to drink summat else occasionally.;)

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Oh yes. Bottled, (tap water here is very chloriny) and chilled, straight from the fridge. Very cold milk is good too - there's another contentious issue.:shrug:

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

I have drinking water filter tap which removes the chloriny taste

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Beware campaigners citing "the evidence" or "studies" in support of their nannying, leftist social policy fantasies. That's all I'm saying.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

All I drink is water and milk. Dont like tea or coffee and soft drinks full off sacharrin which makes me ill.

Even soft drinks diluted got it although only one found not is non suger free high juices. Which do use to give it taste.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Funny that, I was going to call it a right-wing fascist authoritarian policy :D

(I guess that's why there's two dimensions in the political compass...)

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

I drink nothing but beer

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Is that the non alcohol variety.;)

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

you lucky begger used to be cider drinker younger.

:( doc says got be teatotal:mad:

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Fascism is an extreme form of authoritarian socialism. It's only the Left that likes to pretend otherwise. ;)

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

That, and Wikipedia... ;)

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Well, if it's in a user-edited encyclopaedia, it must be true ...

</sarcasm>

;)

"We are Socialists, we are enemies of the capitalistic economic system for exploitation of the economically weak…" - Adolf Hitler, 1st May 1927.

Hitler was apparently a bit of an enthusiast for National Socialism.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Yes, but the fact that they called the movement Nationalsozialismus doesn't mean they weren't right wing.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Yes, and the fact that Wikipedia insists National Socialism isn't socialism, doesn't mean it isn't. To be honest it has the same ring to it as all the hoary old Communists who still insist that Communism does work, it's just that in all the places it's been tried, they didn't do it properly.

American author John T Flynn observed: "The line between fascism and Fabian socialism is very thin. Fabian socialism is the dream. Fascism is Fabian socialism plus the inevitable dictator."

And earlier this week, Dan Hannan blogged on this very subject:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/da...ts-of-fascism/

It's well worth reading the whole article.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

There's no doubting that Nazi/Fascist ideology captured both left and right wing elements. As is stated on wiki (which I consider a more impartial source than Daniel Hannan).

And plenty other examples on wikipedia.

However, that doesn't alter the fact that they are best known for their right wing policies and therefore seen as right wing. As Hannan puts: Coincidence of policy does not establish consanguinity of doctrine. And that cuts both ways :)

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

To get back to the topic I'm wondering what they think of low calorie fizzy drinks using sweeteners.Do they regard them as being bad for us too?:erm:

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

In political commentary and analysis there is no such thing as 'impartial'. And as Hannan also says,

Your Wikipedia quote points out the elements of both left and right, but then concludes the paragraph by choosing to emphasise an aspect commonly attributed to the right. That is an editorial choice on the part of the Wikipeda editor(s) and, I suggest, not an impartial one.

Anyway, to return to the point ... I still think that, especially in a modern British context, the the idea that you should use the tax system to effect social change is a left-wing preoccupation.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

No doubt you'll have noticed that I said 'more impartial' rather than impartial. Wikipedia entries are not (usually) written by one person. Texts like these are discussed between editors until they are in agreement it's a fairly balanced. Anyone disagreeing is free to chip in. That doesn't mean there is no bias, but the likelihood of extensive bias is considerably lower than with one bloke writing a blog for the Telegraph.

Tax system as a whole, yes. In terms of using a levy to deter unwanted behaviour I'm not so sure. What was that Bedroom 'tax' again?

Incidentally, I'm not so sure how obesity relates to 'social change'

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

:shocked:

They're gonna tax bedroom antics now are they? :mad: :D

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

You know if you were a hack phoning the DWP and you asked about 'bedroom tax' they wouldn't even discuss the housing benefit rule change with you? The point being, there is no tax; what there is, is a campaign to try to link the rule change with the poll tax in the popular consciousness. That's a flawed notion for any number of reasons, but I'll not go into them here as it has its own thread already.

The housing benefit rule change is a partial withdrawl of a benefit which the government believes has, by its existence, resulted in unwanted behaviour. Removing it, in the government's view, redresses an artificial imbalance. I'm not saying that tax is left wing. I'm saying that applying tax in order to change behaviour, as opposed to applying tax in order to pay for the State to operate effectively, is left wing.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

I know it isn't a tax. Hence the apostrophes in Bedroom 'tax'. My comment was partly in jest, indicating that the withdrawal of this benefit (i.e. reduction in income i.e. penalty to those affected) is as much about effecting a change in attitude in those on benefits as it is a cost saving. At least, that's what they would have you believe.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

I know - but my point is, there is a fundamental ideological difference between reducing State intervention, whether by tax or by benefit, and increasing it. In very simple terms, the more State a government creates, the more Left that government is. Hence my contention that taxing a food or drink not because it is inherently harmful, but because of a belief that certain people can't be trusted not to harm themselves with it, is essentially a nannying, leftist position.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Well, a bigger state may be leftist, but I'm simply not convinced that that 'the left' is more nannying than 'the right'.

Nanny away, Dave:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20515918

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...-david-cameron

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

The metropolitan elite running the parliamentary party is far from 'proper' right wing IMO, though you could possibly excuse them for trying to tackle a widely acknowledged and serious public health issue - alcohol death rates teeter about the 10,000 per year mark, which is a significant number.

"Unhealthy" food, on the other hand? Not in the same ball park, I suggest.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Also the idea of having a block on internet porn on by default is certainly rather nannying and not a leftest policy really.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Are we going for full circularity as in "It's not a right-wing policy, so the person proclaiming it isn't right-wing", or are we admitting that your distinction of left and right is a bit of a caricature that doesn't do justice to the political reality?

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

they should do thats the cause of what I found they more guilty than sugar for obesity. We wont get tax on sugar free and nothing on ordinary suger drink. I hope the government tell them sling there hook. Its bad advice with absolute no proof. Part me say let them do it then year on go oh my god it did not work or made things worse why that.

Like say anything bad in significant volumes. Same with paranioa on salt remove salt from diet is bad. Yes theyre is some abuse salt intake.

How many times these so called idiots advice this advise that. Down the road oh hang on chocolate not evil it can reduce this or that health.

There comes crux. simple rule eat anything you like but in moderation.

Problem is these lobbyist dont want know the real reason that its the man made stuff in our food and drinks are the issue. Hell this is Big business to ignore all this chemicals in food.

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Well we're certainly not going for a false dilemma. ;)

What defines left- and right-wing then? Is there something in the nature of a policy's supporters that causes the policy to be defined as one thing or another? Or does support for a particular policy cause the supporter to be identified with left or right? Beyond that, is it black and white, or is there a sliding scale of greys?

Re: report calls for an experimental 20% tax on all sugary soft drinks
 

Well, my point, which I made earlier in this thread, is that you run into trouble when you try and define the political spectrum in one dimension, as you appear to be doing. The political compass in said thread rightly has two dimensions: left-right and authoritarian-libertarian. The reality is that both left and right wing can be libertarian and authoritarian, but they tend to differ with respect to the things they are authoritarian and libertarian about. You have left-wing and right-wing dictatorships and the right-wing dictatorships aren't characterized by a small state and the celebration of civil liberties.

I'm a left-wing libertarian, meaning that I believe in progressive taxation. I also think that an unfettered market economy will run out of control, so I tend to favour government control in that respect. I belief there should be a safety net, for people who can't provide for themselves. However, I also think that the government has bo business snooping on people or telling them what to do. Does that make me right-wing or liberal/libertarian?