Anything not good for you is bad, hence it should be illegal

Tuesday February 15, 2011

Demolition Man, says Martin Cullip, was a film set in a terrifying fictional society where autonomy was seen as a hindrance to state control. In 2011 does our own democratic government now regard this as a valid utopian goal?

A rather insalubrious character has just handed out a much-needed bloody nose to those on the public sector payroll who promote the worrying new trend of passing regulations to save us from ourselves.

There was a time when agents of the state would be required to prove that one’s personal choice was detrimental to others before instigating any kind of ban on consumption, but the past decade has seen a sizeable shift in attitude prompted by the accelerating crusade towards health purity.

Clifford Lyons, an inmate at Carstairs Psychiatric Hospital, last week successfully challenged a ban on unhealthy food designed to “improve the health of overweight patients”. Fitness-focussed Lyons argued that the prohibition of his obtaining protein bars under the terms of the hospital’s ‘Chocolate Ban’ was an abuse of his rights and he was rightfully vindicated by the court.

While it is easy to counter that he should be afforded no rights at all considering the reason for his being there in the first place, this is by no means a concern merely for those placed under the health spotlight as a result of their heinous crimes.

Ignored

In the 1993 dystopian film Demolition Man, Sandra Bullock’s character explained the absence of salt and cigarettes to Sylvester Stallone with the ever more relevant line “It’s been deemed that anything not good for you is bad; hence, illegal”. It’s relevant because, as we are seeing more and more, once any member of the public leaves their own home to spend a period of time in public-funded venues, their choices are increasingly ignored as secondary to the consensus that none shall be afforded self-determination unless the state, or its delegated subsidiary, approves.

If you suffer the misfortune of being admitted to hospital in Wales, for example, vending machines have been legally stripped of crisps, sweets and fizzy drinks; others have banned sugar in coffee; in one, coffee itself has been banned, English and Scottish trusts will no doubt follow suit in time. Hospitals all over the country have banned smoking in their grounds without recourse to evidence that it harms others, even smoking in one’s own car parked amongst the exhaust emissions is prohibited, and salt is nowhere to be seen at most NHS canteens.

Battleground

The primary battleground, though, is the UK’s schools, where parental choice has been eradicated entirely when food which Mum and Dad deem suitable for their own children is concerned. Welsh schools, under no pressure whatsoever from parents, banned Marmite and ketchup in 2008, while the government-funded School Food Trust pushed for even more intrusion into what children should be allowed to eat. School menus were shorn of items which kids traditionally like, leading many families into providing packed lunches instead.

Resistance was futile, though, as the health lobby re-aligned their troops to undertake what are effectively illegal searches on children’s lunchboxes – a previously private space open only to parents and their child – to check for ‘contraband’ such as a cake bar, KitKat, or even an unapproved snack.

As a result, a two year old from Wigan had his cheese sandwich confiscated last year for not containing any lettuce, and just last week a Mum in Stevenage was horrified to discover that her two children had been ordered not to eat the crisps they were provided with their lunch because the school was striving for NHS approved ‘Healthy School Status’.

Zero tolerance

At secondary level, the state has gone even further in enforcing a zero tolerance approach to personal choice. During his term as Schools Secretary, Ed Balls advocated forcing students to stay on school premises in case they buy food which circumvented the government’s decisions on what they can eat.

He bolstered this by giving local authorities powers to ban fast food outlets within 400 metres of school premises, thereby also taking the battle to the adult community at large, the sad result being that the first council to take Balls up on his generous offer, Waltham Forest, extended this mandate by also barring businesses from setting up the same distance from public parks. We have yet to see a withdrawing of such powers by the coalition government, and are unlikely to.

The reason given for such an over-arching policy for schools was that feckless parents cannot be trusted to nourish their kids properly (in other words, the state is the arbiter of what kids should be eating) but that falls down badly in light of the fact that state boarding schools – who are fighting the measures – are also bound by the same regulations despite providing perfectly healthy breakfasts and dinners.

Unpleasant

Mr Lyons is without doubt a rather unpleasant individual, but his court success is a timely roadblock against the public health juggernaut which has set itself in motion to mow down personal choice and determination of what food we choose to provide, for ourselves or our families.

Sadly, the epilogue is not encouraging. Rather than admit that their approach is illiberal and contrary to the freedoms we cherish in our society, Carstairs Hospital is examining its options with a view to finding a way round the judgment.

Demolition Man was an action film set in a terrifying fictional society where autonomy was seen as a hindrance to state control. Most who watched it would have felt uncomfortable at the very premise, but one must wonder if, in 2011, the state regards such a society as a valid utopian goal.