American President Calvin Coolidge was once asked how he managed to remain healthy in a job that had killed Woodrow Wilson. With his usual candour and brevity he replied: “By avoiding the big problems.”
In my business career I encountered more than one CEO who, unable or unwilling to deal with the crumbling foundations of his company, devoted most of his time to trivia. So it seems with the present government.
Without repeating the perceptive leader in last week’s The Grocer, it has now become crystal clear that the dominant party in the present coalition has no ideological coherence, any more than its predecessor. That’s not to belittle the reforms in our woebegone schools or our overblown welfare system. But beyond the stock phrase “reducing the deficit”, it is unclear what this government really stands for.
The shortcomings in ministerial policy-making are worrying. We have no strategy for energy, transport, immigration, anti-social behaviour or most other things that have or will have a significant effect on most people’s lives.
However, folks, there’s always another initiative from Downing Street or some other ministry aimed at creating the illusion of progress, as there was under Blair and Brown. And, regrettably, the grocery sector has attracted far too many. In the past few months we have had tobacco removed from view to deter smokers, threats to curb price competition on alcohol to reduce drinking, the promise of a Bill to promote whistle-blowing by wittering suppliers and now - the crowning stupidity - the proposed imposition of a one-size-fits-all template for food labelling.
The quoted rationale for this little gem is that people are confused by the current labels and this is preventing them from eating healthily. One wonders what planet the denizens of the DH are on. The root of the obesity problem, for the umpteenth time, is the lack of motivation to eat more healthily, not the means to do so.
When family budgets are being squeezed, many families choose the food that, in terms of calories, promises the biggest bang for their buck - and no amount of fiddling with the labels will change that.
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