Doctors' attempt to tackle obesity is middle class statism

There is nothing new about the latest report from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges calling for state intervention to prevent people getting fat.  It demonstrates the fundamental error of people who are well intentioned, and intelligent, moving beyond their core expertise of medicine, into public policy and human behaviour.

For example, virtually none of them realise that the price of food overall, including fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy products and fish would fall, if the quotas and tariffs imposed by the Common Agricultural Policy were abolished (which do not apply to highly processed sugary foods made in the EU).  However, that requires an understanding of public policy beyond health into trade.  Bear in mind the largest UK recipient of EU agricultural subsidies in recent years is sugar refiner and retailer Tate & Lyle.

The doctors also seem to have ignored the Danish fat tax failure, unless they think the problem was taxing fat, not sugar.   Danes introduced a classless fat tax, which of course meant gourmet cheeses and butter got hit the highest, and many Danes simply took to fat tax evasion trips into Germany to stock up on their favourite foods.  Doctors in the UK presumably think a sugar tax could only target the products they disapprove of (not be based on all simple sugars in products) and would avoid encouraging people to shop internationally (Northern Ireland would be home to a new black market in smuggled Coca Cola).   Policy experts? Hardly.

You see the key obesity problem is not the lack of hectoring, lack of information or lack of laws to make people do what they want, but a culture of irresponsibility and a lack of medical understanding as to why people behave in ways that make them overweight.  What is particularly galling is the implication that it is only certain foods, perceived to be "junk" consumed by the poorer classes, that are the problem.  In fact, if people predominantly ate the rich, butter intensive foods of some celebrity chefs, in particular their butter and sugar laden desserts, they would also be obese.  However, it is perceived that the people who will bother to make such foods or eat out, know how to look after themselves.  This battle against obesity is one about class.  For the wealthy man who loves steaks, Beaujolais, chocolate mousse and fine cheeses is not the target of the hectoring doctors - even though such a person equally faces a risk of heart attack as the poorer man who loves fish and chips, chocolate and beer.   Yet it is abundantly clear from the communications behind these reports that it is the latter that is targeted, presumably because the latter person is not thought to be competent, but the former "understandably enjoy delicious high fat high sugar foods".

Most of the proposals outlined reinforce a culture of irresponsibility, and the hectoring culture whereby doctors think people will do what is "right" if only they keep telling them to do so.  The implicit message is that it is only one group that is irresponsible, and it is not those doctors socialise with.

So I'll rank the proposals from least to most acceptable based on qualitative measures of promoting responsibility and preserving individual freedom.

DPRK commences another round of bad cop, good cop

As was fully expected, Kim Jong Un has shown off that just because dad died, the DPRK still can pack a nuclear punch.  It follows the satellite launch in December of Kwangmyongsong 3-2, which is widely thought to have also been a display of rocket technology might that could be used to launch missiles.

Youth Hero Motorway approaching Pyongyang

It's useful to largely ignore the hyperbolic Western media on this, driven partly because the DPRK has understandably being caricatured as some weird insane little country with a silly leader who does crazy things.  I understand that caricature, but it is deceptively simplistic.  Weird dictatorship, bad man who likes showing off his military might, but as this week's Economist reports, the reality on the ground in the country is quite different.   For example, despite the rhetoric, it is comparatively easy (though not cheap) to travel to the DPRK.

You see, the DPRK has gone through a cycle of provocation, isolation, face saving dialogue, engagement and then provocation, since Kim Il Sung died.  It doesn't demonstrate a genuine desire to wage war with its neighbours, rather it is a technique to extract booty from them, like a truculent child who wants attention, and has a tantrum when you stop giving it any.

Trolley bus in Kim Il Sung square

You can't blame Kim Jong Un, because it worked for his father.  

Five big issues - five government responses - five libertarian answers

The UK has had high profile news items all week, so I thought I'd quickly summarise the issue, what the government said and what it should have done...

The issues being:

Gay Marriage

EU Budget

NHS deaths

Horsemeat

Paying for long term care of the elderly

NHS kills thousands due to neglect - no one held accountable

The United Kingdom's state religion - the Anglican Church NHS

A foreigner visiting or moving to the UK discovers soon after arrival that, unlike any other country, there is a remarkable pride and enthusiasm over its state owned, operated and (pretty much) fully taxpayer funded health service.  The initials NHS are more than just a state institution or a public service, but hold a near sacred status in the UK public zeitgeist about healthcare.  You saw it in the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, directed by the leftwing Danny Boyle, who decided to celebrate the NHS as something distinctly British to be proud of.

It seems, given that universal health care is pretty much universal in the developed world  (even the US has only had a small minority excluded from health care), a trifle odd.  Setting aside the issues of the United States, there are no fundamental issues of access to health care elsewhere in the developed world, even though it is difficult to find other countries that adopt the NHS model - whereby the users never pay for anything (except nominal prescription, dental and optical services fees for some), where there is little choice of provider (your choice is dependent on where you live and you cannot travel to select a different primary health provider) and funding flows from a centrally planned and directed system to mostly state owned providers.

It declares that:

Since its launch in 1948, the NHS has grown to become the world’s largest publicly funded health service. It is also one of the most efficient, most egalitarian and most comprehensive.

If it does say so itself!

A core mantra is "the NHS remains free at the point of use for anyone who is resident in the UK".  Setting aside the rather loose approach it takes to charging non-residents or

It's proud of its size, which it shouldn't be, as it speaks volumes about what is fundamentally wrong with it:

The NHS employs more than 1.7m people. Of those, just under half are clinically qualified...Only the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the Wal-Mart supermarket chain and the Indian Railways directly employ more people

The UK Treasury world view is that having overseas holidays is bad

Now I am not one to accept on face value a report commissioned by an industry sector for political lobbying purposes.  For that is exactly what the report on Air Passenger Duty is.

So, it is not unreasonable to be sceptical about some elements of the analysis.   The Treasury has completely dismissed them, as has the leftwing environmental lobby group AirportWatch.

Treasury's view is simple, as scrapping air passenger duty would reduce the tax take to government by up to £4 billion a year.  The assumption is that the people who would retain that money couldn't possibly spend it as wisely as Her Majesty's government.  Business travellers and tourists, both local and foreign, would presumably be expected to fritter away their money on such trivialities as goods and services they want, or to save/invest in businesses or for later capital or consumption goods (most of which will generate tax as income or in consumption).  The leftwing anti-aviation environmentalists of course believe that more money spend on state institutions like the NHS, Police and schools must be a better good than people keeping their own money.

However, part of the argument against scrapping Air Passenger Duty is purely mercantilist.  Air Passenger Duty reduces the incidence of British residents engaging in overseas tourism.  The UK has a "tourism trade deficit" which essentially means that Britons spend more in travelling abroad than foreigners spend on their trips to the UK.  More curiously is that this deficit only exists outside London, so that despite the preponderance of London origin business traffic, most inbound tourism expenditure is in London.  In short, tourism is part of London's economy in a positive way.  The rest of the UK generates a "tourism trade deficit", because the number of locals (outside London) flying overseas for holidays is not offset by foreigners visiting those areas.  In short, foreigners don't come to Britain to visit Birmingham, Manchester or even Scotland and Wales in sufficient numbers, or spending enough money to compensate for the locals keen to flee.

So what?  If Britons can afford to go on holiday to foreign countries it is something to celebrate.  They spend money on holidays to Spain, Italy, France, the United States or wherever, because they get more utility out of that than spending it on a holiday to the Isle of Wight, the Lake District or Skye.  It isn't a direct financial benefit to the UK, but they enjoy themselves.

That freedom to enjoy life, to visit where you want with your own money is none of the business of the government.  Treasury acts as if the money spent by UK residents on overseas trips is a loss that it should be concerned about.  That's simply wrong.  It isn't your money, and the people who return from these holidays are refreshed invigorated and are more likely to be productive, happier citizens, who work hard, raise happy families and are less of a burden upon others.

Treasury doesn't understand that.

Abolition of Air Passenger Duty would increase UK inbound tourism and outbound.  The inbound is a win for the economy, the outbound is a win for residents, and the inbound win may offset the shift of UK residents holidaying overseas instead of in the UK.   The abolition of duty would reduce tax revenue, but the state spends ten times that subsidising housing costs that it constrains the supply of through planning restrictions.  The state spends double that on contributions to the European Union.   The state spends the same on subsidies to preferred industries. 

Of course abolishing Air Passenger Duty would mean demand for air travel would increase, and it would confront the spineless approach to airport capacity around London that has meant the government has vetoed expansion of any of London's three largest airports.  Good.  So it should.  Get out of the way, and let Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted expand without your interference, if their owners wish it.

Naturally it benefits UK based airlines, which is why they are lobbying for it.  Of course, why shouldn't they? It is a tax on their business.  They don't get any specific services from the state that justify it, so Air Passenger Duty should go.   It should go, not primarily because it would boost inbound tourism and reduce the costs of doing business from the UK to other countries, but because it is a tax on people undertaking an activity that not only generates business, but gives them pleasure.

What about the environment? Well the argument that as aviation fuel isn't taxed it is "unfair" compared to land based modes, is ludicrous.  The response to that is that it is equally valid to reduce fuel tax, and besides almost all rail services competing with airline services are electrically powered.  In addition, fuel tax is not specifically an environmental tax.   

Air Passenger Duty is a tax on flying.   It isn't for airports or air traffic control, and isn't about compensating anyone for noise or other pollution (nor could it or should it be so).  There is an economic case for phasing it out, but more compelling, in my view, is the philosophical case.

When UK residents fly, they do so either for business reasons or personal reasons.  The business reasons are typically about generating wealth, and are good for that reason alone.  The personal reasons can range from leisure to visiting friends and relatives to attending a funeral.  The more of that people do, the happier they are, and as long as they pay their travel costs, there is no good reason for the state to tax them over and above that.