Category Archives: pro-Nanny State

The BBC is always keen enough to advance the Nanny State. Take this interview on the BBC earlier concerning the wheeze by Centre Forum think tank that the State should be providing lessons in how to be a good parent. This is quoted as being in order to help 16 year single mums who may not know how to behave responsibly. Here’s a thought. Maybe if the parents of 16 year old girls assumed their parental responsibilities we wouldn’t need such Nanny State interventionism.  Maybe if 16 year old girls did not see a life of generous Welfare provision they might not be so quick to test their mettle as Mums? As always with the BBC, it projects the State as the “solution” to every ill.

I chuckled at this interview on the BBC this morning. You can feel BBC outrage at the fact that more and more Brits are living longer than ever despite our obesity/unhealthy eating/incorrect drinking/you name it. It’s so unfair that people thrive despite the Nanny State the BBC would impose on us all!

The BBC was pushing the N.I.C.E. line that we should think about bribing the fat, the smokers, the drinkers out there to encourage them to desist from their unhealthy lifestyles. Today has this broadly sympathetic interview with Sir Michael Rawlins who kept referring to imagined and unspecified “cost savings.” I was invited on the BBC’s Nolan Show to discuss the topic an hour or so later. My view was that this was Nanny Statism, that it has no economic value and that it encouraged irresponsibility. The curious thing was Stephen made it into a much more personal issue as he has weight issues. Now I don’t want to be unkind to anyone but it is tough in an interview when I not only have to argue against the NICE orthodoxy but also against the obvious prejudice of the host. I said that fatness was NOT a disease and that fat people need to get out more, eat less and exercise more. This did not go down well but it’s another way that the BBC make it very difficult for those who oppose the established view.