The Government Should Focus on Cutting the Deficit, Not Policing Apple Crumble

As they say in University Challenge: here’s your starter for 10.

Can you spontaneously name five pieces of legislation passed by either this or the previous government that impacted positively on your life?

Whilst not willing to bet the house on it, I would wager a modest sum that most people would answer negatively. Conversely, I suspect many of those engaged in running small businesses, or those within the hospitality sector, could readily reel off multiple examples of government activity that has been detrimental to them personally.

Yet administrations of every political persuasion busily engage themselves in stupendous amounts of legislation, little if any of which presents any tangible benefit for the ever-dwindling army of taxpayers whose obligatory largesse keeps this increasingly rickety charade on the road. Despite almost endless and increasingly banal soundbites earnestly delivered by a litany of forgettable MPs, nothing really changes – apart from the tax burden increasing, accompanied by the inane expression ‘we have to make difficult choices’.

Of all the moronic utterances, this is the one that sticks chokingly in many peoples’ craw. Increasing taxes is not a difficult choice for spendthrift governments: it is both easy and convenient. No, a difficult decision would be to take a sizeable and razor-sharp axe to the bloated corpse of welfare whilst simultaneously putting the sainted NHS under a financial microscope, peered over by someone who has a least had a passing acquaintance with running a profit and loss account.

Successive Prime Ministers and Cabinets have noisily beavered away in endeavours that could best be described as displacement activity, and disappointingly, it appears that the King of the North will be no different on this score.

In short order, and in a deluge of humbuggery, we have had the bus fare cap (cost), a pledge to end rough sleeping (cost), the VAT cut to electricity bills (cost), free 24-hour bus travel for disabled people (cost), West Midlands Bus Network under public control (cost). Reviewing these, someone medically trained might diagnose our erstwhile PM to be suffering from latent Bus Derangement Syndrome.

The day after the UK debt stood at £3.7 trillion – that’s 110% of GDP, or to put it another way, £46,678 per citizen – what were the electorate served up with?

Well, the Minister for School Standards, Georgia Gould, was doing the media rounds promoting her “exciting” first new school food standards for more than a decade, which would see happy youngsters eagerly queuing up to be handed delicious and nutritious portions of lentils and chickpeas. As Gould put it: “It’s a massive issue for parents. And we want our children to be healthy.”

But if parents were in any doubt of the absurdity of this initiative, Gould didn’t disappoint, remarking that fish and chips “will still be allowed” on menus but baked rather than fried – Hurrah!

At the moment you could have, you know, dessert, apple crumble, ice cream every day. In the new rules, it would be twice a week, but with fruit attached to it. At the moment, you don’t have to have fruit and vegetables in every meal. And in these new rules, you will have to have it in every meal.

Is it just me, or is it really the job of a minister to be policing apple crumble?

Thankfully, the Minister insisted there was money for such changes, with the overhaul phased in “sensibly” to accommodate budgets.

Give me strength, but I suppose Sir Keir’s previous £111 million plan for supervised tooth brushing for pupils aged three to five set an impressively high benchmark in ludicrousness which Gould has striven magnificently to better.

The forthcoming budget – eagerly anticipated by those in the commercial sector – will be a litmus test for whether Burnham is serious about fiscal discipline and determined to take unpopular decisions that would ultimately benefit the United Kingdom. On the evidence so far, I suspect that we will be served a warm hash of Sixth Form student politics with a side order of northern hubris and a healthy portion of sour grapes – enjoy!

Alexander McKibbin is a retired media executive who worked across domestic and international media.