[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thehighpriestsofhealth/media.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Christopher Snowden discuss whether the NHS is too bossy” startat=35]
Listen
[/audioplayer] Like all failing projects, or popular cults, the NHS needs scapegoats. Britain’s health service is plagued by an endless stream of deviants who are a ‘burden’ on its resources. Otherwise known as patients, they are the drinkers, smokers and fatsos who, we are told, will bring the NHS to its knees unless lifestyles are regulated by the state.
Smokers were a useful scapegoat for a while. Now it’s the obesity ‘time bomb’. As Simon Stevens, the chief executive of the NHS, recently put it, ‘The new smoking is obesity.’ He claims that fatties will cost the NHS far more than the £8 billion he wangled out of George Osborne before the election.
Much of the fear about obesity rests on the belief that it is a spiralling epidemic.
Get Britain's best politics newsletters
Register to get The Spectator's insight and opinion straight to your inbox. You can then read two free articles each week.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in