One of the constants of Boris Johnson’s political career has been his opposition to ‘nanny state’ interventions in people’s lives. In 2006, he overshadowed David Cameron’s first conference as Tory leader by supporting mothers who were pushing pies through school railings in protest at attempts to make their children eat Jamie Oliver inspired healthy school dinners. As recently as last year’s Tory leadership contest, he was attacking the so-called sugar tax for being ineffective and hitting the poor hardest.
But, as I say in the Times this morning, in a discussion with some of his senior ministers and advisers last week, Boris Johnson told them, ‘I’ve changed my mind on this. We need to be much more interventionist’ on obesity. His change of heart has been driven by the now undeniable link between coronavirus and obesity.
In the Prime Minister’s case, the personal is political – he thinks he ended up in intensive care with the virus because of his weight.
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