Michael Buerk wants to let fat people die early? That’s a bit rich

I nearly choked on my Krispy Kreme when I read that the journalist Michael Buerk had announced that fat people (I’m not going to use his word, obese; fat is perfectly serviceable and doesn’t have the same judgemental, almost parasexual feel) should be allowed to drop dead and no longer trouble the NHS with their chubby troubles. All those years I listened to The Moral Maze thinking of him as a cross between Solomon The Wise and Mr Miyagi from The Karate Kid and he turns out to be some superannuated playground bully!

It’s a bit rich that Buerk himself is a whopping 73 years old; there are a lot of nutters out there who think that everyone over the age of 60 is ready for the knacker’s yard. Doesn’t it occur to him that once the fat are written off as time-wasting bed-blockers the old will be next on the list? But of course when the metropolitan elite make pronouncements about unworthy groups of people, they never include themselves or their Great And Good cronies.