Wednesday 30 June 2010

"Actually, where do we end up with this?"

Our Heath Secretary gives us some examples of the Law of Unintended Consequences, as reported by the BBC:

"If we are constantly lecturing people and trying to tell them what to do, we will actually find that we undermine and are counterproductive in the results that we achieve," said the health secretary...

He said the TV chef's approach to school food had not had the desired effect - the number of children eating school meals had gone down instead of up. "Jamie Oliver, quite rightly, was talking about trying to improve the diet of children in schools and improving school meals, but the net effect was the number of children eating school meals in many of these places didn't go up, it went down. So then the schools said 'It's OK to bring packed lunches but we've got to determine what's in the packed lunches, we've got to decide what's in the packed lunches.'

"To which the parents' response was that they gave children money and children are actually spending more money outside school, buying snacks in local shops, instead of on school lunches." He said then people had said shops near schools must be banned, adding: "Actually, where do we end up with this?"

7 comments:

View from the Solent said...

' adding: "Actually, where do we end up with this?" '

Democratic People's Republic of Korea

Steven_L said...

In the case of Jamie Oliver - laughing all the way to the bank!

It's the same with teenage drinking, over the last few years when they have spent £millions on initiatives to stop it, it has actually gone up.

Of course no one wants to mention the rather un-PC idea that paying chavs to breed more chavs might be the key factor.

James Higham said...

I was just about to run this one. Can't believe I agree with Labour on it.

Mark Wadsworth said...

VFTS, don't they have takeaways?

S_L, the welfare system is unintended consequences writ large.

JH, explain? What's wrong with proper, subsidised school dinners like we had when we were kids? None of this fancy healthy muck, or even worse, expensive stuff from takeaways.

Budvar said...

I kind of support Jamie Oliver in principle. The basic premise of school meals should be a bit less hotdogs and turkey twizzlers and a bit more shepherds pie or meat n 2 veg. But no Jamie being the pretentious twat he is totally lost the plot and had to start giving it asparagus, foie gras and fucking chantrelles.

As for parents shoving McShiteburgers through the school railings because "Nobody makes my little Johnny eat nuffin he don't like", both parents and snotnosed bastard kids need a dose of harden the fuck up!!

Anonymous said...

Is there anything that children in England do that is uncontrolled , unwatched - ie free.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, yes, hurray for "shepherds pie or meat n 2 veg" that's what I call a proper school dinner. With sponge pudding and custard for afters.

Did I at any stage say I liked the whole turkey twizzler idea? That's just a leftover from Thatcher.

Anon, I dunno.