Tuck Off!

Nanny's obsession with svelte waistlines shows no sign of abating. She has issued yet another edict about how unbelievably fat we are becoming, and yet again is trying to interfere in our eating habits.

This time she is targeting school children. In a spectacularly naive move, Nanny is instructing schools to stop selling junk food and instead make children eat seeds.

Yes that will work!

As Samuel Johnson once said:

"A small boy in search of vitals is an abomination".

The thought of Nanny trying to satisfy young appetites with a handful of seeds is really beyond a joke. Unless the seeds were coconuts, I really don't think that this latest "initiative" will suck-seed (get it?..come on folks I'm really trying here!).

Anyhoo, Nanny's friends in the School Food Trust (SFT) have issued draft guidelines that say nuts, seeds and yoghurt drinks should replace crisps, chocolate and fizzy drinks in tuck shops.

Nanny is going to introduce laws to stop children eating sweets and chocolate, that will be among the toughest in the world.

Ironically this new "initiative" comes just days after the Audit Commission attacked Nanny for her indecision and lack of leadership, over the implementation of measures to curb child obesity.

Nanny will ban crisps (which, by the way, are a very good source of vitamin c), but for some strange reason will allow cakes and biscuits. Erm aren't cakes and biscuits fattening and bad for the teeth?

Nanny's chum Dame Suzi Leather, chairman of the SFT, said that the rules, to be introduced from September, were necessary because children were eating too much sugar, fat and salt with "little or no nutritional value".

Quote:

"They [the new rules] cannot succeed if pupils are surrounded with chocolate, crisps and drinks that fill them up with sugar and fat during the school day.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that when these products are removed, behaviour improves and this could also have implications for better learning."

There you are folks, Nanny makes up rules based on anecdotes, not scientific fact!

Dame Suzi is not just content with banning vending machines and altering tuck shop menus, she is also going to poke her nose into children's lunchboxs. Nanny will issue lunchbox guidelines, telling parents of what should be included in a healthy diet.

Not her business!

Now here is why all of these rules will fall down:

1 Children are given large sums of pocket money each week by their parents. The children use this to buy "banned food" off school premises. My local store, owned by my friend Karim, is awash with kids buying Jamaican patties, chocolate and crisps when there is a school break.

2 The majority of a child's calorie intake takes place outside of school.

3 The poor diet of children is largely down to the muck being fed to them by their parents. How does Nanny intend to deal with that?

4 It is not the state's job to regulate what people eat. If parents are too stupid or lazy to feed their children properly, the responsibility for their children's ill health rests with them, not with the state.

5 When I was a child I ate a full breakfast, school lunch, dinner and a supper; all of this was washed down with 3 pints of milk a day. I am now 43, in excellent health and indeed am slim and "athletic" (yes ladies it's true:)).

5 These people did not become great British icons by eating nuts and seeds:

The Great Tax Avoidance Con II

Last week I wrote that

"Nanny is working herself up into a frenzy over tax avoidance schemes",

and that

"..tax avoidance is perfectly legal; it is tax evasion that is illegal".

It seems that I was very wrong about this, and must apologise to Nanny for my error.

You see ladies and gentlemen Nanny is more than happy to allow tax avoidance and tax evasion if, that is, you are connected in some way with the government.

I am very sorry for any embarrassment or distress that I may have caused Nanny and her acolytes.

Read "Why Didn't HMRC Prosecute David Mills?" to see if you are eligible to avoid/evade paying tax.

Nanny Bans Abbey Road

In what is a splendid example of how Nanny doesn't think her rules and regulations through, it seems that the BBC have narrowly escaped prosecution and a possible fine after it held an "illegal" gig featuring Coldplay at the Abbey Road Studios.

It seems that both the BBC and the studio could have been prosecuted, after it was discovered that the show last month contravened Nanny's new licensing laws.

Nanny's chums at Westminster Council, in a remarkable display of mindnumbing obstinacy, decided to seek legal advice about prosecuting; when a former adviser on the Licensing Act discovered that Abbey Road doesn't have the required entertainment license.

Now the astute amongst you may have noticed that the Abbey Road Recording Studios are RECORDING STUDIOS, isn't that where you would think that musicians would perform?

Unfortunately, using logic does not come easily if you work for Nanny's thick headed and "jobsworth" councils.

Councillor Audrey Lewis, for Westminster Council, is quoted as saying:

"The new licensing laws have ensured there is confusion about the status of many premises and what they now have a licence for.

Abbey Road studios were not licensed for the Coldplay concert but, after talking to the premises, this appears to have been a genuine oversight".

Here's a radical suggestion to all of Nanny's council lackeys, how about using some common sense for once?

Or is that expecting a little too much?

Abbey Road Studio issued a statement, which showed the level of confusion resulting from Nanny's ill thought out law:

"In recent days we have received different advice from different departments within Westminster Council as to which licence is appropriate for our business.

Once we have a definitive answer from Westminster Council, if there is a need to vary the licence, then of course we shall do so."

In other words, Nanny doesn't understand her law either.

I warned, in an earlier article (At The Circus), that Nanny's ill thought out licensing law would cause problems; evidently she wasn't listening to me!

It makes you wonder as to how many of Nanny's other laws have been ill thought out.

Educashun, Educashun, Educashun

As we all know, Nanny is very keen to "improve" educational standards and exam results.

To this end she has "rigorously" measured exams results each year, in the expectation that they show an improvement. There are two ways to improve exam results:

1 Improve the quality of education, and ensure that the pupils sitting the exams are trained to give of their best.

2 Reduce the standards of the exams, and make them easier to pass.

Needless to say Nanny has opted for option 2!

Nanny's new exam in mathematics will allow pupils to achieve an A grade without answering any of the most difficult questions.

Teenagers will also be able to gain a grade C, which is vital to their schools' ranking in Nanny's league tables of examination results, by answering questions intended for students with much lower abilities.

Nanny's exam watchdog, The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), has written to schools saying that the new GCSE course will be introduced in September.

The first pupils will sit the exam in 2008.

The current GCSE, which is set at three tiers of difficulty, will be replaced by Nanny's new "improved" version which has two levels.

Pupils who currently take the lowest tier in the present system can get only a grade D at best, which according to Nanny's chums in the teaching profession is "demotivating".

Unfortunately Nanny still can't get it through her head that some people are brighter than others; there are people who, no matter what you try to teach them, are as thick as a plank.

The new structure will make it possible for every student to achieve a grade C, in theory.

Tony Gardiner, a past president of the Mathematical Association, said the new structure was intended to "turn more Ds into Cs" in order to help Nanny reach her targets.

Quote:

"The effect will be that there will be fewer hard questions.

People entered for the higher tier will see that there are only a few hard questions,

so they can ignore those and concentrate on the others".

Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, put the boot in further and said:

"Exams are meant to provide information to employers, sixth forms and universities of a student's capabilities.

It doesn't do them or the student a favour to provide a false picture."

An independent review of the new GCSE, by academics at London University's Institute of Education, found that all but the most able pupils were likely to gain higher grades than they would under the present system.

In a mock paper of the "higher" tier of the new syllabus, 80% of questions were set at a difficulty of grade B or lower. Pupils needed only 67% to gain an A grade and 81% for an A*.

The report stated:

"All the examiners at the awarding meeting were exercised by the relative lack of questions at grades A and A* levels of demand."

The review went on to say that 55% of questions were set at the D and C grade levels, but students could obtain a B with 49%.

Nanny is doing no one any favours here, except of course herself, those pupils who "succeed" in passing will be fooled into believing that they have some academic ability; employers and universities will simply find other ways of streaming the wheat from the chaff.

The Great Tax Avoidance Con

Nanny is working herself up into a frenzy over tax avoidance schemes. These are legitimate methods used by companies and individuals to avoid paying tax.

Nanny and her "friend" Gordon "Smiler" Brown (nicknamed "Potato Head" by his own staff) are being very clever in their campaign against tax avoidance. They are allowing the media to run with the idea that tax avoidance is only a rich man's tool, used by the unscrupulous to avoid paying what is in Nanny's view their moral obligation.

Indeed, Nanny has even persuaded her old chum Auntie to run a Money Programme documentary about it tonight. Doubtless we will witness some very fine schemes indeed including; offshore companies, paying people in bales of hay and artificial losses.

All of this goes on, that is true. However, what Nanny doesn't like to remind you is that tax avoidance is perfectly legal; it is tax evasion that is illegal.

Tax evasion is whereby an individual or company deliberately and knowingly makes a false tax declaration, with a view to defrauding the Inland Revenue, eg not declaring a source of income.

Tax avoidance is whereby the taxpayer uses the law to legitimately reduce their tax bill. This can include fancy schemes such as being paid in bales of hay, but also includes what every tax payer does (if they are aware of it) eg claim additional personal allowances or offset allowable costs against income.

Nanny, by allowing the media to portray tax avoidance as morally reprehensible is moving towards banning tax avoidance; ie those offsets and allowances that you and I currently take for granted will be disallowed.

Why?

Simple, she is running out of money and needs to find more ways to tax us.

The Nanny state is financially ruinous for us all.

One might suggest that were Smiler Brown to focus his efforts on streamlining the tax system, instead of making it more complicated, then people would devote less time and money to looking for ways to avoid his increasingly complex and incomprehensible rules.

However, Brown is an arrogant individual and will never admit to the fact that it is his complex and expensive rules that are creating ever more "ingenious" tax avoidance schemes.

The right to practice tax avoidance is as important to the tax payer, as is habeas corpus to every citizen of Britain. Unfortunately, Nanny has little respect for that either.

We Are All Screwed

I must congratulate Nanny on her "skills" at deceiving the public, that's you and me folks, as to what she is really doing about cutting back on the number of public sector employees.

You will recall that a couple of years or so ago Nanny's best "friend" and neighbour, Gordon "Smiler" Brown, said that he would cut back the number of public sector employees by around 70,000.

Well folks, guess what?

The number of people working for Nanny remains at 7 million, in fact it is rising.

Not only that, but Nanny and her chums have been secretly adding to the number of state employees by keeping them off the official headcount.

How has she done this?, I hear you ask.

Simple, she has brought in consultants.

Nanny's ever respected and efficient HM Revenue & Customs is now hiring £1,000 a day management consultants to carry out IT tasks for its new IT department, Information Management Solutions.

Nanny has already hired 80 of these outside "wonder" consultants.

The odd thing is that these consultants are being hired as business analysts, and are doing the same work that Revenue staff do for £120 a day.

What does Nanny think that she is doing?

Many of the consultants were hired from PA Consulting, although some are also freelance consultants.

It is very reassuring to know that such a sensible and cost effective use our money has been thought up by our future Prime Minister.




The future looks "bright"!

Doesn't it?