OVER the years, various governments have dreamed up very many new and idiotic ways of raising money.
We’ve had window taxes, hat taxes, tea taxes and, of course, the poll tax. But it’s when they turn their attention to drink, things really go haywire.
Back in the 17th century, our straight-laced and teetotal monarch decided that he would like to annoy the Catholics, so he abolished all taxes on gin, to discourage people in Britain from drinking brandy that had been imported from France.
Gin then became so cheap that everyone could afford to drink about two pints of it every night.
And very quickly, the people of Britain were reduced to gibbering, vomiting wrecks. So the tax had to come back.
Today, we have Mr Osborne, who has decided he can reduce the nation’s flabby bits, and thus save the National Health Service a fortune, if he puts a tax on sugary drinks.
Right. I see, so does that mean there will be tax on all drinks that contain sugar? Orange juice? Robinson’s lemon barley water? Tonic water?
Or what about a hot lemon and honey drink that people make for themselves when they have a cold? Will that now cost a million pounds?
Apparently not, because it turns out there are lots of different types of sugar, some of which are good for us and some of which aren’t.
And this is where I always come unstuck when I decide that I can no longer see my feet and I really ought to lose a couple of feet from my waistline.
I simply do not know what anyone is on about when they talk about protein and carbohydrates and cholesterol and so on.
Take the avocado as a prime example. We are told that it is stuffed full of fat so we say: “Ooh right. Well I won’t eat one of those then.” But apparently we can because it’s good fat.
It’s the same story with eggs. Good or bad? Who knows.
This is what Jamie Oliver and all of the other middle-class, recipe-book health gurus must understand.
They may as well be lecturing us on compression factors in supersonic jet travel because we don’t even understand the words they’re using.
I think I understand that a can of Coke is now going to cost me £700,000 and yet I can carry on putting three teaspoonfuls of sugar in my morning coffee for the square root of bugger all.
Which of course is the next issue. We need sugar. We crave it. So if we can’t afford to get a hit from a fizzy drink, we shall have to up our daily quota of chocolate, which, weirdly, is unaffected by Osborne’s plans.
Or we will have to lick the back of a bee.
And all so we can make the National Health Service cheaper to run. Which brings me on to my final point.
Let’s say the sugar tax works. Let’s say that in a few years’ time, everyone in the country looks like the love child of Willem Dafoe and Chloe Madeley.
This doesn’t mean we’d never fall ill and die. It just means we’d fall ill and die from something other than being too fat.
