Macleod’s legacy: the ‘Nanny State’
Iain Macleod as depicted by Victor Weisz (Vicky) in 1959 imposed on a 3D rendering of dependence risk on obesity on alcoholism.
Rishi Sunak’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill, banning sales to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009, is passing through Parliament. Cake Tsarina Prue Leith proved herself again, on BBC’s Today programme last week, as a popular champion of government intervention to protect young consumers from forming bad habits. “Government intervention”, though, is a weak substitute for that highly charged slogan “the Nanny State”. Words lose or gather power in politics. The Nanny State has become shorthand for Big Government, thus the enemy for all true libertarians.
Libertarians are good at inventing slogans used to ridicule policy or practice especially of active government. Remember “Health & Safety gone mad”? That one worked well until the Grenfell Tower tragedy. But combatting morbidity due to unhealthy food has yet to have its seat-belt moment. The Nanny State taunt is now working against the creation of an effective national food strategy.
The Conservative Cabinet Minister Iain Macleod coined the term, writing in The Spectator on 3 December 1965: “In my occasional appearances as a poor man’s Peter Simple I fire salvos in the direction of what I call the Nanny State. Mr Fraser is, although you wouldn’t think it, the Minister of Transport [in Harold Wilson’s first government]. He has come forward with the perishing nonsense of a plan for a 70 mph speed limit even on motorways [sic]”. This controversy over motorway speed limits is forgotten, but now “Nanny State” is wheeled out to fight food regulation. But why does it resonate so well?
The old-fashioned nanny, traditionally a disciplinarian, supervised children’s meals. The understood message is that the Big State treats us as children. Maybe also a covert swipe at the hated “metropolitan elites”, with their modern nannies and leanings towards vegetarianism. But given the libertarian ideology of choice, how much is healthy eating a matter of genuine choice?
The individual is battling against the influence of food companies who control the food business, led by the Swiss-based Nestlé SA – whose 2022 revenue was $99 billion. Health messages are understood, but consumers contend with clever advertising and packaging of food containing too much fat, sugar and salt, all designed by experts to tempt our tastebuds. Parents sheep-doggedly try to manoeuvre their offspring past enticing arrays of sweeties and chocolates to reach the supermarket checkout. And responding partly to the changed role of women, the big food companies offer ready meals, a fast and relatively cheap substitute for home cooking after an exhausting day’s work. How free does that make free choice?
A 2023 study by Cancer Research UK produced some frightening figures. Body Mass Index (BMI) is calculated by weight in kilograms divided by height in metres squared. Using this measure, by 2040, 71% of British people are predicted to be overweight (compared to 64% today). And of these 36% – 21 million people – will suffer from the complex, chronic condition of obesity, defined as a BMI over 30. The consequences of this for future prevalence of cancers and diabetes are disturbing. Currently the National Health Service spends £10 billion, 10% of its budget, on treating diabetes. There is no chance that the NHS will be able to cope with so many more millions of diabetics. And in the words of the respected social welfare expert, Baroness Louise Casey, “the less well-off you are, the more likely you are to be prey to unhealthy food”.
Healthy politics – healthy in all senses — is about working for the common good. Catholic social teaching has a useful definition: “the totality of social conditions allowing persons to achieve their communal and individual fulfilment”. The concept of subsidiarity entered Catholic social thinking in the 19th century as a feature of the common good. As the former EU Commission President Jacques Delors, a devout Catholic, pointed out in a 2009 interview, the term subsidiarity came originally from a Calvinist principle of Church order in the 17th century: the lower Church unit of association took precedence over the higher. Subsidiarity took on new relevance supporting resistance from civil society against the all-controlling totalitarian and military dictatorships of the 20th century.
The Nanny State slogan might garner some support from the crude understanding of “subsidiarity” championed by the UK in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty which established the EU. During the internal debates of the EU, the principle of subsidiarity became used to define the — highly contested — roles of member states in relation to the EU “central government”, the European Commission. Today it best expresses support for the life of local communities, particularly “in case of need”, implying approval of “enabling government”.
The higher units of subsidiarity now include not just governments, but multinational corporations and supermarket chains. The creation of a strategy prioritising health and the environment must consider the interacting dynamics of all. In a situation of intense competition, lest their competitors undercut them, none of the food giants can risk unilaterally eliminating or radically reducing unhealthy ingredients. Government taxation of the content of unhealthy foods and drinks provides an enforced level playing field open to change. A sugar tax on soft drinks introduced in 2018, called the Soft Drinks Industrial Levy (SDIL), has reduced children’s sugar intake — but not enough.
Commissioned by the Department of Education, in 2013, the restaurateurs Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent produced a pioneering School Food Plan. Initially its vision of “flavourful, fresh food served by friendly fulfilled cooks in financially sound school kitchens” caused widespread excitement. The vision faded under government austerity. Dimbleby’s 2021 National Food Strategy: The Plan, also commissioned by the Government, sets out a reasoned and well-researched way forward for food and farming. He proposes, for example, a “Sugar and Salt Reformulation Tax”, £3 per kilogram of sugar and £6 per kilogram of salt “for use in processed foods or in restaurants and businesses”. But taxation remains a toxic word, even within the context of preventative action acceptable to food companies.
The Government promised to respond to The Plan with a White Paper. Instead, in June 2022 they produced a policy paper that was widely criticised, not least by Dimbleby himself. The paper gives the impression of providing a comprehensive national strategy, while largely avoiding significant interventions — such as taxing offending ingredients. The advertising watershed for children will only be implemented after 1 October 2025 and non-removal of sweetie chicanes in supermarkets is disregarded without penalty.
Often when confronting contemporary problems, the defensive political response to criticism is: what’s the alternative? But there is an alternative. Implement more of Dimbleby’s strategy.
In the words of Prue Leith in 2022: “There is so much to celebrate about our food, but we do need to act urgently to protect our health and that of the environment. The Plan is compelling and overdue. If the Government adopts it, we will, at last, be putting our food system on the right path to health and prosperity.” We would also be saving our NHS. But we are still waiting. Sir Keir Starmer has also promised not to introduce sugar or salt taxes — although the Labour leader says he would ban junk food advertising on TV before the watershed.
Can today’s right-wing backbenchers really imagine that government interventions to stop people harming themselves and their children will lead us towards Xi Jinping’s dystopian State? From their entrenched opposition to banning advertising unhealthy food and drinks directed at children, you might think so. The libertarian Right, using their clever slogans, are endangering our health and environment. They should be seen for what they are: dangerous ideologues.
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