What’s the point of banning Elf bars?
Part of me wishes that disposable vapes had never been invented. Until they arrived, it seemed like the battle for…
Taxing the gambling industry just won’t work
Ahead of the Budget on 30 October, Rachel Reeves is being bombarded by lobbyists urging her to loot their enemies.…
What is Chris Whitty up to?
There was a period during the pandemic in 2020 when the pubs were open but you could only go to…
Why was George Orwell a socialist?
When George Orwell’s publisher, Fredric Warburg, read the manuscript of Nineteen Eighty-Four in December 1948 he wrote a rapturous report to his…
Obesity isn’t behind the sicknote crisis
The European Congress on Obesity is an annual treat for health journalists, because it guarantees a week of ready-made stories…
Why no-fault evictions shouldn’t be banned
A decade ago, left-wingers started using the phrase ‘zero hours contracts’ to refer to what had previously been known as…
Banning disposable e-cigarettes won’t stop kids vaping
The government thinks it has finally found a popular policy. Better still, it is a policy that it can implement,…
Why did it take so long to give Tim Martin a knighthood?
The news that Tim Martin, the founder of JD Wetherspoon, has been given a knighthood in the New Year Honours…
KFC is right to take on the public health zealots
There was some good news for the people of Sunderland last month when local councillors managed to stop a small…
Sunak has doomed Britain to a total ban on smoking
It is an indictment of the intellectual vacuum in British politics that when a prime minister is looking for a…
The many flaws in Sunak’s smoking wheeze
In the run-up to the Conservative party conference, Rishi Sunak was promoting himself as a serious politician who wanted workable…
Rishi Sunak is right to get rid of 20 mph zones
Are we seeing the real Rishi Sunak at last? Since telling the nation on 20 September that his government will…
Snus
As the government considers banning disposable vapes because they are thought to appeal to children, it is worth reflecting on…
When will the Scottish government get a grip on alcohol deaths?
Is there any amount of evidence that could convince the ‘public health’ lobby that one of their bright ideas didn’t…
Reintroducing wolves to Britain is pure insanity
Should we release packs of ravenous wolves into the English countryside? The answer is so obviously ‘of course not, are…
Is it time for Britain to leave the WHO?
Is it time for Britain to leave the WHO?
The unstoppable rise of the nanny state
It has been a pathetic sight to watch politicians pleading with the supermarkets to lower food prices. Inflation has yet…
Jonathan Portes – my part in his downfall
In 2018, the Equality and Human Rights Commission commissioned and promoted a report which predicted that an extra 1.5 million…
Why is the British Medical Journal investigating the Beano?
One of the regular characters in Viz is an old woman called Meddlesome Ratbag who goes to great lengths to…
Is sharing cake in the office really like passive smoking?
‘If nobody brought in cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes in the day, but because people do…
Why does Jamie Oliver always get an easy ride?
There are many annoying things about the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, but none of them grates my gears as much…
It's time to stop turning the clocks back
British households could save £400 a year if we left the clocks alone this weekend instead of putting them back…
The anti-drinking lobby’s twisted logic
In 2018, the Lancet published a study from the ‘Global Burden of Disease Alcohol Collaborators’ which claimed that there was…
Is this the last gasp of the Covid state?
In the week ending 15 April, there were 644 deaths registered in England and Wales involving Covid-19 as the underlying…
Is this the real reason Boris introduced Covid restrictions?
If a day is a long time in politics, 36 hours is a lifetime with this government. On Tuesday morning,…
