Sugar Tax

to be fair to gidion he can only react to other events. corporations as you know rule the roost. but i am sure the uk as a whole is a more attractive place to live and do business than most. therefore i dont think he needs to be so lenient to the grotesquely wealthy. might not raise that much extra tax. but might go along way to please the average joe.

 

Osborne is trying to woo/bribe corporate bosses into endorsing the remain vote in the EU ref. This was a referendum budget. They're always a "something" budget with Osborne & Cameron.

 

In your apple tax disc holder?

 

I was timing how long it would take for someone would find that on my...

 

It seems to me that you haven't noticed that the UK is already well down the US route. Look around you in the street. People are either overweight or obese in a way that just wasn't the case 30 years ago.
And it's about time something was done about it. Well overdue in fact.
The UK may not yet be as fat as the US, but we can't be far off.
People in Switzerland are nothing like that size.

 

tv is pish in Switzerland.

 

They are all on hunger strike, because ... well ... Switzerland.

 

It's a good question.
I think it is because Switzerland is less urbanised and depressing. You are never far away from the country and it's easier to spend time outside. Weather is better too.
Because it is less urbanised and the towns are far smaller than in the UK, people are more in touch with the country.
Then there is the topography. Even if you never left Lausanne, you'd spend your life walking up quite steep hills. It also favours winter sports - loads of kids are on skis or snowboards at the weekend. In German-speaking Switzerland, people do a lot of cycling.
And advertising isn't so rampant. You don't see anything like the amount of ready-meals in Switzerland. People still cook.

 

To add to Glidds point, many northern towns have seen the demise of their high street which are being taken over by take away's and fast food outlets. Many of them are ridiculously inexpensive to eat from (no doubt money laundering plays its part). The big sweaty legging wearing single council house dwelling mothers cannot resist them and any scraps left over can be fed to tyson the staffy.
How about a leggings tax? Tax free up to size 10. The fatties will have to resort back to wearing jeans which at least cover their fat lumps up.

 

But surely the reason you don't see them for sale is that Swiss people don't buy them? And what about chocolate?

 

Ready meals: I don't really know what the reason is. I do know that when I worked in Central London it was really difficult to find food to buy to cook. You'd have a Tesco Express, or an M&S and it was just wall-to-wall ready meals. I used to have to bicycle to Victoria from Bond St. to buy a parsnip or a sausage as I just don't do ready meals. They are two small, too expensive and full of salt and sugar.
I doubt the Swiss spend nearly as much time commuting generally as Brits, so perhaps their working day is shorter and they have more energy to devote to cooking, instead of just vegging out in front of the TV with a microwaved ready meal. Then you also have a lot of food shops here still - cheese shops, butchers, bakers - all that sort of thing. I tend not to buy much from supermarkets: it's not difficult to find other places to buy food. Most of that has disappeared in the UK: it's all snack emporia, pound shops and supermarkets. Not much like Camberwick Green now, is it?

Chocolate: Well, according to these stats the Swiss are the world's biggest chocolate eaters: The World's Biggest Chocolate Consumers [Infographic]
But what is behind the stats? It is just chocolate bought in Switzerland divided by population? In which case, all the tourists who buy chocolate might add up to a lot (as the Swiss population isn't very big). Or it could be that the Swiss eat a lot of chocolate, but not that many sweeties. Maybe they drink less Coke. I know they eat far fewer crisps: there are only about two flavours available, ready-salted and paprika. The Brits are the world's biggest crisp eaters.

 

That is really impossible for me to say. I don't have any kids, so I'm a bit out of touch with education. And what is education? Primary schools? Universities? All I seem to have noticed in the UK is that all young people are in education; education is exam-obsessed; the kids all get great grades; they don't seem to be able to do many simple things or know much. But hey, maybe I'm just an elitist, miserable, old fucker.