Bloggers are never ones to let an opportunity to convulse into a complete hissy fit over nothing, pass by.

I thought that was what was happening?

As to rugby being middle class. Depends where in the country you are. Bath itself (umm, my home town) might be described as being entirely middle class but certainly in Cornwall it’s a working class game. Much the same in South Wales.

For most of the 70s the Welsh and Pontypridd (or was in Pontyprith? Sorry, not too good with these celtic names) front row was the same three miners. I suppose you could have middle class miners but I sorta doubt it.

(Where there has sometimes been a class division in rugby, even within these geographic areas, is between pack and backs. Packs were more likely to be horny handed sons of toil than backs were. But whether that’s actually a class distinction or a sorting by body types and physical experience is difficult to unravel.)

“but the soft-left wing of the middle class (teachers, social workers, psychologists etc) who are both more likely to be women (and hence less inclined towards competition anyway) and more likley to be involved in childrens development.”

Psychologists are soft-left wing? Really. That’ll be news to most of the ones I know (hard left or true liberal, or even Christian Democrat types).

And women are not competative? Really again. Not my experience, even if gender stereotyping has not given them strong sporting roles to fill as children (when do you see street games of netball for example).

And children’s development is relevant how?

There is an institutional bias against sports, felt perhaps more strongly in some professions, perhaps amongst women (is there a link to feminism – might be worth a look?) and perhaps on the left. But there are plenty of male right-wing businessmen who see no point in sport, and I regularly compete against bearded left-wing teachers who seem to enjoy the process. So the generalisations do not work and do not help push what is not an argument so much as a set of preconceptions.

Which is why personal annecdote is trivial at best.

Much as I’d like to agree with your critique of left-wing philosophy and sport, I think it misses something. Sport is a problem for modernist thinking (where every action is to a purpose – sport is not) but modernists are found everywhere, including on the right (hence sales of sport fields). Hence also its downplaying in the comprehensive movement, which was modernism made flesh.

We do after all have a government which managed to procure the Olympics and encourage lotary funding of athletes, so they can’t be totally against sport. And they are damned socialists (well, readers of this site can dispute that happily, but they are often also, which is worse, damned modernists).

My experience of comprehensives is that far fewer teachers take competitive sports seriously. Just look at the sports standards between grammar schools and many comprehensives . Many grammar schools select teachers who have played at university level in preference to those who have not. At my comprehensive, most teachers refused to take sports and left such activities to the male and female sports teachers. Private schools expect most teachers a to be involved in some sort of supervision of sports activities.

Sort is relevant beacuse hard exercise can do much to over come a poor diet . Polar explorers take 7,000 calories a day , or thereabouts.

This criticism of competitive sport is very much a product of the left wing middle class white collar types. Where heavy industry and agricultural have dominated employment, the working class labour members have been keen supporters of
competitive sport- cyccling, rugby league and rugby union( the rural areas, Cornwall and Wales)football, cricket and boxing.

Once again this is an example of how middle class white collar labour voters have imposed their cultural hegemony on working class labour voters with industrial and agricultural backgrounds. After all, Cornish miners went to work with a pasty and farmers took a ploughman’s lunch( bread, often wholemeal, cheese, onion and an apple). Dishes such as lancashire hotpot, stew in the many varieties, peas and faggots, pea and ham soup( made with a ham knuckle and split peas), pork pies, oxtail, black pudding, cock a leeky soup were all staple working class food. Many people had allotments where they grew food, competitions for growing vegetables was common.Pies were often cooked by women in the bakers’ ovens once they had finished. In Lancashire , Yorkshire and the Potteries , many women worked in the factories. Consequently stews were placed in the oven, which was part of the fire and left to cook during the day. For pudding, all sorts of steam puddings were cooked or there were fresh apples. Coxes Apples, if kept cool, dry and dark can last from September to March/April.

We have the absurd situation that a Cornish miner and/or a farm labourer was probably sent to work with a more nutritonally balanced meal than many school children today.

Your point only makes logical sense if government exists as a corporate entity (who we shall call Government?) which owns the NHS and therefore has a legitimate concern about its use.

I was of the belief government (not capitalised as it is not a proper noun) was there to serve the people. And I am often told it is my NHS. If this is true, I am entitled to use it as I like (within the reasonable limits of using it to get better (although I can tell tales on that front)), and government’s job is to ensure this is possible. If this is not the case, and Government owns the NHS for Government’s own end, or the NHS does not actually belong to me, why the hell should I pay tax for it?

Liberatarian, possibly. Thick, I doubt. Government (only here capitalised by convention due to sitting at the front of a sentance) has to serve the people or it is a tyrant (however kind and doting on its subjects, still a tyrant). And I doubt any of us want to be tyrannised.

I was making the point that the Government does indeed have an interest in informing the general public about healthy eating – as indeed do we all given that we pick up the tab when people don’t. I don’t think they are doing so effectively but I do think it is their business.

Actually it was more to do with tory cuts forcing the selling off of school playing fields, allied with the conservative party’s dislike of football in the 1980s. It was one of the first acts of Labour to reverse that trend, and make PE a higher priority.

Nothing wrong with cheeseburgers. The problem is the lack of a little self control. Without that it doesn’t matter whether so called junk food is kept under lock and key, you’ll still be able to find something to ruin your body.

Neil: excellent post. Just like our agreement on the drugs issue.

So who are you expecting to provide your health care when you get diabetes / suffer high blood pressure / have a heart attack? Thought so.

“What makes me laugh about you thick lefties with your “you’re going to have to prise my nhs direct/leaflet from quango out of my cold dead hands” is that you don’t realise how totally your worldview has been formulated by others for you. You give a free pass to any politician, powerful media or state agent in society to control your brain in any way they like, so long as they are not the big business .”

You think that big government is preferable to big business, some think vice versa, most libertarians would argue that neither fully represent their interests and are to be at best mistrusted and critically scrutinised. It is in fact arguable that what the left promote is a merging of big govt and big business such that the 2 are virtually indistinguishable (just look where we are with the banks).
The difference is I can choose to (not) buy a McDonalds, whereas I cannot silence then endless white noise of big govt, or opt out of paying for it.

What “obesity timebomb”? Numerous pieces of research in several countries show that the relative risk of having a BMI in the 30+ range (which is how the government defines obesity) is not statistically different from the relative risk of having a BMI in the 20ish range, and in any case is not particularly large when compared with other risk factors. (That’s not to mention the numerous well-documented problems with BMI as a measure, or the complete lack of known methods for effecting long-term changes to people’s weight, or that there’s no moral requirement for people to be “healthy” anyway, or numerous other problems with the government’s “obesity epidemic” panic)

If you read what I said, I said that the broad principle was the same, not that they were the same. However, come to think of it, I’m not so sure that some of the fast food-addicted lardarses wobbling round the place haven’t spoiled their life quality in a way pretty much as profoundly as an alcohol, tobacco or heroin addiction.

What makes me laugh about you thick libertarians with your “you’re going to have to prise my cheeseburger out of my cold dead hands” is that you don’t realise how totally your worldview has been formulated by others for you. You give a free pass to any powerful media or corporate actor in society to control your brain in any way they like, so long as they are not the government.

All I’ve been saying is that to be effective, the thrust of efforts to address the obesity timebomb should be as much at the production end as at the consumption end, but New Labour are far too captured by big business interests to contemplate that.

Ah. Controlling the producers. That would be the means of production then? After all, state control of food is so much better isn’t it. Look at all the successful examples.

If it is wrong, I am surprised about the lack of whistleblowers, court cases etc. Or legislation. Or by wrong do you mean you do not agree with it?

So you mean the kids running heroin shipments graduate to be the guys on the mopeds delivering pizzas, and should they survive that get to be supermarket lorry drivers, all in the same line of business?

Sugar is more than mildly addictive (just ask my office mates about my addiction). So I presume adding it to cake mix as say my local bakers does is making me come back for more? Should be banned.

I am fully aware there are unhealthy foods around and these are promoted by manufacturers. But unless you can prove that additives are working like heroin (have you seen the effect of heroin on someone? I doubt that any food additive works like that) I would be careful with the assumption. It is fine to add things to food to make them taste nicer/activate pleasure sensors. This is legal, and normal. Chefs do it. I do it when making a sandwich (actually in this case it is normally cucumber, but that’s just me). If there is the problem you say, rather than just the tweaking of recipies to improve the effect on audiences, go ahead and expose it. I would support you.

But in the meantime bear in mind the fall from grace of the Turkey Twizzler. Loved by kids, once its contents were revealed to parents most stopped buying it. Education triumphs over industrial and propoganda process. Without any government intervention I should add (hmm, Jamie Oliver for prime minster…).

I am arguing that the focus should be on the producers not the consumers. The companies know precisely what they are doing, they know it is wrong.

Too right – KFC just isn’t the same since they took the transgenic fat out. And whatever you do, don’t start on curry. Statistics show that 99% of vindaloo addicts started with the milder version, korma. There’s a curry house near me where they give it away just to get you hooked…………….