Bossy boots who LOVES to nanny Britain

Carry tissues. Wash your hands. Drink tea not wine and step away from that Jammie Dodger! As she issues a blizzard of finger-wagging edicts, the...

AS THE country’s Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies — the socalled nanny-in- chief of the nation — is keen to advise us all what to eat and drink to be healthy.

In her latest warning this month, Nanny Davies said that drinking even one glass of wine a day can put us at risk of developing cancer.

However, this strict advice came as a surprise to those people who have been guests at her £3 million home in North London, where they have been offered fine vintages.

At her French farmhouse retreat, the wine collection is also impressive, although Dame Sally has said she drinks only at weekends.

So is it a case of ‘do as I say’ rather than ‘do as I do’? And what makes this 66-yearold with a brilliant medical career tick?

unlike many of her more cautious predecessors, who tended to advise ministers in private rather than broadcast their concerns publicly, some in Whitehall believe that Dame Sally goes out of her way to cultivate controversy.

For example, last week, in an ‘ urgent video appeal’, she urged parents not to use antibiotics for children with coughs or colds so as to try to limit the risk of ‘antibiotic infections’. Instead, she advised them to keep surfaces clean, wash hands regularly, carry tissues for coughs and sneezes, and to bin them after use.

Overweight airline passengers have been in her sights, too. A few months ago, she said: ‘I’ve often wondered why aircraft don’t charge by total weight of the person and their luggage, because it would seem to be quite a clever way of doing it.’

Her office later tried to defuse the subsequent row by insisting it was a harmless throwaway remark.

Nanny Sally has also made it known that David Cameron (with whom she ‘regularly speaks’) might have to introduce a sugar tax to combat the growing obesity crisis.

Indeed, she went so far as to say that the risk to the nation from obesity was as dangerous as ‘ the terror threat’, and called for it to be included on the government’s National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies.

No wonder she has her critics. Former To r y chairman Lord (Norman) Tebbit ridiculed her latest ‘drink tea instead of wine’ edict, saying: ‘ The Chief Medical Officer regards a quiet glass of sherry as too risky to contemplate. Poor creature. She must shudder in her shoes at the risks taken every Sunday morning by celebrants at Holy Communion sipping at the Communion wine.

‘As I look forward to my 85th birthday in the spring, and my brother’s 89th in the autumn, she is unlikely to persuade me to desist from my nightly half-bottle, or he from his.’

ROY LILLEY, a former NHS Trust chief, scathingly likened her to a mother- in- law. ‘ There are some wonderful mothers-inlaw. Kind, wise and helpful. The NHS has acquired its very own mother- in- law. Sadly, not the sympathetic, sensible, supportive variety. More the bossy, superior poking-her-nose-in kind.

‘She is pronouncing on our drinking habits. The guidance is incomprehensible. What if you are a small bloke or a big woman? What about age? Over 65 is the cut-off? Some 50-year- olds are knackered, some 70-year-olds are Olympians.

‘So thank goodness for the NHS’s very own mother-in-law Sally Davies, aka Chief Medical Officer, aka Hello! magazine, E-list celebrity wannabe.’

The celebrity jibe, in particular, may wound Dame Sally, but she will not be diverted from her interventionist approach to public health — especially at a time when the financial imposition of such problems on the NHS is putting Britain’s national health system near breaking point.

Certainly, the first woman chief medical officer in 150 years likes to lead by example. Last autumn, she described her typical working day. ‘Most mornings I wake up at 5.45 listening to Classic FM on the radio alarm. I jog with a friend of mine two days a week. Before we set off, I prepare a pot of coffee (decaffeinated, of course) and berries and yogurt. Breakfast is ready when I return. We usually run about 2.5 miles.’ She leaves her georgian terrace house, in a conservation area in Islington, North London, at 7.40. Her predecessor had a chauffeur-driven car to take him to work but that, she said, disappeared ‘with the austerity cuts’, and so she often takes the bus to Whitehall.

But tucked away in a Cabinet Office document that lists her salary as £215,000 (almost £80,000 more than the Prime Minister’s), is the revelation: ‘Dame Sally Davies has the occasional use of an official car for the journey between her home and office.’

On at least one day last week, she was collected by a seven- seater Ford taxi. According to her spokeswoman: ‘usually, she gets the bus to work. Today, she paid for her own taxi as she was carrying a heavy bag.’

So is this another example of a ‘do as I say’ rather than ‘ do as I do’ approach?

Regardless, she recommends that adults are on the move for at least two-and-a-half hours a week. ‘It doesn’t matter how you do it, just do it. get off the bus two stops early or cycle to work. Do your own housework. You’re better being fit and a bit fat, than skinny and unhealthy.’

For her part, Dame Sally says she ‘works like crazy’ and relaxes by