Tabloid money… Johnson’s “disgusting” junk-food U-turn
⬤ Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver (pictured) is right to slam the government for its “U-turn on junk food”, says Saira Khan in the Daily Mirror. We have an “obesity pandemic” in this country and we need to “help people, especially children, make better food choices”. Boris Johnson had pledged to ban multi-buy supermarket deals on unhealthy products and junk-food advertising before the watershed with effect from next year. But Johnson “loves a U-turn” and these bans will now be delayed for at least a year. “He cites the cost-of-living crisis for his reasons,” but suggesting that people should stock up on cheap junk because healthy food is now too expensive is a “disgusting” explanation. It’s out of “touch and a clear indication that the nation’s health and that of the NHS is not on top of the Tory government’s agenda.”
⬤ Levying a windfall tax on the profits of energy companies is an “obvious step” to “deal with the impact of the inflation crisis”, says Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express. Critics must recognise that there is nothing “unconservative” about a windfall tax. After all, Margaret Thatcher “imposed one on bank profits in 1981”. The government should immediately introduce such a measure, along with a wider emergency budget that cuts VAT on fuel and makes a “one-off payment to the lowest-income families to help with bills”. The Tories are rejecting these sensible ideas, partly because they have been proposed by Labour. “But this is no time for political tribalism. The hour is too urgent, the need of the country too great.”
⬤ A windfall tax on oil firms is “a terrible plan” that “will do zilch to secure longer-term energy supplies in the North Sea”, says Maggie Pagano in the Daily Mail. Firms such as BP and Shell – which made large losses just one year ago – must plan for investments that pay off over decades. “They need a stable regulatory and policy environment, rather than ad hoc extra taxes.” A windfall tax would raise at most £2bn, yet could be a deterrent to such plans. Many ministers, who should know better, seem to have capitulated to this idea, “arguing it would be popular”. Yet comparison with windfall taxes on banks “doesn’t wash”. We need the energy giants “to plough all the private capital they have available back into investing for the future”.