All right,Sunday Times,what have you done with the real Portillo?This one sounds like a Tory,even quoting Thatcher with approval!Where is the BBC's favourite Conservative,with his bleeding heart and trembling lip?Incidentally,Mr P.,if we have all become welfare dependent,who is responsible?The man who's been PM for the past ten years-the Blair who you admire so much?

John O'Callaghan, Mers-les-Bains, France

Bravo Alex from Winchester.

will, Hannover, Germany

I think that living in slough which has a huge obesity problem amongst others really does bring it home to you the trouble we are storing up for ourselves. I have worked with obese people and was put off my the constant munching and rustling sounds coming from their office areas (snackajacks, crisps, diet coke). They had weight related health problems which they didn't associate with something they were doing to themselves and made no change in their habits. I agree that the individuals not the state are responsible for their own weight related predicaments. I resent having to pay for medical care and specialised hospital equipment for these self indulgent people.
Perhaps G.P.'s should prescribe enforced diets on them or wire their jaws shut??
You can blame the food industry to an extent but individuals have to be responsible for their own health.
An example of being obese and lazy is driving 400 yards to the nearest fried chicken place regularly which is disgusting.

Mike, slough,

As an ex politician I think you are looking at this in conveniently two dimensional terms. It is more than just the nanny state and individual responsibility. The Thatcher government changed the basic matrix of the British economy in the 1980s. It didn t consult the citizens; it clearly decided what suited itself and went ahead causing widespread unemployment. There was the provision of social security benefit but the information on benefit is not widely available, or wasn t then, and as any lawyer will tell you the social security legislation is enormously complicated and only a specialist can give advice in that field. The government may be currently making a fuss about salt and fat, but it isn t doing much positive about the drugs problem. Then there is a considerable shortage of housing in the country, yet the government has done little towards solving this problem which isn t that difficult to do. There is the matter of immigration which has been remarkably haphazard and has undermined many people s jobs. The government has excused itself on the shortage of some skills, but this conveniently obscures it s incompetence in the matter of training or retraining. We don t want to let a temporary convenient winge about weight obscure what is amiss in this country. It lies in the increased centralisation of control, particularly expenditure, and the unnatural focus on one or two individuals. It is not so much a nanny state as a tyrananny state that we are getting.

Henry Percy, London, UK

Funny how when someone speaks some sense no one listens isn'y it! Children are fat because they have no need to do anything. I'm fortunate enough to have an athletic body because my dad took me out to the rugby pitch when I was seven and introduced me to the game. I love sport, it just gives so much that I'm dissapointed in the amount of money that is invested in schools. It's too easy for children to bunk off and not put the effort in in PE. What we really need is more effort put into showing the benifits of doing sport as a hobby and the skills that it teaches you like commitment, teamwork, pride and the obvious physical benifits

Rugby Teen, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Almost a quarter of British adults are obese. That is a lot of people lacking education and responsibility. The nanny state - not in the States and they're the most rotund of all. Look at the statues in Parliament Square and the most rotund is Churchill.
It's not just air fares where slim people subsidise rotundities. They are also cheated with clothing. XXL clothes with twice the material cost the same as slim clothes. With prices related to costs rotundities would think twice and this would act to modify behaviour without the need for a nanny state tax.
I live in the South East and work with many rotundities. They are not lazy they have just got better things to do than exercise and too busy to cook food other than readymade pizzas.
They don't blame the govt. they just don't care. And blaming manufacturers and restaurants is no better than blaming the govt.
The English have a liking for pies and chips, burgers and fries, chocolate biscuits, beer and cheese. With changing lifestyles eating habits need to change to reflect the calories needed.

Quentin, Reading, UK

Perhaps you should write to Nicholas Soames Michael? As a military man he looks like the only assault course he has ever completed is managing to lace up his shoes.

Roy Fox, Brentwood, Essex

We can't all be skinny young boys, Michael. Much to your chagrin, I'm sure.

sam, fenton, california

Eat less - more more!

Elizabeth, Birmingham,

How odd! To save Gordon Brown's embarrassment over the election that wasn't the obesity question was hastily dragged out of the cupboard to proccupy the nation with something to change the subject. Michael Portillo should have more sense than he demonstrates in jumping onto the finger-wagging socialist bandwagon.
On the one hand we are told that the NHS is in crisis because people are living longer and then being lectured about our eating habits. Perhaps people are living longer because they are fatter!!!

David Cotterell, Cheltenham, UK

Its simply the fact that fat people are lazy, every fat person I have ever worked with does less than average. Their fatness is a signature of what is wrong with them, all they do is eat too much, consume, consume, amazingly we have to pussy foot around being nice, rather than just telling them, the truth. The truth is painful so we give them lots of excuses, like they have lots of complex factors, rubbish, they just eat too much, why they eat too much might be complex, but its simple, eat less you lazy so and so.

JJ Huthwaite, London, UK

What can I say, a first class article which hits the nail on the head. In general in todays society people never take responsibility for their actions and always look to push the blame onto someone or something else. The so called 'nanny state' only helps to give a licence to those people to sit back, do as they please and respond "it's not my fault, it's the governement, or the oney lenders or . . . . " We all have perfectly good brains that can be put to good use to analyse a situation, reach a conclusion and move on. We are all responsible for our own actions and the buck stops there.

Dave Anderson, Trollhättan, Sweden

What about slim people being discriminated indirectly? A 50Kg person pays the same airfare as a 100Kg person and has the same baggage allowance! Perhaps obese people should have a smaller baggage allowance or be charged more for their air travel.

KM, London, England

Thanks Michael, for saying it how it is. As a smoker, I've been heavily taxed & exiled from just about everywhere - I don't mind this, since the possible negative affects to my own health and those of others are well documented.

My own son at 13 was four stone overweight and a computer games recluse. At which point he joined the Marine Cadets. He's now 16 and a finer, fitter example of a young man would be hard to find. He's now confident and well motivated.

The additional drain of overweight people on the environment (more food transpot & waste disposal costs) borders on willful destruction.

Lets begin with our MPs - how can they justify all the expenses when some of them are so overweight?

Tax them (just like me) exile them (just like me) and buy them some running shoes....

Bill Bird, Wallasey, Wirral

When oh when is someone going to take the manufacturers of food to task? Yes, we all have a responsibility to look at what we buy but I'm disabled and it puts 30 minutes on my shopping as i try to pick out the right foods.
That shouldn't be, because if the manufacturers didn't put it in the food, we couldnt put it in us. They have to shoulder a great deal of the blame, they are not helping at all.

No, or low is the only way to go!

People are given millions of choices...it isn't necessary. So come on makers of food...play your part too, stop blaming the public for everything.

Samantha Jones, Bucks, England

"We have the right to be disapproving of obesity because the costs to public health and to national productivity are borne by us all"

What is being said is "I" have the right to be disapproving.

No you don't. Mind your own business.

Who's next? Homosexuals? Joggers? Motorists (whoops, too late on that one)? The tall? The handicapped? Sports players? People who prolong their lives just to take more out of the national pension pot? Black people? Ramblers?

How about a bit of live and let live?

Every time 'opinion formers' give licence for bigots to feel justified, it chips away just that bit more at our freedoms, at the essential decency and tolerance of our society.

Being overweight has nothing to do with an individual's contribution to society, but is illustritive of Portillo's (and others) muddled thinking.

They say it's the individual's fault, then lump them into a category of 'unproductive'. Lazy, but easier than tackling the genuinely unproductive individuals!

Darren Owen, Connah's Quay, UK

I agree that people should be able to eat as much as they want, whenever they choose.......... that is until it costs us taxpayers more money when obesity puts even more strain on an already failing NHS, and on productivity in this country. I whole heartedly agree that we should all be taking responsibility for ourselves and our health. If I have a health issue that my own behaviour is exacerbating, then I should not expect the NHS or the state to sort it out for me and pick up the pieces. The resources should be spent on unpreventable illnesses, and on looking after our elderly and those who really cannot look after themselves.

Becky Walker, Cheltenham,

" Labour believes most social improvement comes from government and the Conservatives think that it mainly originates with people".

But, you can only instigate social improvement if you have a voice, a media with which to broadcast that voice and money with which to finance it all.

The only people with the massive resources required are either Government, or business.

The biggest and fastest growing businesses in the UK are food companies.

It is in the interest of food companies to urge people to eat more of their processed high value food, rather than simple low fat dishes home cooked from scratch.

Ergo, fat people make the wrong food choices based on misleading information streamed at them by food companies in the media.

Social improvement, in terms of dietary health, will never come about through the mechanizations of food companies.

We need a government who's belief is in social improvement.

Thanks, Mike, you have just reasoned for us that that government is Labour!

Harry T, Stirling, Scotland

What are the "many and complex factors that contribute to a person being obese"? Too many trips to the chip shop?

Emma, London,

Because, of course, the opinions of a naturally thin, distant, privileged, fickle and disgruntled ex-MP are just what are needed to challenge the issue of obesity. Why didn't we see it before?

Switching off the sarcasm though, if all it took was Portillo grandstanding unconvincingly (plus ca change) to 'solve' the obesity 'epidemic', we would not be having this discussion. But of course, spouting glib nonsense is what we should expect from our political classes. They need to go on a rhetoric diet.

Alexander, Winchester, United Kingdom

people should be free to eat as much as they like
if this makes them fat that is their choice
why are politicians getting involved?

claire, london,

The obese are stigmatized for a choice they have made - to eat too much. If they chose to go out without trousers - a choice equally deliberate - they would also be stigmatized. If obesity stems from a medical condition, then the person should seek diagnosis and treatment; if the person is fat through over-consumption, they should stop eating and drinking. To continue to eat, to eat yourself into an early grave at cost to everyone around you, is not the result of 'many and complex factors' - it's the direct result of eating more than you need.

John, Dublin,

There are many and complex factors that contribute to a person being obese. To simply stigmatize or blame someone who is already discriminated against, in a million subtle and insidious ways, is unhelpful.

P Letts, Edinburgh,

Excellent. Now if only the tories were actually capable of living up to the expectations of this article.

Instead I would just expect them to cut funding to the regions as they're not really "our kind of people" and retaining it in the south and east.

Oh well.

peter, York, UK.

When it comes to food, we should blame the fat for making poor choices rather than considering the role the food industry has played - "it's your fault, fatso". But when it comes to choice of "entertainment", we should ask "What part do they [tv channels] play in discouraging social responsibility, how might they seek to raise people’s self-esteem and aspirations?" - "It's tv's fault, thicky"

It seems a little incoherent. Been watching too much Big Brother?

Jamie Gilmour, Bolton, UK

Now, now, Miguel! Are you saying the Japs and Koreans are slimmer because of their superior moral fibre?

Cona;;, Margam, Wales

I completely agree with Michael Portillo on the need for increased personal responsibility and I believe that this concept should be instilled at the earliest age possible. To which end I would make parents jointly liable in all civil and criminal matters for their children’s actions up to say age sixteen. By all means let the child off with a caution where appropriate but also fine or prosecute the parents.
Basic good manners and decent civic behaviour should be taught, initially, at home and this measure would restore that function. One that is currently all to often abdicated to the state in the form of the police, schools and social workers.
As for obese children I would give parents a tape measure, a set of weighing scales and a Body Mass Index (BMI) chart and tell them that they alone are responsible.
Anthony Higham

Anthony Higham, Edenbridge, Kent

I fully agree with Mr Portillo.
As someone who spent a few years on the dole only to climb out of it, by training, a job and buying a house - and yet still be handed free money in the form of tax credits & child benefit astounded me

Its time people were weaned off the welfare state by force, a bit at a time with the ultimate view of turning the NHS into an A&E service rather than a behemoth to cater for all and every ill

Phill Barlow, The Wirral, England

"They have too readily descended into cultural relativism, a belief that the elite has no right to impose its values and standards on the rest. The result has been to perpetuate the elite by making its world impenetrable.

Seems a bit self-serving, doesn't it? No competition from below, and plenty of cheap servants. Maybe the rich are not as oblivious to what is going on as they have been painted.

Jonathan, NYC, USA