Individuals can no longer be held responsible for obesity, according to a
recent headline. Because of the abundance of food and our sedentary
lifestyles, it is not the problem of fatness that should amaze us as much as
the fact that anyone succeeds in remaining lean, says Dr Susan Jebb of the
Medical Research Council.
Alan Johnson, the health secretary, comments that “solutions will not be found
in exhortations to greater individual responsibility”. Although nearly a
quarter of the British population is obese, a threefold increase since 1980,
he asserts that people are not more gluttonous than previous generations.
In fact, from evidence in a recent report commissioned by government, it is
clear that individual choices lie at the heart of the problem. For example,
the Japanese and the Koreans, despite being wealthy and desk-bound, are
hardly affected by the world's obesity epidemic. Within Europe the British
are fatter than any other nation and in the world league table the Americans
come top. Within the UK there is a strong correlation between poverty, poor
education and fatness.
So the issue is cultural, not genetic or environmental. If we are going to
reduce the risks posed by obesity to public health and our economy, it is
profoundly unhelpful to imply that being overweight is inevitable,
understandable or not anyone’s fault. Pretty much everyone has the potential
to be trim and to bring up fit children.
We have the right to be disapproving of obesity because the costs to public
health and to national productivity are borne by us all. We should
stigmatise those who bring up fat children because it is a form of abuse,
which probably condemns them to a shorter and less healthy life.
The view that people are not to blame for their own actions debilitates any
society. It is the most pernicious form of political correctness. Recently
in the United States brain-scan evidence was presented in court in an
attempt to establish diminished responsibility in a serial rape trial. In
essence the defence argued that the brain, rather than the accused, was
responsible for his violent attacks.
On the other hand, the think tank The Future Laboratory claims to detect in
Britain a revival of communities that take more responsibility for their own
destinies. Concerned citizens, it seems, are grouping together to save the
local pub or post office from closure, perhaps by investing their own money
and time.
In one instance outraged neighbours fought back against plans approved by
their council for a hideous burger bar on the town's seafront. They bought
the site from the fast food chain and erected an architecturally significant
building in which, reportedly, they now serve wholesome food.
The think tankers would probably not wish to be told that the new trend they
have detected is essentially Thatcherite. In a famous interview for Woman’s
Own magazine in 1987 she said: “Too many . . . people have been given to
understand: ‘I have a problem, it is the government’s job to cope with it!’
. . . They are casting their problems on society and who is society? There
is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families,
and no government can do anything except through people . . . It is our duty
to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour.”
Margaret Thatcher was not arguing, as her detractors claimed, that human
beings were feral creatures without social obligations. Rather she was
attacking the idea that we can shuffle our responsibilities on to some
amorphous thing we dub “society”. It is exactly what the health secretary is
saying today about fatness. Society is to blame for people being obese and
exhortations to personal responsibility are therefore pointless.
Last Thursday a statue of David Lloyd George was unveiled in Parliament
Square. As chancellor before the first world war he was the instigator of
the welfare state, introducing both pensions and National Insurance. His
initiatives survive in recognisable form to this day. In 1942 William
Beveridge built on those ideas with proposals to protect people’s living
standards “from cradle to grave”. The sentiment was admirable, but as the
notion that the state must aid us from birth to death has penetrated the
national psyche, it has brought its problems.
All our great social reformers foresaw the potential moral hazard of induced
dependency on the state and a diminished sense of personal responsibility.
But for all their prescience the catastrophe was not avoided. Nor could
Thatcher do much to alter it.
“Aspiration” is a popular word in British politics today. All the parties
claim to believe in it. They want people from humble backgrounds to be able
to rise to a better and more fulfilling life. But aspiration has no meaning
unless we first assert that people have personal responsibility.
Unless it is clear that people can – indeed must – do things for themselves,
then ideas of hard work, commitment and application will be
incomprehensible.
On a recent visit to Colombia I was struck that city mayors build impressive
libraries in the slums. Those fine buildings fill up with eager children who
want to read books or work on the banks of computers. It was clear to me
that the youngsters believed that learning offered the best route out of
poverty. In Britain, however, I get little sense of that. The country seems
antiintellectual and the poorest display little interest or faith in
education.
Our society’s cultural leaders have to regain self-confidence. 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. The dumbing down of
media, of television in particular, has done the poor no favours. They have
been fed a diet of low-brow entertainment and offered uninspiring role
models by programme makers who display lofty condescension, even cynicism.
Instead of spending time and energy debating how television channels have
defrauded viewers of a few million pounds in rigged competitions, we might
discuss the issue of what they owe society. What part do they play in
discouraging social responsibility, how might they seek to raise people’s
self-esteem and aspirations?
Also, our welfare systems make few demands on recipients. We continue to hand
out money in what American social reformers now call “something for nothing”
systems. “Something for something”, by contrast, might require youngsters to
attend classes and to demonstrate achievement before they could receive
their benefit.
Voters complain that there is little to distinguish the parties. I generally
say that Labour believes most social improvement comes from government and
the Conservatives think that it mainly originates with people. Even that has
been less clear of late, partly because the Tories have been chastened by
defeats and partly because Tony Blair put some faith in markets.
The arrival of Gordon Brown gives the Conservatives new options. As chancellor
he was the exponent of government-organised change. He redistributed wealth
through tax credits and spent hugely on public services. Johnson’s attitude
to personal responsibility shows the Brown administration to be not-so-new
Labour after all.
Now the Tories are becoming bolder. In education, particularly, they are
charting a new course, opening the way for state-funded pupils to go to new
schools run outside the public sector. Parents will recover the
responsibility for making choices for their children. The Conservatives want
to revive school uniforms, too, as a proxy for discipline and rigour.
Schools should aspire for children even when parents do not.
Conflicting views between Brown and David Cameron about how far people should
be held responsible for themselves could again supply the essential
difference between the parties. As the lady said 20 years ago, people are
casting their problems on society. That has to stop, because that way lies
only social decadence.
michael.portillo@sunday-times.co.uk
