When The Sun Goes Down

If you don’t know your history- you will keep repeating your mistakes.
Even if you do know your history, if you are a politician, the chances are you will go for the populist option to bag cheap votes.

An issue is deemed newsworthy, becomes a topic for debate and the call goes up:

“Something must be done.”

Jamie Oliver is the poster boy of the “something must be done” brigade- thanks to his School Dinners show. This weekend, school dinners were in the news again and the story should send a shiver down your spine.

Oliver is a modern day missionary. In the olden days- a missionary would go out to the far flung corners of the earth to show people the Way to the Lord. There was, naturally, no doubt in their minds that their way was right and the non believers were totally wrong and needed saving from themselves. Safe in the knowledge that anyone black or brown was inferior, Europeans were able to carve up the rest of the world. It was their duty to look after these poor imbecilles and save them from themselves. It was vital to impose the values of the British middle classes because they are the chosen ones. It was necessary to nick all their resources because they didn’t know how to use them properly. It was a fact of life that the common people had to be kept down with an iron fist because they didn’t have the sense to make decisions for themselves.

Back to the present. A group of academics from London Metropolitan University mapped the movements of hundreds of school kids over a week to check out what they are eating.

The lowlights of the findings were reported in The Observer on Sunday.

The general theme is: kids hate school dinners and loads of them prefer to get their snap from shops, chippies and cafes. So, three years after the “hugely successful” (The words of The Observer) Jamie Oliver campaign, you could be generous and describe it as complete failure. A less generous commentator may point to the recent statement from the Local Authority Caterers Association, which said that the changes the government were bounced into may mean that hot school dinners will not exist for much longer. Since the Oliver revolution- kids have turned to junk food in unprecedented numbers. In short, the “hugely successful” campaign has achieved the exact opposite effect to the one that was intended. In my dictionary- that looks more like disastrous, catastrophic or “hugely unsuccessful”.

Like they care about what we think. “They” being the people who run stuff. As in the days of the Empire- the political classes have a total contempt for the “little people”. They don’t even have to pretend anymore. As general elections are fought out in marginals in the shires- they need to appeal to men and women in places like Hereford and Worcester. The urban dwellers of places like Rotherham count for nowt.

From start to finish, the Observer article is a classic example of how little we matter.

Headline:

Minister calls for lunchtime lock-in at schools to stop rush for chippie.

“…offering healthy food was not the same as persuading pupils to eat it.
Now that experts have shown just how far children will go to seek out fatty and sugary snacks, ministers will have to turn their attention to the fast-food outlets and supermarkets ringing schools”.
They’re forming a ring round the schools. They’re going to pounce and attck our poor kids. And you know the disgusting crap some supermarkets push.

Something must be done. “Ministers will have to turn their attention” to this because it plays with Hereford and Worcester woman. I mean- it’s not their kids you mean.

So- what’s the big idea. How will do they propose to persuade the pupils? The ever popular “lock ‘em up”.

Children’s minister, Kevin Brennan:

“Some schools have a stay-on-site policy for 11- to 16-year-olds… I’m very strongly supportive of that approach. I would like to see more schools operating some sort of stay-on-site policy because its advantages are shown not just in improved uptake [of healthy school lunches], but also improved behaviour and community relationships.”

Forget education, education, education – it’s always incarceration, incarceration, incarceration. “They” are always right. If we don’t agree- they will wave the stick and force feed us the carrot anally. It’s all for our own good though. It’s like those lucky East Germans who were protected by the anti fascist defence barrier. I love the bit about “improved behaviour and community relationships”. Cleverly plays on the fact that we hate kids in this country. Ask most people if they want kids to be hanging round the shop acting like…kids or banged up on dinnertime lockdown and they’ll plump for the latter.

The Ministry of Food is built on far shakier foundations than the School Dinners project. The objectives are far more ambiguous and the premise of the show is flawed. The show is pitched at ABC1 women. To make sure that he is not offending his core audience- Jamie has set his latest extravaganza in Rotherham. Middle England will watch in horror as they are presented with a hand picked parade of Northern stereotypes. How can these people live like this? Those poor simple natives are heading for belly Hell. Something must be done to make them more like us.

As has been exhaustively explained in previous posts- the “pass it on” strategy has a snowball in Hell’s chance of catching on. The show is merely a form of exploitative entertainment. But what if some no mark politician, desperate for some easy TV coverage gets behind it? In Rotherham, we have Housing Minister Caroline Flint and rentaquote Denis MacShane- two highly likely candidates. If the voters who matter demand action but the natives refuse to take their medicine- where do we go?

As we have seen- after the failure of Jamie’s School Dinners- the Children’s Minister believes the way forward is compulsion. Removing freedom of choice and forcing the plebs to do what their masters say is good for them.

Back to the Future:

What if Jamie Oliver manages to cobble together a show that convinces Middle England that the main cause of obesity is that ordinary folk are too thick and / or lazy to cook? He’ll make his money and move on- but the issue will be out there for media whore politicos to feast on.

A couple of years down the line, when the academics find the situation is the same or worse than it was, what will the opportunists do to milk it? What authoritarian measure will coax the ladies of Hereford and Worcester to the polling booths? 

Compulsory cooking lessons for the overweight? We know they won’t work as the people who would benefit from them will not actively participate- same as they won’t get involved with Ministry of Food. How about replacing benefits with food vouchers? Rationing of foods with high fat and sugar content? ID cards to restrict the number of visits to fast food outlets? Taking away the children of parents who abuse their kids with sausage rolls and egg custards?

This is what can happen when you start presenting serious issues in a format geared towards entertainment. When you present hearsay and speculation as hard facts. When you use people to promote your products at the expense of their dignity.

It’s time for the sun to set on Jamie Oliver Empire.

No Blackmail