Tory Coalition Government Seriously Bad For Your Health

Today the latest news is that according to data from one of a series of papers published in the Lancet medical journal. Britain has the 3rd most inactive population in Europe. On the day is it announced this country is 3rd most inactive we also learn that the government is allowing head teachers to decide if they should allow fast food outlets like Subway into our schools and that the number road deathsattributed to speeding have risen for the first time in ten years.


In January 2009 the Labour government introduced the Change4Life fitness programme, aimed at helping entire families to eat better and become fitter, they teamed this with  improved school dinners; Schools Sports Partnership Programme, Free swimming for adults over 60 and children, as well as other initiatives aimed at improving the nation's health.  


The free swimming scheme scheme for the under-16s and over-60s was launched by the Labour government as part of the Labour government's healthy living and eating drive to go hand in hand with holding the Olympic Games was cut by the incoming coalition government in 2010. The Tory government said that the scheme was "a luxury" that could no longer be afforded and was axed as part of £73m cuts made by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. What the government appear to be saying here is that good health and exercise to those on restricted incomes like pensioners and children and those from poorer families is a "luxury"?


Labour launched the scheme in 2008 which proved hugely popular with both generations, as part of a bid to get more people involved in sport by 2012 and claimed their aim was to get England's swimming pools free to use by the time of the London 2012 Games. The scheme also had a knock on effect whereby children entered swimming pools fee, but were taken by their parents, so the fitness levels of the entire family were being raised and it also got people using their local sports and leisure facilities.


What a truly fantastic legacy to the Games this would have been and the cost in terms of health benefits and less use of health care etc would have far outweighed the cost of the scheme. Saving £73 million is extremely myopic, in terms of the costs it would have save the NHS in the long term.

Along with the government abolishing free swimming they also decided to axe the Labour government's 'School Sport Partnership Programme'. This caused a national outcry and the government became the target of of outspoken criticisms from famous sportsmen and women, as well as alarmed healthcare professionals and teachers. The government changed its mind and was forced into an early partial u-turn, when celebrities started to line up to criticise the government's attack on school children's sporting activities. The humiliating climb-down came one week after David Cameron announced in the House of Commons that they were axing the it as the Schools Sports Partnership "does not work".  This led to accusations that PM had not even looked at the scheme before talking about it as the scheme which was introduced by the former Labour government had proved to be highly successful as the number of young people doing two hours or more of sport per week increased from 25 per cent in 2002 to more than 90 per cent in 2010 when the Tories tried to axe the programme. How could Cameron have possibly concluded that this scheme had "not worked"?

Cameron's Tories had planned to snatch £162million of funding for a ­nationwide network of PE teachers – the School Sports Partnerships – which pools resources between primary, secondary and specialist state schools to increase sporting opportunities. The initiative was scrapped in the summer of 2011 by Education Secretary Michael Gove who slashed the budget and made just £65million available from an original budget of £162 million and only until 2013 to allow one PE teacher per school to be released for one day a week to ensure competitive sports are “embedded”. (Neatly getting us past the Olympic Games so that any furore will [the Tories hope] be limited!) This cut has been widely condemned.

• Free swimming for pensioners and children cut by Tory Led government (Guardian)
• Tories forced into embarrassing u-turn on 'Schools Sport Partnership' (Mail)
• Cameron Retreats on School Sports Funding (Mirror)
• Government's Partial U-Turn on School Sports Programme Doesn't Go Far Enough
• Funding for services used by millions of people will be shrunk by up to 90% by 2020
• Manchester; Cuts to close  Libraries, Sports centres and Pools
• Durham; Close 5 of its 18 Sports Centres
• Leeds; Leisure centres, day and residential care buildings and 1,500 jobs face axe
• Olympic borough plans to close leisure centre
• Jamie Oliver accuses Gove of allowing academy schools to profit by selling children unhealthy meals
• Lansley Kills Off Traffic Light Labelling in June 2010
• Lansley's Anti Obesity Programme  immediately slammed by health experts and branded "worthless, regurgitated, patronising rubbish" by Jamie Oliver. 
• Subway in Talks on Allowing Fast Food Outlet Into British  Schools
• Lansley's 'nudging' deal with food companies derided
• Big food companies shun Lansley's Public Health Responsibility Deal

The Tory government has also cut funding to local authorities causing the closure of swimming pools and leisure centres right across the country. People on low or fixed incomes often find the price of amenities restrictive, however, now many are also often too far away from their nearest sports centre and simply unable to afford the cost of travel on top of the cots of admission.


Serious doubts have also been raised about the effectiveness of health secretary Andrew Lansley's Public Health Responsibility Deal, whereby fast food firms, drinks makers and supermarket chains help shape the coalition's approach to public health, and thus avoid being subjected to further legislation, in return for what critics say are inadequate changes, such as cutting salt in food.

Government plans for big food firms to help fight obesity have suffered a setback because many companies are ignoring its plea to cut the amount of fat, salt or sugar in their products.

Coca-Cola, Kellogg, Danone and other major food and drink producers have shunned health secretary Andrew Lansley's appeal to make their products less energy-dense to help meet his target of people in England consuming 5bn fewer calories a day.

Financial estimates carried out for the leaders of every major local authority in England and Wales show that funding for services used by millions of people will be shrunk by up to 90 per cent by 2020. People will have to be given the choice between soaring council taxes or “drastic” cuts in local amenities.....

The dire warning comes in a report for the Local Government Association which speaks for more than 300 councils in England and Wales.

Now today we also learn that the Government criticised as roads deaths increase for first time in 10 years 

Since the government decided to allow councils to do away with speed cameras, road accidents attributed to speeding motorists have risen for the first time in years.


The experiment is over and the results are in. In April, Thames Valley police switched Oxfordshire's speed cameras back on. They had been off for eight months, as a result of the government's decision to cut the road safety grant. Then the police began assessing the damage. In the 31 days before the cameras were switched off (July 2010), the machines caught 2,286 speeding motorists. In the 30 days after they were switched back on, they caught 5,917


In the eight months without cameras, there were 18 deaths on the roads in Oxfordshire, compared with 12 in the same period in the previous year. This was the first time in four years that the number of deaths on the county's roads had risen. Serious injuries rose from 160 to 179.


Oxfordshire is not alone, local councils have been switching off speed cameras right across the country.


Just another day and another couple of bad government policies hit the buffers, proving that the Tory led coalitions government is seriously bad for your health!


UPDATE: And this is exactly what I keep trying to point out on this blog; the current Tory government is corrupt and they are changing things in every possible way and if we do not wake-up and realise it and force them out then I fear our country will never be the same again! It doesn't matter that our children's health and futures are at stake, this lot just f don't care, they see us and our children as a drain and incomvenience, we are nothing short of plebs to them and never forget it.

Michael Gove and his family spent a luxury holiday with the chef he later commissioned to carry out an official review into school dinners, it emerged last night.

Gove and Leon chef dreamed up school meals deal over mojitos in Marrakech