obesity

It’s a concern. I would estimate that at least three-quarters of my customers are clinically obese, slightly psychopathic and frankly somewhat shabby-looking, but I suppose that’s Westminster for you. So I fully support the government’s latest efforts to tackle chronic fattiness, not least because it has been published while nobody’s looking by the real subject experts - HM Treasury.

Some of my regulars tell me that the new rules are known in Whitehall as the FFS, though I’m not absolutely sure what the second ‘F’ stands for. In any case, they’ve obviously done some very clever thinking because most of the things that a simple shopkeeper like myself might have expected to be included - say, saturated fats, salt and alcohol - are not. It’s very reassuring that lard, crisps and beer are now entirely unrelated to the obesity crisis, because my regular Wednesday deep-fried Frazzle and Speccy Brew soirées are becoming quite the talk of Westminster.

Apparently it’s all down to Coca-Cola (other sugar-laced beverages are available - in fact I’ve still got a tray of Panda Pops in the stockroom only 14 years out of code). There are apparently seven teaspoons of sugar in a can of Coke, which sounds quite a lot, although the Tate & Lyle rep revealed that their products are pretty much 100% sugar! Disgusting.

Mrs May, who is up in the Toblerone Alps on holiday, is to clamp down on this, the single biggest threat to our national wellbeing, by adding a levy of six new pence per can of fizzy drink - or about a tenth of my usual seasonal price hike on the odd days the thermometer gets above 20 degrees. And if 6p doesn’t deter the popaholics, then I don’t know what will.