Fat-headed
NO one can deny the need to tackle Britain’s expanding waistlines.

Obesity wrecks lives, as well as putting unbearable strain on the NHS.

But Public Health England’s 100-page proposal dictating caps on calorie levels for everything from onion bhajis to salad dressing is insane.

It will hit restaurants, manufacturers, supermarkets and, inevitably, customers.

Brits ate more in the 1970s but were slimmer as we led more active lives.

Getting people off their couches would reverse our obesity problem far more effectively than punitive meddling.

The Tories are supposed to be the party of free choice.

They should remember that.

IT is indefensible that almost half of hospitals have hiked their car parking fees in the last year.

Some may argue that they need to charge something, if only to stop shoppers and commuters nicking the spaces.

But the fees are extortionately more than is necessary to act as a deterrent.

Every year, the Government makes the right noises about the need to slash fees...  and every year nothing happens and they rise even further.

Hospital patients and their families should not be clobbered for being sick.

What’s more, it means low-paid NHS staff, many unable to rely on public transport as they work anti-social hours, are being fleeced by their own bosses.

How can that be right?

No kidding

THE use of therapy goats in prison to teach lags how to “take responsibility for others” is almost beyond parody.

Inmates at the Category B jail HMP Swaleside should be undergoing educational activities to help them find employment for when they leave jail.

But at a time when our prisons are grossly understaffed, some bright spark thought spending taxpayers’ cash on farmyard animals was a priority.

It really gets our goat.

Bag bugs

REMEMBER when the Tories stood for low taxes rather than being obsessed with dreaming up new ones?

Environment chief Michael Gove wants to double the 5p plastic bag charge and roll it out to thousands of small shops currently exempt.

As The Sun has previously argued, there is little practical justification for hiking the charge — but it is yet another little nibble at the pockets of hard-pressed shoppers when we should be encouraging them on to the high streets.