In reply to Offwidth:
> Hancock says he wants people to take responsibility for their own health to help cut future NHS bills. Are they supposed to do this on their own without the public health support, that the evidence shows is neccesary. Thinking you can cut Public Heath budgets further and improve public health is plain idiotic. Ignoring the evidence of what's neccesary when he starts lecturing us all on responsibilites, makes him a hypocrite.
Yes indeed. Putting the blame on the population for not behaving responsibly is a quintessential Tory gesture. Basing policies on what someone thinks should be the case, rather than what is the case, is political idiocy of the first order and explains why so many Tory policies end up falling apart.
Even worse is the hypocrisy of blaming the population for their own poor health while encouraging, for example, the tobacco and fast-food industries to maximize their profits. Surely, something that a government can actually do to prevent future public health issues which impact on the NHS is to regulate such industries - to force them to conduct their business responsibly (which they clearly don't)? But the Conservatives have always been conspicuously reluctant to regulate industry, however socially irresponsible it is.
