Labour's Misguided Focus on NHS Management

Addiction Economy Thought for Today - Why is Labour focusing on fixing NHS management instead of stopping the public health crisis from harmful products? Let's see if the FT likes this letter!

To the Financial Times Letters Page Editor:

"Martin Wolf asks how a Labour government will improve public services, particularly the NHS, without borrowing more money or raising taxes, (The difficult choices facing Starmer, Monday 8th July).  How about regulating the harmful industries driving the preventable diseases which overwhelm it?

The Labour Party’s key Mission to ‘Improve the NHS’ strangely appears to put issues of NHS management at the heart of our public health crisis, not those industries who are the biggest cause of ill-health and preventable death in the UK - cigarettes, unhealthy and ultra-processed foods, alcohol and gambling.

Our research shows there are 5 drivers of this 'Addiction Economy’ - addictive product design, inescapable availability, predatory marketing, disinformation and undermining political action.   All these are successfully addressed by regulation as the rapid decline in cigarette use over the last 20 years has shown.

This may seem to clash with their commitment to be business friendly, but they can take heart that recent studies show the public overwhelmingly supports crackdowns on these products and that instead of being accused of being a Nanny State, they are more likely to be considered a Negligent State by failing to act."

I'm losing my touch, they didn't publish the last one where I criticised them for getting trustworthiness and trust mixed up in their leader! Fingers crossed for this one.