Two seemingly unrelated items about England made news recently. London has reported a higher murder rate than New York so far this year. These murders are described as drug and gang related. In the same week that was reported, England passed a bill that put a tax on sugar in sodas.
These might seem like unrelated items, after all. The city of London is a different municipality and sugar is a public health matter, different than violent crime. The Roman Emperor Nero famously fiddled as the city of Rome burned. These actions by English officials perfectly displays the misplaced priorities of politicians that seem really brave when they are fighting salt, soda, and happy meals, but seem MIA when faced with genocidal dictators seeking nuclear weapons, or even the threat of terrorism and violence within their own cities. In short, the officials of London are fiddling with soda taxes and tired rhetoric while their city deteriorates from murder and terrorism.
Without even covering existential threats like a nuclear armed Iran and aggressive Russia, the city of London has faced five terrorist attacks just in the past year and that is before getting to the infamous new murder record set by London. English officials refused to investigate a massive child sex abuse racket of over 1,400 young girls by Pakistani men over fear of being called racist, and in August of last year a British paper reported that the head of Scotland Yard said that “police officers are reluctant to use stop-and-search powers that could tackle burgeoning knife crime, because they are afraid of being accused of racism.”
“This is true and it’s in the UK. 130,000 knife attacks last year. London has a higher murder rate than New York City and guns are outlawed.” (Credit: Facebook/The Conservative Minuteman)
And yet despite the massive risk to their safety in the form of terrorist strikes, knife attacks, and sexual exploitation of young girls, instead of a comprehensive plan to lower crime and protect their citizens, politicians would rather pass laws about sugar. Now of course, it is possible for politicians to walk and chew gum, meaning they can address crime and public health in the same legislative session.
But in relation to crime so far, politicians have offered tired and ineffectual rhetoric about knife control and the biased media is using statistical magic and equivocation to explain away the disturbing new murder rate. Government documents reveal that chronic under-funding of police likely contributed as well (though the article buries that fact under a favorite useless government pastime: throwing money at the issue without addressing the efficacy of those measures or root causes). In short, they don’t seem very interested in changing their systematic inability to counter these threats.
But, politicians are extremely active and successful in passing nanny state bills like taxing sugar (and this doesn’t even get into the fact that soda taxes in America have failed miserably, as will the British version). This clearly shows the misplaced priorities of legislatures in Britain, and their ideological allies in the U.S. Politicians like to seem engaged, and it’s much harder to aggressively pursue criminals and terrorists amid fear that it will result in charges of racism. In contrast, “soda tax” laws are sold to the public as a way to raise money for worthwhile sources and promote public health.
“Sugar intake from soft drinks has been falling for years. Yet anti-sugar campaigners still want a sugar tax. Imbeciles.” (Credit: Facebook/People Against Sugar Tax)
The end result is that Londoners are killed and English children raped while the government can claim they are protecting people. Politicians that favor these policies might think its absurd and ridiculous to claim that they don’t care about murders or sexual abuse, but the people of London should find the behavior of their political class in the face of more serious problems than soda absurd and insulting.
