George Osborne may have left 1 Horse Guards Road for the glamourous US speech circuit and an odd guest appearance on the Today Programme, but his poor policies seem to keep popping up. Readers of this blog may well remember the infamous pasty tax which caused quite a stir among Osborne and his cronies who were forced to U-turn and spend the following months pecking on pasties.

Not satisfied with one misguided food tax, Osborne took a swipe at the soft drinks industry by introducing a sugar tax in the last budget. Unfortunately for him it appears he didn’t seem to get his numbers right. A recent report has shown that the tax will only lead to a cut of five calories per person per day – the same amount as a bite of apple. Not quite the amount required to address Britain’s looming obesity crisis.

With the same report also showing that there will be over 4,000 job losses across the UK, one has to wonder why this ineffective and harmful tax has not already been scrapped. When will the Treasury accept the tax won’t work?

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