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Furious Jamie Oliver says Theresa May 'doesn't give a f*ck' about child obesity

Emilio Casalicchio

2 min read

TV chef Jamie Oliver has launched a scathing attack on Theresa May over child obesity, claiming the Prime Minister does not “give a f*ck” about the issue.


The star and healthy eating campaigner said the Prime Minister watered down an obesity strategy he worked on with the Government while David Cameron was in power.

Campaigners were left disappointed when the plan published last August stopped short of a hoped-for crackdown on junk food deals and advertising.

An angry Mr Oliver told the Sunday Times magazine the strategy was slipped out at the same time as that year’s A-level results with no marketing or PR strategy.

“In code, that means, ‘We don’t give a f***’. It was unbelievable. Blatant,” he fumed.

“It could have been a moment of national pride and at least she would have been able to look everyone in the eye and say we are going to get some change in the obesity graph in 10 years.”

But he said Mrs May “completely tore it up” instead, adding: “What she did was awful, how she did it was awful.”

“When I saw Mr Cameron running those sessions, he had legit people debating the right thing," he said.

"It wasn’t all about, ‘Oh, let’s all pat each other on the back.’ But what’s even more scary is that when May released the child strategy that she had ruined, I believe her team were genuinely chuffed with what they had done!”

Mr Oliver also complained about the Tory manifesto pledge to swap universal free school lunches with free breakfasts.

He said it was “like something a 10-year-old would do in basic maths to save cash”.

The plan to means test free school lunches was dropped after Mrs May lost her Commons majority at the general election in June.

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