welcome back to farage with me. martin daubney standing in for the big man, nigel farage. now the big man, nigel farage. now the health secretary, wes streeting, has admitted that fat people are holding back the economy . overweights jobless economy. overweights jobless brits could be forgiven, could be given. beg your pardon.7 free weight loss medicines to help them get back to work now. obesity illness cost the nhs an astounding £11 billion every single year, but the government hopes the injections will reduce costs and boost the economy. well, i'm about to be joined by doctor bhasha mukherjee and i'm still with my panel and that's the head of the former head of comms at reform uk, gordon taylor, and the journalist and the former press secretary to paddy ashdown, joe phillips. i'll start with my panel. joe,

i'll start with my panel. joe, i'll start with you. there are many, many people saying why on earth should overweight people be rewarded with freebies to get them back into work? free jabs that cost £250. if you want to get them yourself. surely the answer is stop feeding them jabs and just stop feeding them benefits. >> there are lots and lots of people who are obese for a variety of reasons, and we know it is costing the country an absolute fortune, not just in terms of , you know, back and terms of, you know, back and neck and leg pain and immobility. it's also diabetes and heart disease and a whole range of issues that may prevent somebody from working or living their life to the full, whether that's exercising or doing stuff with their kids or whatever it is. i've got doubts about a drug because, you know, there is no quick fix. and although it might help you , it's not going to help help you, it's not going to help you if you carry on eating rubbish. and there are real, real issues about food poverty

in this country. and i don't necessarily mean about people not being able to afford food. it's about access to fresh fruit and vegetables, access to good quality food. >> that's not the case here. this is this is too much access to food. let me bring in doctor bhasha mukherjee at this point, if i could, you work on the front line. you're you're you're a gp, right? is this the answer? it seems to me like we're throwing money at people who simply make bad lifestyle choices. >> this is absolutely not the answer , in my opinion. we know answer, in my opinion. we know that ozempic and some of these weight loss drugs, they have their own problems. you know, you're introducing essentially side effects into the mix of an already whole range of health problems that some of these people have, but more so we have to think about the fact that this current proposed idea is only for five years. it's a five year trial . they're not, you year trial. they're not, you know, thinking about the long term effects of this drug and also the fact that once you take

these drugs off, if they have not got the right health, education, the right financial education, the right financial education to sustain this lifestyle, they're going to go back to square one. >> does the nhs have a problem with mollycoddling the obese? and i'll tell you why i say that. when it comes down to smoking, they just ban smoking outdoors. they tax you to high heaven. if it's boozing they they whack up beer duty, whatever you're you get much more of the stick, much less of the carrot. when it comes to obesity. oh they're too they're too afraid to offend fat people. and so they're basically bribing them to do what they should be doing by order. >> yes. and what you've got to understand is that it's not just the case of bribing them, you know, it's also setting the wrong precedent, telling them that actually the only option that's left for you is drugs , that's left for you is drugs, medication and not trying to look at what's causing this obesity epidemic. that's happening. and to say that, you know, we have to do this. we

have to put this much amount of money in because this is how much money is spent on obesity and the fact that loads of people with obesity don't work. i don't believe that i have family members who are obese who work there are people who are very, very they've got lots of health conditions who work. i think it's an attitude problem, if anything. >> well , i if anything. >> well, i wholeheartedly agree. >> well, i wholeheartedly agree. >> i the idea that these how many thousand people are going to be doing it for three years and 50% employed, 50% unemployed, i suspect at the end of the five years, they'll be much slimmer and they'll still be unemployed because actually it is not to do with how fat they are. it's not to do with that. it's to do, as you say, with attitude . and frankly, with attitude. and frankly, i think it's they're they're chasing the wrong thing. i, i am concerned , as you mentioned, concerned, as you mentioned, that and that this is a, a drug to deal with. what is not a medical problem in that sense . medical problem in that sense. and we don't know what the long term effects are. i am terrified the amount of times we've had a miracle cure for something and

ain't no miracle. and down the line i, i'm, i believe there's already the moving towards a class action case in america about ozempic. and to have the government basically providing a medium term test for the drugs companies seems to be a crazy way about doing it. >> doctor mukherjee i was fascinated by that point you just made there. you're implying, i think a lot of people would agree with common sense that it's not a state of body, it's a state of mind. and if we medicalize if we make obesity a medical condition that needs to be treated rather than actually just a state of mind that needs to be broken out of, then we're in effect , that needs to be broken out of, then we're in effect, endorsing then we're in effect, endorsing the continued dependency of obese people on benefits we don't actually move forward. we're not saying, yes, this is a medical condition. here's your medicine. and therefore it's not your fault. it's the disease. and i think that's a problem. it should be about lifestyle choices and making better ones. but how do we encourage people to do that? if we're scared of

saying boo to a goose when it comes to obesity, it's difficult because at the moment we've got a ozempic wegovy shortage . a ozempic wegovy shortage. >> and that's exactly what we're having to do with a lot of the patients that come in to see me at the gp, i have to tell them i'm sorry. i don't think it's a goodidea i'm sorry. i don't think it's a good idea for you to pay £60 per injection or pay this much money when you haven't got the funds. if you if you. let's have a chat. let's have a chat about what you can do about your current lifestyle. let's talk about diet. unfortunately, ten minute appointments are just not good enough to do that, to address this. so i my personal viewpoint would be i would love to have longer with my patients, to have longer with my patients, to have longer with my patients, to have those conversations, to get to know what's really driving their food addiction, what's really driving. do you think they'd listen? you'd be surprised. you'd be surprised. a lot of people, i mean, i you know, obesity, you know, as much as it is a state of mind, it is as it is a state of mind, it is a multi—morbidity condition. people with obesity, they struggle with mobility. they struggle with mobility. they struggle with mobility. they struggle with joint pains. they

struggle with joint pains. they struggle with joint pains. they struggle with sleep. so many different problems. you know, they they struggle with unable to breathe during the night time. they snore. so they end up having really poor sleep. so we know that there's a multifactorial problem here. and absolutely, when a doctor does give them the time, there are loads of people who are willing to take that and take that on board, but we have to have the time to do that. >> why should the state pay for that? why should taxpayers like you or i who aren't obese? you know, have to fork out all these endless there'd be millions and millions of pounds, martin. >> because because we're paying for it anyway. we're paying for diabetes. we're paying for. i mean, i just wanted to ask doctor mukherjee . the thing that doctor mukherjee. the thing that i find most upsetting is when you see overweight children , you see overweight children, little children, and you see them, you know, with mums and dads and grannies and what have you in the supermarket, and you see a trolley full of absolute rubbish and you want to scream at them and say, please, can't you see what's happening? and

there is this, i think, you know, you can't criticise anybody. >> we've created a society where anyidea >> we've created a society where any idea of shame is forbidden . any idea of shame is forbidden. you were talking about. we are basically saying to these people, it's not your fault. well, actually, no , i know that well, actually, no, i know that there are some conditions that there are some conditi