Pots, kettles. Oh the irony. Hypocrite Of The Week. Die you bastards. Et cetera. Continued page 94.

From the BBC:

Government funding of the Change4Life public health campaign is to be withdrawn with the hope the private sector will step in, ministers say...

But Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said he was "horror-struck" about the thought of getting industry involved in funding Change4Life. He said it was "nothing other than a bare-faced request to bail out a cash-starved Department of Health campaign... The quid pro quo is that the department gives industry an assurance that there will be no regulation or legislation over its activities."

The first paragraph is a hint that under the Lib-Cons fakeprivatecompanies and industry-lobby-groups-masquerading-as-charities ('ILGMACs') will take the place of the much loved fakecharities in setting the agenda (i.e. dictating 'regulation and legislation') and/or directing how taxpayers' money is to be spent.

As background, let me give you a good example of an ILGMAC. We'd expect their website to say something like this...

... established in May 2000 to raise awareness of the growing impact of obesity and being overweight on our patients and our National Health Service. Membership is open to all healthcare professionals and is free. We believe that the increasing numbers of obese individuals and the impact this has on peoples' health- particularly type two diabetes, heart disease and reduced life expectancy - demands that healthcare professionals prioritise the way in which weight management is delivered.

The website of this ILGMAC tells us their charity number, so let's look 'em up at the Charities Commission and have a peek at their 2008 accounts - oh look, their two largest donors are GlaxoSmithKline and WeightWatchers.

UPDATE: VGIF has written something similar and he draws our attention to their list of sponsors.