David Clark, our esteemed Health Minister, and a Minister I hold in some regard given he's promised through his health review to do something about the madness that is the DHB debacle and if he keeps his word, he'll go down in political history as a bloke who did us all a favour.

Anyway David Clark, shows genuine signs of common sense on an ongoing basis.

Britain bans sweets from checkouts at supermarkets and is also acting on sports drinks.

They’ve previously just introduced a sugar tax on soda, and every time they make these announcements the local lobbyists here pounce and demand similar action.

Now you might be under the impression this is an interventionist government, and evidence would suggest you're not wrong.

So what a refreshing response to hear Clark say he would need to see some evidence before we go down the same track.

That’s the sort of thing I have been saying.

So bugger me if I am not aligned with a Labour Party Minister.

All ideas are good ideas, if they’ve got some fact behind them.

But what I have also been saying is those ideas won't work. And given they won't work, let's flag the incessant politicking about them.

And Britain, bless their hearts may have come to our rescue.

Now, given they’ve launched their full on assault on sugar and obesity.

We can now sit back and watch one of two things unfold.

One, sales plummet as people are forced out of bad habits and as a result an entire generation of young Brits regain their health, fitness and life longevity.

Or two, they don’t.

My guess is two, they're happy to be wrong.

But the measures we are talking about are the measures dreamed up by the lobbyists when things like common sense and education don’t work.

The only thing to be wary of here is when it doesn’t work, instead of accepting it, the lobbyists will then try to argue the tax wasn’t high enough.

Or that the sweets may have been out of the aisle, but they were still in line of sight.

Or the sports drink ban wasn’t old enough.

They will always dream up an excuse because the simple reality is.

There is very little you can do to convince some people that what they like to do and enjoy doing they shouldn't do, given its bad for them.

Further it also fails to tackle the broad unfairness that if sugar is your issue, tackle all sugar not just sugar in drinks and sweets.

Sugar is all around us, and if sugar is the real culprit of obesity, then it’s the sugar all around us that needs the tackling not a few token operators.

So as David says, sit back Britain is doing the work for us.

And if it's successful, and only if, then lets have the debate.