Christopher Snowdon: Britain is amongst the EU’s most meddlesome nanny states

Only ten years ago we’d have been mid-table, but since 2007 single-issue campaigners have struck a string of blows against lifestyle freedom.

Iain Dale: Why Ken Clarke’s memoirs aren’t worth what Macmillan will pay for them

Plus: Contrite Soubry. Ashcroft’s Party. The Chancellor’s forecasts and the OBR’s admission. P.S: Re those Clarke memoirs, I admit that I can’t wait to read them.

James Sproule: Osborne has posed problems for business recently. But this Budget was, on balance, good news.

Especially so for smaller firms and entrepreneurs.

Dia Chakravarty: This sugar tax will taste sour to poorer people

And evidence from abroad suggests that it will fail in its declared aim of reducing obesity.

Harry Fairhead: Britain does not need a sugar tax

Steve Double called for one on this site yesterday, but available evidence suggests it would be deeply regressive and would not work.

Steve Double: Britain needs a tax on sugary drinks

As a supporter of low taxes, I was less than enthusiastic about such proposals – but I’m now convinced that something must be done.

Rob Lyons: Public health puritanism cuts across party lines

There are liberal-minded left-wingers on the right side of the fight for freedom, and patrician Tories on the wrong.

Alex Stafford: What we can learn Colombia from about tackling a white powder problem

A model from abroad about how to deal with sugar problems without taxing it.

Parliament should make more use of sunset clauses

The Health Select Committee wants to automatically scrap its proposed sugar tax if it doesn’t work. This should be normal legislative practice, but it needs an attitude change.

Hugh Byrne and Lucy Mowatt: The case against a tax on sugar

The Conservative priority must instead be to ensure health policy is guided by experts in the field of nutrition, not enthusiastic amateurs spouting sound bites instead of science.

Why Hunt might be wary of his sugar tax report

The Government has a sound case against such a regressive measure, but its accommodation of the public health lobby has left it without space to make it properly.

Public health vs private life: It was never going to end with smoking

There is nothing uniquely evil about tobacco: the precedents set in the crusade against it will be used in time against all our vices.

Should Red Ed have gone for a sugar tax instead?

The NHS is threatened by obesity, not mansions.