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Genuine Question

Before you all start shouting at me.  Vis a vis the whole school meals things what makes this half term particularly different to all the half terms that have gone before in recessions?  Just interested why this is suddenly an issue when it's really not a new issue and something that has existed for decades.

I've also not been keeping up to speed on this, apologies, but could someone confirm:

How will the meals be distributed?

Will the schools open so the kids can go in?

Or will it be meals on wheels?

Father Ted to Father Dougal: “NOW we have starving children” (points to belly and makes sad face)

”in the FUTURE we want to have NO starving children” (pats belly and makes happy face)

Father Dougal: “No Ted, I still don’t get it”

round my estate they usually serve "free school meals" all the holidays at local rec centres and church halls on different days to make up the shortfall,

This year, the donations have all but dried up, making the spaces covid safe is a ball ache, and there are more kids than usual in need

 

But also what wang said about raising it as a national issue rather than it being dealt with by local charities each holiday.

I get that kids should be fed.  I'm just intrigued why this is suddenly such a huge news story when it's something that's been going on for years.

I had assumed that it was along the lines of the pandemic meaning more unemployed people so it's a bigger issue but that would also have applied in 2009.

Imagine if you will a situation where the only proper, reliable meal that many children get is at school.

Then factor in that unemployment has skyrocketed, many are furloughed on <100% of pay and the number of children that are in this position has increased massively.

This is such a no brainer that I question the motives of anyone railing against it. It isn't the kids fault they are hungry even if you take the view that their parents should sell a kidney rather than get a handout.

Rashford is pointing at this problem, that is all.

I also have a vague notion about something or other but can’t be arsed to read the papers to find out what it’s all about. But I talk my bollocks at the golf club rather than rof

Because government these days is essentially a response to whatever is trending on Twitter. Rashford is high profile, gains a lot of social media interest and hey presto it goes to top of the issues list.

I actually give Boris a bit of credit for standing his ground on this in the first instance and not rushing into a knee jerk response although I expect that to last about a week.

PS Yes I know, I obviously hate children and poor people.

Before you all start shouting at me.  Vis a vis the whole slavery thing what makes this half term particularly different to all the half terms that have gone before in recessions?  Just interested why this is suddenly an issue when it's really not a new issue and something that has existed for decades.

Banana that's a rubbish analogy.  Slavery in a similar manner became a topical issue as attitudes changed but that happened over a period of time.  The change in attitude here has happened in a matter of days so what's the catalyst?

It isn’t “suddenly” an issue, it’s a culmination of a couple of years’ campaigning by Marcus Rashford, who himself went hungry and missed meals when he was at school due to living in poverty. 
 

Are you suggesting that because something has always been a problem, there’s no point trying to fix it? 

But LP it is a genuine question trying to understand what's the catalyst for this to go from being an issue that's bubbling under the surface to suddenly being political priority number one in the absence of any particularly distinguishing criteria other than some bloke who's popular on twitter raising awareness.

Nope Zero as above I'm just intrigued as to how you get a known issue to go from something that's been known about for a while to political priority number one in the midst of a total shitstorm.

But LP it is a genuine question trying to understand what's the catalyst for this to go from being an issue that's bubbling under the surface to suddenly being political priority number one in the absence of any particularly distinguishing criteria other than some bloke who's popular on twitter raising awareness.

Perhaps Covid is highlighting the difference between the haves and the have nots more than usual. 

But your "genuine question" comes across as a guy whose school dinner provision at Winchester was more than adequate so he doesn't get what the problem is.

 I'm just intrigued as to how you get a known issue to go from something that's been known about for a while to political priority number one in the midst of a total shitstorm.
 

youre right of course Sailo, it will take at least a couple of weeks for them to display signs of malnourishment, months before they develop irreparable damage to their joints and organs (rickets, anyone?) and maybe years before their cognitive impairment is fully crystallised. So why the rush to help them? We have other fish to fry (BP’s share price anyone?). 

if you were at boarding school in the late 80s, the food was genuinely diabolical. I know that`s not the point, but frequently it was inedible muck.

It was not fine dining and yes i am aware it was still food

it is viewed as taking away benefits.  Once you let a cat out of the bag, hard to put back in.  There will be lots of long term consequences to what was intended to be short term policy.   Once you have done it is hard to say why wouldn't you ensure food for kids in holidays as well as at school?  I also predict that they will never manage to deduct the extra £20 a week off universal credit either.

So Hotnow can you provide a list ranking how that compares to people being homeless, having life saving surgery postponed, etc?  They're all pressing issues that result in decreased quality of life and potentially death but the other two have been dumped down the list of priorities this week because nobody famous has tweeted about them.

But why wouldnt you do exactly that Guy, one school per x mile radius could open and feed kids at lunchtime? I would also have a lesson before on how to cook food, just 10 mins a day or wotevs. break the cycle

I would gladly have given away every portion of hard boiled eggs in curried sauce I was ever served but wouldn't wish those on anyone.

I'm sure plenty of hungry children would gladly eat them.

if you were at boarding school in the late 80s, the food was genuinely diabolical. I know that`s not the point, but frequently it was inedible muck.

As above. Nothing is inedible if you don't have enough to eat.

Sailo, Lady P has it, you do, whether intentionally or not, as a whole come across on here like someone whose own personal circumstances are pretty fortunate, and that you don’t get the fuss that other people less fortunate (say, those without a public school education, a hobby sailing £m of fibreglass around the place, an untaxing but fairly well paid job and parents with land to gift) are making

I get the fuss they're making it's just what I don't get is how other people prioritise those fusses and how those priorities change from basically day to day let alone week to week.  It's clearly an issue that needs to be dealt with but I don't think there's an instant fix and that in the current situation there are possibly more pressing issues to deal with.  Feel free to explain why you think this is so pressing as that's the purpose of this thread and I'm happy to be educated on your thinking as to respective government priorities.

P.S. The bit of fibreglass I sail cost a lot less than that and closer to the kind of salary that Biggie disparages on a regular basis.

"But why wouldnt you do exactly that Guy, one school per x mile radius could open and feed kids at lunchtime? I would also have a lesson before on how to cook food, just 10 mins a day or wotevs. break the cycle"

Yeah, not a bad plan, hard to organise on - 2 days notice though.

The reason it’s an issue now is that Rashy has made it an issue, it’s gained traction, it was one of Boris’s many u turns in the summer, and now the Labour Party has got hold of it, as have the papers. That’s why it’s an issue ultimately, it’s a question of optics.

I get your point that that shouldn’t make the difference between that and other equally pressing issues, but it does, and just because it’s that that has sent it to the top of the chart, doesn’t make the issue itself intrinsically less worthy.

Indeed and no doubt this time next week we'll be arguing about some other priority.

However, I'll still be muttering about the useless Rof tendency whereby you ask a question hoping to be enlightened but instead get shouted out because apparently the answer is so blindingly obvious.

No LP you've missed the point.  I know it's an important issue but I want to know why it's the number one pressing issue and more pressing than other pressing issues of which there are currently many.  Basically explain to me your way or ranking how one issue is more important than another as others have now done.

I know it's an important issue but I want to know why it's the number one pressing issue and more pressing than other pressing issues of which there are currently many.

Name some of them.

I'm not sure it is bad faith PR.  It might be if the Conservatives had been in power for a short period of time.  But they've been in power for 10 years during which time they've stealthily done lots for rich people like increasing the ISA allowance to £20k (!) and pumping up the property market, while quietly cancelling things for poor people, particularly poor young people, like SureStart.

Fair enough LP how about the state of the NHS drugs stockpile which is now short of common painkillers and anaesthetics which threatens to compound the current situation with waiting lists and which is likely to result in avoidable deaths? 

Ditto the situation around the number of available doses of the drugs which have been hailed as wonder treatments for Covid. 

What about the end of the furlough scheme and the impact that will have on potentially both homelessness and also further child hunger?

How do wet get places in tier three out of tier three again to limit the damage to businesses and jobs?  What are the criteria and what happens to the financial support pledged to those places if they're shut down for long than anticipated?  Do they get more or is it a finite amount no matter how long they're shut down?

What's going to happen to all the people round me who work in agriculture and are just about making ends meet when Brexit kicks in?  Their employers who are also struggling to stay above water still don't know what they'll be getting from the government and have to make decisions now about whether or not to keep people on.

Sitting here listening to the rain what is the situation if a tier three area is flooded?  Can those people move out of the area risking spreading more covid or can they move to a neighbouring area that then gets put into tier three?

 

While we're at it something that ties into most of those issues is how we stop Hastings consistently turning up in lists of the most deprived places in the country given that as the crow flies it's 70 miles from the centre London and firmly within the prosperous south east.

Sails, Hastings is a total dump. There are more special brew pissheads in the town centre than any other town in the UK, per capita. This is a known fact. I once had to wade through about 40 of them just to buy a torch in millets.

To be fair LP I think there are all to some extent equally pressing and I'd be hard pressed to choose between any of them hence asking others how they prioritise such things.  Now do you want to answer the question or not?  Tell me how you'd put all of those things in order of importance or is it just more fun being unhelpful?

Sails lad, those things you posted are already high priorities for the UK government.

Do you think the guy that resupplies the NHS has been retasked with cutting the crusts off cheese sandwiches?

Do you think Rishi and his team have given up on handing out $$$ to Tory friendly businesses because he needs him to print out some meal vouchers?

All of the problems you listed have scores of people working on them already and tons of funding.

All Rashford is asking for is that, on top of the things that are already happening, we also make sure children are not hungry at half term. Which is a flourish of a pen away from problem solved.

To be fair LP I think there are all to some extent equally pressing and I'd be hard pressed to choose between any of them hence asking others how they prioritise such things.

So you think that the question of what the rules should be if a Tier 3 area is flooded - when no Tier 3 area is currently expecting imminent flooding and the rules change every five minutes anyway - is more pressing than children who are hungry right now?

Given that you aren't in this country you may not have been watching the forecast but part of my local area is (admittedly tier one) is already under water and there's plenty more rain due and a flood warning already in place for part of the Midlands.  I for someone watching the water level rising in their local river that may be a more pressing issue than whether a child somewhere hasn't had lunch today.

However, as I've asked several times feel free to explain your reasoning to me as that is after all the point of this thread that you seem determined to ignore.  Some posters at this point would call you thick for repeatedly missing the point but that's not the way I work.

Do you not see the ridiculousness of telling me I don't understand and then refusing to explain when I ask you to help me understand? Do you actually gain anything from that as it just seems utterly pointless to me but hey I don't understand.

No Royalty you have indeed explained your point of view and I am grateful for that.  I would just like some others who have been less helpful to do the same which is not unreasonable.

The tory MPs who voted against free school meal provision this half term, which would cost relatively trivial sums of money in the context of the govt spaffing billions on their mates without due tendering process and on private sector companies with track records of failure, make Margaret Thatcher Milk Snatcher look like Mary Poppins. 

 

It's not a point of view that people are already working on buying supplies for the NHS and the economic impact of end of furlough. 

Fair enough though. Crip away.

People are working on that but that doesn’t mean that is necessarily more or less pressing.  It could be a valid view that you think that resources being dedicated to that could be better used elsewhere.

Also your flourish of a pen is just a temporary solution for this week.  It doesn’t solve the problem for the future and shouldn’t we be working out how we solve the problem long term rather than for a week?

The kids are hungry now, hence the rush. The legislation to fix this long term could be in front of parliament before the Christmas hols. 

This doesn't need to be more pressing than tier 3 flooding mitigation to get attention now. Even though it is.

Also, Hastings is still a huge dump. Many pissheads.

Much as the Marxist tendency on here will hate me pointing out, but most child poverty now is as a result of people having more children than they know they can financially support. 
 

But it’s never their own fault, always the fault of government in not providing enough hand-outs.
 

People have completely lost any notion of individual responsibility these days.

 

Also your flourish of a pen is just a temporary solution for this week.  It doesn’t solve the problem for the future and shouldn’t we be working out how we solve the problem long term rather than for a week?

Remind us who you vote for, Saillaw?

Even if your callous opinions were accepted fact, should the kids go hungry because of their parents actions? 

What is your solution here? Let a few kids starve to teach the plebs not to make too many? 

I vote for the Conservative party LP on the basis that I think generally they will do the best job of allocating available resources but doesn’t mean I agree with everything they do or how they do it.  It would be nice if there was a time party that got everything right all of the time but that doesn’t exist.

they are in an impossible situation now - they concede and they will be criticised for not doing it in the first place, they don't and they are mean. This is just politics - this was not on the labour party agenda for those in need - its just opportunism.

The fact that a footballer can get an MBE for half an hours work on twitter is beyond me - some people dedicated their lives for charity and public service - this chap has backed a campaign and seems to be some fort of hero. He isnt. See also Major Tom. a victory for PR and press manipulation - good chap yes, and of course warrior / veteran - but basically the "inspiration" is the PR person that managed to get the daily mail and the mainstream media on board the bandwagon. 

I vote for the Conservative party LP

Right, well if you know anything about the party you vote for then that should explain to you why the government is not interested in this problem, either for the next week or in the long term.

on the basis that I think generally they will do the best job of allocating available resources 

Yes, I think most people who vote Tory have strong views about where resources should be allocated. Hungry children don't generally feature highly on the list of priorities. 

they will do the best job of allocating available resources

Yes totally agree. Who else would have spent

*Checks notes*

£230m for PPE that hasn't been checked let alone used from

*Checks notes again*

Well known PPE suppliers Plymouth Brethren

Can anyone point to the years between 1997-2010 when the Government of the day even talked about this, let alone brought legislation in for it?

And you would think that Mr Rashford’s weekly wage would be enough to pay for most hungry Mancunian kids to have a free meal each day.

Can anyone point to the years between 1997-2010 when the Government of the day even talked about this, let alone brought legislation in for it?

If someone did would it change your mind about the issue? 

fact that a footballer can get an MBE for half an hours work on twitter is beyond me 
 

Obama got a Nobel peace prize for drone striking wedding parties for cheap oil, so not a very high bar for gongs it seems

Most Local Authorities will make provision for children whose parents are on benefits to attend a local centre and be given conventional food, to eat.  Other Local Authorities normally administer the Free School Meal provisions by sending out supermarket vouchers that can be redeemed at supermarkets.  I've heard the Govt became weary of some parents opting for the supermarket voucher scheme, then redeeming the supermarket vouchers for fags and booze.  So parts of the current system was open to abuse. 

 I've heard the Govt became weary of some parents opting for the supermarket voucher scheme, then redeeming the supermarket vouchers for fags and booze. 

I've heard that some businesses furloughed their minimum wage workers on 80% pay but demanded they keep working while taking the cash from the public purse. The kids are still hungry. So let's sort that eh?

To adopt your approach there’s an agency already dealing with that but you might be of the view it should be more of a priority with more resources devoted to it.

I predict they’ll recover virtually nothing from the out and out criminal fraudsters and instead recover cash from people who didn’t set out to defraud the system and were just trying to keep the show on the road.  Probably kill a few businesses off that might otherwise have survived and carried on employing people.

My take away from this is that sails has just discovered his posh new house is on a flood plain and wants something done about it, rather than worrying about hungry ne'er do wells. 
Side note this is especially funny given he is a conveyancer 

Linda I hate to disappoint you but I'm about 300 feet above sea level on the end of a ridge so everything is downhill from here.  However, local village which is notorious for flooding is starting to disappear under water.

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