Free School Meals - What price on bad PR?

[SueEllen]

I have to admit that I am disappointed by the contents of this thread.

I feel that it reflects poorly on many of our contributors.

Well now you know why the MPs who voted against the bill have the views they have.

[AtW]

The children they are refusing to feed are the future taxpayers who will be paying their pensions and/or doing other services for them including personal care.

They don’t plan that far - it would be other Govts problem

[ladymuck]

Remember this cost isn't unexpected - you can see when school holidays are.

My point wasn't that it is a budget failure, it's just that people don't (and often can't) budget.

I was thinking from from the view that many people weren't expecting the additional weeks off school and that would have thrown out an already delicate balance when money is tight. That in itself can create a spiral of debt that is hard to get out of if you don't have help.

[vetran]

My mum works in school meals for a local authority and we have all as a family at some point helped out in the service at differing bits.In certain areas across the authority there are children whose only hot meal duringthe week is at school. When schools closed unexpectedly and people were losing jobs, this was difficult for some. Obviously.

As SueEllen says above, this is not a black and white/issue at all and is NOT always about unintelligent parents who decide to buyfags rather than some broccoli for their kids. I can’t work out whether some of these comments are tongue in cheek or not – I have read some crap on this board over the years but some of the stuff in this thread has really rankled.

Yep some of it is trolling but watch some poverty porn! Plenty of troubled individuals do make these decisions. I know a few.

however it is obvious just throwing money at it isn't the answer.

End of Year Stats - The Trussell Trust
Interesting that the number of food parcels went up by ~150,000 (2017 - 2018)~250,000 (2018-2019) and 300,000 during 2019-2020. The demand seems to be accelerating nicely before the pandemic.

I agree down south the problem is housing cost but then we increased our population without increasing our housing stock no government has bothered to build enough.

We need to
1. separate housing cost from benefits.
2. Reduce housing costs by building some homes and moving people out of expensive areas.
3. Train people how to live on a smaller take home from benefits.
4. Take the kids off the fuqwits.

there are plenty of working people with kids living in one bedroom flats on low wages.

[ladymuck]

Take the kids away? How do you decide who is a worthy parent? What if the mother gets pregnant again, are you going to force her to have a termination and be sterilised? Will you give unworthy males the snip so they can't go around spreading their inferior seed?

Do you think kids growing up in the care system have a better time of it than those who have at least one parent with them?

[vetran]

Take the kids away? How do you decide who is a worthy parent? What if the mother gets pregnant again, are you going to force her to have a termination and be sterilised? Will you give unworthy males the snip so they can't go around spreading their inferior seed?

Do you think kids growing up in the care system have a better time of it than those who have at least one parent with them?

You wanted to fix it, that is the last option. One would rather expect to work through the others.

How you do it is up to you but some kids need to escape their fuqwit parents.

[eek]

there are plenty of working people with kids living in one bedroom flats on low wages.

And that's acceptable? As you seem to think it is.

[vetran]

And that's acceptable? As you seem to think it is.

I gave no indication of my feelings, I don't think its acceptable but if they are just about managing on low wages working full time then it proves it can be done, those with no other responsibilities on benefits can spend time on saving money.

[d000hg]

Take the kids away? How do you decide who is a worthy parent? What if the mother gets pregnant again, are you going to force her to have a termination and be sterilised? Will you give unworthy males the snip so they can't go around spreading their inferior seed?

Do you think kids growing up in the care system have a better time of it than those who have at least one parent with them?

Apart from all the thorny moral issues, taking kids away and looking after them is VERY costly. If you think a few sandwiches is money badly spent...
I know people who have adopted older children but this is VERY rare, and VERY hard work.

[vwdan]

Apart from all the thorny moral issues, taking kids away and looking after them is VERY costly. If you think a few sandwiches is money badly spent...
I know people who have adopted older children but this is VERY rare, and VERY hard work.

Some close friends of ours have adopted a child - preschool age, but not a baby. It's been a several-year long process for them and I have no idea how they've stuck with it. And then the emotional complications that come from taking a child like that from their mother, placing them in foster care and then placing them into adoption is just absolutely huge. It's absolutely heartbreaking.

Removing children is, and should be an absolute last resort