How did we get to this?

Thanks Eloethan, I do wish you were in Parliament.

Your post would fit well on the And Another Thing thread where some posters seem to support the cuts and show total disregard for the destructive impact they are having.

Couldn't agree with you more Eloethan

It seems to me that the only cuts that are being made are those that affect ordinary people and, in particular, poorer people. The so-called cost cutting measures have included:

Re-organisation of the NHS - costing an estimated £3 billion (and this doesn't include the additional, ongoing costs that have arisen from this re-organisation - e.g. £2.5 billion for agency nurses);

The cuts In Legal Aid which have in fact cost more money because people are turning up at Court with no legal representation and there are now frequent adjournments (but solicitors and barristers still have to be paid for their attendances);

The handover of Court interpreting services to ALS (now owned by Capita) about which the Justice Select Committee commented that the interpreters "appear to be costing more money and yet have reduced service delivery to an unacceptably low level". Translation were reported to have gone from £7.9 million in 2012 to £15.5 million the following year.

Revenue & Customs have missed target for prosecution of tax evaders. The estimated annual loss is £35 billion.

A fall in income tax receipts due to the increasing numbers of people in low-paid jobs (and on top of that, the cost of topping up low wages);

The "Big Society Network" which is being investigated by the Charity Commission over allegations that it misused government funding of £2.5 million. It has now been wound up, having used most of the money on projects that failed to deliver.

The estimated £1 billion lost through under-pricing Royal Mail;

An estimated £4 billion per year in subsidies to the rail industry;

£3.7 billion on the Help to Buy scheme which has, as warned, severely inflated house prices and further destabilised the market;

The ever-expanding House of Lords, which now contains almost 800 members (each of whom can turn up, sign in, fall asleep or go home, and be paid £300 (tax free) per day.

And of course the £200 billion's worth of "quantitive easing" by which we paid off the banks' gambling debts - some economists are now warning that the market may require further "quantitive easing".

So, times have been good for those at the top who seem to have no qualms about paying themselves more and more whilst using every trick in the book to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Meanwhile, people on low incomes are accused of buying themselves flat screen TVs instead of feeding their children.

Good posts GillT57 and whitewave.

No child should be malnourished in the UK, whatever the reasons behind that. We're facing swinging cuts on both statutory and voluntary services. We have housing policies that ship vulnerable families from the London Boroughs to the north west and east, because rented accommodation is cheaper. Councils in the poor areas have been hardest hit by the cuts, as has the community they serve.

Rosesarered, I haven't seen any denials here that there are a few feckless individuals in our society. Always have been, always will be sadly. I feel I'm living in a book like Angela's Ashes, or something written by Dickens when I listen to the justifications for hurting the poorest hardest.

We dehumanise people at our peril.

It is all very well saying what parents on a low income should do but this is not speaking from an informed position because how many of us on GN actually know what low income families earn and have to spend on things like rent etc. before even beginning to consider food.

this is all so sad and makes me very angry. Irrespective of the skills or lack of/fecklessness or whatever of the parents ( and I dont think that is the case in the majority) no child should be malnourished in this country. It is all very well being told that cheap cuts of meat are more nutritious and can be cooked slowly with root veg, lentils etc., but if you are worrying about your power running out and only have a poorly stocked overpriced local shop to buy your food in, it ain't going to happen! All children should be taught domestic science, this is not just a female responsibility. I really do fear that if we have a cold winter it is going to be dire for many people, choosing whether to eat or keep warm.

This goverment has to make cuts all round. The next government, possibly a Labour one, will also have to continue making cuts all round.Eventually the economy will come right, it's already getting a little better.The poor will continue to be supported, both those on benefits [though a lot will be told to work if they can, and why not?] and those low paid workers as well. It's never been easy for everyone to live, and there has never been a time when all had plenty, but it seems fair to me.
Low interest rates for years, for those with a mortgage, help with nursery fees, food prices have remained stable too.Very cheap clothing from China[Primark]and lots of charity shops to buy both furniture, goods and clothes.Everyone has to cut their coat according to their cloth.

Nobody could agree that any children should go hungry [especially in the West, where they certainly shouldn't.]But the buck has to stop at the parents door.We grew up very poor indeed, but I had free school dinners and whatever was on offer for tea.I was neither very thin nor overweight, probably just right.I didn't fill up on biscuits, cakes, crisps and pizza [no pizza back then, but we only had the other things as a treat.]I wasn't starving, but I was sometimes on the hungry side.Our Mother put us first [and would be hungry herself at times.] Whatever we had she would spend on the 'table'. No alchohol, nights out or trips to the hairdresser or nail bar, clothes from second hand shops for herself [and us.] We managed, like many others.Poor families now get help, far more than we did back then.If all Mothers put their children first and stopped spending money on items they don't actually need [as opposed to want] they would do better.Then there would be fewer malnourished children around.This may not be a popular view on here, but it's easy to blame the world and not look at parents behaviour. Cigarettes, alchohol, drugs,
nailbars [I mean why?] large tv sets, nights out, clothes, you name it, people have to have it, even when they are on a limited budget.
I think there are more selfish and feckless parents around than people imagine.

Penstemmon Quite a few years go I encountered concern from a school about the welfare and weight of two children who were doing a lot of gymnastics at a very high level.

Probably a pushy sporty mum worried about the children becoming overweight but it did raise some concerns regarding the children's welfare.

As whitewave says, if you think this is bad, what is it going to be like when they've made another £30 billion worth of cuts.

www.childrenssociety.org.uk/news-and-blogs/press-releases/Tens-of-millions-of-pounds-of-emergency-support-for-disadvantaged-families-at-risk

As if they do not have enough problems, the government is trying to stop this fund from next April. How dare they?

Nelliemoser, the actual report does not come out until tomorrow.

I was talking to an acquaintance recently, a nutritionist, who said that there is concern about the ' children of 'museli' parents (her words). These parent are so into 'body perfect' that their children, from very early ages are food wary. This leads to some children being referred due to poor diet: lack of fats and calcium plus lack of energy due to low carb diets!. Developing children need a good balance of carbs /fats/ proteins/minerals etc. Some kids are missing out because of poverty and others through parental ignorance!

Does anyone have a link to the report?

Are they talking about malnutrition or hunger. There is a difference.

Having enough food to eat is one thing, eating enough nutritious food is another.
Adequate money is needed to buy food and benefit cuts have made this difficult, but parents do need an understanding of what a healthy diet is and the skills to be able to cook such meals.

From the many television programs it does appear that a number of people with enough money to eat healthily do not.

As so many others have said I do feel that the sort of cookery lessons I had were so much better than those my daughter had in the early 1990s.

We learnt basic cookery skills from the start and we did not have the cheap ready meals and takeaways that were around when my children were in school.

My DD's food technology program was as bad as others described including designing fruit bars.
Both my children went to Uni well able to cook for themselves though and did so.
Our generation also ate vegetables much more readily than many families do now. It surprises me how many plates you see in Cafes etc, with vegetables or salads left on the plate. There seems to be a fashion for not eating them.

I think the ready to eat meals producers have a lot of responsibility for this situation. Maybe we have a generation hooked on easy ready meals who are no longer prepared to challenge their taste buds.

mice elf good post (16.05).

And I agree with ariadne that no child should go hungry.

eloethan absolutely - somehow this slide to ever increasing numbers of poor has to stop. What so worries me is that this is the thin edge of a very large wedge. £30bn more cuts must mean more hardship, and I so worry about the NHS as well.

I will not buy this idea of deserving and undeserving poor, I had thought that this disappeared a century ago, but clearly not.

A very nasty ideology is creeping into our society and somehow it must be stopped

I won't go down that road either Eleothan

Oh merlot and MiceElf you are going to get me going again !

The government wants us to blame the poor for their situation and I for one won't go down that road. I agree with those that say the main reason there are increasing numbers of malnourished children is that there are increasing numbers of poor people.

No doubt good education can help with giving information as to what constitutes a healthy/unhealthy diet and how to cook cheap nutritious meals, but it won't compensate for the fact that increasing numbers of people just don't have enough money to live on.

You are so right, durhamjen!

The bottom line is that children are hungry. Children should not be hungry. The proiority is to feed children, wherever in the world they are, then attack the underlying causes.

And - while we are talking about the "good old days" - when I went to secondary (grammar) school in 1958, we had "Domestic Science" for one year only, and on that year we had to make the dreaded apron and cap, learned how to make rock cakes, and coffee (actually Nescafé)

We started Latin in the second year, apart from some students who apparently weren't up to that, and they studied German. (I am telling this as it was, not in any way condoning what happened!)

I can cook, but it took a while. My DD, (50) who never had a cookery lesson in her life, is a brilliant cook, as is DGC1 (18). But that proves nothing apart from their particular traits. Anecdotal information like this is interesting, though.

I am, however, involved in Rotary's Young Chef competition, and our local school is outstanding in encouraging and teaching the very successful national contestants in their wonderful Food Technology Dept. Anecdotal again....

I dont think I will ever forget the lady who pushed through takeaway to her DD on the Jamie's school dinners programme.

Not sure what my point is, but I did realise that you can take a horse to water, but you cant make it drink.

I dont mean that the lady is a horse btw.
And she did understand what she was doing by the next series, and was instrumental in helping others understand what Jamie was trying to do there.

Agreed, MiceElf, with your post of 16.05
It's far too easy to blame the parents. If you have little money to buy food, you cannot buy nutritious food. If you cannot pay for the fuel to cook with, there's no point in talking about nutrition.

Rubbish in, rubbish out.

Yes, tiggypiro. The words 'Design and Make' would make me groan.

One of the activities that the kids used to love and I used to hate was nutritional comparison.

They typed the ingredients of, say, an apple crumble into a computer programme and then substituted low fat spread for butter and sweetener granules for sugar. The nutritional analysis for both products then popped up on the screen and guess which one was deemed to be healthier???

Enough to make you weep!

I've just read through this thread and there are many good points made. I certainly sympathise with the nonsense that was Food Tech for which DD got an A*. All she had to do was deconstruct a supermarket 'salad lunch', design her own and improve it. Lots of fancy presentation notes to go with it as well. She thought it was foolish, designed her own, deliberately put beetroot in the first design so she could improve it by removing it. The A* was achieved because she made her own mayonnaise which I had taught her.

However, that's an aside. The cause of malnutrition in an affluent Western society are complex, but undoubtedly poverty is the main one. Added to that the loss of traditional skills, the devaluing of cooking at home, the dominance of big food and drink companies who impose their own agenda on government, the lack of local shops necessitating an expensive bus ride to obtain food, the lack of markets and the fact that penny for penny 'healthy' food is more expensive and provides fewer calories than junk food, are all factors.

Whilst it's true that there are some feckless parents, I don't think it's helpful to blame the poor for their own misfortune.

If any of us had to hold down two cleaning jobs with antisocial hours, live in a damp flat with hugely expensive heating and survive on erratic zero hours work, I don't think we'd find at all easy to cook nutritious meals.