Bedroom tax breaches human rights.

Within half a mile of me in opposite directions there are two highly rated state primary schools and also an excellent prep school. The road past them all is littered by upmarket 4x4s, a scene that's probably repeated in many affluent areas.

No, Iam64, it is not just you! The total farce of the NHS IT record system is going to cost £10 billion, which would buy quite a few school meals.
I don't mind if some well-heeled parents benefit from the free meals as means testing rarely works fairly.
It seems that many policies are devised on the back of an envelope by some fresh-faced 'advisor' or researcher. The long term consequences rarely seem to be considered.
The Libdems are thrashing around trying to find any policies that might put them back in favour but I think that, just as in a personal relationship, once trust is lost it takes a long time to rebuild it. Sometimes they hit on a policy which seems sensible but there is still an air of desperation about them.

How can anyone believe in a party that says it will work with anyone who gets in power? Surely they have to have their own policies and principles. If you vote for them you won't know what those policies are going to be until you know who they're going to work with.

Your conclusion, Sel ?

Elegran that universal benefits are wrong. I agreed with the cap on child benefit, not the ridiculous way it was done but the principle of removing it from those who didn't need it. I feel the same about the various age related concessions. When various sections of society are in true need, let them benefit not those who aren't.

You have a valid viewpoint, Sel, but how would you differentiate between children who should be receiving free meals and those who should not?

Individually by whether they look in need? Skinny scruffy more likely to get help than neatly dressed adequately fed with hungry parents.

Family by family according to income? Where would the cut-off point come, so that admitting to earning another pound a week meant they had to spend another £20 a week?

Street by street? Ghettoisation.
School by school? Ghettoisation.

By whether there is a widescreen TV? By size age and make of car?

I am eligible for only one age-related benefit, the Winter Fuel Allowance, and that will be removed this year because the average temperature in France is going to include that of the overseas territories in the tropics! I would be happy for it to be added to my global income and taxed. It get very cold in many areas of France - but obviously not in Martinique and Guadeloupe!

I would rather have universal benefits. I agree they may go to some who appear not to need them but I don't want any child to lose out simply because of a line on a graph that differentiates between those who get and those who don't.

The idea of child benefit was to put money directly into the mother's purse rather than give it to the father as a form of tax relief as some fathers were keeping it. The tax relief was paid to every man with children regardless of income so the child benefit was paid to every mother in the same way.

Now if the father earns over £40K the mother still gets the money but the father has to pay it back. How many men will refuse to do that and therefore deny the mother the money? So we're back to the very situation that caused Family Allowance to be brought in.

Free school meals might have saved the life of Daniel, who was seen looking in the school's waste bins for food. ( Myopic teachers and lunch time supervisors?)
I would prefer that people who don't need benefits get them rather than that people who do need them are deprived. It is the people just on the cusp who suffer. A slight pay rise might mean the loss of three times as much in benefits.
I remember my parents' tales of means testing in the 1930's, where the man from the Assistance Board would come to your home and withhold any cash until you had sold everything of value.
Perhaps all benefits should be taxable, with the personal allowance set high enough to prevent the people with low-paid jobs from being taxed.

My grandfather also told me about means testing in the 1930's when he applied for relief. The man from the Assistance Board said they didn't qualify, as despite having no money for food or fuel, they still owned a sideboard. They were told to chop it up and burn it, or sell it. He swore he'd never apply for any kind of help in future, he was so demoralised, humiliated and angry. These kind of examples led me to support universal benefits, with higher tax for wealthy families to pull overpayments back.

Free school dinners may not have helped Daniel, as it seems his parents wouldn't allow him to eat. I remain saddened, angered and frustrated about that little lad. I feel ashamed to have worked for 30plus years in a system that failed him. Anyway - that's another topic isn't it. I do believe that getting all the children to sit down together and eat a midday meal is a Good Thing. i dislike the separation of those who have a school meal from those who bring in packed lunch. It's better on so many levels for the school to eat together. I think it's unusual for teachers to eat with the children now, rather they eat in the staff room generally. That tends to confirm the separate eating arrangements that have become so common, with adults eating after the children have gone to bed. Different meals, at different times.

Yes, I know they didn't let him eat at home, but they couldn't have stopped him having a free meal at school.
It seems to me that this government by the rich, privileged and powerful has done everything it can to reduce the 'lower orders' to the state they were in before trade unions managed to get some basic rights for them.
There are still people who think that unions, like feminism, are no longer needed. They are wrong.

Greatnan My grandfather died in 1950, after a year in bed at home with lung cancer. Despite help from the family, grandmother found it difficult to make ends meet and applied to the Assistance Board, and a young lady came to her home and sat in one of the two armchairs in the sparsely furnished living room. "Your husband will not be needing an armchair again, you only need one. Sell the other". How long did she think you could look after a sick man on the sale of an old chair?

She had also brought with her some second-hand pyjamas to replace the ones which were worn through. A large bloodstain had been imperfectly washed away from around the neck. Granny showed her the door saying "No wonder the last owner cut his bloody throat!"

She had spent time in an orphanage in her childhood and knew all about "cold charity" This is why the words "means test" strike horror into the hearts of the poor.

Not only the poor, Elegran! They terrify me.

Just a very simple thought - all the ground work has been done removing Child Benefit from families earning in excess of £50k pa. Why not, additionally exclude those families from free school meals? Many schools use smart technology now for payments so children wouldn't know who was free, who not. No means testing, just joined up thinking.

My daughter phoned me this morning, she has a child in this age group and she felt it was wrong because she could afford to pay but right because having a hot meal together would be good for the children.

I don't understand either, when it comes to the winter fuel allowance, why it can't be linked to tax. I don't mean tax levied on it but just not paid if you fall into a higher tax bracket.

It just seems to make logical sense that if those who don't need handouts don't get them there'll be more to go around for those who do.

I'd rather feed all the children rich and poor rather than risk missing a child who is in need. Also we seem to be making the assumption that those who can afford to feed their children properly actually do so.

vampirequeen You have never said a truer word indeed,my DD can tell you a true tale of a woman at their school who comes to school in the standard 4 x 4 petrol gussler whose children would not be feed properly if they didn't have school meals.

Elegran - my heart sank when I read about your grandparents.
Vampire Queen - agree totally with your comment
Greatnan - yes, I did wonder if they'd have been able to stop him having a school meal, it would have possibly stopped malnutrition, if nothing else.

glammanana - yes indeed. I worked across social classes, though obviously, largely with the disadvantaged - domestic violence, as well as not feeding children properly runs right across the classes. As does emotional, physical and sexual abuse. I loathe the way this government are destroying public services. I don't say improvements aren't needed or that simply throwing money at stuff always leads to better services. I'm certain that this crusade by the government that public is bad, and private good is absolutely wrong headed, cruel and ideologically, rather than evidence based.

We are really at odds if we think we need politicians to feed our children. ...surely? Big governnent. Yup.

Sel Did you really mean handouts or have you just absorbed this usage from politicians such as IDS by a process of osmosis?

What's wrong with the word 'handouts'? Its meaning is quite clear in all the online dictionaries.

Exactly Ana. Do you receive your handout as a state pensioner? As a state pensioner you are, of course, on benefits as opposed to being a tax payer in a hard-working family. Those on benefits are basically scroungers – that's you and me Ana. This government has manipulated language around the subject of benefits very cleverly.

Once again, we are back to discussing the deserving and undeserving poor.

I object to the word 'handout'. It suggests charity. I worked from the age of 15. I didn't ask to be ill but I am and I now have to rely on benefits. I paid my national insurance and now I'm claiming. That's what insurance is for.

Sel, we don't need politicians to feed our children - we need them to govern with policies that don't put so many in a position where they can no longer feed them themselves.

I do not regard my state retirement pension as a handout. I entered into a contract with the UK government - I paid my taxes and NI for some 40 years in the belief that it would entitle me to a fair pension once I reached the specified age.

Surely we people receiving a retirement pension payed all our working lives for it and it was a promise that we would receive it and would not be a hand out because we "needed it and asked for it". Or did I not understand for 40 years?