Free Meals

Times have always been hard especially in some areas with exceptionally high unemployment.
Factor in now, parents who might have lost their livelihood because of Covid - and before anybody starts bleating about furlough or government handouts - there are many who fall into the poverty trap with little hope of finding another job and have already used up what savings they might have had.
Mortgages or rent, , council tax, energy bills all need to be paid, unless you want to make your family homeless and for our MP’s to reject a vote on free meals when they enjoy heavily subsidised meals themselves is the ultimate insult.
Shame on you HoC.

Marydoll again can I reiterate what I said in my original post that this is not always the case. There are indeed different scenarios where people are really struggling through no fault of their own. Equally there are parents who should take more responsibility for their children. I also grew up in a home where money was very short but we had a garden and my father was able to grow a lot of our food.

Grandmabatty

If I misunderstood stood you Gwyneth I apologise. However you say families shouldn't be dependent on the state. And you quite clearly link parents smoking and drinking to children going hungry. In my experience, that was rarely the reason why children needed free school meals. And at no point did I say people couldn't hold different views to mine. You appear to be rather nettled by my views.

I worked with children in secondary schools for years and it wasn't my experience either. Thank goodness, school meals are now paid for digitally and "vouchers" issued to those needing them. Nobody, except school admin staff, know who's receiving free school meals. Nevertheless, teachers did know which families were struggling and it was for a variety of reasons, such as illness, death, redundancy, marital breakdown, etc etc. There were very few stereotypical "scrounger" families.

Gwyneth

Marydoll again can I reiterate what I said in my original post that this is not always the case. There are indeed different scenarios where people are really struggling through no fault of their own. Equally there are parents who should take more responsibility for their children. I also grew up in a home where money was very short but we had a garden and my father was able to grow a lot of our food.

You were fortunate! What about the children who grow up in flats or crowded back/back houses or those who don't even have permanent housing? What about the ones whose parents are too ill/disabled/work too many hours to do gardening?

The petition is not about free school meals!

Gwyneth, I did say that I agreed with your comment , however I was trying to balance the discussion with my own experiences. No need to reiterate your original comment, I understood exactly the point you were making. No-one is criticising your post.

Did you experience the humiliation of having free meals? You were indeed fortunate that you had a home with a garden and your father could supplement your diet. Some of us never experienced that luxury.

Initially I lived in a tenement flat with an outside toilet, shared by three families. Our garden was a backdoor drying area , with a shared wash house and slum outhouses. Nowhere to grow food. However, it's not a competition about who had the poorest upbringing.
This image, could have been my back garden at five years old. Thank goodness we have moved on from that, but no child should go hungry today. I know what it was like and it makes me so angry that it is still happening.

Not matter who or what is responsible for children going hungry today , they have a right to food and no-one should be against the free meals during school holidays initiative.

There is an initiative that I am signed up to called FreeMyMeal..
check it out on FB. It connects cooks with people in need of a meal.

In Northumberland many small local businesses are offering a free packed lunch, a very positive move.

Signed both!

This was on Facebook it’s a restaurant in my area. Sorry I’ve made it anonymous of course! “. In response to the latest news regarding the government’s negative action on Marcus Rashford’s plea for help, Ristorante Xxxxxxx is offering free essentials to any family living in the Xxxxxx area requiring help during next week’s school holidays.
Don’t be afraid or embarrassed to send us a private message. We will do what we can to help. It may simply be a case of dropping off a parcel and leaving. No one has to know and where others are concerned, it never happened.

Please share to make people aware.

Thankyou,
Team Xxxxxxxxx Ristorante“

How shaming to the government that this is what has to happen

Signed.
DH also made the point that he hoped that Marcus Rashford's overpaid football contemporaries would contribute a small proportion of their salaries to help to fund this.

Gwynethhow do you suggest that we discover which children are going hungry and which have hard working parents? Personally I would rather feed all poor children regardless of their parent's ability to cope
And are you happy to subsidise MP's food and drink? because that is what the petition is about.

Why single out footballers as overpaid? Just why ? They didn’t vote against the food vouchers did they?

⚽️⚽️⚽️ ???

Well, who would have guessed it
?

So predictable.
?

What’s predictable is criticising footballers for being overpaid. We live in a capitalist system - a market economy - the market decides what a footballer should be paid . Or do you want a system where the state decides this? Answer comes there none

Of course many very successful footballers are black and from working class backgrounds - compared with nice white public school educated underpaid corporate lawyers/ hedge fund managers/investment bankers/ owners of private equity firms.

It’s just not fair is it ? Those meanie football players. Some may have more money than Jacob Rees Mogg

I thought this thread was entitled, Free Meals. It seems to have gone slightly off piste.

Yep but it was inevitable - the petition after all has arisen because of the vote against the vouchers.

And then the sane tired old footballers are paid too much rubbish

Same maybe hardly sane

The irony of one footballer petitioning the government for free school meals and then they’re all being slated for their salaries.....?

I don’t doubt that lots of them donate to charity (Juan Mata helped to set up one donating a percentage of their wages) along with all the other highly paid sportsmen- let’s not pick on footballers folks ?

Undoubtedly we all have different experiences as children, and bringing up our own children. To post about those experiences is fine.

But when decided welfare services you do not base the decisions you make on personal experience.

Exactly Pantglas I know we’ve had this discussion before which is why I was the recipient of the nasty ‘predictable’ dig from Call. The ones criticising footballers salaries are never able to explain why they are a target and how in a capitalist society, their salaries should be decided. MR is an amazing young man - bright, articulate, caring, emotionally intelligent way beyond his years, clearly a good son and an extremely good footballer ( so I am told?). I imagine part of the continuing criticism of their salaries is to deflect attention from the utter and complete moral failure of this government on the issue of food vouchers ( and many other issues).