Free school meal parcels containing barely any food

[Fambo Number Mive]

Looking at the amount of food in the first picture in the story, that's barely enough for two days worth of food (aside from the bread) let alone 10 days:

#FreeSchoolMeals bag for 10 days:

2 days jacket potato with beans
8 single cheese sandwiches

2 days carrots
3 days apples
2 days soreen
3 days frubes

Spare pasta & tomato. Will need mayo for pasta salad.

Issued instead of £30 vouchers. I could do more with £30 to be honest.

https://www.itv.com/news/2021-01-12/free-school-meals-parents-blast-woefully-inadequate-food-parcels-for-children-learning-at-home

[Fambo Number Mive]

Statement from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health:

Doctors at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) are calling on the education secretary to carry out an urgent review of food packages sent to families as part of the free school meals programme.

Dr Max Davie said that in the past 24 hours he has seen examples of food parcels that are "not nutritionally sufficient for children and young people".

Responding the reports on social media, he said: "Children who rely on free school meals have worse health outcomes than their peers and deserve proper help.

"The examples shared are an insult to the dignity of people who rely on this support."

He added: "We call on government to urgently review its supplier list and to provide the resource needed for local authorities to offer flexibility for families in how they want to receive this vital support.

"Some local authorities give vouchers or cash payments. Not every family is the same, but every family deserves to be treated with respect."

[drummersaredeaf]

This absolutely boils my piss. And for a number of reasons:

1) Leaving poor kids hungry in a pandemic by thinking this is sufficient to feed them
2) Thinking the poor are so feckless that they need to be given food rather than money, because they'd only spend it on crack, scratch cards and prostitutes
3) Thinking that the above is a problem, then deciding the solution is to put it in the hands of private capital. Not only that this would bring about other huge inefficiencies in terms of having to pay wages, administration and distribution costs (which are already subsumed into the cost of the food in supermarkets), but that there is also a profit motive attached to it. Add to this, it's dreadfully inefficient in terms of waste, longevity, and the tastes of the kids themselves. For example, I don't eat fish or eggs. Tuna in particular makes me gag.
4) That having established all of the above, it's given to a fucking Tory donor to make a nice tidy sum out of.

How long ago was it that ministers would have to resign over cronyism on this scale?

[Huxleys Babkins]

The sheer arrogance to think that they could apply their trademark cronyism to one of the most successful social justice campaigns in recent memory.

I don't want to get into hyperbole, but this really does feel like it has the potential to fatally wound this government. You can get away with overspending on PPE and IT systems because people are ignorant of how they should perform and what they should cost. You can just dismiss it as lefty whining. But people know what £23 in groceries looks like. It doesn't look like this.

[Sebastian Cobb]

They're using fucking coin bags to divvy up things like cheese and tuna. Very food-safe.

Kieth has criticised it and called it cronyism (bit rich from someone flaunting the reinstatement of cash for access really). But it's really the bare minimum; Marcus Rashford seems to have managed to have a meeting with the suppliers and pump them for information on a day where he's playing football, and you'd think the top bollocks in the labour party would have better contacts if they chose to use them.

https://twitter.com/MarcusRashford/status/1348949937510379525

[Norton Canes]

A reference to this appeared on the BBC News daily pandemic updates page at 12:42 but still no dedicated article or mention/link on the News index page.

[The Culture Bunker]

I guess in the Daily Mail offices, they'll be scrambling to get another hit piece on Rashford out in the next few days.

[Norton Canes]

As long as 40% of voters are happy with it.

[Gurke and Hare]

Same old same old

[Fambo Number Mive]

Chef Wayne Sullivan, who lives in the Cotswolds and has three school-age children, said food parcels were not yet being provided at his children's schools.

Instead, he has been collecting packed lunches - made by a food company - for two of his boys, aged seven and eight, from their school each day until the hampers are ready.

He said he was "horrified" by the contents and posted an image online.

Mr Sullivan, a former MasterChef contestant, told the BBC: "I was horrified. I know how much the companies are given to feed children and there's probably about 55p worth of food. It's not been prepared with any care or attention, and nutritionally it's not balanced."...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55628428

[Fambo Number Mive]

Same old same old

Is that from one of the Not The Nine O'Clock News books? Back when comedians used to make actually satirical jokes. These days you'd probably get a load of wealthy comedians sniggering at people on free schools meals rather than the powerful.

[JamesTC]

What boils my piss about all this is how they use the argument that if they give the money to the families then they won't spend it on the food (some of them might waste it on heating or something frivolous like that) but then the outsourced company spends a fiver and pockets the £25 change.

Yes there will be families where the money doesn't go to the right place, but they are the families who the system needs to identify in order to help the child who is likely in a particularly vulnerable position. They should not simply be a stick to beat poor families with.

To quote the ITV article on one of the firm's profiting of poverty:

The firm's website says their £23 food hamper for two weeks contains a block of cheese, 14 portions of fruit, 16 portions of vegetables, a kilogram bag of penne pasta, four chopped tomato tins, two tins of tuna, one loaf of bread and nine healthy snacks.

Here is a shopping list I have just come up with that should cover the basics that they seem to pretend to (using Asda prices so not bought in bulk which means you would expect it to be more expensive)

4x Reduced Salt Baked Beans Tins - 96p
Medium Wholemeal Bread - 49p
10 Mild Cheddar Cheese Slices - £1.65
4x Tuna in Springwater - £2.69
500g Carrots - 29p
500g Apples - 59p
7 pk Banana - 98p
500g Easy Peeler Tangerines - 79p
Soreen Malt Loaves 5 pk - £1
2kg King Edwards Potatoes - £1.50
Tomatoes 6 pk  - 63p
Cucumber x 2 - 91p
500g Pasta x 2 - £2
4x Chopped Tomato Tins - £1.39
Frubes 9 pk - 95p
3 x Orange Juice Carton - 75p
6 x Jelly Pot - £1.89
Total - £19.46

Double up a few of those to make it up to £23 or maybe add a bit of meat to it to try and balance it nutritionally a little more. Maybe throw in another loaf with jam and butter for toast to cover breakfast. It is never going to be ideally nutritionally balanced but that amount of money can stretch a hell of a long way.

If they trusted the families with the money then maybe more food might get to children's mouths and they could afford to give the families less than they give the outsourced companies. But instead there are people profiting off child poverty. This is so fucking depressing.

[Gurke and Hare]

Is that from one of the Not The Nine O'Clock News books? Back when comedians used to make actually satirical jokes. These days you'd probably get a load of wealthy comedians sniggering at people on free schools meals rather than the powerful.

Same era - it's from the first Spitting Image book.

[The Culture Bunker]

What boils my piss about all this is how they use the argument that if they give the money to the families then they won't spend it on the food (some of them might waste it on heating or something frivolous like that) but then the outsourced company spends a fiver and pockets the £25 change.

£25 plus the extra the government was presumably throwing them to put everything together.

[checkoutgirl]

Marcus Rashford seems to have managed to have a meeting with the suppliers and pump them for information on a day where he's playing football

Fair play to him but how sad that it falls to a footballer to fill in for the job of government in this. And it's not like Rashford is just stepping in now, he's been at it for months. You'd think someone in government would pull their socks up at some point so they can prevent themselves from being embarrassed by a footballer doing their job. They really just don't give a shit about anyone who can't donate millions to their party.

The thought of a company getting £30 and maybe a tenner on top for admin/profit etc and they just fob people off with a fiver worth of food and presumably pocket the other £25. How low is that? This is the type of shit that gets governments in big trouble with the public. Governments have actually been chucked in elections for doing things like taxing children's shoes and stuff like that. This has that feel about it.

[The Culture Bunker]

This has that feel about it.

To be honest, I'm not sure. I have a bad feeling enough people can ignore it with a "scroungers wanting something for nothing!" sneer and move on to quite happily vote Tory next time out.

[Norton Canes]

As long as 40% of voters are happy with it.

[checkoutgirl]

To be honest, I'm not sure. I have a bad feeling enough people can ignore it with a "scroungers wanting something for nothing!" sneer and move on to quite happily vote Tory next time out.

I forgot to factor in that the electorate seem a lot more right wing in certain ways these days. Boris Johnson was actually elected by people. Once that becomes the reality then...I don't now.

[Huxleys Babkins]

To be honest, I'm not sure. I have a bad feeling enough people can ignore it with a "scroungers wanting something for nothing!" sneer and move on to quite happily vote Tory next time out.

Yeah, quite a lot of "It's still free food, why are they moaning?" on Twitter, but the important thing now is for Rashford, Jack Monroe and co. to get them to join the dots.

It's one thing to not want your tax money to help the poor, it's another thing to still spend that money and have it go straight into the pockets of millionaires.

[The Culture Bunker]

It's one thing to not want your tax money to help the poor, it's another thing to still spend that money and have it go straight into the pockets of millionaires.

Eh, cynic that I am I've found the English as a people are generally OK with obscenely rich people getting cash for fuck all (see the Royal Family). It's only when someone on a council estate gets a tin of beans that it's reason to complain about freeloaders.

I'm not sure Jack Monroe is going to change many minds - Rashford has some chance, being a footballer, but he could maybe do with players from other clubs getting involved.

[Cuellar]

Neville Southall would back Rashford 100%

[JamesTC]

Neville Southall would back Rashford 100%

Michael Owen thinks families in poverty should be grateful for free food.

[drummersaredeaf]

Michael Owen thinks families in poverty should be grateful for free food.

Well done, he's 13.

[paruses]

Eh, cynic that I am I've found the English as a people are generally OK with obscenely rich people getting cash for fuck all (see the Royal Family). It's only when someone on a council estate gets a tin of beans that it's reason to complain about freeloaders.

I'm not sure Jack Monroe is going to change many minds - Rashford has some chance, being a footballer, but he could maybe do with players from other clubs getting involved.

You're right. I was thinking that a way to attack it would be not to point out that some poor people have got lucky with some food but that tax payer money has been siphoned off.  However, am pretty confident that the poor would be blamed for allowing the money to be squandered instead.

[Twit 2]

Fuck this government of cunts.

https://metro.co.uk/2021/01/12/free-school-meals-firm-with-tory-links-shamed-over-30-shopping-basket-13887331/

[Twit 2]

Some schools are saying that some social workers are reporting parents exchanging vouchers for drugs/alcohol/cigs. This is anecdotally, I'd be interested in articles on this or stats/data on the extent to which this is actually happening in proportion to the total number of families claiming.

[lipsink]

BoJo will ruffle his hair and blame this all on some 'demon algorythm' but "lessons learned" etc.

[Harry Badger]

I'm not sure Jack Monroe is going to change many minds - Rashford has some chance, being a footballer, but he could maybe do with players from other clubs getting involved.

Jack Monroe is a massive grifter and pathological liar who I suspect has some sort of narcissistic personality disorder. I realise that a lot of people admire her because of her bankrupting the egregious Katie Hopkins and because, at a glance, she appears to be a doughty campaigner for social justice but she is seriously bad news. She has also spent months perpetuating the dangerous and false Tory myth that you can feed a family on £20 a week - though she recently deleted all her tweets (not for the first time) so this may not be obvious. Naturally she has been all over the media today, piggybacking onto the work of others.

Rashford is an absolute mensch.

[Twit 2]

Schools have the choice whether they use vouchers or not btw.

Lucky loads of schools aren't run as unscrupulous unaccountable corporations!

[Pink Gregory]

Two carrots and a tomato. 

Fucking hell mate.