Marcus Rashford - School Meals Vouchers Campaign

[Bloxxcreative]

poo at Paul's said:

In 2020, with food cheap and easy to obtain, benefits and welfare state that provides for those that cannot or chose not to work, if a parent is unable to offer their kids even very basic sustenance, one wonders what other "necessities" they are not providing.
If you genuinely are not feeding your kids, they should be taken off you and cared for by the state, IMO.

There's no excuse, as a a parent, you have to feed your kids. You can feed a kid for less than a couple of quid a day. That's about 4 fags, or a couple of cans of Stella.
I'd genuinely like to know what other "essentials" the parents of kids who are not being fed spend their money on. There's no excuse, IMHO.

If the Govt really needs to be stepping in to provide physical food to children, ie not cash, so be it, but the parents must be completely feckless. Perhaps Govt need to feed them in these cases, and stop the cost of it from the parents' benefits?

The wider issues are "kids in poverty" have been banded about for years and years, and yet the headlines rarely include the word "relative" poverty. Google what that means if you like, google the amount of money available to their family that translates to, then go google "poverty in Sao Paulo" or india, and wonder who precious we are all being about this subject. There's very few, if any, people in "poverty" in this country, and that's the way it should be with a welfare state etc.

There are good and bad parents and generalising is hard, however at the moment, in a global pandemic, when jobs aren't secure or there, it's not so clear cut and we, as a majority on PH are in fortunate positions financially.

Not every parent is a feral breeder. I have a good friend who has a mortgage (c1k because its in Bristol), 2 children, a wife. His job was made redundant 4 months back and his wife was on furlough. They've had to sell pretty much everything to stay afloat but when that ends, they'll be on benefits and having to asses housing. Yes, they are fortunate they could sell, but if they were renting, it would be even worse and then they'd have no options but food banks etc, just to cover housing costs.

Relative poverty at the moment isn't a life choice for many. I myself while never destitute, have had not a penny to my name (actually just debt) but been fortunate with family and making some good choices and getting a bit of luck go my way too.

[poo at Paul's]

bhstewie said:

Relative.

It's all in the document and the hyperlink takes you to the relevant page which is page 16.

So that is to have a family disposable income less than 60% of the median, the median being £29,400 in UK...."disposable" per the ONS.
That would suggest a family with £17k disposable income a year is in "relative poverty??"
Or about £1500 per month....disposable! If that is correct, and "disposable" means after your housing is paid for, that sounds like quite a lot, particularly in lower income areas of the UK.

I suspect there is many PHers with families who have less than £1500 disposable to live on, who are in receipt of pretty much nothing benefit wise, except maybe child benefit.

[anonymous-user]

poo at Paul's said:

Ayahuasca said:

gottans said:

I think something does need to be done, just because a child is not in school does not mean their situation magically changes with food a plenty during holiday. There is a reason why the child is entitled to free school meals.

The government is onto a hiding for nothing, can't be that difficult for schools to run a lunch club during holidays for these children. The interview on Andrew Marr this morning was someone defending the indefensible and quite cringe worthy, it does this country/government no credit at all, rather shameful really.

As a conservative, I agree.

The reason they are entitled to free school relates to what benefits their families are in receipt of. So the taxpayer is already paying or their meals outside of school.

You say the situation doesn't magically change with food a plenty during the holidays, well, no, it never did. So what has magically changed now to mean it is suddenly necessary under Bojo's Government as opposed to any previous?
It is just political bullst!

Before Coronavirus appeared on the scene a lot of people were just about managing and are now pushed into the not managing situation due to the pandemic, why do think food bank use has rocketed. Considering the government has lost at least £2billion to fraud in the furlough scheme, spending a little on some extra meals for kids in need would actually have some real benefit.

We are can argue about the cause as much as we want but there is now an opportunity to really help, the worst thing to do is waste the opportunity.

[bitchstewie]

poo at Paul's said:

So that is to have a family disposable income less than 60% of the median, the median being £29,400 in UK...."disposable" per the ONS.
That would suggest a family with £17k disposable income a year is in "relative poverty??"
Or about £1500 per month....disposable! If that is correct, and "disposable" means after your housing is paid for, that sounds like quite a lot, particularly in lower income areas of the UK.

I suspect there is many PHers with families who have less than £1500 disposable to live on, who are in receipt of pretty much nothing benefit wise, except maybe child benefit.

I believe the median is after taxes and any benefits due but happy to be corrected.

[98elise]

poo at Paul's said:

bhstewie said:

Relative.

It's all in the document and the hyperlink takes you to the relevant page which is page 16.

So that is to have a family disposable income less than 60% of the median, the median being £29,400 in UK...."disposable" per the ONS.
That would suggest a family with £17k disposable income a year is in "relative poverty??"
Or about £1500 per month....disposable! If that is correct, and "disposable" means after your housing is paid for, that sounds like quite a lot, particularly in lower income areas of the UK.

I suspect there is many PHers with families who have less than £1500 disposable to live on, who are in receipt of pretty much nothing benefit wise, except maybe child benefit.

I've recently retired and my current income is less than that. I didn't know I was now poor!

Where to I get these free meals?

[dazwalsh]

bhstewie said:

poo at Paul's said:

So that is to have a family disposable income less than 60% of the median, the median being £29,400 in UK...."disposable" per the ONS.
That would suggest a family with £17k disposable income a year is in "relative poverty??"
Or about £1500 per month....disposable! If that is correct, and "disposable" means after your housing is paid for, that sounds like quite a lot, particularly in lower income areas of the UK.

I suspect there is many PHers with families who have less than £1500 disposable to live on, who are in receipt of pretty much nothing benefit wise, except maybe child benefit.

I believe the median is after taxes and any benefits due but happy to be corrected.

This is what gets my grinds my gears. the media leave the relative part out, and poverty is a very powerful word on its own. So when there is "x million kids starving in poverty" its absolute horsest. In reality the parents of these kids have the budget to feed their kids, not all obviously as there will be some that desperately need help, but there is also lots of avenue for help, family, friends, food banks.

And social media takes an already horsest headline and turns it into "the tories spent x billion on track and trace yet we can't feed our kids... Disgraceful" etc. People lap this st up.

[anonymous-user]

The comments and and suggestions in this thread make me feel a little bit sad about society.

[anonymous-user]

The only thing that the popularity of free food proves is that people like free stuff; it doesn't prove that they can't afford food if they had to. If you open up a free pub it will also be quite popular. Free weed would also fly off the shelves and I think free bookies would be pretty popular too.

[Carl_Manchester]

BlackLabel said:

The U-turn will come soon enough, Rashford making Boris and co look like idiots (again).

I have emailed my local Tory MP to encourage him to do just that. I have to say though, i think there will be a U-turn anyway, the public mood was not read very well on this one.

[markcoznottz]

MonkeyMatt said:

The comments and and suggestions in this thread make me feel a little bit sad about society.

Emotive nonsense

[anonymous-user]

markcoznottz said:

MonkeyMatt said:

The comments and and suggestions in this thread make me feel a little bit sad about society.

Emotive nonsense

So I can't feel like that because you think its emotive nonsense?

[Armchair Expert]

Still trying to find the answer as to why is it that some parents are able to feed their children while on benefits and others can't? To me the system seems quite generous if you have children in this country.

[NMNeil]

poo at Paul's said:

Ok, so what is the definition of "poverty" then?

Here it's having to drive to pick up free school meals, sit in the car and have the staff hand you the meals.
And the children have to be a minimum of 200 pounds/90 kilos/14 stone to qualify. (Parents are in the tonnage range)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ1z6AKDl-U
Then of course the ingratitude of some of the parents because they would rather have the benefit card so they could use it to buy what they want.
https://www.kob.com/albuquerque-news/parent-expres...

[Pit Pony]

Armchair Expert said:

Still trying to find the answer as to why is it that some parents are able to feed their children while on benefits and others can't? To me the system seems quite generous if you have children in this country.

I'll ask my neice the Social Work Manager in child protection, in Bootle.

Then I'll ask my other neice, a single woman with 4 children by 3 fathers on Benefits living in Bootle.

Then I'll ask my wife, who used to be an advisor at the CAB in Miseryside.

I think the answer is that some people make very poor choices on how they spend their money, but for others the benefit system just lets them down.

I'm inclined to believe that either way, there are children going hungry.

[Leptons]

I’ve just totted up how much it costs to send my Daughter to school with a packed lunch for five days. It’s £8, using decent stuff. Could be done cheaper.

Is it really unreasonable to expect people to feed their own children lunch for one week? Given that to qualify for free school meals you would already be qualifying for;

Housing Benefit
Universal credit
Child Benefit
Working Tax Credits
School uniform vouchers
Free school bus Pass
Free school trips

Sorry, I don’t think I’m buying into this. It’s just the latest thing to virtue signal and get outraged about.

Something is going wrong somewhere and I don’t think it’s the government’s fault.

[fastraxx]

Leptons said:

I’ve just totted up how much it costs to send my Daughter to school with a packed lunch for five days. It’s £8, using decent stuff. Could be done cheaper.

Is it really unreasonable to expect people to feed their own children lunch for one week? Given that to qualify for free school meals you would already be qualifying for;

Housing Benefit
Universal credit
Child Benefit
Working Tax Credits
School uniform vouchers
Free school bus Pass
Free school trips

Sorry, I don’t think I’m buying into this. It’s just the latest thing to virtue signal and get outraged about.

Something is going wrong somewhere and I don’t think it’s the government’s fault.

Yeah - surely they can pay for it with many of the benefits afterall, they manage their trips to benidorm and wide screen tv's and 20 fags per day with no job.

[anonymous-user]

More importantly, it really isn't the children's fault.

The answer to the question of why they need support is long and complicated and won't be solved by free food over the holidays. What can be solved by it is hungry children.

Why is it so awful on principle to help children get fed in the short term whilst we work to avoid it being necessary in the longer term?

[Murph7355]

bhstewie said:

Interesting that you seem to think the "very worst part of this current government" is how they deal with social media.

That's literally the very worst thing you can find to level at them this past year or so?

All they had to do was to say a few words to make clear that the effort and contribution from all of those businesses many of whom are already struggling actually mattered and was appreciated.

Couldn't bring themselves to do it any more than you can bring yourself to say that they should have.

I am saying they already have applauded Rashford. How frequently do you need them to be saying Rashford is a good egg so that you think they mean it or it suits your preference?

Yes, I think any government who seems to be governing by Social Media is a bad thing.

[Murph7355]

RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:

More importantly, it really isn't the children's fault.

The answer to the question of why they need support is long and complicated and won't be solved by free food over the holidays. What can be solved by it is hungry children.

Why is it so awful on principle to help children get fed in the short term whilst we work to avoid it being necessary in the longer term?

It's not. But

- did the provision over the summer solve it even in the short term?

- since that provision, have the numbers gone up or down?

- what are govt going to be allowed to do in order to fix it long term?

- what have Rashford, McDonalds, bs or IforB proposed we do to fix it long term?

[anonymous-user]

poo at Paul's said:

bhstewie said:

Relative.

It's all in the document and the hyperlink takes you to the relevant page which is page 16.

So that is to have a family disposable income less than 60% of the median, the median being £29,400 in UK...."disposable" per the ONS.
That would suggest a family with £17k disposable income a year is in "relative poverty??"
Or about £1500 per month....disposable! If that is correct, and "disposable" means after your housing is paid for, that sounds like quite a lot, particularly in lower income areas of the UK.

I suspect there is many PHers with families who have less than £1500 disposable to live on, who are in receipt of pretty much nothing benefit wise, except maybe child benefit.

I'm one of those PHers. But I manage ok.