Labour has leaked a plan to end universal free meals for infant school pupils: ‘Sir Kid Starver’ strikes again?
Prime Minister Keir Starmer received his unflattering nickname after he ordered his MPs to vote down a motion to end the limit on child benefits, ensuring they continue to be paid for only the first two children in a household – and suspended the party membership of MPs who rebelled against his order.
Now it seems he is going “further and faster”, to quote his Chancellor, in ruining the lives of people whose lives have hardly even begun, by actually starving them, in a package of penny-pinching measures that also includes axing funding for free period products in schools and ending dance, music and PE schemes.
This would be hugely hypocritical, as Labour under Starmer was vocal in supporting Marcus Rashford’s demand for schools to provide free meals to children who needed them during the Covid lockdowns.
Labour even forced a parliamentary vote on the issue in October 2020, though the Conservative majority initially voted against it.
Now this:
Of course it is entirely possible that Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is just flying a particularly nasty-looking kite as a favour for Starmer, on the understanding that it won’t happen but will make any decision he does take seem more palatable.
That would be underhanded, manipulative politics of a kind that we were led to believe Labour would not practise.
So perhaps we should congratulate Phillipson and anyone else behind this stunt (Morgan McSweeney, perhaps?) for putting the government in a unique situation.
They are now damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.
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‘Sir Kid Starver’ strikes again?
Labour has leaked a plan to end universal free meals for infant school pupils: ‘Sir Kid Starver’ strikes again?
Prime Minister Keir Starmer received his unflattering nickname after he ordered his MPs to vote down a motion to end the limit on child benefits, ensuring they continue to be paid for only the first two children in a household – and suspended the party membership of MPs who rebelled against his order.
Now it seems he is going “further and faster”, to quote his Chancellor, in ruining the lives of people whose lives have hardly even begun, by actually starving them, in a package of penny-pinching measures that also includes axing funding for free period products in schools and ending dance, music and PE schemes.
This would be hugely hypocritical, as Labour under Starmer was vocal in supporting Marcus Rashford’s demand for schools to provide free meals to children who needed them during the Covid lockdowns.
Labour even forced a parliamentary vote on the issue in October 2020, though the Conservative majority initially voted against it.
Now this:
Of course it is entirely possible that Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is just flying a particularly nasty-looking kite as a favour for Starmer, on the understanding that it won’t happen but will make any decision he does take seem more palatable.
That would be underhanded, manipulative politics of a kind that we were led to believe Labour would not practise.
So perhaps we should congratulate Phillipson and anyone else behind this stunt (Morgan McSweeney, perhaps?) for putting the government in a unique situation.
They are now damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.
Like this:
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