I agree.
It's actually for me, an abandonment of duty from government to protect children.

No other description for it in my view.

Two things I've always been into are small government and communities acting like communities. A bunch of idiots in Westminster shouldn't fill in for the people who live around you...

But I've also always thought that FSM should be all year round, in the form of food vouchers when the schools aren't open.

The best case scenario would be reimbursements and/or incentives for local businesses to provide food for children who need it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34439965

Taxpayers' Alliance: Cut pensioner benefits 'immediately'

Ministers should waste no time to make unpopular cuts to pensioner benefits, a think tank director has said.

Many of those hit by a cut to the winter fuel allowance might "not be around" at the next election, said Alex Wild of the Taxpayers' Alliance.

And others would forget which party had done it, he added.

At the group's meeting at the Conservative conference in Manchester, former defence secretary Liam Fox said spending cuts must be "for keeps".

Mr Wild said the Tories could not wait until a year before the next election to make the necessary cuts to the winter fuel allowance, free bus passes, the Christmas bonus and other pensioner benefits.

Mr Wild, who is research director of the think tank which campaigns for lower taxes and highlights examples of Government waste, said the cuts should be made "as soon as possible after an election for two reasons".

"The first of which will sound a little bit morbid - some of the people... won't be around to vote against you in the next election. So that's just a practical point, and the other point is they might have forgotten by then."

He added: "If you did it now, chances are that in 2020 someone who has had their winter fuel cut might be thinking, 'Oh I can't remember, was it this government or was it the last one? I'm not quite sure.'

"So on a purely practical basis I would say do it immediately. That might be one of those things I regret saying in later life but that would be my practical advice to the government."

'Day of reckoning'
Mr Fox told the meeting that the government had to act now to make further cuts to benefits and welfare.

He said "we can never go back" to the "historically high" levels of public spending seen in recent years and the government's public spending cuts must be "for keeps".

"This is the time to fix the roof" he said.

"We have a broken opposition. We have just won a general election and we need now to take the tough decisions we believe are right."

Now that Labour was not such a "great threat", this was a "great opportunity for us to do some of the more difficult things, however unpalatable they will be in the short term are what we need to do for the country", said the backbencher, a leading voice on the right of the party.

He added: "We need to do what we all know deep in our hearts to be right."

Mr Fox added that the government had to make the "moral" case for reducing public spending further.

"We are borrowing from the next generation to spend today. That is otherwise known as a Ponzi scheme," he said.

"It's what we are operating as a national financial policy."

He added: "If you continue to overspend there will be a day of reckoning."

He said this was because borrowing costs would rise and the era of low inflation would not last forever, meaning economic growth on its own was not enough to balance the books.

Older people would understand the need for cuts to their benefits to help the next generation, he suggested.

"We have got to start to get really honest with people because this is not a sustainable position," he said.

"We can't afford it now, we can't afford it in the future, why don't we try to get a longer-term plan put in place so that people can make the adjustments they will need to make for us to be able to get back into balance."

Petition to end 'free meals' for MPs gathers hundreds of thousands of signatures in 24 hours...

A petition calling for the end of subsidised meals for MPs has garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures in its first 24 hours.

The campaign, set up by Portia Lawrie, a freelance writer and textile designer, from Essex, calls for “an end to the practice of paying expenses to MPs for food and drink”.

It says: “We the electorate demand an end to the practice of paying expenses to MPs for food and drink; and that any and all food and drink in parliamentary establishments be chargeable to MPs at market rates.”

The petition has received more than 600,000 signatures and the figure is rapidly climbing.

Lawrie told Yahoo News UK: “I wanted to make a point about hypocrisy and hold up a mirror to those MPs that saw fit to vote against feeding hungry children; whilst simultaneously feeding themselves at the expense of the taxpayer.

“I was so angry that MPs had rejected the opportunity, and Marcus Rashford's campaign, to extend free school meals into the school holiday. As a mother myself, and someone who has been through similar financial hardship in the past, both as a child and an adult, it just really struck a chord with me; and clearly with many others too.

“I've honestly been astonished at the level of support this petition is getting which shows clearly that public opinion is not on the side of those MPs or convinced by their protests that they have already done enough to help the poorest in society. If they had, we wouldn't be having this conversation and there wouldn't be an explosion of foodbanks in the fifth richest economy in the world.

“Enough is enough. This is not who we are as a country.”

MPs currently receive an annual salary of £79,468 and in addition can claim publicly-funded expenses “for expenditure for parliamentary purposes” which cover, in certain circumstances, housing, travel, food, iPads and telephone calls.


...full article...

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/peititon-f...143331997.html

"Petition to end 'free meals' for MPs gathers "

So it will get Debated before they go for their Steak And Chips and mustard sauce

There are Tories now routinely saying that food parcels for the needy are sold it swapped for drugs by their constituents, it’s like they enjoy people hating them

I’ll say it again, I hate Tories, proudly

I used to lean very strongly to the Cons.
Right up to being 18.
I care deeply about the NHS and was doubtful Cameron did.
So I voted for a coalition hopefully via the Lib Dems in 2010.

From that coalition and it's discriminatory policies which I feel were heartless to the sick and disabled.
I moved right away from the Cons in 2011/12.

They've just got worse as to their ignorance, arrogance, heartlessness and deliberate cruelty.

This present Con Party, is just about the most heartless and nastiest around in serious politics.

What's posted above doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
As to even just looking at more heartless and cruel policies

Whether ever adopted or not, I now couldn't trust this lot with just about anything.

Their hard-line supporters inflicting this Party's nastiness across the UK is really dismaying.
That some will defend them, even worse.

Someone sent me a caption with a photo of Margaret Thatcher alongside one of this rotten from the core PM.
With Margaret Thatcher's saying ' starving miners'.

This odious creep of a PM's saying ' starving minors'.
How perfectly appropriately put.

An absolute disgrace.
Indefensible.

Punished for helping kids.

Taxpayers would NEVER put their name to such a proposal. They should rename themselves more appropriately. How about 'The heartless tory bastards alliance'?
Perfect!

And when you think they can't get any more twisted enter Selaine Saxby...

'North Devon MP targeted local businesses that had offered to step in to provide free school meals. She wrote: “I am delighted our local businesses have bounced back so much after lockdown they are able to give away food for free, and very much hope they will not be seeking any further government*support.'

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/be...ashford-736757

I just- the fact that’s there’s even a both sides or a debate around this and there’s people in this thread defending this...

This government just doesn't get it.
In this pandemic particularly,any decent government would have been extending this free meal service themselves.

It's unbelievable they voted it down and continue to dismiss the criticism around it too.

I agree with Elliot too, it is indefensible completely.

This should have just been done.
No vote even needed.
However, let's hope people remember which MPs and the party they come from who did vote it down.

We shouldn't be cheering on the government's failures. The fact that establishments have to step up where the government failed is a shameful reflection of the government.

There is nothing good about this story, it's vile and vicious and indicative of the Tories and those who allow them to do what they do.

They really expect to do heinous things and not get called out on it don’t they? Jesus

There would be plenty people saying what a terrible country we lived in if people didn't, there is no pleasing some ...

the more businesses that rally round, the more pressure that is put on the government

51 councils so far

.

Charities and charitable people are the very best of us, it there should never be such a massive demand for them due to the government complete lack of decency and regard for people they see lower than them

But then, I think this is what a lot of people wanted and expected to happen when they voted for them so I guess at least some are happy

You can not confuse other money.

No confusion. .it's all public or should I say 'taxpayers' money.

One may as well say we have money to fill potholes, so why not leave them and use that money instead?

A lot of tax money goes to things it probably shouldn't, picking on random examples doesn't help anyone. Focussing on more relevant ones -like MPs' subsidised meals- makes a better point.

Except that the criticism is aimed squarely at the government, not the people stepping up. The point (Which should be clear to everyone not making excuses for the government) is that restaurants and companies shouldn't have to do this. The government are relying on charity to do their job for them and that's gross.