Free School Meals

[amateur51]

Any chance of drawing this rather bad-tempered but typical passive-aggressive thread to a close please? - sensible views have been exchanged and the OP is resorting to 'knob' gags.

[french frank]

I've told you that in this matter, my concern is about what I see as an ever-increasing nanny-state disempowering people, killing off their instincts, creating people who are dependent on the state or other people for the sorts of things they should be able to do themselves.

Who exactly becomes 'dependent on the state' - the people who could afford to pay for a school meal for their child(ren)? Or those who can't afford to - who you agree should get the free meals?

The scheme is a very confused one. Is it saying that British families are incapable of feeding their kids? Is it saying they are too poor to feed their kids?

'British families'? - as if they are all alike? There can be parents who can ill afford the price of a meal - £30 pw for three children. There can be those who could afford it if they managed their finances more efficiently. There can be those who are feckless and put their own expenditure first and the children get what's left. The only thing that they have in common is that they are 'British families'.

But, please, no offensive language or the thread will be closed.

[ahinton]

Who exactly becomes 'dependent on the state' - the people who could afford to pay for a school meal for their child(ren)? Or those who can't afford to - who you agree should get the free meals?

'British families'? - as if they are all alike? There can be parents who can ill afford the price of a meal - £30 pw for three children. There can be those who could afford it if they managed their finances more efficiently. There can be those who are feckless and put their own expenditure first and the children get what's left. The only thing that they have in common is that they are 'British families'.

But, please, no offensive language or the thread will be closed.

Thank you, ff, for being once again (yet again!) the beacon of pragmatism and good sense here!

[Beef Oven!]

Who exactly becomes 'dependent on the state' - the people who could afford to pay for a school meal for their child(ren)? Or those who can't afford to - who you agree should get the free meals?

'British families'? - as if they are all alike? There can be parents who can ill afford the price of a meal - £30 pw for three children. There can be those who could afford it if they managed their finances more efficiently. There can be those who are feckless and put their own expenditure first and the children get what's left. The only thing that they have in common is that they are 'British families'.

But, please, no offensive language or the thread will be closed.

Dependency will impact to greater or lesser degrees on everyone. Use it, or lose it, is how it works.

Yes, 'British families'. Families in Britain. Families that fall within Clegg's governmental purview. Why do you think that it infers that 'they are all alike'?

If families can't afford school dinners for their kids, they get free school meals. The problem was solved years ago.

And please don't introduce ideas like "ill afford", it just gets silly.

What for me, is a crying shame, is that we have got serious obesity problems in the modern world and our children are fat. One of the contributing factors is that we choose the wrong food. Food that is often more expensive and almost always poor value.

I drove out to Epping Forest a few days ago and on completing my walk, I ventured into the adjacent high street to get a bottle of water. It was around the time that the local schools were kicking out. I was flabbergasted to count over a hundred kids milling around the several fried chicken/pizza/etc shops eating crap food. Unhealthy and expensive.

Similarly, when I queue at the check-out in the local supermarket, I can't believe the expensive, processed crap food that is in people's trolleys!

How can we have lost our way so much?

Ok, I am a dinosaur. But if we could only get back to the habit of leaving a supermarket with at least some vegetables, potatoes, rice and cheap, tasty nutritious chicken!

Why don't we address this instead?

This of course doesn't suit Clegg or other middle-class liberal apologists. Their's is a cynical approach. Pretend you are doing something for the less well off, when all you are doing is ticking the box. He must know that at the end of the day, this policy helps no-one.

[ahinton]

Dependency will impact to greater or lesser degrees on everyone. Use it, or lose it, is how it works.

Yes, 'British families'. Families in Britain. Families that fall within Clegg's governmental purview. Why do you think that it infers that 'they are all alike'?

If families can't afford school dinners for their kids, they get free school meals. The problem was solved years ago.

And please don't introduce ideas like "ill afford", it just gets silly.

What for me, is a crying shame, is that we have got serious obesity problems in the modern world and our children are fat. One of the contributing factors is that we choose the wrong food. Food that is often more expensive and almost always poor value.

I drove out to Epping Forest a few days ago and on completing my walk, I ventured into the adjacent high street to get a bottle of water. It was around the time that the local schools were kicking out. I was flabbergasted to count over a hundred kids milling around the several fried chicken/pizza/etc shops eating crap food. Unhealthy and expensive.

Similarly, when I queue at the check-out in the local supermarket, I can't believe the expensive, processed crap food that is in people's trolleys!

How can we have lost our way so much?

Ok, I am a dinosaur. But if we could only get back to the habit of leaving a supermarket with at least some vegetables, potatoes, rice and cheap, tasty nutritious chicken!

You actually make some good points here and they do not come from a "dinosource".

I accept that, by "British families", you mean families in Britain regardless of their racial and cultural background and that you recognise that they are not "all alike"; OK so far.

The question of who might be entitled to free school meals is still, however, up for grabs and the subject of some contention and, whilst there is indeed a system that's in place, it's by no means as watertight as you appear to believe.

Yes, we do have serious obesity problems and these do not just affect children.

Yes, a lot of people do purchase expensive, sugar/salt/calorie-stuffed packaged/processed "food" and too much of it risks adversely affecting too many people's general health. You won't stop that, however, unless your education programme is incredibly expensive and marketed so brilliantly that it also ultimately proves to be broadly successful - but who should fund it?

One problem with the business of buying fresh non-packaged food is that too many people trying to hold down too many part- and full-time jobs and/or are running their own small businesses and who are members of families whose working commitments rarely if ever enable them all to sit down around the dinner table together simply don't have the time to prepare and cook enough of their meals and are also sometimes forced by circumstance to eat at unsociable and/or unhealthy hours of the day and/or night. You can't blame the supermarkets either (not that I'm suggesting that you're doing so); all of them usually have a decent range of fresh meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, salads and the like.

[Serial_Apologist]

One problem with the business of buying fresh non-packaged food is that too many people trying to hold down too many part- and full-time jobs and/or are running their own small businesses and who are members of families whose working commitments rarely if ever enable them all to sit down around the dinner table together simply don't have the time to prepare and cook enough of their meals and are also sometimes forced by circumstance to eat at unsociable and/or unhealthy hours of the day and/or night. You can't blame the supermarkets either (not that I'm suggesting that you're doing so); all of them usually have a decent range of fresh meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, salads and the like.

Then it is a straightforward matter of addressing the unhealthily high food/fat/sugar contents of pre-prepared meals.. It's well past high time governments did something about regulating all this and saying, these are the maxima and if you don't stick to our rules your company will either be closed down or sequestered (as was once the polite euphemism for taken over) and handed to the workforce to manage for the benefit of a fitter, healthier happier society, and the former ceo's put on the basic benefits they demand of their political servants. Are governments afraid of upsetting the value of their holdings in the international markets in sugar and salt or something? Let's campaign for something worthwhile in memory of Bob Crow.

[Beef Oven!]

You actually make some good points here and they do not come from a "dinosource".

I accept that, by "British families", you mean families in Britain regardless of their racial and cultural background and that you recognise that they are not "all alike"; OK so far.

The question of who might be entitled to free school meals is still, however, up for grabs and the subject of some contention and, whilst there is indeed a system that's in place, it's by no means as watertight as you appear to believe.

Yes, we do have serious obesity problems and these do not just affect children.

Yes, a lot of people do purchase expensive, sugar/salt/calorie-stuffed packaged/processed "food" and too much of it risks adversely affecting too many people's general health. You won't stop that, however, unless your education programme is incredibly expensive and marketed so brilliantly that it also ultimately proves to be broadly successful - but who should fund it?

One problem with the business of buying fresh non-packaged food is that too many people trying to hold down too many part- and full-time jobs and/or are running their own small businesses and who are members of families whose working commitments rarely if ever enable them all to sit down around the dinner table together simply don't have the time to prepare and cook enough of their meals and are also sometimes forced by circumstance to eat at unsociable and/or unhealthy hours of the day and/or night. You can't blame the supermarkets either (not that I'm suggesting that you're doing so); all of them usually have a decent range of fresh meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, salads and the like.

The old chestnut. I'm keeping down too many part time jobs to have time to cook.

It's about know-how. Perfectly possible to prepare food from onions, potatoes, carrots, cabbage chicken, milk cheese, eggs, bread etc and have a very busy work-life. But you've got to know how to do it.

The real challenge, and the real benefit concerns equipping people with necessary life-skills. Politicians, especially liberal ones don't like that shining pragmatism and good sense. Quick-win hits the spot for them.

[Nick Armstrong]

Flossie - if you're reading this: (a) yer inbox is full and (b) only french frank has the relevant powers...

[Beef Oven!]

Dave, if you're reading this, can you move your car, Theresa wants to get out.

[Nick Armstrong]

Mrs Oven, can you re-secure the strapping: he's out of bed again !!!

[french frank]

Yes, 'British families'. Families in Britain. Families that fall within Clegg's governmental purview. Why do you think that it infers that 'they are all alike'?

It infers nothing; it implies, in questions like 'Is it saying that British families are incapable of feeding their kids? Is it saying they are too poor to feed their kids?' that they are all alike if they can be lumped togther as being 'incapable of feeding their kids' and 'too poor to feed their kids'; some can/can't/are/aren't - because they're not all alike, so I fail to see the point of your generalised questions.

I support a progressive, relatively high-tax, system where essential provision is available to all (health, education, social services). It is preferable if all avail themselves of the public services to which the public contributes; but in a democracy those who can afford to opt out and use private provision should be allowed to.

I do understand that that is not a model of which you approve; indeed that it 'concerns' you. So we differ. Some people think like you, others think (more) like me.

[Beef Oven!]

It infers nothing; it implies, in questions like 'Is it saying that British families are incapable of feeding their kids? Is it saying they are too poor to feed their kids?' that they are all alike if they can be lumped togther as being 'incapable of feeding their kids' and 'too poor to feed their kids'; some can/can't/are/aren't - because they're not all alike, so I fail to see the point of your generalised questions.

I support a progressive, relatively high-tax, system where essential provision is available to all (health, education, social services). It is preferable if all avail themselves of the public services to which the public contributes; but in a democracy those who can afford to opt out and use private provision should be allowed to.

I do understand that that is not a model of which you approve; indeed that it 'concerns' you. So we differ. Some people think like you, others think (more) like me.

I meant I don't know why you infer.

Yes, we differ. I support a forward-looking, relatively low-tax system where certain services (health, social services & welfare, education, water, gas, electricity, defence, communications &transport) are either delivered through state-owned industries or otherwise subsidised. Labour and capital engaged in entrepreneurial capitalism would be 'the way we get things done'.

The credo would be based on a fundamental belief in all people's ability and talent to make their way in life and be as self-sufficient as possible, with the security of knowing that if things do go awry, there is always help to get themselves back on track.

Some people think like you, some people think (more) like me.

[teamsaint]

Quite why anybody thinks that high taxation for its own sake is a good thing is well beyond my understanding.
Tax is a necessary evil at best. Generally, we spend our money than other people spend our money. That said, I haven't seen a better model for looking after really vital needs than through taxation to provide centrally funded services.

If people were able to keep more of their hard earned, (especially those in the bottom half of the income scale), they might be able to choose healthy food choices, and eventually cost their health service less.

I am glad of every pound that I pay in tax that is well spent on health, (for instance), and resent every pound that is wasted on vanity schemes, education systems that fail, nuclear bombs, foreign wars, and so on.

So; spending on vital public transport schemes good, spending on HS2 bad.

You don't have to be wedded to high taxation rates to have a real social conscience.

[french frank]

Quite why anybody thinks that high taxation for its own sake is a good thing is well beyond my understanding.

Does anyone think that? Supporting a 'relatively' high taxation system is simply the honest acknowledgement that state provision of a wide range of services to an acceptable standard is likely to be quite expensive. Progressive taxation does aim to act as something of a 'leveller' which not everyone approves of.

[teamsaint]

I think that accepting high taxation levels gives a green light to the kind of excesses that I alluded to.

A basic distrust of how governments spend our money is not the same as not wanting good services well funded.

It's really a matter of how you think about it. We can all think of plenty of examples of public money being poorly spent, and examples of terrible underinvestment. Its mind set. High taxation has become synonymous with( good) public expenditure and social conscience.
Low(er) taxation , in the view of those on the left is synonymous with the greed of the already wealthy, at the expense of the less well off.

But not everybody sees it that way. Starting from a point where we trust people to spend their own money, wherever practical, is a good thing IMO. But if you have a social conscience you have to accept that public finance has to be raised,and that some money(sadly) will be poorly spent.

The objective of low taxation can be a positive mind set that is a part of a socially responsible and realistic outlook. We ask far too few questions about how our money is spent, and the outcomes. Education might be an excellent example of this, where money is poured into a system that fails far too many kids.

Re progressive taxation: yes, not everybody approves of the principle. How far our system is actually progressive is another thing. People repaying student loans have an effective top rate of almost 40% above £15k a year. That though, is part of another, and very complex discussion.