In Response to The Mental Alchemist's Save Our Free School Meals (1/2)

(1/2), (2/2).

Original article: www.thisisull.com/opinions/1006006399_saveschoolmeals.html Mental Alchemist shows an unerring ability to turn gold into lead with the mixture of inaccuracy, sloppy thinking, and basic political illiteracy. To start at the most basic there is not a Liberal Party Cabinet on Hull City Council. Indeed, despite all the treachery and re-branding exercises, there is not even a Liberal on the Council. In any event the party does not form a Cabinet (it is a Group who were elected).

It may be politics 101 but if people are too pompous they may as well show they know what they are talking about if they wish to be taken seriously ... let alone their arguments.

To switch to the arguments. Let us deal with the most basic error of the would be Tariq Ali exhorting us all to ' ... MAKE ENOUGH NOISE WE CAN'T LOSE!' There is no threat to free school meals. Free school meals will remain whatever any City Council Cabinet may think since it is a matter of Law that there will be a provision. What our would be wizard of spin meant to say was the end of UNIVERSAL free school meals for PRIMARY children. Not much difference there then! We then have the familiar rant of the educationalist that 'countless studies have shown........' (Never evidencing this assertion incidentally) then pressing on with their pet enthusiasm which further confuses the debate.

People who are serious about education know that there is evidence to link regular eating with improved learning, though it is not a panacea since other factors such as parental nurturing, quality of teaching, quality of school are what lead to good results too. However those who really know their topic know, and miracle dictu knew this before Jamie Oliver, that the quality of food is an issue too.

Taking the two issues separately there is the universality argument which rightly offends those who do not live in the poilitical/educational, state subsidised, goldfish bowl. Sir Ian Gilmour put up the definitive argument against means testing of benefits in his excellent work 'Dancing With Dogma'. However that was resisting the calls of the more manic right-wingers in his party to overturn universal benefit administration into tailored/targeted delivery. Here we have the novel situation of a targeted benefit, rightly intended for those in need, being extended to cover those not in need!

A bizarre extension of tax-strain, thereby denying tax revenues for more worthy and needy causes.

The debate about universality has obscured the debate about the quality of the food, often reduced to pathetic bidding wars in the Council as the arguments get reduced to who will spend the most rather than who will get better diet for their bucks. There is no inherent benefit to universal junk food, and the dreary apologists who say it is all children want reveal the paucity of their moral fibre and often inability to maintain discipline in the schools they work for.

The debate is not about what little Baz and little Tracy want it is about what is good for them. If exposed to poor diet at home how will they know poached fish is better for them than reconstituted beef burgers? Indeed the poor domestic diet was one reason why free school meals were brought in, and have remained as a core belief amongst all political parties. On the City Council nobody has called for the abolition of free school meals, it is the universal provision that offends.

At a time when there is a £25m shortfall thanks to wicked Labour cuts under Tony Blair, there are backlogs of repairs, and core essentials are under threat now, more than ever, politics is about priorities. To argue then that universality should be imposed whether needed or not is an obscenity. The key debate is about the role of the parent in all this. Is it the role of the state to nationalise parenting? Is there no parental responsibility here? When teachers whine about an inability to maintain discipline they point out they have care of a child for less hours than a parent; why then is this nutrition issue not a matter for parents too?

Why does the provision of one school meal a day for five days a week during term time mean Baz and Tracy will not be influenced by what they eat as a minimum for the two+ meals a day they eat five days a week and three on the other two at home during term time; and doubly influenced by the three meals a day, seven days a week, during the holiday time?

Continued.... Next Page (2/2)

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