to think a £7500 income cap on free school meals is a deathwish?

[thirdhill]

I'm so shocked to see the Children's Society analysis reported in most papers today about proposals to introduce a £7500 income cap on free school meals.

My initial reaction is this is sheer vindictiveness, taking away a meal from kids in dire need. Will the money spent on a daily lunch for a few children save our economy? Or perhaps we can be relied on to not care anymore? Or is there a wider picture nobody is reporting? My understanding is that the present income cap is £16k, which already seems a challenge for a family of say four.

Sarah Teather, the Minister, is a lib dem MP but this must tar both parties for many and seems an absolute deal breaker for mobile voters. Straw that broke the camel's back, death wish, etc.

Curious if anyone knows any more to this.

TIA

I know Devil and I think it's shocking that people on here are willing to take away the little that these children have. My DM works in a school and it's a regular occurence there that a child will turn up not having had any breakfast/with dirty clothes/unwashed. People don't seem to understand that this isn't a handful of children who would just have to have pasta instead but hundreds, if not thousands, of children who would go hungry every single day because their parents can't/won't feed them.

dd gets fsm because I am a scrounging malingerer disabled, therefore on incapacity benefit fraudulent stolen money, not because we can't be arsed to feed her

is there a little island somewhere where those of us who still have social consciences and basic compassion and want to live like civilised human being rather than selfish fuckers can go and live?

i don't want to share a society with the kind of selfish, self righteous ignorant people who are running this country and those that are rubbing their hands in glee at it all.

i really, really don't want to live in a country where women who don't even work themselves but have husbands who earn a fortune sneer and look down their noses at others who didn't marry a big pay pack.

imagine sneering at people because they don't earn as much money as your husband? if mr pay pack walks off tomorrow you might be glad of a society that supports people in hard times.

YANBU - Disgusting. I despair :(

I'd think that almost any parent who "can't be arsed" to feed their own child would have depression or other mental illness or an addiction or other serious challenges/ problems.

It's ridiculous to think there are all these people who just can't be bothered, "willful neglect" etc.

Agree with DawnDonna - don't judge too harshly, not til you've walked a mile in their moccasens anyway (as old native American saying put it)

Lucky they can afford moccassins

Yanbu. It's an horrendous figure to cut off eligibility. Literally taking food out of children's mouths. My husband, as a child, under the previous Tory govt, relied on his free school dinner as his main meal of the day. This is not because of our current govt. it's because of our previous one . But children shoukdn't be the ones who pay. Teachers should be striking over this! Not bloody pensions ffs.

I did wonder about the "moccassins" and thought of changing in to "carpet slippers"

If we can afford to be poncing about on the world stage implementing "regime change" at £1m per missile we can afford to ensure our poorest chidren eat.

Nero could have told you that to avoid civil unrest if you stage circuses such as the Olympics and Jubilee Celebrations then you also need to provide the "bread" - e.g free school lunches for those children at the sharpest end of the financial crisis.

I agree we do need to cut the welfare bill - we can start by demanding the banks start paying back the tax payer funded bail outs they received. The banks should take the brunt of the fallout from the crisis they themselves created. No bonuses at all should be payable to bankers (who are on a living wage already - the bonus payments just pay for the porsche etc) unless and until they have repaid society the money they borrowed from us all.

To expect children as young as four to go without something so basic as food so as not to inconvenience the opulent livestyles of the top 20% is so unjust that it makes me very uncomfortable.

The sight of young children begging for food, or fainting in class from hunger will make a lot of normally passive peaceable people very, very angry. Last summer demonstrated how little control the authorities actually have during civil unrest.

A society as unbalanced as this one is in danger of becoming cannot be safe, secure, or contented - things all sections from the richest to the poorest desire. Neither does it demonstrate to our young the qualities of fairness, compassion and honesty we would like our children to develop as they grow into adults themselves.

thinking about it this is the kind of thing that led to busy guillotines in france

when is bastille day? would be a good date for a protest.

we could have mock guillotines and knock up dummy bank managers and politicians to behead. lewes fire festival type style.

(can't find who they burnt at lewes last year by googling - be curious to know if anyone was there)

14th July is Bastille Day.

If children are coming to school with no food or unwashed clothers for several weeks then the answer is NOT to just blindly feed 'em, wash their clothes! Look at the reason - if it metal illness/depression then it needs to be treated, pretty negligen tof those who notive the unwashed clithes, assume mental illness, but ignre it to send the poor kid back to that householda day adter day. If it is 'poor education' c'mon - there has been free education in this country for the lifetimes of all parents of school kids - lame excuse.

I doubt they are 'blindly feeding them and washing their clothes', they're just doing that as well, because they're nice.

You don't look at a hungry dirty child and say 'well now, I could give you some toast and a clean jumper, but that wouldn't really solve the problem of your useless mother, now would it?'. You feed them, and wash their clothes. And you do whatever else you can as well insofar as it is in your power as a teacher, I should think.

I agree with the concept of FSM for those in need. Most people do. I think there is a debate about who should be eligible and I certainly wouldn't want to see eligibility reduced.

What I am puzzled about is where the £7500 figure has come from? It has only been mentioned by the Children's Society.

Please could someone post a link to where this figure has been officially stated to be the cut off or the proposal where it shows that it is one of the cut off options under consideration.

p.s. For those who mentioned Thatcher - Milk Snatcher its not strictly correct as she was Education Sec in 1970 and we still had free school milk when I started school in 1974 - she only withdrew it from secondary schools (and btw being forced to drink unrefrigerated milk at morning break put me and quite a few others I know off milk for a very long time - I still don't drink milk more than 35 years later).
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2000/uk_confidential/1095121.stm

Have just googled to confirm that Bastille Day is "Let them eat cake" day too so I can see that would be perfect for a protest on this issue saf

Waifs and strays/ hungry children - tick
Guillotines with dummy politicians and bank managers - tick
Cake - tick

We really do need a cake emoticon now MNHQ !

The Olympics opening ceremony would be worth interrupting with a protest
Thousands of Mothers lining the route with cardboard guillotines and cake slices on international telly might help make the point.

As a nation if these cuts go ahead we should hang our heads in shame. I certainly won't be listening to any more government posturing on parenting.

So long as those mothers aren't disabled, because public transport is not accessible and they've suspended free Blue Bage parking until October

Why hang your head when you could hang a Condem MP?

There weren't guillotines in France because child benefit was restricted to those earning less than £7500. There was a revolution because people were starving to death.

I think Labour have a lot to answer for. They increased benefits so that more and more people came to feel they were reliant on them, knowing that as soon as the Tories took them away, people would be bleating and wanting Labour back in power. Pretty basic strategy really, but some people seemingly can't see through it.

They increased benefits because people needed to survive. They increased benefits because Thatcher had messed the economy to such an extent there were huge areas where no work was available.
Most people do not feel that they want to live a benefits lifestyle, it's a bloody myth perpetuated by tories who as usual are keen to see the rich are not penalised for anything.
When these discussions happen, inevitably people talk about benefits scroungers, people who shouldn't be breeding etc. These people are in a minority. What about Disabled people, Carers, Pensioners. They too are part of the welfare bill.

Whether parents rely on tax credits etc or not school meals is one way of making sure that a benefit goes direct to the person who needs it, the child. I am not up for punishing children however responsible or feckless their parents.