England's food is awful – and the Tories still refuse to give it to children | Joel Golby

In the row over providing free school meals during holidays, ‘shall we feed children?’ has become a complex question

We have a lot to say about eating food right now for a culture whose cuisine essentially boils down to “can I put the word ‘pudding’ on the end of it?” Black pudding. Yorkshire pudding. Steak and kidney pudding. This is a country where we consider the detritus from a deep-fryer as a fun treat that deserves its own name (“scraps”). This is a country where haute cuisine is splaying open a bag of Scampi Fries in front of a warm pint of ale with the hearty offer to “dig in”. Our food is awful, and we still refuse to give it to the children.

Quick recap: the Tories voted against extending free school meals to children in England during holidays until Easter 2021. In other words, it’s been a fretful week of worrying whether choosing to deprive children of lunch during holidays is “fundamentally evil” or “savvy conservative fiscal policy”, and frankly the fact that we’ve managed to get through it without calling an election or forcing some sort of referendum (Nigel Farage ceremonially floating down the Thames on a freight ship full of pink custard, shouting “NONE OF THIS FOR YOU” at local schoolchildren that have been assembled on each bridge) seems like blessed relief.

Related: Only this government could miss the open goal of free school meals | Marina Hyde

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3owwcLX