Poor people are kept in their place by Tories | Letters

Penny Fell laments the government’s breathtaking condescension towards parents, while Jackie King-Owen recalls how important free school meals were for her and her brother

The school meals row rumbles on and you report that the prime minister is hinting at a better scheme in time for the Christmas holidays (Free school meals: Johnson under renewed pressure from council leaders, 26 October). Really? So far, the government’s schemes for pandemic management have proved rushed, wasteful, unnecessarily costly or frighteningly inept – and frequently all four.

This week, the Tory MP for Broxbourne, Sir Charles Walker, wrote to constituents on the subject: “I am struggling to think of any better way the state could strip parents of their value and self-worth than by it saying to them, without exception, ‘we don’t believe you have the capacity or desire to feed your children so we will feed them for you’.”

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2G7cAfX