Angela Rayner

In the questions and debate after PMQ related to child poverty and hunger in UK, one of the junior Ministers said "children have always gone hungry".
The cloak and the mask has truly dropped.
Not even the pretence of giving a toss or understanding the needs of poor children and families in poverty - in the 6th richest country on the planet!
Can any caring intelligent conscientious human being seriously believe this scum running the country for its own sake deserves any credibility to "govern"?
 
As a child, I always thought by the year 2020 we would have flying cars, etc. and everyone would want for nothing. Instead, this passage from A Christmas Carol, first published in 1843, seems more apt.



“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.
“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”
“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.
“Both very busy, sir.”
“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”
 
https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/mansfield-mp-ben-bradley-twitter-4627736

You may find this interesting - if not just the irony.....
Ben Bradley,MP for Mansfield [the first ever Tory MP to be elected in Mansfield!] row with Marcus Rashford - as reported in the local Nottingham rag - including some reader comments at the bottom...

Mansfield MP Ben Bradley in Twitter spat with Marcus Rashford over free school meals
"Ever-extending freebies are a sticking plaster not a solution."

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Marcus Rashford (Image: PA)



Mansfield's MP Ben Bradley has engaged in a row with footballer Marcus Rashford over free school meals.

The Manchester United footballer launched a campaign to end child poverty in the UK earlier this year earning him an MBE.

The striker hit headlines after forcing Boris Johnson into a U-turn over extending free school meals into the summer holidays.

He has since joined up with the UK's major supermarkets as part of the 'National Food Strategy'.

It would see a major expansion of free school meals, school holiday support and the Healthy Start voucher scheme in a bid to ensure no child goes hungry.

Posting on Twitter on Wednesday morning (October 21) Mr Rashford said he would be "paying close attention to the Commons today and to those who are willing to turn a blind eye to the needs of our most vulnerable children" as pressure mounts for the Government to back the campaign.


He went on to post a series of tweets regarding the impact of Covid-19 on families' income and increasing rates of unemployment.

"Why keep punishing our most disadvantaged? Give our children a chance. All eyes on the Commons," he added.

It caught the attention of Conservative MP for Mansfield, Ben Bradley, who responded directly to Mr Rashford on the issues in extending free school meals outside of term time.


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Mansfield MP Ben Bradley
He tweeted: "[Government] has lots of responsibilities: supporting the vulnerable, helping people to help themselves, balancing the books.

"Not as simple as you to make out Marcus. Extending [free school meals] to [school holidays] passes responsibility for feeding kids away from parents, to the State.

"It increases dependency."

The government has so far refused to extend provision in England over the half-term and Christmas breaks.

Labour will use a Commons vote to call for an extension on the scheme until Easter 2021.



In his reply, Mr Rashford posted: "Ben, the economy already pays a high price for child hunger. If children were fed properly you would increase educational attainment and boost life chances.

"Kelloggs UK calculated we would spend at least £5.2M a year on lost teaching hours as teachers are caring for hungry kids

"And for a more humane response, since March, 32% of families have suffered a drop in income. Nearly 1 million have fallen off the payroll.

"This is not dependency, this a cry for help. There are no jobs!! 250% increase in food poverty and rising. Nobody said this was simple..."

But Mr Bradley came back with a raft of measures the Tory Government had done to support low income households, describing the extension of free school meals as a "sticking plaster".

"This is why we expanded [free school meals], introduced breakfast clubs, increased school budgets and made the welfare system more generous [including] increasing [Universal Credit] during Covid," he tweeted.

"We're doing a lot to help the most vulnerable children, but ever- extending freebies are a sticking plaster not a solution."

Conversation

All Comments

1 min ago

How did this clown ever get into Parliament? Did a politics degree at Trent uni, got a side hustle with a Tory MP, went into Parliament.

Rashford’s been around. Bradley’s been a loudmouth on the tax dollar from day 1. Stunt double for Lloyd Christmas next.



1 hr ago

When Notts goes to tier 3 lockdown next week with the resulting job losses and business failures there are going to be a lot of hungry kids in Mansfield! .. I hope the parents remember which way Bradley voted come election time!



1 hr ago

Everyone that voted Tory in the last election is responsible for this your reaping what you sowed!


2 hrs ago

So a privately educated Tory MP argues on the side of not feeding hungry school children, this should not even be up for debate in 21st Britain. Oh forgot the Nasty party are in power how does that old saying go

"same old Tories", levelling up my sole.
Every Tory MP today was emailed by party leaders to give negative message/tweets about Rashfords project utterly deplorable.


3 hrs ago

Ben Bradley is so dim that he managed to libel Jeremy Corbyn, and thus had under compulsion do the only good thing that he has done to ameliorate child poverty, because Corbyn got him to pay the damages to a Mansfield food charity.


2 hrs ago


The other thing that is interesting about this story is that it finally draws attention to one of Bradshaw's tweets: his grovelling apology that he made to Corbyn over the libel is the most shared tweet from any Conservative MP! If this latest is representative of Bradley's use of twitter, that is no surprise.

3 hrs ago

Socialism for the rich... Capitalism for the poor.
You must be so proud, Tory Mansfield








 
The only mistake she made was that she was referring to one individual and not the whole partyful, with the exception of 5 decent people who voted with the opposition motion.

Nice to see that even Mark Francois, a 50 something year old Tory MP, who has not been seen around the Houses of Parliament for some time now, managed to get someone to vote by proxy for him today. As yet we have not been advised whether his proxy voter was male or even of the other persuasion.
 
The only mistake she made was that she was referring to one individual and not the whole partyful, with the exception of 5 decent people who voted with the opposition motion.

Nice to see that even Mark Francois, a 50 something year old Tory MP, who has not been seen around the Houses of Parliament for some time now, managed to get someone to vote by proxy for him today. As yet we have not been advised whether his proxy voter was male or even of the other persuasion.
;)
 
When the gvt did this in the summer it cost as far as I can see £120million, using my simple maths that cost was for six weeks (school holidays) to do the same for the two week holiday coming up would be £40million or hardly anything in comparison to the money being thrown around in other areas.

not sure what the gvt are thinking in this case - apart from the obvious morality issues it’s yet another own goal. I would expect a u turn in the coming days on this one.

Source BBC:The support in England works out at about £15 a week per recipient, and will cost around £120m
 
I will say this about the vouchers. There are a number of cases where parents are allowed to buy alcohol with them. The vouchers need to be produced were the barcode automatically excludes alcohol and Tobacco

the shops can’t decline what they are used for. That said I reckon for everyone one that spends it on themselves there is 10 that don’t. You can guess out the 11 which one would end up in the daily mail
 
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