I suppose this has been the biggest issue last week, and it's still rumbling on, so it's worth writing a couple of words on. The government have again made themselves look to be the bad guys, by voting down an Opposition motion to extend free school meals during the half-terms and holidays until Easter 2021.
I guess the motion may have been politically motivated, but malnourished kids have been a concern for a while now, even before this cursed pandemic. It's all well and good to give kids a hot meal at school, but what happens at the weekends, and during school holidays? The fact that kids need a free meal scheme *at all* kind of highlights the fact that people don't have enough money to live on, in my mind.
So, Labour used their Opposition Day debate to discuss the possibility of extending the free school meal program during this half-term and over Christmas. As I understand it, the government told the Conservative party MPs to vote against the motion. This is standard; after all, who wants to see the Opposition come up with a good idea? The trouble was, though, that on this occasion the motion was supported by Marcus Rashford, which meant that a lot more people than usual were interested in the stuffy, dry proceedings of the House of Commons. And when the Conservatives voted down the motion with their 80 seat majority, there was quite widespread public reaction.
Normally there might be a bit of argy-bargy on Twitter, with a few people sounding off, but this reached out further than that to Facebook and even the political journalists like Beth Rigby for instance picked up on it. Lots of businesses started offering free meals to local kids in need, and Marcus Rashford started retweeting all the offers he was made aware of. It was quite awe-inspiring to read his Twitter timeline on Friday morning.
MPs and Tory backers tried to support the government position, unsuccessfully. Ben Bradshaw and Marcus Fysh in particular were pilloried for holding unpopular (and possibly incorrect) opinions.
The one fly in the ointment which maybe soured the moment was Angela Rayner allegedly calling one of her Tory MP colleagues "scum". If it hadn't been for that, it would have been a brilliantly-executed and flawless PR move. As it is, people have dismissed the complaints from the Tory MPs, comparing a bit of name-calling to child poverty and hunger. I can empathise though with Rayner's frustration. With a majority of eighty, the government can vote through any legislation it likes, and being in opposition must feel like being an ineffective bystander sometimes.
Anyway, add this to the exams fiasco earlier in the year, and the ongoing scandal over PPE contracts, and I get the sense that this government isn't as good at handling issues as it likes to think it is. The general election was less than a year ago; has any government in recent history made as many missteps as this current government? And remember, this is likely to continue until 2024, thanks to the Fixed Term Parliament Act. I can't see Johnson going for an early election. But that will mean more time in power, and more opportunities to err further.
At least we've got something to look forward to, eh?
TTFN.
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