Footballer Marcus Rashford fights for free school meals

[MickiQ]

Did they give any reasons for not just giving people the £30, other than the 'they'll spend it on drugs and fags' line usually wheeled out in such circumstances?

Some people will no doubt spend it on booze and fags but even so this argument is outdated Victorian moralising at its worst My eldest daughter (who doesn't currently work) and her husband have 2 small children. My son-in-law's employer doesn't dictate how he spends his salary or give him part of it as food vouchers to stop him spending it on things they don't approve of. They just hand over the money and leave it at that. Why should benefit recipients be treated any differently and trusted less? The state can and should encourage good parenting and penalise bad but the benefit system is not the mechanism by which this should be achieved.

 

[Lord Camomile]

Why should benefit recipients be treated any differently and trusted less?

Because they haven't 'earned' it, basically. No job = must be something wrong with you and can't be trusted.

 

[bimble]

What the fuck did they think would happen that people would open these boxes and be grateful and silent?

 

[Lord Camomile]

What the fuck did they think would happen that people would open these boxes and be grateful and silent?

Either that, or they just didn't think about it at all, I would imagine.

 

[Sue]

What the fuck did they think would happen that people would open these boxes and be grateful and silent?

If only they knew their place...

 

[MickiQ]

Because they haven't 'earned' it, basically. No job = must be something wrong with you and can't be trusted.

I would like to present Exhibit A into evidence M'Lud

 

[Lord Camomile]

Hey, ain't saying any of this makes any sense...

 

[Lord Camomile]

"Tourism"

 

[MrSki]

For £3.50 you can get all this from a community hub. Think how far thirty quid would go.

 

[Lord Camomile]

Another detail just reminded of on Twitter: some of the food is being packaged in loose change bags, at least some of which appear to be used

Firstly and most importantly that is spectacularly unhygienic. I would always wash my hands after doing the banking at work because of how grimy my hands got.

Secondly though, "lol, you wanted money but we gave you food in money bags!". The fuck?!

 

[flypanam]

Lets not forget they don't fuck over every kid or families

Their private school meals:

 

[Artaxerxes]

More pictures

 

[hitmouse]

Was just coming here to see if their private school meals had been posted yet, a few more:

 

[existentialist]

What the fuck did they think would happen that people would open these boxes and be grateful and silent?

Yup. And if they weren't silent, then they were clearly insufficiently grateful, and should be punished. It's positively feudal.

 

[existentialist]

So, if you want to know what to boycott, here's the "Operations" section of the Wikipedia page for Compass. There's quite a lot of choice: and they're obviously balls deep into the government cash cow.

• Compass Group Index is the parent/holding firm[10] and directly owns Compass Group.[21]
• Compass Group owns the following brands and businesses: Kimco, Lackmann Culinary Services, Plural, All Leisure Hospitality, Bon Appétit Management Company,[22][23][24] Canteen Vending, Best Vendors Management, Chartwells, Crothall, DeltaFM, Eurest, Eurest Support Services (ESS), Grill and Co., Keith Prowse Corporate Hospitality, Levy Restaurants, LSS (Leisure Support Services) Facility Management, Medirest, Morrison Management Specialists, ICM,[16] DeltaFM,[25] Omega Security Services,[26] All Leisure Hospitality, Rapport,[27] Restaurant Associates,[28] Leith's, The Jockey Club Catering, Payne & Gunter, Instore, White Oaks, Steamplicity. 14Forty FM, 24, Fulfill, Foodbuy.[29][30][31] It also does cleaning, housekeeping, waste management, building operations, maintenance, gardening and outdoor services for schools and educational facilities.[32]
• Compass Group operates several owned brands including Trattoria Pizza, Mondo Subs, (UK & USA) Grab&Co Food to go and Spice of Life (UK Hospitals) as well as operating Costa Coffee, Subway, Papa John's Pizza, Chick-Fil-A and Starbucks under license. Compass Group also operates several owned service systems including Steamplicity, and Trim Trax.[33]
• Eurest Support Services (ESS) is the subsidiary specializing in harsh-environment/large-scale food service and facilities management. Its primary clients are military forces and other security services, UN conferences and some Blue Beret army rations, major defense contractors, and construction, mining, the UN and oil exploration and production facilities worldwide.[9][34][35][36][37]
• Foodbuy is a foodservice procurement organization which operates in both North America and Europe, created after the acquisition of Acquire Services in 2015.[38] It was awarded a contract by the Department of Health and Social Care in 2018 to buy food on behalf of the NHS. About 10 staff are transferred from NHS Supply Chain.[39]
• Integrated Cleaning Management is a major UK and Irish retail, leisure, health club industry, hotel and commercial cleaning firm[16] with 10,000 staff and 5,000 contracts as of 2014.[16] It sponsors the U.K.'s Springboard Charity Event.[16]
• Medirest operates in the UK and provides services in retail and medical places. Medirest Retail Shops and Cafes runs In-shop Cafes.[40] It has several NHS contracts weld by A+ NHS cleaners clean hospitals,[41] Pulse Hospital porters, who are NHS Hospital porters[42][43] and Medirest Health Sector which do other tasks such as disposing of surgical waste, catering and cleaning.[44]
• 14forty is a UK wide facility management firm.[45]

(I bolded the brands that look like UK main street operations. That's the last cup of Costa coffee I drink, and I'll email them to say why)

 

[brogdale]

Important to acknowledge the dehumanising leg-work put into the legitimisation of profiting from child poverty:



Anyone else like to wipe that sneer off his thick head?

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

Dido Harding packs those boxes herself you ungrateful fucks.

 

[bimble]

Yup. And if they weren't silent, then they were clearly insufficiently grateful, and should be punished. It's positively feudal.

I just made the idiotic mistake of looking through the replies on Twitter to some of these photos of half a bendy carrot two raisins and a tin of beans, and there are loads of them just like that - it’s free, it’s only meant to be lunch, stop moaning, loads.

 

[existentialist]

I just made the idiotic mistake of looking through the replies on Twitter to some of these photos of half a bendy carrot two raisins and a tin of beans, and there are loads of them just like that - it’s free, it’s only meant to be lunch, stop moaning, loads.

Conveniently forgetting that this might be the only cough "substantial" meal they get in a day.

It's "check your privilege" really, isn't it? And it would appear that it's not just Eton-educated toffs that have no idea about how people on the breadline (clue is in the name) live. Come to that, I don't think I do, either but I am not under any illusions that I know just how it is...certainly not enough to sit in judgement on people.

 

[existentialist]

Dido Harding packs those boxes herself you ungrateful fucks.

Well, she nicked a fuckload of carrots and facecloth bread along the way, from the look of it.

 

[Orang Utan]

For comparison, this is typical of the FSM boxes we give out (my local council):

(This is for one child for five days AFAIK)

 

[Orang Utan]

(Even that’s not quite adequate IMO)

 

[Lord Camomile]

From the BBC.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "We are aware of the images and clear that the contents of these food parcels are completely unacceptable.

"Food parcels should contain food that parents can use to make healthy lunches throughout the week," he added.

The Department for Education, which has clear guidelines for parcels, will shortly be opening a similar voucher scheme to the one operational during the first school lockdown, the spokesman added.

I honestly don't remember the voucher scheme from the first lockdown; is this a good thing?

 

[mwgdrwg]

Something else will be trending on Twitter tomorrow, nobody will be punished, in fact they are probably laughing they're heads off behind closed doors.

 

[MrSki]

Delivered by Morrisons for £30

 

[MrSki]

 

[TopCat]

Was just coming here to see if their private school meals had been posted yet, a few more:

The food cost of all of the above would not be that high.

 

[Orang Utan]

Don’t they have nutritionists advising at Chartwells? Clearly none, obv.
There’s no excuse for this at all. Bring forth the guillotines

 

[Orang Utan]

Perhaps the criteria for their choices for the FSM boxes, should be: ‘would this sate Gary Sambrook?’

 

[Sue]

Don’t they have nutritionists advising at Chartwells? Clearly none, obv.
There’s no excuse for this at all. Bring forth the guillotines

When it's just for the plebs though, why bother?