Feeding Poor Kids

Authors note: While a lot has gone off recently, this post focuses solely on one issue: child poverty, namely child food poverty. I tried to remain apolitical when writing this post, but morality and politics are so inextricably entwined that it just couldn't be done. 

This piece isn't a profound in-depth analysis of poverty and the root causes of it or how it can become a vicious cycle, or how it's a stain on humanity at large. Nor does it read like a well educated person wrote it, but it comes from the heart. From someone who knows what entrenched poverty is like. 

Please note I am specifically talking about England as opposed to the UK as a whole. Wales for example, has agree to extending FSM vouchers to cover the winter school breaks.

With that said, let's begin. 

According to Maslow's hierarchy human beings have four basic physiological needs in order to survive; food, water, warmth and rest. We know what happens if these are not met, with over 3 million children dying every year of malnutrition, hunger and stsrvation. Consequently, access to food is widely accepted as a basic pillar of civilised society, there is a reason why we call international food aid humanitarian aid.

But there are two sides to humanity; compassion and destruction and the two often go hand in hand. In times of war we see the worst of man and in the wake of such conflict and destruction we see the best in humanity as we work together to rebuild society anew.

Which is why in the aftermath of the First World War the League of Nations agreed to the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Implemented In 1924, this was the first human rights document to be adopted by an international government body that set out five basic rights afforded to a child.

Naturally, this included feeding hungry children, with section two stating: "The child that is hungry must be fed, the child that is sick must be nursed, the child that is backward must be helped, the delinquent child must be reclaimed, and the orphan and the waif must be sheltered and succoured."

This document was revisited, updated and expanded several times by the United Nations in the wake of the Second World War and was followed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989. This convention is a legally binding international agreement that lays out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of every child. It was signed and ratified by the UK in 1991.

We're now in 2020 and it staggers beyond belief that one of the wealthiest countries in the world is still debating whether vulnerable children from impoverished environments should be able to eat, or not. 

There is no debate to be had. Every child should be able to access healthy nutritious food. It's basic humanity, basic decency. No child should go hungry or starve.

But here we are, in the back end of October and the imminent autumn half break along with Marcus Rashford's tireless campaigning, has reignited an age old debate about child food poverty on a wider societal level that should have been put to bed a long time ago. Food is not only essential to survival but nutrition is needed to promote a healthy immune system, development and growth in children.

With the global pandemic and resulting lockdown, more families than ever are facing loss, redundancy, unemployment and hardship. It's been nearly nine months since the first confirmed case of Covid19 here in the UK and the country is still within its grips. Lockdown measures have taken their toll and the Conservative governments poor handling of the pandemic has left nearly six million people claiming Universal Credit. 

This has put an unprecedented number of children at risk of hunger and hardship during the upcoming winter months. In light of this, Rashford has continued his #EndChildFoodPoverty campaign and called on the PM Boris Johnson to extend the free school meal voucher scheme to cover the half term and winter breaks. It's worth noting this is in large part because these children are being negatively impacted by the governments woeful response to the pandemic. How can a parent be expected to feed their kids and pay their bills on less than minimum wage.

The opposition party, Labour, seized the opportunity and got a parliamentary vote the issue on Thursday 22nd Oct. To little surprise the Conservative government overwhelmingly voted against feeding poor children with 320 Tory MPs voting against it and just 5 voting for it.

The nasty party is well and truly alive. It never went anywhere, they just got better at masking their malevolence. Bereft of any heart or compassion, this is the real face of right wing ideology towards poverty and children: let them eat cake.

Which leads us to the public's response to the Tories maliciously voting down helping some of the poorest and most vulnerable children. What happened next is a bittersweet pill for most lefties.

The people stepped up and stepped in to help out when the government wouldn't. Businesses, big and small offered to do their part. Councils up and down the country allocated funding where they could. It was an outpouring of humanity from the British public in the face of callousness from the conservatives. One look at Marcus Rashfords's social media feeds on the weekend could bring a year to your eyes. Council after council, business after business, charity after charity all stepping up and doing what they can to ensure that some of the most vulnerable and poor children have access to food during the coming difficult winter months.

Here's the difficult part, these conditions should not exist in the first place. It's the government who decided that the poorest parents should bare the brunt of the pandemic by choosing to let them languish on less than minimum wage. It's the government who set the conditions in which these kids live in. It's the government who could choose not to do this. They could choose to do what France is doing and ensure the poorest parents get 100% of their income.

At the heart of right wing ideology is a small state. A small state forces the poorest and most vulnerable to rely on charity and the charitable nature of others and the Tories know this. They know if they shirk the responsibility to ensure that people can survive, then those with a charitable nature and the means to do so will step up. Which is exactly what happened with the FSM vote and it's exactly what they wanted. 

Stepping back and looking at the bigger picture, this outpouring of charity and humanity is naught but a sticking plaster on a bullet wound. It won't resolve any ongoing long term issues surrounding food poverty, but it will help provide immediate short term help. Going forward we need to look at the heart of the issue, what drives poverty and child food poverty, what causes it. Until we do that, little progress will be made.

I don't think it's radical to want all children to be able to eat enough nutritious food to not only survive but to thrive. As mentioned earlier, it's basic human decency. But I suspect the likes of the Bernard Arnault and Warren Buffet haste to disagree with me. 

If you enjoyed this post feel free to subscribe at the top or leave feedback if you wish.

Find me on Twitter @NorthernLefty