Dear Sir
I hope you will can allow someone to present the other side of the “feed children in the holidays” issue. Unlike Jennie Westbrook (letters 29 October) I fully support our MP Michelle Donelan’s approach towards Marcus Rashford’s well meant proposals.
Surely it is parents’ responsibility to feed their children? The State can help genuinely struggling families in various ways and then the parent(s) can prioritise their spending. I suspect the majority in our country are getting rather fed up with Welfarists and Statists (aided and abetted by the BBC and other media outlets) who, increasingly, expect taxpayers to fork out for everything – what some call the magic money-tree approach. And we are finding more and more of such people on our Councils and within our Quangoes.
Happily the majority of us (I hope) continue to raise families that we can afford, stay together if only to avoid the sort of single-parent financial struggles which afflict so many these days and generally live and spend within our means. This includes feeding our children without expecting the State to do so.
To a large extent this Government is the architect of its own difficulties. If it was better able to calmly and effectively promote and communicate its policies, rather than merely react to events with panicky and knee-jerk U-turns, then it might look more like a Conservative Government (which the majority of Brits voted for). But his Government’s lamentable performance doesn’t mean the PM is wrong to (try and) hold out against those who think Marcus Rashford’s approach is appropriate. If only more of his MPs supported him.
D J Morley,
Bowerhill.
