Too right

Bollocks to queueing 👍🏻

On here or just in general 🤔

I think that’s one of the issues.

People seem to be curating their followings a lot more on here

Gone are the days of having follows from cabinet ministers, Lords, academics & sporting heroes

It’s weird, Bluesky almost feels too safe

People don’t seem interested in putting out ideas that can be challenged

Perhaps there’re scarred by X, perhaps it’s a liking for the traditional hierarchical structures

There is no real evidence spending millions giving Free Food to better off families is having any impact

There’s a massive difference between free meals for those on low incomes & feeding those who are reasonably well off

The promised improvements to Health & attainment don’t seem to have happened

Most schools nowadays use cashless systems like cards, wristbands or biometrics

They go to great lengths to ensure children don’t know who pays & who doesn’t

The old tales highlighting stigma tend to be rolled out by campaigners & politicians scaremongering people into backing universality

I'm a fan of expanding FSM, less so universal FSM

If you are referring to the impact on urban health impact assessment, be aware the assumptions used are all false

There isn't any huge payback from giving free meals to everyone

Let's focus on those in need

Perhaps ask for the evidence the existing policy has reduced obesity rates?

Or how the last few years of universal FSM has improved attainment?

There isn’t really any solid evidence universal FSM helps improve attainment. attendance or children’s health

This is politics, pure and simple, a bribe to the electorate

We absolutely need to expand FSM to support struggling families, but not everyone needs FSMs

Child poverty & FSM is an area of interest for me

I’m also sceptical of the claim

But… it’s dependent on so many variables and different definitions, it’s hard to say outright it is or isn’t true

My gut feeling is the FSM changes will undoubtedly help some families

The pertinent point is that most of those meals are NOT needed, that the majority of children receiving meals under this scheme are not in poverty

T

What evidence was presented?

The only impact reports available are on take up (unsurprisingly it’s increases) and the misleading CPAG report looking at 120 low income families, many of whom were FSM & didn’t benefit in any way

Was there anything new of note?