Day 178 minus 1, School meals, Thatcher's 'choice' again

My Clanger visitors, they'd detoured here after their moon trip as mentioned in earlier reports, were keen to have some understanding of how food was provided in schools.  Unfortunately even though my innocent demeanour, gullibility and naivety suggest I came down with the last rain fall I was not really in a position to tell them about current arrangements.  I did relate some history though, the bit I could remember at least.

In 1980 the regulations governing nutritional content of school dinners were changed.  Up until then I’d had free school meals - single parent family, skint - but in 1980 we were better off and so I paid.

To get a school meal you needed to have a dinner ticket. You either got dinner tickets free if you were on a low income or benefit (this was means tested), or you paid £2 for five of them, so that’s 40p per day back there in pre-history.

Artists impression stolen from the internets

In 1980 when the cafeteria system was introduced those on free school meals still received dinner tickets and handed one in at the till, those that paid also paid at the till.  Before deregulation you would get a main course, a pudding, and a cup of tea/coffee.  After deregulation if you received free school meals your dinner ticket didn’t quite stretch to the same meal, there were different choices available, but those choices all had a higher cost than before deregulation.  The additional cost had to be paid at the till.  So effectively the cost of a school meal had gone up but the benefit for those on free school meals had not gone up.

As I was no longer on free school dinners I made my choice and voted with my feet - I usually went to the chippy and bought fish and chips, and at 21p this was a vast improvement on the choices available at the school cafeteria.  The fish was a proper sized fish, the chips were a proper sized portion, and it was better value and left 19p for me to spend on gambling, women, and drugs.

There are a number of problems with this, it encouraged people to go elsewhere and eat less healthy food, the cafeteria itself supplied a range of less healthy food than it had done before, and those receiving free school meals now had to top that up with money or go without something.  All of that stinks.  This was another Tory policy and another one where the word ‘choice’ was used as if that conveyed some indication that it was a good thing.

My Clanger friends looked at me aghast and expressed dismay and then amusement that we should be such a foolish bunch to have voted those arses in. But then they remembered that those at the bottom of the heap don't really get heard, and those higher up don't really give a stuff. "You get the government you deserve" they said, having heard it somewhere on TV and thinking it was a phrase that contained real insight. You can't blame them for knowing the full quote, they're starting to be brainwashed too, so I told them it, "If you don't vote, you get the government you deserve."

There's more to that phrase but it wasn't up for debate.