Free School Meals for every child in primary school.

Subject: I’ve written to my MP, will you?

Body:

On 13 December Zarah Sultana MP is presenting the #FreeSchoolMealsForAll Bill in Parliament.

The bill would extend Free School Meals to every child in primary school. It would support families and help ensure every child has the basics to grow and thrive.

MPs should back families, back children, and back the bill.

I’ve just asked my MP to back the Bill. Can you ask your MP to do the same?

Here’s the link: actionnetwork.org/letters/a…

Thanks!

Special Xmas Lunch Menu

Starter: Seasonal Word Soup

Main course: Roast Gobbledegook with all the trimmings including sage and EU stuffing balls

Dessert: Traditional lemon biscuit

Christmas Lunch Special Diet Option for Non Special Diet Registered Pupils

Our catering company is offering a Christmas Lunch and for pupils who do not normally use the service and have an allergy but would like to take part in the Christmas lunch the below options are available.

This is only for pupils who have an allergy/intolerance that is covered by the 14 in EU allergen legislation*. If the allergy/ intolerance is outside the EU 14 and the pupil is not registered as a special diet with the catering company, then they must continue to have a packed lunch.

This is designed to safeguard children who have food allergies and intolerances, while allowing then to take part in the Christmas Lunch, and to also support the catering staff involved in the preparation and service of the Christmas Lunch. Please refer to the Dietary Safeguarding Policy for more information.

Please complete the form below by ticking one or more of the options you wish your child to have. Please sign and date to consent you are happy for your child to be served the selected options and return it to the school who will then hand this to the kitchen staff.

Kids' stuff

I have successfully replicated this study at home, and can attest to its reliability and validity.

An ethnographic study in Madrid charted the gradual “take over” by the child (accoutrements like toys, furniture, and special foods, and the removal of “dangerous” or breakable items) of the domicile, leaving less and less “adult” territory (Poveda et al. 2012).'

The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings by David F. Lancy 📚

Washed up

✅ Made breakfast and packed lunch for Kid A.
✅ Dropped Kid B at nursery 😭.
✅ Dropped Kid B at school.
✅ Collected kids’ clothes from store.
✅ Listened to the end of The AbsoluteLee podcast and the start of The Prince of Aberystwyth while sitting in traffic.
✅ ☕ and breakfast.
✅ Prepared chilli con carne.
✅ Work call.
✅ Unblocked bath drain.
✅ Received grocery delivery.
✅ ☕.
✅ Washed up…

A New Ingerland

Warming up for Ingerland’s opening match in the World Cup by practising penalties.

Corporate Social Responsibility

In my work email.

As part of our Corporate and Social Responsibility, we are running a digital poverty mission to “Connect The UK”. We have already purchased 40,000 brand new Tactus GeoBook laptops and have donated over £2.5 million in device discounts. These laptops come fully loaded with Microsoft Windows 10 Pro Education, a 3 year warranty and are discounted to just £84 per device.

They’re £80 each on Amazon.

The Prince of Aberystwyth

With the Prince of ActivityPub’s return to the fold, I can sense a #tinap reunion in the air…

Pump Dot IO

Muskovite Twitter’s demise is imminent.

Everyone’s go-to Twitter-alternative place of refuge Mastodon is swamped with an invasion of Tweeters seeking a better life.

What better time for a reprise of Pump Dot IO?

Abandon all hope

I reported an abandoned car to my housing association.

It’s been left in our little communal car park since the middle of last month, taking up a neighbour’s parking space.

It’s got no tax or MOT.

I previously reported it to the police, who got back to me to say “it’s not of interest” to them, and to my local council, who have apparently done nothing. Presumably because it’s not classed as being on a public road.

Let’s hope the HA removes it.

An Ancient History Of Welfare

In 1997 the UK government was spending an annual £24 billion on sick and disabled benefits.

In 2010 it was spending an annual £24.6 billion on sick and disabled benefits.

Some 2.6m people claim incapacity benefit, or its successor, the employment and support allowance, at an annual cost of about £12.5bn.

There are now 3.16 million people receiving DLA and forecast expenditure on the benefit for 2010-11 is £12.1bn.

There was a £93 billion total welfare benefits cost in 1996-97:

Now, that has more than doubled, pretty much like everything else:

In 2009, £0.9 billion was due to fraud. (Of course, the figure we're most likely to be familiar with is the £5.2 billion spun by David Cameron, which included tax credits and bureaucratic errors.)

It was a 'previous' government which introduced Incapacity Benefit as a cost-saving measure in the 1990s, yet spending on disability benefits doubled during this time:

Disability benefits spending doubles (1991-1998)”)

Yet, it makes sensational headlines and presumably makes some people feel better to scapegoat people worse off than them for the nation's ills. Especially so, when every day we seem to be subjected to political rhetoric labelling benefits claimants as 'scroungers' and 'cheats' living off hard-earned handouts from the better off (after all, that's what the Welfare State is for, isn't it?), words which could equally and more fairly be used to describe those same mostly Christian and church-going politicians' expenses claims and their rich friends' tax avoidance and evasion. Who better to target than the sick and disabled who are well used to it, after all?

That sickens me more than the people who choose not to work even if they are mentally and physically able to.