No child should be so hungry they cannot concentrate in class.
No child’s education should suffer because parents are unable to afford the cost of a meal.
Yet this is the case for far too many children...and it is why the Mirror is calling for England to follow Scotland and Wales by introducing free school meals for every primary pupil.
Studies show all children benefit from a healthy hot meal each day. Free dinners lower obesity, improve attainment and cut absences.
The cost of universal free school meals in England is estimated to be £1billion a year – fractionally more than Rishi Sunak spent in one month on his Help Out to Eat Out scheme and a tenth of what this Government wasted on unusable protective kit during Covid.
We have no faith in Sunak to do the right thing. He has never shown he understands the plight of those less fortunate than himself.
But we despair that Labour continues to reject calls to put universal free school meals at the centre of its election promise.
This is the chance for Keir Starmer to implant fairness at the heart of his manifesto.
We want a Labour government. But we ask this: If Labour will not fight for social justice then what is it in politics for?
Drop this farce
The plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda was ill-conceived and impractical.
Now it has been ruled unlawful. It fails the basic tests of compassion and competence.
The Home Office’s own figures show it will cost far more to fly someone to Rwanda than house them in a UK detention centre. It would also involve sending vulnerable people to a country where safety could not be guaranteed.
Rishi Sunak should stop wasting taxpayers’ money with yet another legal appeal and abandon this expensive farce.
Sauce of worry
Should tomato ketchup be kept in the cupboard or the fridge?
Whichever your decide you’ll still have to battle to get it out of the wretched bottle.
