LONDON (Labour Buzz) - Just when you think politics can’t sink to new lows, along comes Jacob Rees Mogg, flexing his muscles to give it another shot. In his eye line now, was Unicef, for the shameful crime of feeding hungry children.
Child poverty has been something of a recurring theme for the Tories in 2020. In general, they seem to be proud of it. Figures show it has hit new heights this year, with nearly a third of all children in England and Wales living in poverty.
It’s the kind of figures that tend to get Unicef sitting up and taking notice, and last week that’s what they did. In a package costing £25,000, Unicef will fund nearly 25,000 breakfasts for children in a south London borough over the Christmas holidays and February half term. Many were furious that the UK was now being talked about in the same breath as third world countries, but the Moggster was angry for another reason.
“It was shameful,” he said that Unicef was ‘playing politics’ by feeding hungry children in the UK.
This is not the first time Tory rage has been triggered by the prospect of children getting free food. Twice, this year they have fought against proposals to provide free school meals for Children. On Johnson’s orders, they voted down a Labour motion to extend measures through the holidays.
Eventually, they were forced to back down but this defeat clearly still rankles with some of the die-hards in the government. Ironically, he tried to defend the government’s record by pointing to the school meals plan he and his friends had fought tooth and nail.
Ed Davey, who according to a quick search on Wikipedia is the leader of something called the Liberal Democrats, likened it to declaring ‘let them eat cake’. But it’s even worse than that.
Mogg is simply following the advice laid down by the Tories in Wellingborough. When cornered ‘say the first thing in your head. ‘It will probably be nonsense’ said the leaflet unfurled by Starmer at PMQs last week, but that doesn’t matter.
The problem for the Tories is there is no way to spin this. Facts don’t lie. The cold hard truth is that under the Tories, thousands of children are going hungry. The even colder and harder truth is that they don’t really care.
It’s a record they should be ashamed of, but rather than do something about it, they just lie back and say the first crazy thing which comes into their head. When the head in question belongs to Jacob Rees Mogg, we shouldn’t be surprised that it reaches new levels of crazy.
(Written by Tom Cropper, Edited by Klaudia Fior)