And I'm Just Fine With That...

...because as a taxpayer, I expect parents to feed their own damn kids!

More than half a million children will go hungry during school holiday periods from the October half-term if the government fails to renew a £1bn local welfare crisis fund due to end in six weeks’ time, charities have warned.

English councils last year spent £370m from their household support fund (HSF) allocations on holiday food vouchers for pupils on free school meals (FSM) – but more than a quarter of authorities say this support could disappear if the fund is ditched.

Well, they've still got the child benefit. They could always spend it on feeding the child for a change.  

“If HSF ends, with no long-term strategy to replace it, it will instantly plunge millions into more financial turmoil. The effects of poverty, deprivation and even malnutrition will be exacerbated and the additional costs to public services will be huge,” a report by the charity End Furniture Poverty report concludes.

'Furniture Poverty'...? What on earth..? 

Yes, Reader, it's a real thing, apparently. 

Council-run local crisis support would disappear from nearly a third of English local authority areas covering 18 million people, including Birmingham, Bradford, Nottingham, Westminster, Croydon, Hampshire, Slough, and Stoke-on-Trent. Its removal would also push scores of local food banks to the brink of insolvency, with many having become reliant on HSF cash grants to meet the explosion in demand for charity food as a result of Covid and the cost of living crisis.

Give something away for free and there's a rise in demand for it? Well, imagine my shocked face!  

The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, last month identified the £500m HSF budget for the first six months of this year as one of a number of “unfunded” commitments made by the previous government – part of a £22bn spending shortfall – which would come under Treasury scrutiny. Campaigners say they believe ministers will be wary of provoking a public backlash if school holiday food vouchers disappear in many areas of England. A popular campaign led by the footballer Marcus Rashford in 2020 twice forced the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, to reverse plans to scrap holiday free school meals support.

I think campaigners should be well aware by now that Starmer's government couldn't care less about a 'public backlash'... 

Campaigners are urging the HSF to be maintained for at least six months. Claire Donovan, the head of policy at End Furniture Poverty, said: “We know the HSF is a sticking plaster, but we desperately need one last extension of funding while an urgent review of local authority crisis support is carried out.”

Let's hope you don't get it. Because you should never have got the initial money in the first place.  

Oh, C'mon, There Can't Be Much Doubt About The One On The Left...

...he's clearly not missed many meals! 

It’s been one of Cat Onyac’s better days. Her two children are concentrating on their crochet project, sitting in the sunshine at HvH Arts in north London. And they’ve eaten. “All the children get a hot meal,” she says. The family is at a summer scheme for children in Camden on the edge of Keir Starmer’s constituency, and food is just as important as learning photography, painting or music.

Salads might be a better option in summer, Cat...

“That means not worrying whether they’re going to eat or not,” says Cat, a single parent. “It helps reduce the shopping bill. I’m not worrying what am I going to make for them and are they going to be the only child who hasn’t had anything to eat?”

What are you doing with the child benefit you get then?  

It’s people like Onyac and her family who were on the minds of the seven Labour MPs who rebelled against the party last week and voted for an SNP amendment to lift the two-child benefit limit. That, along with the benefit cap, the effects of inflation and the roll out of universal credit, pushed 700,000 more children into poverty over the past 14 years.

No, it didn't. They are talking about relative poverty, not absolute poverty.  

’As a result, a member of staff at the children’s home has been suspended.’

Frankly, I'm struggling to see why it hasn't been shut down:

In a letter submitted to the court, one police officer who has visited the child multiple times noted that “he is always vaping or smoking tobacco” when he met him in the community. Having challenged the children’s home staff as to how the child was able to buy these products, as he is always accompanied, the officer observed: “[They] have no reasonable answer.” The same officer wrote how the boy is “very open about the use of [cannabis] and … smokes it in the house and bedroom in an open manner … The on-site care staff are aware and never challenge him”.

 Are they being paid to? I’m guessing they are. If so, why are they not being told to do their job or GTFO..?

The boy is subject to a deprivation of liberty order, in which a local authority can ask the high court for permission to deprive a child of their liberty for their own protection. This occurs when they do not meet the criteria to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act. A deprivation of liberty order allows a child in an unregistered placement – because no secure registered placement is available – to be subject to restrictions on their liberty. Upon hearing the boy is subject to the order, Lieven said such a situation continuing could be seen as “a legal sticking plaster” for a “wholly unacceptable” standard of care.

That’s because it’s what it is. I very much doubt he’s the only young thug in these circumstances, and we are likely to need more and more of these places, thanks to the standards of parenting in this country, so why aren’t we building them and staffing them appropriately?

Then They Can't Really Be Called 'Families', Can They?

It is hard to put an exact number on it, but more than 60 families rely on us.

And what did your organisation do, then?

Eighty percent of the families and young people attending Homegrown in Tottenham are Black. Most of them come from working-class, migrant and refugee backgrounds, and face challenges around access to affordable housing and being pushed out of areas they live in due to rising costs. Our community space was a home for all of us. Before the closure, we would cook and share meals together, while young people would learn English, maths, science, and African and Caribbean history, and use films to discuss topics not always brought up in school. People would often stay all afternoon, cooking and talking.

Well, maybe that's the problem. Maybe instead, they should have been working to support their families..? 

In Haringey today, many Black-led community groups are losing space and struggling to access funding. At the same time, some parts of Tottenham have changed so quickly that they feel unfamiliar and inaccessible to young people who were born here, who end up feeling like strangers.

Yeah, funny that, I often feel like a stranger. In certain parts of London. 

But I'm called a racist for noticing. Never mind what I'm called for actively complaining about it. How is it you get a free pass? 

At the moment we have no funding, because we don’t have time to fundraise. I try to buy families their groceries when they need it out of my own pocket, but my own family’s budget is tight as well. Every two weeks, I have to report to the job centre to claim my universal credit.

Well, clearly they should put a stop to it. If you're giving it away to others, you're claiming it under false pretences, aren't you?  

What happened to Elianne Andam in Croydon is a reminder of just how vulnerable our young people are: the victims whose lives are so brutally taken, but the perpetrators too – how did they get here? And their families. No one should have their child taken from them. And no one raises a child to be a killer.

It appears in the 'community' you're writing about, no-one raises a child full-stop! 

We are not talking about an incurable disease. It is a social problem that could be improved if the government stopped removing essential funding for youth centres, youth organisations, schools and existing community spaces.

Why shouldn't it? It's clearly not essential at all.  

You've Only Yourselves To Blame...

...because your actions helped the scales fall from their eyes:

Pre-pandemic, ensuring daily attendance was considered a tenet of good parenting, but now it's socially acceptable to take children on holiday in term time. From there, it's not such a big step to abandoning school altogether.

And for very good reasons... 

All pointed to an education system in crisis. Some parents felt schools were failing their children academically or emotionally, painting a picture of a generation of children anxious in the aftermath of lockdown. Others felt they were hotbeds of violence and bullying. Some cited a new educational 'woke' agenda which they felt had become uncomfortably prevalent, and was being presented to children at far too young an age.

Something we can genuinely thank the hysteria over covid for is that it enabled parents to get a good look at what went on in schools.  

'Home education is changing out of all recognition at the moment,' explained Jacky, the lead for home education at a local authority in the north of England, who spoke to me off the record. 'Covid revealed a lot,' added Ziggy Moore, founder of Moore Education, an online tuition programme for maths and English, who has seen a boom in business because of parents home-schooling and also using private tutors. Thanks to online lessons during lockdown, parents observed how schools were educating their kids up close — and what they saw did not please them.

One wonders why more parents don't seem concerned... 

The curriculum is another cause for concern. Emily, from an upper-middle-class family, worked for a charitable foundation until an incident at her daughter's state school forced her to opt for home-schooling. Her seven-year-old daughter had become increasingly anxious and depressed. 'She finally admitted she was scared men with terrifying weapons were going to come and take her away and told me: 'And I won't see you again!' ' Baffled, Emily looked through her daughter's school workbooks — and found they contained the story of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani education activist who was shot in the head by the Taliban aged 15 on her way to school. 'My daughter is seven. She does not know where Pakistan is. This is an issue in Islamic countries, but no teacher will point that out because it's considered racist. So my daughter thinks this is happening in Clapham.'

If the Education Secretary had his way, it probably would!  

Why The Sudden Change?

Canewdon Preschool and Daycare, in High Street, Canewdon, has been rated “requires improvement” in all areas by Ofsted following an inspection in November.

Oh, and why? 

It stated: “Staff do not help children to manage their feelings and emotions effectively or to understand how their actions affect others.

“When children's behaviour escalates, staff try different ways to explain why their response was inappropriate.

“However, this is not done in a way that helps children to understand, and they do not learn how to self-regulate their behaviour.”

Why is this an issue? More specifically, why is this the responsibility of the nursery staff, and not their parents? 

How old are these children? 

At the time of the inspection, there were 20 children on roll, all aged between two and four.

Huh!  

The preschool was previously rated “good” by Ofsted in an inspection in 2017.

So, what's changed? The staff? The children? Or the criteria for awarding the rating, perhaps..?

Was She An Orphan, Graeme..?

E-scooter deaths have doubled since police stopped seizing them on the roads, a coroner has warned after a 14-year-old rider died in a collision with a minibus.

Fatima Abukar was riding a battery powered e-scooter in East Ham, London, when she lost control while alongside a minibus and fell under its wheels.

And...her parents? Shouldn't they have come in for some stick too? 

In a report calling for action to prevent future deaths, Graeme Irvine, senior coroner in east London, said there was a direct correlation between the rise in deaths and Scotland Yard’s decision last November to no longer routinely seize e-scooters being ridden illegally on public roads.

Are we really losing any potential brain surgeons? 

Britain’s biggest force announced officers will only confiscate them from repeat offenders or when ‘necessary to keep the public safe’.

I'm not sure how you can have 'repeat offenders' if you don't enforce the law in the first place... 

Others Should Face This Charge Too, Shouldn't They?

Boden, of Romford Way in Barrow Hill, Chesterfield, and Marsden, of no fixed address, deny murder, two counts of child cruelty, and two charges of causing or allowing the death of a child.

Every single social worker and health visitor who had any dealings with these creatures, in fact... 

Jurors were shown photographs of the couple's cluttered home in Old Whittington, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, and blood-stained items found by police inside, including a vomit and faeces-stained cot mattress cover, duvet cover, Mickey Mouse baby grow and a 'Captain Cute' T-shirt.

Paramedics were called to the address at 2.33am on Christmas Day, finding Marsden 'upset and screaming' and the child without a pulse. Medics discovered Boden trying to resuscitate Finley on the kitchen floor but also 'noticed that his (Finley's) clothing was dirty, had dirty hands and fingernails, and he had new and raw scrapes and abrasions on his nose and linings of his nostrils,' said Ms Prior.

Ms Prior said: '(Medics) thought Finley had been dead longer than the parents were suggesting.' The address was later described by a doctor as 'extremely dirty, smelly and very cluttered', while a paramedic said it 'smelt of cannabis'.

And yet that's no bar to being allowed to look after a child, it seems. 

'His parents, we say, worked together to hide the injuries from the social worker, from the health visitor and the police for their own self-centred reasons.

'They didn't want social services to remove Finley if the appalling way they were treating Finley was discovered.'

Why on earth did they worry about such an unlikely occurrence? 

The Decline Of Personal Responsibility Accelerates...

In a landmark case that has deep implications for other higher education institutions, the parents of Natasha Abrahart successfully sued the University of Bristol under the Equality Act.

Abrahart, 20, a physics undergraduate who suffered from severe social anxiety, died a day before she was due to give a “terrifying” oral exam in front of teachers and fellow students.

Shouldn't oral exams be expected to be a part of university life? 

Her parents sued the university under the Equality Act for not taking reasonable care of their daughter’s wellbeing, health and safety, arguing it did not do enough to help her despite staff knowing she had a disability and was struggling deeply.

In a judgment issued on Friday at Bristol county court, judge Alex Ralton said: “There can be no doubt that there was direct discrimination, especially once the university knew or should have known that a mental health disability of some sort was preventing Natasha from performing.”

So, the wicked university did nothing to help her? Hmmm, not quite. 

But not enough, according to her parents, who seem to have expected the university to accommodate their daughter, and not their daughter to accommodate the requirements of her chosen subject: 

Abrahart said his daughter struggled to speak to people she did not know, particularly people in positions of authority.

“Expecting Natasha to take part in oral assessments was like expecting a student in a wheelchair to take an exam in a room at the top of a long flight of stairs.”

Except it isn't. The student can be provided with an exam in a ground floor, but still has to take the exam. 

And the university did offer alternatives:

“Our staff’s efforts also included offering alternative options for Natasha’s assessments to alleviate the anxiety she faced about presenting her laboratory findings to her peers.

“Given the significant impact this decision could have on how all higher education providers support their students, we are reviewing the decision carefully, including whether to appeal.”

Maybe on appeal, we'll find out why those offered alternatives weren't deemed suitable, because it's not explicit in this article: 

The university has argued that it had tried to offer Abrahart alternatives to the oral presentation.

But the judge observed that, “whilst a few ideas” regarding possible adjustments were “floated” by the university, “none were implemented”.

Why not? Is it because she turned them down? It would be good to know, wouldn't it? 

Doomed From The Start...

The baby never had a chance with parents like these:

An inquest into his death today, not attended by either parent, heard neither of the family's two pet dogs were being supervised at the time of the attack, shortly before 2am.

The two dogs being, of course, the obligatory Staffies... 

When paramedics arrived, Daniel and Amy refused to hold Reuben, the inquest heard.

If that didn't ring alarm bells, nothing should. 

The parents were both arrested by police on suspicion of child neglect following the death, but prosecutors decided not to charge them in December 2020.

Detective sergeant Emma Compson said police will take no further action against Mr McNulty or Ms Litchfield and the pair had 'separated as a result of the trauma'.

No doubt they will say 'it's in the public interest', but is it? Really? 

Ruth, Amy’s mother, said: 'We’re just glad it’s finished and we can properly move on.'

Yeah, just get another one. FFS, it was a baby, not a bloody goldfish! 

Maybe The Fact Their 'Significant Relationships' Aren't With Parents Is The Issue..?

Former footballer Ian Wright has lamented cuts to youth centres and linked them to “lives being wasted” as he discussed an Arsenal-backed anti-knife crime campaign he is fronting alongside Idris Elba.

*sighs* Here we go again. Why are 'youth clubs' regarded as a key to stopping (mostly) black youths from acting like animals? 

Wright and Elba said one of its aims was to increase spaces for young people which may offer an alternative to gang violence.

Speaking to ITV, the former Arsenal striker said he had been “lucky” when he was growing up to have access to youth workers and “people who were looking out for me”.

You mean, your parents and relatives weren't..? 

“When you look at the last 10 years, 750 youth centres closed down, 4,500 people out of work, youth workers, people you build relationships with, people who know you, and then when you look at the lives that are being wasted… this campaign is about… inspiration and action.”

No, this campaign is about avoiding the elephant in the room. And it's clearly a Loxodonta africana. I don't see a rise in knife crime among young Chinese or Thai youth. 

The campaign was praised by Home Secretary Priti Patel, who described it as “hugely powerful” while Mayor of London Sadiq Khan also backed the drive.

That's all you need to know how effective it'll be, isn't it? 

If Only We Could Ban Stupid Parents...

A mum is calling for tiny toy magnets to be banned after her six-year-old daughter had to have emergency surgery to remove part of her bowel. Jane Bailey's daughter Melody swallowed four small magnetic balls - which then began to 'burn' through her internal organs as they attracted to each other.

The woman appeared on the ITV lunchtime news, and my immediate suspicion that she'd turn out to be someone with more chins than IQ points wasn't wrong...

The 30-year-old mum, who works as a support worker for people with learning difficulties, is trying to raise awareness of the dangers toy magnets can pose.

Don't we already know? Haven't there already been numerous cases?

The mum of two was gobsmacked by the whole ordeal, having heard about cases involving other children before and warning both Melody and her older sister Lucia Bailey, 11, about the dangers.

Wait, but then... 

But she says the pair were influenced by a social media trend to put the magnetic balls in their mouths as faux tongue and lip piercings, leading Melody to swallow some.

*sighs* Is the danger the magnets, social media or people with no idea of parenting? Or maybe it's all three...