The real reasons children are going hungry

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Rod Liddle has narrated this article for you to listen to.

‘We’re idiots, babe, it’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves.’ I listened to The Food Programme on Radio 4 this week, because the channel finder on my car radio wasn’t working and so I was stuck with it. It was, as it almost always is, four left-wing ratbags moaning to one another. As I’ve mentioned before, this is the template for almost the entirety of the station’s output: miserable women carping endlessly about everything. It is almost impossible to know what particular programme you’re listening to. You have to keep your ears tuned for key phrases which might give you an indication. If it’s a woman teacher moaning about having to do a spot of teaching, it’s probably World At One. If the words ‘proudly reclaim my own vagina’ suddenly jump out at you, it’s probably Woman’s Hour. And if it’s a woman moaning about Big Macs, it’s probably The Food Programme, easily the smuggest little show on the network.

This week — once again — they were talking about school meals and the need for the government to buy food every day for the entire working class because they cannot be trusted to spend their money wisely and the children starve while they’re mainlining skag or down the bookies. The footballer Marcus Rashford has been banging on about this, of course, often referencing his own privations as a child. It is indelicate to ask Marcus why his childhood was so financially straitened, by asking one or two questions regarding the whereabouts of his dad. For Marcus, and The Food Programme, it is the government — not families — who should provide food for needy children.

The presenter, Sheila Dillon, started the programme with a clip saying that we in the UK have the highest level of child poverty since the 1960s.