Are my days now to be filled with me tweeting angrily to idiots that think starving kids is acceptable, or who think baked beans on toast is a good meal? Never mind for a growing child hungry in school? It seems in recent times the spectre of the deserving/undeserving poor has been dug up again.
In fact, Twitter has turned into a mass middle class cookbook. The ruling class, and it's hapless adherents, are telling people they don't need more (they do), reducing everything to a simple matter of "budget better". The press wheels out, from time to time, unwitting stooges: working class 'heroes' who having found some means to be thrifty reinforces this narrative. Look! You don't need base money, that's not for you anyway; here's Jane the Mum from Luton and her shopping list from Lidldialdildl. She can afford to feed her kids on a pittance. SO CAN YOU!
Except her (excuse the gender assumptions) shopping list isn't that wholesome. It's cheap quality cardboard rubbish. Do you really think the quality of stuff from those places is adequate?
The popular refrain then is "oh you think we should be feeding the poor Roast Faberge eggs then". One extreme to the other. Not at all, that is just more class based nonsense, this time in reverse (the assumption that the ruling class eat ridiculous food). I simply want everyone to have access to their natural birthright as citizens of this good earth: the food that grows from it, produced ethically, free from as much bullshit as possible. Not much to ask surely.
That's not to denigrate these working class heroes like Jane (again forgive the gender assumption). They are doing what they've been raised to do: be thrifty. That's the lot of the poor. Spend wisely, it's a virtue. Don't get ideas above your station. These people are then courted by the right wing media who use them against the rest of the working class. It's sad, but again what is needed in the recipe book is mother's own class consciousness!
It's so sad that this narrative has to return, again and again. It's a class war zombie. It returns in periods of crisis to keep the poor down. Anything to dissuade from what might be construed as revolutionary thinking. Unfortunately (for the ruling class at least) I don't think that's going to be enough this time. The furore around the school meal crisis has found purchase. Something is, perhaps, shifting. The government will almost certainly reverse its decision - as much about playing politics and managing its image than anything else. I feel this is inevitable, as inevitable as there will be a second lockdown, something that will almost certainly undo any good will they think they might generate from such a climb down.
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