Earlier this week, I read with incredulity a tweet from Robert Peston claiming Boris Johnson’s government was “more Castro than Castro” – yet another establishment journalist attempting to equate any form of government action with socialism. The voting down of a bill to ensure 1m vulnerable children are fed by 322 Tory MPs tells a different story. Such an action underlines the neo-Thatcherite social Darwinism at the heart of this government: an ugly individualist doctrine that the state shouldn’t feed those who cannot feed themselves.

“The free school meals debate is but the latest iteration of what has been a continuous ten-year assault on the fabric of our society.”

Tory MP Ben Bradley agreed that free schools meals would mean “cash direct to crack den[s] and brothel[s]” while former ERG chair Steve Baker suggested that free school meals would “destroy the currency“. Both are equally ridiculous points barely masking the contempt that the party has for the poor of this country. They are particularly incredulous claims to make considering that this same government spent £522m encouraging the public to dine out in the middle of a pandemic. Their comments are made to seem even more callous and hypocritical when it is considered that the British public spends £57,000 each week subsidising the food and drink in Parliament for MPs. For context, MPs are paid £79,648 each year, a figure that is set to rise by 3.1% following a vote in March.

The Tory government that has administered devastating welfare cuts and under whom the number of foodbanks has risen almost 4000% are seeking to paint poverty as an issue of personal moral character rather than one rooted in political decision-making. This is the essence of conservatism; cut support to the most vulnerable in society and blame the poor for the social outcomes of these decisions. 4.2 million children live in relative poverty and 2.5 million in food insecure households, to which the Conservative response is, “If only poor people didn’t spend their money on alcohol and drugs, perhaps then they’d be able to feed their children”. The free school meals debate is but the latest iteration of what has been a continuous ten-year assault on the fabric of our society. The fact that feeding the most vulnerable children in our society is even an issue for debate illustrates the extent to which the party of government has been able to shift our attitudes towards poverty and welfare over the course of the past decade. The need for Marcus Rashford to organise companies and local councils to provide food for children in this country, while objectively a good thing, underlines the sinister way in which essential functions of the state are being indirectly outsourced and privatised. What are a government or taxes for if not to ensure that every child in this country is being fed?

“This is the essence of conservatism; cut support to the most vulnerable in society and blame the poor for the social outcomes of these decisions.”

What the government is planning is particularly atrocious because it is punishing children: a societal group who clearly cannot impact their financial situation. But surely it isn’t too radical to say that everyone deserves to eat and deserves a decent standard of living, regardless of age or employment status. Controversial as it might be to say, poverty shouldn’t only be a priority when there are children involved or when we are in the midst of a pandemic. The argument being implicitly made by the government, however, is a Victorian one of the deserving and undeserving poor, a desire to divide the working-class into a respectable section that worked and a lazy feckless group made poor because of their own lack of moral fibre. This doesn’t happen in a vacuum however and the proliferation of various TV programmes focusing on those deemed ‘benefits scroungers’ underlines how we have come to associate laziness with poverty. This amongst other things has helped to cement harmful stereotypes that divide working-class people and manufacture consent for policies such as the tightening of benefits and the defunding of social programmes. We have been conditioned to feel resentment rather than compassion when faced with the social manifestations of the fact that 14m people in the UK are deemed to live in relative poverty.

This latest atrocity should come as no surprise. The re-election of the Conservative Party in December 2019 with the greatest number of seats since Thatcher will undoubtedly see the class warfare and cruelty of the coalition years intensified. Whilst the last few months of government have been anomalous due to the measures being taken to fight the pandemic and save the economy, this vote on free school meals has indicated that a return to business as usual isn’t too far away. Whilst last December’s election was dubbed the Brexit election; the onset of the pandemic soon after and this absolute travesty surrounding free school meals has illustrated that politics is quite literally a question of who lives and who dies, who eats and who starves.