Who Are These People?

Locking school pupils into schools from morning to night is still the unpleasant mindset of the left-overs of the Labour regime.  Any excuse will do but forcing school dinners down people's throats in the name of nutritional purity remains a favourite - after all, there are so many pleasing side effects: jobs for jobsworths (the idea of government employees spying on queues at local cafes to 'observe' what was bought is nauseating); payments for 'nutritional analyses' (doubtless from sprouts of pseudo third sector businesses); directors of yet more quangos (at least two are served up in the article) pontificating on the wickedness of chips and other olefactory pleasures.

Then there are the pressures from the enforced socialisation brigade - eat with the people you are studying with or starve, which is merely an extension of -  study with the people allocated to your age cohort  and locality or read under the covers with a torch to acquire any learning at all. Particularly repellent was the expressed view that if a family hands lunch money to younger members it should be force-fed into the school-provided canteen which, unsurprisingly, has led to delaying lunch until quarter to four for those who are not on free school dinners.

The boast that some schools have 'negotiated' arrangements (what threats came from local authority licensing departments, and the council's elf'n'safety cadres?) that local eateries should refuse service to school students  are exemplars of inappropriate and intrusive attitude to the lives of others.

Cuts needed?  Start with these people.