Rashford 1 Government 0
June 16, 2020 at 6:23 pm Leave a comment
… that was one of the headlines under which it was reported that now more than a million school children will be given vouchers for free meals over the summer following pressure from 22-year-old England footballer Marcus Rashford.
The Government has announced a new “Covid summer food fund” to cover the six-week summer holiday for children who qualify for free school meals, fending off a looming Tory MP rebellion which was expected in a vote on Tuesday, and easing the plight of the country’s most vulnerable children.
In what has been seen as a policy U-turn by ministers, about 1.3m children will now qualify for the new vouchers. The move came after Therese Coffey, the Work and Pensions Secretary, was criticised for giving a “snarky” response to a tweet by Mr Rashford – who received free school meals himself and had written an open letter in The Times on this topic urging the government to provide for free meals during the summer holidays. “Ending child poverty is a bigger trophy than any in football,“ Manchester United and England forward Marcus Rashford wrote.
The motives behind Rashford’s fight against food poverty are indelibly linked to his own experiences growing up in Manchester, Northern Moor and neighbouring Wythenshawe as one of five children to a loving mother who worked full-time on minimum wage. Rashford’s mother Melanie worked long hours but it was not enough. The family were reliant on food banks, soup kitchens, the generosity of neighbours who would feed Rashford on those occasions when there was not an evening meal on the table and, of course, free school meals.
Rashford’s talent for football was first spotted on the Mersey Bank playing fields with local club, Fletcher Moss Rangers, and brought him to the attention of United, whose academy he joined at eight. Now he is the club’s leading scorer and talisman, and a key figure in Gareth Southgate’s England team. Furthermore the United and England striker has risen to become a very influential voice; an inspiration on and off the pitch; a young, black man proud of his inner city Manchester roots but not a system “designed to fail low-income families” as he so eloquently argued in his emotional open letter to MPs. Rashford’ partnership with FareShare, the food distribution charity, has helped to raise over £20 million to feed three million vulnerable people every week – and shame the Government into coughing up a £120m summer food fund.
Asked if he had lost touch with electorate, Mr Johnson said he had thanked the England star for his campaign – and claimed he only learned of it today.
The victory for Mr Rashford comes as figures laid bare the scale of the damage to the jobs market caused by the lockdown in the UK. Unemployment is rising faster than during the Great Depression. The North East has the highest unemployment rate. Click here to see the British regions hit hardest by the crisis.
Pay plunged in April at the fastest rate on record as a combination of the furlough scheme, wage freezes and cuts to bonuses demolished earnings.
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EXTRA TIME 
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