One fifth of the UK children going hungry right now

For many schoolchildren in the UK, due to the extreme poverty, abusive parents, lack of social care and a failing government, the only meal of the day comes from school.

As one of the world's most talented and prolific strikers playing for Manchester United, Marcus Rashford is no stranger to hardship, in spite of his recent success. Having grown up in a single parent family in one of the poorest parts of Manchester Rashford himself knows what it's like to go hungry, hence why his passionate plea to feed Britain's children recently earned him an MBE

People have opinions. Wherever whether or not the understand fully what the families are going through, is another conversation, but because of that it's easy for me to sort of dismiss a lot of the people are making an opinions because you know I know a lot of them speak in the way that I speak and it's so insensitive about the issue, and definitely not improved themselves. So, for me it's, you know, I'll take that all day long, as long as we start to see improvements going forward for the people that are in need.

Marcus Rashford, Manchester United Striker

Despite his ongoing campaign and recent efforts to convince the UK Government to continue providing free lunch for the UK’s poorest children during the half term school holiday. It seems that Marcus Rashford has been left in despair, as Tory MPs have voted against his proposal.

Child hunger in Britain

This program is about Child hunger in Britain.

Only meals, school meals

The government rejection has been confirmed and approved by Boris Johnson, who has ratified the vote, stating that he refuses to move on free meals for children during the half term period, in spite of growing pressure from the public for the PM to meet Rashford face to face.

Although the UK would rather not admit it, the introduction of the so called tier system lockdown is essentially a national lockdown in disguise. And it's during this challenging time with parents out of work and schools closed, that there's currently one fifth of the UK children going hungry right now.

The embarrassing truth

Yet when one looks deeper at the figures in the UK, the situation appears to be really dire with 15 million people in Britain, living in poverty, which equates to around 22% of the population of these 5 million are children, showing that the UK as a supposedly developed nation has deep secrets that it should not be proud of.

Add to this the situation that for many schoolchildren in the UK, due to the extreme poverty, abusive parents, lack of social care and a failing government, for many kids the only meal of the day comes from school. This also comes on top of the introduction of uniform washing facilities in certain schools as such luxuries for some are only in fairy tales, which for the UK appears to have no happy ending in sight.

When Boris Johnson won the election in the UK with a huge majority over then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn the following honeymoon period saw Johnson gain huge popularity across the UK, in part, helped by the wave of former Labour supporters who turned to the Tories over the notion of Brexit

Systemic incompetence

Fast  forward to today, and the people of Britain who voted for Johnson, namely the working class Northerners and are being abandoned by the government who are failing their children, as well as the people, when it comes to job security, and the handling of the COVID-19  pandemic.

Footballer Marcus Rashford receives Manchester award for campaign on free school meals

Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford has been given a prestigious award for his campaign on pressuring the government to change course on free school meals for vulnerable children.

In fact, when one breaks down the failures by Johnson, all of them have an adversely high effect on the poorest populations of the country. As mentioned, there are children going hungry, the handling of the Brexit negotiations, which are likely to see the UK come crashing out of the EU with no deal, and the terrible handling of the pandemic, which has seen the NHS collapse testing fail, a death rate in excess of 45,000 people, and around 100,000 people per day, newly infected. It's in spite of all this Johnson's able to find himself in front of the cameras, claiming that you will not let the British people suffer, or the children go hungry.

Let’s  be absolutely clear we're gonna make sure that we have no children no kids no pupils in our country who go hungry, this winter, as they're setting off as a result of any government in attention to whoever you're focusing on that as we have done very very hard over the last few months and we've given huge sums to local councils to help them out, but also specific sums for helping with meals during what was a very disrupted period.

Boris Johnson,UK  Prime Minister

With Britain clearly becoming the laughingstock of Europe the question that Mr Johnson should be most concerned about is why it took a Manchester United Football player to raise the issue that children are going hungry. Surely, this should have been the job of the UK government, and as Marcus Rashford continues to fire on all cylinders. It seems that Boris Johnson is missing the target.

Boris Johnson stands his ground on refusal to extend school meal vouchers

Despite mounting pressure Prime Minister Boris Johnson is refusing to extend free school meals over the half-term holiday.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk