Free milk

Good grief

I had thought Mrs Thatcher had put a stop to this years ago. But it seems that nursery and primary school children still get free milk.  Now a Scottish Health Minister has written that there was no evidence the scheme improved health and government was considering replacing the universal scheme with more targeted help for the poorest families. 

Now Cameron, about whom I continue to have serious doubts, has decided he doesn't like the idea of taking away the milk and will stop it.

Mercy me. By all means give poor people enough money to be able to buy milk for their children. And by all means advise them that milk is good for their kids (although I had lots of it and turned out quite tubby). But this recession is a golden opportunity to stop some of this state-centric nonsense and the Government should have the courage of its convictions: it is daft giving free milk to wealthy families and it is quite wrong having another whole generation where the State has told them what to eat and drink.

It isn't the £59 million the scheme will cost, which is in context tiny, it is the principle. Milk is available everywhere in supermarkets and grocers at minimal cost. The State being so patronising as to tell parents they don't know what is best for their children and therefore it will supply a basic foodstuff away from the family home is disgraceful. Cameron should wake up and stop it now.

Otherwise what, exactly, does he believe in?