This week Bosco Santimano founder and executive director of social enterprise You Can Cook, shares his thoughts on the scandalous state of affairs of companies linked to Tories providing free school meals to pupils in England.
Brexit has finally happened and citizens of the UK are slowly waking up to the reality of the consequences of being no longer part of the European Union. Last week we learnt that Tory donors resorted to stealing children’s lunch money in England. Chartwells were given the contract to supply emergency food packages to families who would usually rely on free school meals as children were forced to learn from home. The company at the centre of this storm is part of Compass Group Plc whose chairman Paul Walsh stepped down in December last year and was once a member of David Cameron’s business advisory group and is a Conservative Party donor. Once again it raises serious questions over cronyism within the Tory party which has unfortunately blighted their pandemic response. Will the Tories stoop so low that they are now stealing food from hungry children in England to fill their offshore bank accounts? Labour MP Ian Lavery from Wansbeck twitted “Not only are children being denied a proper meal but the taxpayer is being ripped off. This pandemic has exposed the crisis of crony capitalism where the only criteria for govt contracts is how much you give to the Tories. This shameful govt literally ‘takes the biscuit’. This must be the lowest of low that the Tories are stopping to in order to make money so soon after Brexit. The amount allocated and paid for by the government per child was £30 and the kids received what looked like food that cost less than a fiver!
£10.5bn worth of contracts have been outsourced to companies owned by Conservative Party donors and the relatives of MPs, often with little experience in the field of providing these services. Procurement processes have led to loss of tax payer’s money in millions to Serco Test and Trace system (£410m), £108m for undelivered sets of PPE for NHS workers and £7000 a day to Boston Consulting Group to help the government deliver its test and trace system, to name just a few. These are just the tip of the iceberg with more revelations coming to light on a regular basis. It is very upsetting that so called good folk of this country are still not reacting to this level of atrocity committed against children who for no fault of theirs are paying the price of a greedy Conservative government. The myth that people will spend money on alcohol or cigarettes instead of buying food for their children is perpetrated by these evil clowns who want to literally suck the blood of poor working-class families in this country. The irony is that these very people voted for the Conservatives in the last general election, so have no one else to blame for this sorry state of affairs.
The right-wing Tories have to set aside their unfounded fears of the poor misspending taxpayers’ money and concentrate on money that is being funnelled through contracts to their own friends and families. Locally, the Tory led administration have shown to be equally inept and incompetent where council budgets are concerned and are splashing money at corporations and vanity projects like the iPads (£15m) instead of looking after the health and well-being of their constituents. The last ten years have already shown beyond doubt the physical, mental, emotional and financial damage Tory-Lib-Dem policies have caused in the United Kingdom.
God save the people!
*Originally written & published in the Peeblesshire News.