Thursday, June 02, 2005
Propaganda hits the Urdd
Oh dear, they just cannot help themselves can they? Having spent a considerable amount of time last month asserting that their promise to deliver a free school breakfast to every Primary School child in Wales did not actually say that, the Labour Assembly Government have now been caught out distributing literature at the Urdd stating the opposite.
The leaflet contains a pledge to "introduce free breakfasts for all primary school children" - a pledge that Labour has denied ever making.
Labour claims that it always made clear that the promise of free breakfasts was conditional on schools agreeing to participate in the scheme. Yet the party's 2003 election manifesto stated, "In our second term we will provide funding for all primary school children to have free breakfasts at school, giving kids a square meal in the morning and helping to tackle truancy." A panel in the manifesto states, "Free breakfasts for all primary school kids".
There is no mention of the benefit being conditional on schools taking it up, either in the manifesto or on the leaflet being distributed.
Labour have issued an indignant denial, saying that they have always claimed that the free breakfast policy is voluntary, and yet that is not what it says in their manifesto and it is not what it says in this leaflet either. Perhaps they should stop spinning and amend their propaganda accordingly.
The leaflet contains a pledge to "introduce free breakfasts for all primary school children" - a pledge that Labour has denied ever making.
Labour claims that it always made clear that the promise of free breakfasts was conditional on schools agreeing to participate in the scheme. Yet the party's 2003 election manifesto stated, "In our second term we will provide funding for all primary school children to have free breakfasts at school, giving kids a square meal in the morning and helping to tackle truancy." A panel in the manifesto states, "Free breakfasts for all primary school kids".
There is no mention of the benefit being conditional on schools taking it up, either in the manifesto or on the leaflet being distributed.
Labour have issued an indignant denial, saying that they have always claimed that the free breakfast policy is voluntary, and yet that is not what it says in their manifesto and it is not what it says in this leaflet either. Perhaps they should stop spinning and amend their propaganda accordingly.
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i for one think free breakfasts is a discusting idea, how long before the state stops the parent having any interaction with their child. i know the benefits of having breakfast and its not that that im attacking, what ever happened to a cohesive family unit? meals were and still are a big part of my families culture and unity. where we (shock horror) talk to each other no wonder people are blaming the school more and for increasingly obserd reason (three underage teenagers getting pregnant for example) if the state want to have this sort of degrading effect on family then their going to have to stand in and take responcibility for ever increasing sphere of the private lives of individuals.
You live in a strange fantasy world Martyn where you believe that I or my party want to hijack Labour gimmicks for ourselves. We believe that the money should be given to the schools and they should be allowed to decide how to spend it.
Yes, you cannot force feed a child a free school breakfast but then we didn't promise that in our manifesto, you did.
As for Swansea Leisure Centre, the money is already in the budget for this. It is capital not revenue so there is no need to divert any revenue monies towards it. Of course if Labour had not closed it in the first place then we would not have had to find this money.
Yes, you cannot force feed a child a free school breakfast but then we didn't promise that in our manifesto, you did.
As for Swansea Leisure Centre, the money is already in the budget for this. It is capital not revenue so there is no need to divert any revenue monies towards it. Of course if Labour had not closed it in the first place then we would not have had to find this money.
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Of course Labour doesn't want everyone to take this up - it hasn't put enough money into the scheme for that to be possible.
Money pledged for 2005-2006 is £3.5million. With 285,786 primary school children in Wales (2000/2001 figures) and about 195 working school days I make this out to be a maximum of about 6 pence per pupil per day.
Labour has pledged max of £8.5million by 2007-2008 for this scheme. 15 pence per pupil per day.
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Of course Labour doesn't want everyone to take this up - it hasn't put enough money into the scheme for that to be possible.
Money pledged for 2005-2006 is £3.5million. With 285,786 primary school children in Wales (2000/2001 figures) and about 195 working school days I make this out to be a maximum of about 6 pence per pupil per day.
Labour has pledged max of £8.5million by 2007-2008 for this scheme. 15 pence per pupil per day.
in this day and age and with the benefits that the government are offering to people on low income families there is no excuse to not feeding a child and in my opinion its child neglect. i beg your pardon for finding government interference in something like meal times discusting, its my opinion and i suggest that instead of breaking up families in the childrens formative years that governments aim and a reduction of poverty in general which would end the type of sinearo that you adversised, i have problems with governments being short sited, i have a problem with governments bringing up our children, i have a problem of a generation of people thinking that the state should provide for their every need, i have a problem with the dependency that this causes, i have a problem with governments attacking the symptom and not the cause of problems because its easier or produces results quicker so they have benefits and the forthcomming election, politicians in social matters like this dont consider the social implication of policy in twenty years time.
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Oh, I agree that this paternalism contributes to a culture of dependancy but you'd have to start somewhere else if you wanted to stop that in Wales.
Everything around here in West Wales is plastered with more sponsors' logos than F1 racing cars - except all the sponsorship and funding is public money.
I went to the Tregaron fête on Monday. it was sponsored by a number of publicly-funded bodies - a small rural fête, for heaven's sake.
Oh, I agree that this paternalism contributes to a culture of dependancy but you'd have to start somewhere else if you wanted to stop that in Wales.
Everything around here in West Wales is plastered with more sponsors' logos than F1 racing cars - except all the sponsorship and funding is public money.
I went to the Tregaron fête on Monday. it was sponsored by a number of publicly-funded bodies - a small rural fête, for heaven's sake.
This thread of course is not about the policy itself but about whether the original manifesto pledge was misleading. In that sense it is just politics as usual.
I have explained our position above. We are not opposed to breakfasts per se, but we would prefer to give the money to the schools and let them decide how to spend it. Some might decide that breakfasts fit their needs whilst others may prefer to invest it in new computers, interactive white boards, or pay for part of an LSA or something else.
I have explained our position above. We are not opposed to breakfasts per se, but we would prefer to give the money to the schools and let them decide how to spend it. Some might decide that breakfasts fit their needs whilst others may prefer to invest it in new computers, interactive white boards, or pay for part of an LSA or something else.
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Labour has certainly misled people on this issue.
Work it out: operational costs £1,500 per school, £6.40 per hour per day per supervisor with minimum of 2 supervisors, £6.40 per day foor prep costs, 25p per pupil per day cost of food.
1,600 primary shools, 285,786 primary school pupils, 195 school days per year.
£8.5 million has been pledged for 2006-2007 which, after (conservative estimates of)operational, preparation and supervision costs, using the WAG's own figures, leaves enough money to cover only 1% of the population of primary school pupils.
Full calculations on
www.assemblyonline.org
feel free to indicate where you think the calculation's incorrect.
Like I said: misleading.
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Post a Comment
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Labour has certainly misled people on this issue.
Work it out: operational costs £1,500 per school, £6.40 per hour per day per supervisor with minimum of 2 supervisors, £6.40 per day foor prep costs, 25p per pupil per day cost of food.
1,600 primary shools, 285,786 primary school pupils, 195 school days per year.
£8.5 million has been pledged for 2006-2007 which, after (conservative estimates of)operational, preparation and supervision costs, using the WAG's own figures, leaves enough money to cover only 1% of the population of primary school pupils.
Full calculations on
www.assemblyonline.org
feel free to indicate where you think the calculation's incorrect.
Like I said: misleading.
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