📦 FREE SCHOOL MEAL PARCELS EXPLAINED

🍏 I’ve had a number of questions today about the parcels that have been going out for those who receive free school meals and aren’t able to take up this entitlement in school at the moment.

🌽You may have seen photographs circulating on the internet showing a box of food that had been distributed by a contractor. It was claimed this had food in it that was meant to last ten days.
🧀 The food in the picture was actually only intended for 5 days, not 10, and cost £10.50 not £30 as has been suggested by some. The company responsible have however acknowledged that it could have been better.
🥕 The food is supposed to be a substitute for the lunch children would be missing in school - it’s not intended to be food for the whole day and it is not intended to feed the rest of the family either.
There are however other schemes available for struggling families who need this as part of the Covid Winter Plan.
🥔 Schools get about £11.50 from the Government per week to provide school meals. Recognising the extra costs of distribution etc the Government has now increased this to £15 (the additional funding was announced on Friday). All this had to be done at very short notice last week.
🥚 Schools/Local Authorities can either use food parcels or they can use a national/local voucher scheme instead - they were given the choice and they still have a choice.
🍅 Schools/LAs then used their own contractors to distribute food. The pictures people saw are from one of those companies. These are not chosen by the Government.
🍞 The Government and LACA have set guidance as to what each food parcel should include and what people can expect to receive (pictured) at top of thread.
🍊 Parcels have been preferred by many as they also allow schools to keep in touch with some of the more vulnerable pupils from a contact perspective.
🥛 Schools cannot cook hot food and send it out as they do not have the relevant food safety certificates for this. This is why food is sent out that can be prepared at home and will last.
🥫 Finally, not just from a nutritional perspective, but an educational and health one, it is important that all children are able to return to school as soon as possible. That’s why following the rules, testing and vaccinations are so important.
🥪 In the meantime, thank you to all of our school, local authority and private sector staff who are helping to get us through these challenging times - and thank you to the parents who are staying at home as part of these efforts too.

More from Health

Some thoughts on this: Firstly, it might be personal preference, but I am not keen on this kind of campaign as I feel like it trivialises cancer. Sometimes the serious message gets lost because people are sharing pics of cats or whatever and the important context is gone.


More importantly, the statistic being used in the campaign is misleading. It says 57% of women put off cervical screening if they can't get waxed. But on further investigation, that's not accurate.

The page here goes on to say "57% of women who regularly have their pubic hair professionally removed would put off attending their cervical screening appointment if they hadn’t been able to visit a beauty salon."

So the 57% represents a concern not across the whole population of women, but only those who regularly get waxed. So how big of an issue is this across the whole population? And what else is stopping people getting smears?

I think campaigns for cancer screening are really tricky because there is so much nuance that often doesn't fit into a catchy headline or hashtag. It's certainly not easy and is part of a bigger conversation.

You May Also Like

Funny, before the election I recall lefties muttering the caravan must have been a Trump setup because it made the open borders crowd look so bad. Why would the pro-migrant crowd engineer a crisis that played into Trump's hands? THIS is why. THESE are the "optics" they wanted.


This media manipulation effort was inspired by the success of the "kids in cages" freakout, a 100% Stalinist propaganda drive that required people to forget about Obama putting migrant children in cells. It worked, so now they want pics of Trump "gassing children on the border."

There's a heavy air of Pallywood around the whole thing as well. If the Palestinians can stage huge theatrical performances of victimhood with the willing cooperation of Western media, why shouldn't the migrant caravan organizers expect the same?

It's business as usual for Anarchy, Inc. - the worldwide shredding of national sovereignty to increase the power of transnational organizations and left-wing ideology. Many in the media are true believers. Others just cannot resist the narrative of "change" and "social justice."

The product sold by Anarchy, Inc. is victimhood. It always boils down to the same formula: once the existing order can be painted as oppressors and children as their victims, chaos wins and order loses. Look at the lefties shrieking in unison about "Trump gassing children" today.
First thread of the year because I have time during MCO. As requested, a thread on the gods and spirits of Malay folk religion. Some are indigenous, some are of Indian origin, some have Islamic


Before I begin, it might be worth explaining the Malay conception of the spirit world. At its deepest level, Malay religious belief is animist. All living beings and even certain objects are said to have a soul. Natural phenomena are either controlled by or personified as spirits

Although these beings had to be respected, not all of them were powerful enough to be considered gods. Offerings would be made to the spirits that had greater influence on human life. Spells and incantations would invoke their


Two known examples of such elemental spirits that had god-like status are Raja Angin (king of the wind) and Mambang Tali Arus (spirit of river currents). There were undoubtedly many more which have been lost to time

Contact with ancient India brought the influence of Hinduism and Buddhism to SEA. What we now call Hinduism similarly developed in India out of native animism and the more formal Vedic tradition. This can be seen in the multitude of sacred animals and location-specific Hindu gods