The mythical money tree

ARE you in favour of UK free school meals being extended over the school holidays until Easter 2021? According to one UK opinion poll, 71 per cent of Britons are. Boris’s refusal to do so has caused Labour to call him “Scrooge” as the country heads towards a patchy, lockdown Christmas. “We’re not playing politics,” claim Labour (yes Sir Keir, of course you’re not).

It still strikes me as strange that Boris has allowed himself to fall into this self-made trap. When you have freely spent £213 billion on Covid, throwing taxpayers’ money in all directions with abandon (whilst borrowing £209 billion of it in the process), why allow the minimal cost of a few extra free school meals, for the most needy, to get in the way? Bad politics, old son.

What really worries me about all this, is the consequent, underlying trend in the British public’s mind set. Anti-virus subsidies for everything have reinforced the belief that the UK government has a magic money tree at the bottom of No 10’s garden, from which its imaginary fruit can be picked with impunity, without consequence.

It’s taxpayers’ money and a mountain of taxpayers’ debt that is being spent. It’s a mirage. There is nothing generous about it. It’s the Marxist dream incarnate, leading to the Marxist economic nightmare that has blighted the lives of every community that has ever attempted to create a “socialist” state. That a Tory government should be inadvertently encouraging the myth that the Nanny State can provide all, is crazy. He might not realise it, but Boris is doing the hard left’s job for them.