‘Voting Tory in the North was like putting Dracula in charge of a blood bank’

The Crow’s Nest, a column by Russ Litten

Marcus Rashford’s petition to end child food poverty passed a million signatures this week, with support in many Northern towns which recently elected Conservative MPs - the very same MPs who then voted against extending free school meals. Russ Litten says they should not be surprised

Marcus Rashford’s Twitter roll call of the communities that gave support to his campaign to end child food poverty provided some much needed cheer last week.

Justifiably disgusted by the Government’s refusal to extend the school free meal scheme throughout half-term, a righteous list of cafes, community centres and catering outlets stepped up to the plate and pledged to feed the young people who were most at risk of going hungry.

Counted among those were the areas that had themselves suffered the most impoverishment, whether through years of austerity or the more recent ravages of Covid-19.

These are the towns and communities that often pride themselves on “looking after their own”;  hard-bitten places like Sedgfield, Workington, Mansfield and … hang on a minute … where had I seen such a list before? It was a few seconds before the penny dropped.

The last time I noticed some of these places scroll across a screen was on December 12th, election night; but back then they weren’t promising grub to hungry kids. Instead, they were turning the electoral map from red to blue as Johnson’s Three Word Slogan Party rampaged across the North like a chortling plague, promising sunlit uplands and extra helpings of pudding to everyone who bought into their Brexit Utopia.

Now call me a naive simpleton from Backwater Village, but what did the goodly-hearted folk of say, Mansfield, expect from their newly crowned masters?

‘Electing Tories in the North is like putting Dracula in charge of the local blood bank. Don’t complain when he sucks you dry’

Denying children basic nutrition is a Tory tradition that stretches back to their milk-snatching heyday. Electing a Tory majority to the North of England is like putting Dracula in charge of the local blood bank. You’ve invited him, so don’t complain when he sucks you dry.

Of course, anything involving the well-being of children is bound to hit a public nerve. And, quite rightly, there were howls of indignation everywhere, not just in the North. But come on, let’s be fair. That nice Mr Sunak had already handed out all the free food vouchers to people who could afford to eat in bars and restaurants - and some of those places don’t let kids in anyway.

Ben Bradley, recently elected Conservative MP for Mansfield, was less than impressed with local cafe Sid and The Spoon, or presumably any other of his lily-livered constituents who had pledged their support for Rashford’s evil Marxist campaign.

Behold the following Twitter exchange between Bradley and one of his fans:

Even a clean living citizen such as myself, with little or no knowledge of either crack cocaine or the working terms and conditions of the sex industry, knows that this notion is highly risible, regardless of how artfully one applies the word “effectively”. 

In time-honoured fashion, Bradley spent the next few days heroically trying to convince a disgusted nation that he clearly did not mean the words he had written and published, and any attempt to insinuate otherwise was a cynical attempt to smear his character.

If anyone was the victim here, it wasn’t a hungry child. Given that Bradley has previously suggested that people on a low income be sterilised, I think I could be forgiven for assuming his character already smeared. I could almost smell him from my computer screen.

Similar in spirit to Bradley’s approach to child food poverty were various other social media commentators, who offered up their unsolicited practical advice to impoverished families via photos of scabby carrots served up in joyless beige gruel.

‘A fresh outbreak of rickets and scurvy would hardly be noticed in the current climate’

It was a kind of stiff upper lip wartime rations approach to a healthy children’s diet that, bizarrely, itemised each foodstuff by the most minuscule measure. Did they really sit there and work out how much two scrapings of butter cost? Wow. Mind you, I suppose a fresh outbreak of rickets and scurvy would hardly be noticed in the current climate.  

But we should not give too much light to these spiritual vampires. The Rashford story proves there are thousands of people throughout the UK who are willing to put others before themselves.

In such an age of carefully constructed cynicism, it really is a breath of sweet fresh air to put on the telly and see somebody who isn’t trying to exploit a difficult social situation for personal gain.

Indeed, we are so consumed with seething anger at those who act in bad faith that we sometimes forget how to talk about people who do the opposite - people like Rashford, who reclaim the wrongly reviled term “do-gooder” from the pinched and miserly mouths of Little Brexit Britain.

It is interesting, also, that such a move has come from a footballer. Football, along with the pop star lark, is one of the few ways that working-class people can still achieve social mobility.

Rashford obviously hasn’t forgotten where he came from and it is wonderful to see such genuine humility in positive action. Rashford for Prime Minister? It’s actually not too fanciful a notion.

‘The Rashford story reminds us there are still people in the UK willing to put others before themselves’: Russ Litten

America is presided over by a dayglo version of Alan Sugar, so why can’t we be governed by someone from outside the accepted routes of power, ie, Eton public school?

As Danny Dyer pointed out recently, these people are simply ill-equipped for the job. A life of uncontested privilege means they have no concept of how vast swathes of the country actually live. And aside from being bereft of any moral compass, they are also spectacularly thick.

No, the toffs have had their shot and look at what we’ve got. We need to be governed by people from working-class backgrounds. I’ll go further - we need to be governed by working-class women. I’ll go further - we need to be governed by working-class women who have brought up families on benefits.

I know from personal experience that such candidates make decisions based upon equal parts of compassion and common sense. They are also good with a budget. In fact, let’s just cut to the chase and make Rashford’s Mam the Prime Minister. She obviously knows a thing or two about getting positive results. Just look at her lad.

One thing is for sure, if we are gonna rise together above the current political swamp we need to harness the energy of campaigns like End Child Food Poverty, and endlessly celebrate the people who help make a difference. Let’s make sure the light of the positive bathes the spiritual vampires in a cleansing flood until they crumble into piles of salt.

Until that day happens, prepare yourself for more rancid helpings of Eton mess.