A thread on my thoughts of my own experience of free school meals and the baseless argument from the Tories that it breeds dependency /1

I was a free school meals child and, for a time, we were technically homeless. In the school holidays, there were points when my mum would go without eating so she could feed me and my brother /2

Free school meals provided a valuable lifeline for us at a particularly bad time. I went on to be the first in my family to go onto university and now have a stable career /3

In my adult life, I’ve been fortunate enough to have never been in a position where I’ve needed out of work benefits. My own children will likely never need free school meals and our fridge is always full. At 34, I still feel anxious if we are running low on food in our house /4

Claiming those free school meals wasn’t a choice for my mum, it was an absolute necessity and to say that it would breed dependency and is “virtue signalling” by the likes of @MarcusRashford is an absolute insult /5

It is never the fault of the child and every child deserves to be fed and loved. Shame on those that voted it down. How you can live with yourselves is beyond me. /end