Using the word "illiterate" (which these parents almost certainly aren't) in this day and age is about what I'd expect from someone who chooses to be a Tory and wear that suit in public. https://twitter.com/BBradley_Mans/status/1319677312124813319

I've done a lot of work in adult literacy and I get that not everyone has but let me tell you WE DO NOT USE THAT WORD ANY MORE, OKAY?

About a quarter of adults - from *all* backgrounds - struggle with literacy. But very, very few have no literacy skills at all.

The people Ben is describing are a fiction designed to persuade you that he voted against feeding hungry children because he actually cares about them TOO MUCH to support the free meals scheme. He's suggesting low literacy means that these folk are beyond help.

First of all: fuck that sideways. Second of all: there is a direct correlation between more and more adults facing literacy struggles and the fact that THE TORY GOVERNMENT HAS DELIBERATELY AND SYSTEMATICALLY WORKED TO DEFUND AND DISMANTLE FURTHER & COMMUNITY EDUCATION FOR YEARS.

Third of all: Ben's tweet has snide hideousness running through it like a stick of rock. Notice how he lumps together social work involvement, low literacy, addiction and sex work, but conveniently leaves out any mention of poverty?

Social work involvement is much more likely to happen if you're poor. Not because poor people are worse at looking after their kids, but because social work are more likely to be contacted if kids are, you know, COMING TO SCHOOL HUNGRY.

Poverty and low literacy also intersect fairly often (though OBVIOUSLY not all poor people struggle with literacy and not all people who struggle with literacy are poor). If you struggle to read and write you may struggle to find work, >

> and if you can't earn money you can't pay for the adult literacy classes that increasingly carry a fee because the bastard government has defunded all the free FE and community-run ones.

Funny how this stuff is intersectional, eh, Ben? Funny how if you dealt with the grinding poverty many UK adults live in, you'd find that fewer of them went into sex work or ended up trapped in addiction.

But sure, carry on with your crass reduction of struggling humans to handy percentages. Do carry on telling us how feeding these people's hungry children would only make things worse.

TOO LATE BEN WE ALREADY REALISED YOU'RE A WEAPONS-GRADE DOUCHECANOE