Brian Monteith: White stuff row leaves sour taste

Published on Wednesday 11 August 2010 17:52

I DIDN'T just like my free school milk. I loved "the white stuff" as the milk marketing campaign now brands it. In fact, I liked it so much that after finishing my one third of a pint I would shove my hand in the air when Miss Scott offered to primary four the remaining bottles that had gone unloved and unwanted.

The wimps could have the class hamster on a treadmill home with them, they could sing Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious as often as they liked, all I wanted was that full fat, about to turn, warm as a milk maid's cheek, Scots cow's milk.

Then came the triangular milk cartons shaped liked bizarre optical illusions, pyramids that were, er, wrong, a bit squiffy. You also could buy them as Jubilees - with frozen flavoured ice in them, and they made a loud BANG! if you stamped on them when empty (the result was less impressive if you stamped on one full of milk, I promise you).

Still, if there was a free carton of milk going because someone felt sick at the smell of the stuff then I was the man (well, boy) who would devour it in an instant. That wasn't a (water) pistol in my pocket, that was my spare straw, ready for seconds!

Why do I recall with fondness those times at Parsons Green Primary in the late 1960s? Well, the coalition has just gone through the embarrassment of suggesting it was going to take away free milk for children at nursery schools across the UK - and then before you could say "lactose intolerant" it changed its mind.

The great PR guru in Number 10 decided the bad press, the full-scale opprobrium that would be heaped upon HIM would not be worth the saving.

Funny that, because from where I was reading the reports there was no saving being proffered and there was no proposal to ban the milk.

I'm afraid that not only is it now the silly season - when the poor state of political debate becomes so debased it is worth less than a Zimbabwean dollar - it is also a reflection on how the opposition parties are going to conduct themselves as the coalition searches to find the savings that will keep our children and grandchildren from paying for the debts Labour ran up.

Let's look at what was proposed first. Anne Milton, the English health minister whose department funds the scheme, raised the fact that there is no evidence that in our current lifestyles the provision of free school milk makes any difference to the health of young kids in Britain.

This is not surprising. The free school milk scheme is the remnant of a larger plan to guarantee milk for pregnant women and children at the height of rationing in 1940 when Hitler's hordes were expected to land on our beaches within the year. We beat Hitler, we introduced the welfare state, we became prosperous, we removed rationing and the rest is history. Now we're meant to be worried about our kids being lardy - but we still have free nursery school milk.

My point is that in health terms it is not the best use of what are now scarce resources.

What was the coalition government proposing? Well, it was not saying kids should not have milk in nursery, or even that they should pay for it. Instead, what it was saying was that instead of giving out free milk to everyone, such as kids who turn up at nursery in a Morningside tractor, the money could be better used to extend an existing scheme that provides milk, vegetables or fruit to children from poor families.

The voucher scheme is already popular and allows kids to choose what they like - instead of turning up their noses at milk, they can have a banana or a carrot. I would have thought that would have been popular amongst the Green Brigade of Stockbridge.

But no. Captain Cameron feared that some half-wit would find a catchy rhyming slogan to condemn him like the old (inaccurate) epithet that stuck with dearest Margaret for the rest of her life - "Maggie Thatcher, Milk Snatcher".

The irony is that Thatcher opposed the end of free school milk to over sevens not on benefits (like me) that was proposed by Chancellor Anthony Barbour - but was outvoted by the Cabinet of Heathmen, and so she took the blame.

I can't help but think there was some merit in the latest idea, but rather than have a rational discussion the opposition parties are going to behave according to type and just condemn everything irrespective of its merits.

In an act of unbelievable hypocrisy, Nicola Sturgeon even suggested that Milton should resign - just for floating the idea. That's the same Nicola Sturgeon who would not support calls for the head of Education Minister Sam Galbraith after he went on holiday knowing there was trouble brewing for the 2000 Scottish Higher Exams just because she didn't say it first. Now that did ruin people's lives!

Expect more of the same. As we search for real savings, hysteria will be the norm and sense or reason will be hard to spot. Maybe they should try taking the white stuff.