Anyone who is old enough to remember the 1970s would have reacted instantly to the news that the government was considering cutting the provision of free milk to pre-school children with Thatcher, Thatcher, Milk Snatcher! - the slogan which greeted Mrs Thatcher’s decision (while Minister for Education) to end the provision of a free ⅓ pint of milk a day to children in primary schools. The image of a hard & uncaring woman could never completely be shaken off.
David Cameron recognised immediately that such reminders would bedevil rational debate over cuts & made the political decision that the proposal, whatever its merits, had to be scotched.
There must be many such proposals floating around Whitehall, given that all departments have been told to consider how cuts in departmental budgets of as much as 40% could be achieved. So another interesting question about the dark art of politics is how come this particular one was leaked. It is not a big coincidence that the leaked letter was one which had been sent to a minister in the Scottish government – the Scots have sharp memories of the iniquities perpetrated upon them by Mrs T.
And finally the policy of providing free milk seems to be rather curiously placed from the administrative/legal/constitutional point of view. Responsibility for Scottish health services is generally a devolved one, but this letter seems to suggest that a decision in Whitehall would apply to the whole of GB; the Minister of State for Children and Families has responsibility for School food, Healthy Schools & other health issues, but the proposed cuts came from the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health at the Department of Health which finances & administers Welfare Food Scheme: Nursery milk as well as the School fruit & vegetable scheme.
Although milk has always been the subject of politics, Government provision of milk for children was an unproblematically Good Thing from its beginnings in 1940. As a child I had no problem obeying the injunction to Drinka Pinta Milka Day, in fact in my teens I got through at least two. I had to cut down on doctor’s orders at the age of 19 however to get rid of excruciating cramps in my legs due to pregnancy. Nevertheless I remain optimistic that I drank enough to lay down the kind of bone structure strong enough to avoid osteoporosis.
We are told that there is no evidence that the cuts would do any harm; that is presumably true, but are we sure we have looked for it? It is tempting for those like me, who believe there is good evidence for the benefits of milk, to believe that the public health community is now dominated by those suspicious of cow's milk, the enthusiasts for extreme breast feeding, & the lowering of cholesterol through dietary means.
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