Eddie O’Hara outraged at Starmer’s refusal to commit to helping kids – and Tories’ callousness to refugee children
Social activist Eddie O’Hara has returned the medal he received for helping poor children, in protest at Keir Starmer’s refusal to commit to providing free school meals to all children – and the removal by the Tories of murals at an child refugee centre.
Birmingham-based O’Hara received the British Empire Medal in 2021 for his work for charity and in children’s services.
In an article on his Linkedin page, he explained that he was disgusted by Labour’s ‘cowardly and misguided refusal’ to say they will provide all children with free school meals if they get into government and also by the Tories ‘obscene’ decision to paint over murals at an immigration centre because they created too welcoming an atmosphere.
Last month, we witnessed Labour’s Shadow Children’s Minister, (Helen Hayes, etc), cowardly and misguided refusal to commit Labour (if they win the next election) to providing free school meals to all children, because the optics did not make it ‘targeted enough’.
We live in the 6th richest country on the planet, we have more billionaires than most countries, yet we have one of the highest income disparities on the planet and between 40 – 54 % of children in my city alone live in poverty. This is not inevitable it is the result of indifferent choices made by entitled politicians every day.
As a lifelong campaigner for a kinder more decent society for all, I am appalled at the constant disregard and indifference 99% of our politicians show towards our children, at a time when across the UK millions of children and their parents continue to live in poverty and go to be hungry each night.
Starmer’s betrayal of hungry children – some 4.2 million of them now live in poverty in this country – is one of the most disgraceful in a long list of evils and broken promises in his rush to the right after conning Labour members into voting him in as party leader.
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