Why we don't believe a word of most pressure group reports

The Food Foundation tells us that so many more families have been plunged into food poverty that we just really must institute free school meals for all on universal credit. State canteens must be lashing out the hash to make up for this dreadful failure of markets and capitalism.

Except, well, it’s tosh, not nosh, under discussion here. As The Guardian tells us:

The number of UK children in food poverty has nearly doubled in the last year to almost 4 million, new data shows, ramping up pressure on ministers to expand the provision of free school meals to struggling families.

According to the Food Foundation thinktank, one in five (22%) of households reported skipping meals, going hungry or not eating for a whole day in January, up from 12% at the equivalent point in 2022.

Except that’s nonsense. That’s not even what The Guardian’s own chart shows, nor what the report says.

What is actually said is that 21.6% are reporting overall food insecurity (note, not skipping meals, going hungry or not eating for a whole day), which is made up of 14.9% relied on low-cost food, 10.5% did not have balanced meals, 3.4% did not have enough to eat and 2.6% skipped meals (some reported more than one).

That 3.4% did not have enough to eat, or 2.6% skipped meals may well be something we’d like to try and do something about. A few more donations to food banks might be that thing of course.

But try this as logic. Food prices go up, people substitute to cheaper food, this is the justification for school meals? Really? A household moves from filet to rump steak and this means more school meals? Switching out the extra-virgin for rape seed oil means taxes must rise? Moving from branded premium to supermarket own brand is a failure of the welfare state?

That is the logic they’re using there. That’s their evidence and they’re sticking to it too.

We agree that we’re being horrible here, why this is almost amounting to mansplaining. But this is a good example of why we don’t believe near anything stemming from pressure group reports.

Seriously, the claim here is that a household moving from organic milk to regular silvertop means that all must have free school meals. The correct reaction here is peals of scornful laughter, isn’t it? That or the Carthaginian Solution.