Wednesday 4 February 2009

The paucity of our ambition

I have thought further about the good-news-story below (Yours for 240 pints of milk) and it has just sunk in that it actually reveals a profound level of stinginess in the council. The council was going around, checking on vulnerable residents in the snowy weather, as it should. It was clear that those people might be without basic necessities, but instead of the council forking out for bread, fruit, vegetables, the wherewithal to cook a couple of decent meals, and so on, it found them... a pint of milk. And it did not find the money for the milk from its own pocket, but thought, I know, we'll ask some supermarket, in return for some good PR, to provide... something. And the extent of their ambition was... a pint of milk.

I'm not saying that other councils would have been more generous. I don't know. But it really shows what a manky society we have become when a council leader thinks it's something to crow about when the council provides zilch and a supermarket coughs up for 240 pints of milk, while, I wouldn't be surprised, thousands of vulnerable people sat indoors for days with little decent to eat. At least some of them had the consolation of a nice cuppa, eh?

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