It is never too late to do the right thing and end child food poverty

Editorial: Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak must understand that, aside from the impact on communities, the political cost of refusing help to children on free school meals is too great

Marcus Rashford with his mother Melanie at a food bank in Manchester (FareShare)

It is hard to understand why the prime minister chose to make his stand in defence of responsible public finances on the question of food for the children of low-income families in the school holidays. We can almost imagine the conversation with his chancellor. Rishi Sunak may have said: “I know we’re borrowing £400bn this year, but we have to draw the line somewhere.” 

So did Boris Johnson reply: “Quite right; let’s draw the line against a popular young footballer who is running an exemplary moral campaign and who defeated us last time”?

Mr Sunak, at least, understands numbers, and knows the difference between billions and millions. He knows that the £100m or so that a holiday voucher scheme would cost until Easter next year is trivial against the budgets he seeks to control. And Mr Johnson, who understands politics well enough to be in the position he holds today, must know that this would have been an easy win for him if he had conceded with good grace early on and pretended that the idea was his own.