18/12/2020
In an attempt to deflect attention from the misery of the pandemic, millions of generally comfortably off Brits are trying to cheer themselves up by going through their usual pre-Christmas motions. ‘Have you ordered your turkey yet?’ ‘No but I have put marzipan on my Christmas cake.’
My family is no exception. Last night, after tucking into the first of not one but two homemade Christmas cakes, we did what we do every December - watched The Muppet Christmas Carol. This fabulous rendition of Charles Dickens’ timeless festive tale of the righting of social wrongs never fails to make me both laugh and cry at the same time.
And then this morning I caught up on the news…
stunt
For the first time since Unicef formed just before Christmas 74 years ago, its United Kingdom (UK) branch has donated money to help feed needy London children over the Christmas school break. But rather than thank the United Nations agency tasked with bringing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide, Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg attacked the donation as a ‘political stunt of the lowest order’ and said that ‘Unicef should be ashamed of itself’.
As of yet, we have not seen evidence to support Mr Rees-Mogg’s reference to Unicef having taken up festive stunt work. But regardless of any political machinations that may (or may not) be going on behind the scenes, let’s take a step back, consider who’s suffering, and ask ourselves how they might perceive this donation.
Who will be helped by this feeding programme and would otherwise have faced a pandemic-infested Christmas made extra miserable through rumbly tummies? Not me. Probably not most of you reading my musings. And certainly not multi-millionaire Mr Rees-Mogg. Instead let’s hear from someone who is far closer to those being helped - the founder of the programme to which Unicef UK has donated:-
The response to our summer Breakfast Boxes programme has shown us that families are really struggling and many were facing the grim reality of a two-week winter break without access to free school meals and the indignity of having to rely on food banks to feed their children. By providing our Breakfast Boxes, families know that their children will have a great start to the day with a healthy nutritious breakfast… We cannot continue to rely on civil society to fill the hunger gap as too many children will miss out on the nutrition they need to thrive [emphasis mine].
ScANDAL
Like all countries that have been hit severely by COVID-19, the UK is under huge financial strain. Its many pandemic-support measures - such as the incredibly expensive furlough scheme - mean that the UK’s Treasury will be paying back the cost of this crisis for many a year. So in the grand scheme of things, what’s a festive shopping bill or two to feed the very neediest British children during Christmas? Almost nothing at all! It would be a tiny virus-sized drop in the vast vat that is the UK government’s pandemic debt.
Mr Rees-Mogg said, ‘I think it is a real scandal that Unicef should be playing politics in this manner…’. Well, I beg to differ. What is truly scandalous is that the UK, which is one of the richest High-Income Countries (HICs) in the world, has not already scraped the very bottom of its cavernous pandemic money barrel to spare its hungriest little citizens the lifelong consequences of childhood malnutrition. And that such criticism should have come out of the mouth of one of the UK’s richest MPs adds glittering insult to this festive injury.
Perhaps Mr Rees-Mogg spoke so defensively in an attempt to avoid his government being shamed again, so soon after it was embarrassed during footballer Marcus Rashford’s brilliant campaign to tackle UK child hunger. But does the UK government’s desperation to avoid getting splinters under its fingernails mean that Unicef should have shied away from lending its own hands? Absolutely not! Furthermore, such a move is utterly in sympathy with the advice handed out by its Executive Director earlier in this crisis:-
We cannot allow children to be the overlooked victims of the COVID-19 pandemic… We must simultaneously think both short and long term, so that we not only address the challenges posed by the pandemic and its secondary impacts on children, but also chart a brighter future for children and young people [emphasis mine].
Unicef is absolutely correct. A vast volume of high quality medical research shows that malnourishment as a child has lifelong consequences. ‘But wait a moment’, you might say. ‘That kind of research has all taken place in really poor countries - like those Mr Rees-Mogg described in his speech criticising Unicef. After all, he said, “I think it’s a real scandal that Unicef should be playing politics in this way when it is meant to be looking after people in the poorest, the most deprived countries in the world, where people are starving, where there are famines and there are civil wars”’. If you’re wondering this then yes, you have a good point that needs addressing.
Yes, the UK is undoubtedly a top drawer HIC. Yet even pre-pandemic, it had a sizeable wealth gap. This social divide is likely to have widened further during the first year of this pandemic. And my own experience as a doctor who works with vulnerable patient groups both in the UK and overseas leaves me in absolutely no doubt of the following conclusion…
It is not exaggerating to say that a small proportion of Brits live in similar conditions to those experienced by some less well-off citizens of certain Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). Therefore, it is medically appropriate to quote a conclusion reached in a series of Lancet papers examining maternal and child undernutrition in five varied LMICs: ‘The prevention of maternal and child undernutrition is a long-term investment that will benefit the present generation and their children’ [emphasis mine].
Scrooge
Malnutrition comes in many varieties and grades. Unicef’s advice is wise and its criticised action is not only a short term Christmas present for highly needy young Londoners but also a longer term investment in their future adolescent & adult health. And for one of our multi-millionaire politicians to suggest otherwise seems to me both near sighted and - to deploy a seasonal term - decidedly Scroogish:-
Kindly gentleman: "Under the impression that they [Victorian prisons and workhouses] scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude, a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?"
Scrooge: "Nothing!"
Kindly gentleman: "You wish to be anonymous?"
Scrooge: "I wish to be left alone. Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned [prisons and workhouses] --they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there."
shame
Taking off my medical hat for a moment and speaking purely as the holder of a British passport, I’m ashamed that the leader of my parliament should so criticise Unicef, which is a massive, highly respected international non-government organisation (INGO) with decades of experience in managing children’s nutrition during times of crisis.
At the other end of the INGO scale, I spend my days running Integritas Healthcare, a very small body that focuses on health & justice rather than food poverty & malnutrition per se. Yet there are complex though undeniable links between poverty & crime and so I feel that this news story is right & proper fodder for me to comment on. I’ve lost count of the number of detainees in English police stations and prisons who’ve told me that one of the few benefits of being incarcerated is the provision of three meals a day. Out in the community, both they and their families frequently went to bed hungry - and that was before the pandemic came along.
In closing I’d like to say ‘Thank you Unicef’ for stepping in to help some of my neediest fellow citizens at Christmas, despite what appears to me to be the incredible ingratitude of one of our national leaders. Surely that is what should be attracting shame. And I’ll leave the final words to the donor…
Unicef UK is responding to this unprecedented crisis and building on our 25 years’ experience of working on children’s rights in the UK with a one-off domestic response… We believe that every child is important and deserves to survive and thrive no matter where they are born [emphasis mine].
… and Tiny Tim (with a bit of light editing by yours truly):-
God bless Us, Every One [including you too of course, Mr Rees-Mogg].
The author of this opinion piece is writing in a personal capacity and her views are not necessarily those of Integritas Healthcare.