Pregnant women are to be given a one-off payment of £120 to spend on wholesome food as a way of improving the health prospects of their unborn child, it has been revealed.
Health Secretary Alan Johnson will announce the plan for a "Health in Pregnancy Grant" in a speech this week outlining plans to reduce health inequalities between the richest and poorest in England and Wales.
The cash will be given to all mothers to be seven months into their pregnancy, accompanied by professional health advice on maintaining a balanced diet. Women will be encouraged to spend the money on fruit and vegetables.
But they are expected to be free to spend the cash as they see fit, even on unhealthy products like cigarettes and alcohol.
If every mother receives £120, The Observer estimated the initiative would cost £70-£80 million a year...
Read the full article here
I can imagine it now, our young chavette, we shall call her Tasha. She gets her 120 notes, then its off to the corner shop for a shopping spree.Upon arriving at Mohammed's corner shop she gives healthy food and government concerns not a thought. Healthy food, not bloody likely. Right past the greenery she go's with her other three kids in tow, instead its off to the booze isle.
Soon our Tasha has her pushchair loaded up with about ninety quids worth of alco pop's, cider for her dad and spirits. Offspring moved aside to make space for the priorities, that is free booze as she sees it from that nice Gordon Brown. Of course she fails to note that it is the taxpayers who are funding her booze cruise to Mohammed's corner shop, not that she will ever be in the position of having to work and pay taxes.
Then its off to the counter and a tenner is wisely invested in her and her offspring's future, a few tickets for Friday & Saturdays lottery, plus some assorted scratch cards. Then Tasha remembers that she is almost out of smokes, so the last twenty notes go into Mr Mohammed's till as she stocks up with Benson & Hedges.
With her couple of pounds change she thinks that she has enough to have a coffee with the other single mum's down the Nelson Mandela community centre and a few go's on the fruit machine in the pub later.
Welcome to Blair & Browns Cool Britannia, where vote buying and bribery has never been more popular.
**But wait... what's this?(as found on many blogs covering the latest cyclops scam in vote buying)
Expectant mothers will get child benefit during the last months of their pregnancy as part of a package of measures designed to help the government meet its target of halving child poverty by 2010.
Gordon Brown said the benefit would be paid to all mothers-to-be from the 29th week of pregnancy. But the change will not come in until April 2009, so it will not help women who are pregnant now or about to begin a family.
That's from the business section of the Guardian on December 7, 2006. It was put before Parliament in Brown's pre-Budget report last year. They're just re-announcing it.Let's raise a
Tags:Public Waste
Lunacy
Politics
Gordon Brown
Cool Britannia
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