Burnham: PM undermining ministers
Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham MP criticises the government’s handling of the free milk announcements:
“Today’s shambolic events raise serious questions about Mr Cameron’s confidence in his health ministers.
“Scrapping free milk for under-5s was clearly a firm policy proposal, otherwise the public health minister would not have been writing to her counterparts in the devolved administrations.
“For the prime minister to undermine his ministers in this way – astonishingly while one is live on air in the middle of a TV interview – reveals the true extent of the policy chaos within his government.
“What prompted him to act in this bizarre way seems to have been the fear of being compared to Margaret Thatcher rather than the policy itself. It is no way to conduct government business.
“What I hope this sorry episode will bring is a much greater focus on the dangers posed to public health by this government’s food and nutrition policy.
“This is the latest in a series of worrying announcements – the dropping the traffic-light food labelling scheme; attacking nutritional in school meals; the promise to cut food industry regulation in return for industry funding for Change4Life; and removing food policy from the Food Standards Agency.”
