Is there any clarity to the government’s direction of travel?

Yesterday, it was the £15bn spending on transport infrastructure; today, it is the news that 500,000 more children are to get free school meals at a cost of £250m-a-year.

It almost sounded as if the government had at last found a purpose to its being in office: Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said it was now the government’s “moral mission” to cut child poverty, a mission that was one of the points in The Northern Echo’s manifesto at the last election.

Although there will be those who say, correctly, that it is a parent’s responsibility to feed their children, if the parents are unable to, it is always the child that suffers: the child that misses out on education, misses out on life chances and so the circle of poverty perpetuates itself.

But it does beg the question of where the money is coming from to pay for all this, particularly if the government is forced to re-consider removing the two child cap on benefits – which will reduce child poverty hugely but be very expensive – and to amend its planned cuts to disability benefits.

Where does the extra spending leave the £22bn black hole and why, if there is a little money, were the pensioners hit out of the blue with a blanket cut to the winter fuel allowance? It is becoming difficult to work out the government’s direction of travel.

Perhaps next week’s long term spending review will bring some clarity, although today’s by-election to the Scottish parliament may deliver a verdict on the government’s lack of message: if enough Labour voters protest and enable Reform to win, it will be shocking and telling result.