In a move that has left the UK’s own school dinner monitors choking on their bangers and mash, Indonesia’s Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto has sacked the head of his free school meals programme after a spate of poisonings turned lunchtime into a biological warfare zone. Yes, you read that correctly. The scheme, designed to nourish the nation’s future, instead became a gastro-intestinal state of emergency.
Children collapsing like dominoes after consuming what can only be described as ‘culinary landmines’ is not a good look for a man with presidential ambitions. But let us not rush to judgement. After all, the UK is hardly in a position to throw stones from its glass (or rather, plastic-wrapped) canteen.
While we smugly monitor Indonesia’s feeding fiasco, our own children are still being served turkey twizzlers and beige beige beige by catering staff who look like they’ve seen the afterlife and it’s a deep-fat fryer. The UK’s role as global food police is, frankly, a bad joke. We have no moral authority here.
None. Zero. The audacity of British officials tutting over Jakarta’s meal deal is like an alcoholic lecturing a binge-drinker on responsible drinking.
But back to Prabowo. His swift decapitation of the programme’s head is a masterclass in political theatre. Heads must roll, even if they are attached to perfectly competent bodies.
The man is a butcher who knows how to cut his losses. And as for those poisoned children? They are merely collateral damage in the great game of power.
The UK monitors, meanwhile, are probably sipping tea and filing reports that will gather dust in a Whitehall filing cabinet next to a half-eaten packet of custard creams. The horror of it all is not that children are getting sick. The horror is that we are all paying lip service to feeding the poor while the rich feast on our tax money.
But let us not be too cynical. Perhaps this is the spark that will ignite a culinary revolution. Perhaps Indonesia will now employ actual nutritionists instead of army chefs.
Or perhaps not. Either way, the headline is delicious. Free meals are a noble idea.
Unless they are free poison. Then they are just bad press. And in the world of politics, bad press is a crime punishable by sacking.
The UK should take note. Our school dinners are not far behind. The only difference is that our poison is slow-acting and breeds complacency.
But I digress. The world spins, politicians spin, and somewhere a child is vomiting into a bin. That is the news.
That is the truth. And that is why I drink.
