When Margaret Thatcher made herself a figure of fun by ending free school milk for children, she could hardly have envisaged that the cause would be taken up 49 years later.
For the education secretary, as she then was, it was an effort to fulfil a Tory promise to cut spending which earned her the nickname Milk Snatcher. But for her modern day inheritors — including vegans and doctors — it is about consuming dairy products. Campaigners say subsidised cow’s milk should be off the menu for schoolchildren and replaced with fruit and vegetables, or a plant-based alternative.
Dr Shireen Kassam, founder of Plant Based Health Professionals UK, which advocates plant-based diets, said: “Access to fruits and vegetables for our children would be much more