The Minister of Shit Sandwiches

The Minister of Shit Sandwiches pulled out his stale white bread and his ideological excretions, and remade the school lunch programme with a generous smear of contempt; ready to ensure that the state offers little sustenance for student's bellies but plenty to reinforce their humiliation.

The Minister of Shit Sandwiches
A screenshot photo of the actual new school meal, with the caption: "This was yesterday's offering for school lunches. Meant to be pasta and lentils, Arrived an hour late after lunch, wasn't eaten (obviously) offered to community groups and offer turned down." (Alt) In the picture there is a sloppy brown pile of lentils and a lumpy 'ice cream scoop' style ball that is not immediately identifiable but caption says it is pasta. The 'meal' is sitting in a little tin foil tray and the covers just over half the surface area of it.

Anneleise Hall

Politics/Satire

"Let them eat lentils," cried David Seymour as he launched his "Punish the Poor" school lunch programme.

Duly anointed by his rich donors, the new Minister of Shit Sandwiches - The MoSS - knew right from the start he had to do something about school lunches.

Public good to libertarians is like holy water on a vampire, it burns.

Healthy locally-made lunches made those poor kids think their lives had value, it reeked far too strongly of kindness. He had contempt for the whole concept and used the word as a perjorative, spitting it at adversaries like poison, in scathing, accusatory tones.

Public good to libertarians is like holy water on a vampire, it burns.

They twist and smoulder and steam in agony at the thought a poor person might get something, anything. That a cent of a rich white man's money should be stolen by a government through taxes to subsidise the dregs of the great unwashed having food, housing or dignity... it eats into them like acid.

It kept the MoSS awake at night thinking of poor children eating nice food. Having happy communal lunches like a big family. Being able to actually learn and have more of a chance to compete with mediocre white men.

When he slept he seethed and tossed, quivering with resentment.

"Gee Fred down the warehouse who happily hasn't seen a vegetable in 32 years and lives on TV dinners doesn't get a handout fresh lunch and he works hard for his money," his fevered brain muttered to itself.

"The government should be selling off all our assets and making poor people fend for themselves. Philanthropy will step in," his brain wailed in a high pitched warble, going into a semi scream.

He woke up refreshed, and announced plans to cut the programme.

The public were aghast at his plans and Seymour was annoyed.

He couldn't understand why people were making such a fuss about hungry children that couldn't learn. The 25% of them who were food insecure were just going to be pumping gas and cleaning toilets, all the rich kids, future leaders, had lunches and were at private schools. Did they think the government was made of money? There had been barely enough to reverse the unfair removal of tax deductible interest breaks for landlords and grant the token tax cuts.

The MoSS couldn't wait until he'd finally done away with all this tedious welfare state business.

He searched desperately for an agreeable solution. If he couldn't outright win it would have be the next best thing.


The Minister of Shit Sandwiches pulled out his stale white bread and his ideological excretions, and remade the school lunch programme with a generous smear of contempt; ready to ensure that the state offers little sustenance for student's bellies but plenty to reinforce their humiliation.

Screen shot of aJanuary 30 story : Parents upset over 'unidentifiable' school lunches after scheme shake up. (NZH by JaimeLyth)

He would award the $85 million annual contract to a private multinational for-profit corporation with a notoriously bad reputation for every aspect of their service. He would give students food so inedible and unreliable the schools would give up, and he could claim they were ungrateful and wasteful.

He would be sure to be having some laughs with the ACT base and the think tank class. If you have to spend money at least use it to humiliate and underserve the recipients so they lower expectations.

A new flavour of Government, the Shit Sandwich is Seymour's new speciality dish.

Thanks for reading!

Edit: I've tweaked the last line since first published, removed first three words and added the part past the comma. I have just started writing again after a long hiatus so still finding my rhythm.