James Kirkup James Kirkup

No, Marcus Rashford didn’t ‘slam’ a Tory MP over child hunger

Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford (Getty images)

‘Rashford slams MP’s tweet about feeding children’

That was a headline last night on the BBC News site. It neatly captures a tale that sums up just about everything that’s wrong with politics and journalism today.

The ‘story’ – also in most newspapers today – is that Kevin Hollinrake, Conservative MP for Thirsk and Malton, wrote the following on Twitter:

‘Where they can, it’s a parents job to feed their children’

He was writing in response to another tweet asking why it has taken the efforts of Marcus Rashford, a campaigning footballer, to put the issue of child hunger on the agenda. In turn, Rashford wrote a tweet directed to Hollinrake:

‘I would urge you to talk to families before tweeting. To this day I haven’t met one parent who hasn’t wanted or felt the responsibility to feed their children…’

Hollinrake replied:

‘Very happy to debate this with you in any open forum’

And that’s it.

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