Not that I care about being fair to Thatcher, but she wasn’t the first.

The milk thing can be summarized as such:

• 1906, kids are malnourished, let’s give them milk - some counties (LEAs but im trying to translate here) refused
• 1930, a bunch of counties are still refusing, they are encouraged
• 1945, schools are forced to give all children under 18 1/3 pint of milk a day (same government as founded the NHS btw)
• 1968 Harold Wilson’s Labour govt cut this to under 11 years old
• 1971 Edward Heath instructs Thatcher (then Education Secretary) to cut it to under 7 years old, she does, many schools pay for the milk themselves instead
• 1977 the EU allows for extra funding to be claimed on 7-18 year olds for milk if they are malnourished
• 1978 uk provided funding back to up to 12 year olds if their families were on government assistance
• 1979 Thatcher elected
• 1980 widened the subsidies for milk again
• 1986 narrowed to only government assistance families again
• 1995 it was cut again now to children 5 and under where it remains today
• 1997 Blair elected, program for healthy school meals is started shifting the focus from “milk” to all food and drink.
• 1999 report claims children eat unhealthier than they did in 1950
• 2001 Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver starts his School Dinners Campaign