Tories: mess with milk at your peril

It doesn't rhyme, obviously. But that's not why David Cameron won't be known as a "milk snatcher". He understands, thanks largely to Margaret Thatcher (who is still known as that, even 40 years after the deed) that as a politician, you mess with free school milk at your peril.

But other than the unbearable opprobrium that scrapping it would inevitably bring (as Mrs T later wrote, ending free milk for the over-sevens "incurred the maximum of political odium for the minimum of political benefit"), is there a good reason why we still give every child in approved daycare a daily 189ml of milk until they are five?

In a time of severe economic depression, poverty, food rationing and major public health problems (wartime, basically), the 1944 Education Act granted every child in a government-maintained school a free third of a pint of milk a day. As conditions improved, this was stopped in 1968 for the over-11s, and the over-sevens in 1971.

These days, when there can be barely a family in the country that could genuinely not afford to give their children a few mouthfuls of milk a day, is it still justified for the under-fives? Is that small daily intake of translucent white liquid really so essential?

The junior health minister who proposed axing the scheme, Anne Milton – an NHS nurse for 25 years, and married to the director of public health at a primary care trust – plainly has her doubts. As does Professor Ian Gilmore of the Royal College of Physicians, who backs free school milk but concedes that it is "extremely difficult" to gather "cast-iron evidence" of its benefits.

Milk, of course, provides many of the nutrients needed for growth, and not too many calories. That third of a pint contains half a five-year-old's recommended dietary allowance of calcium, as well as a third of their daily vitamin A, vitamin B12 and protein needs. It's also a good source of zinc, iodine and niacin.

And while children can obtain most of those nutrients elsewhere by eating, for example, plenty of fruit, veg and fish, the point is that many of them don't. So in the view of many health experts, nutritionists and GPs, free school milk remains hugely important. Because where once it was a world war that highlighted the importance of a healthy diet, now it's snacks, convenience food and ignorance.