SMALL business owners, cafes and pubs across Oxfordshire have today put the Government in the shade with their caring and generosity.

Our former PM and Witney MP David Cameron would be proud of how these people, already struggling to make a living during the pandemic, have embodied the spirit behind his ‘Big Society’ and dug deep in order to help try to feed some of the most needy and vulnerable people in our community.

Cameron aside, we can all be proud of the generosity that our local business people have shown, each one of them perhaps making a small offer which adds up to make a big difference overall.

However, we can be proud of our community while also admitting that the issue is a hugely complex one.

As Boris Johnson said yesterday, "I totally understand the issue of holiday hunger, the debate is, how do you deal with it."

We have always had a problem in this country with people going hungry – sadly we probably always will have, to a greater or lesser extent.

If the state wanted to, it could try to provide food for every single person in the country all the time, to make sure no one ever had to go hungry; this would be a form of communism or socialism.

That's not to say that is a bad thing; simply a statement.

At the other end of the spectrum we would have a state that does not provide any free food to anyone and argues that it is not the job of the state to spend people's taxes on feeding those who cannot provide for themselves.

Even if the Government agreed now to extend free school meals during holidays, that would be a relatively small move that would not solve all childhood hunger, and wouldn't even address the thousands of childless adults in food poverty.

We do not back the Government's position on this matter, and we do applaud all those who want to help children in need, but we also urge all our readers to remember what a complex issue this is.