“The biggest 'milk snatchers’ were Labour.” Harold Wilson’s government removed free milk from all 11- to 18-year-olds in 1968, yet nobody vilified the then education secretary, Ted Short. Three years later the Heath administration took away milk from 7- to 11-year-olds in England and Margaret Thatcher was singled out for everlasting blame.

Cabinet papers of the time reveal that Thatcher opposed the policy but was forced into it by the Treasury.