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Hello and welcome to Spectator Out Loud. Every week we pick a few of our writers for them to read their pieces out to you.

This week we're going to be hearing from Matthew Paris about how when it comes to free school meals, he's truly fallen out with the zeitgeist.

We'll also be joined by Lionel Shriver, who read her piece about why she's going to vote for Biden, warts and all.

And at the very end, Douglas Murray updates us on a notebook from America where he's been for the last few weeks.

First up, Matthew Paris.

Moments arrive, when it becomes clear, you're losing the zeitgeist.

Whatever might be the spirit of the era, you just don't get it anymore.

For me, such a moment occurred last week, as I followed news and commentary

about the footballer Marcus Rashford's campaign for meal vouchers for disadvantaged children

during the school holidays.

A Nottinghamshire Conservative MP, Brendan Clark Smith, MP for Bassett Law,

had spoken in the Commons debate.

Where is the slick PR campaign encouraging absent parents

to take some responsibility for their children, he asked?

I do not believe in nationalising

children. Brilliant, I thought, and so well put. Of course, I don't believe that all children who go

hungry do so because their parents can't be bothered. There will be as many different circumstances

as there are deprived families.

But ever since I tried living on the Dole as an MP in the early 1980s, I've known that you

...