You’d Have To Have A Heart Of Stone…

Town hall chiefs have issued an apology after a pork product was discovered in…

Oh oh!

… chocolate mousse being served to Muslim youngsters as part of their school dinner.

Pork gelatine, to be precise.

And the tidal wave of obsequiousness crashes over the pages of the local psaper:

A Bolton Council spokesman said: “We would like to sincerely apologise for any upset caused to parents and children by this mistake.

“This incident occurred at one school and we would like to stress that this was an isolated incident.

"A batch of frozen chocolate mousses was supplied by one of our food suppliers in place of the halal accredited frozen yoghurts that we had ordered.

"When it came to our notice that the mousses contained pork gelatine they were immediately withdrawn.

“We would also like to reassure the community that we are working closely with Bolton Council of Mosques and we are reviewing our own procedures to ensure that this does not happen again.

"We will ensure that any specific improvements that are identified are rolled out to all of our schools.”

Whew! I got tired just reading that! Did I say tidal wave? More like a tsunami of dhimmitude.

Not to be outdone, the school joined in the 'Please don't hurt us!' chorus:

Headteacher Emily Kirk said: “As a school we are all really upset by what has happened.

“Fortunately our staff reacted very quickly as soon as the issue was identified, which was early on into our lunchtime, and the product was instantly removed.

“We immediately informed all of our parents, who I would like to thank for their continued support and understanding.

"Bolton Council, who provide our school meals, acted very promptly and held a meeting to further reassure our parents, supported by Bolton Council of Mosques.

“I would like to stress that this has never happened here before.

“As a school we are extremely proud of our school meals which provide our children with a nutritionally balanced meal and this contributes significantly to their health and wellbeing.”

As commenter MMHolmes points out:

"Reading the language used in this article and the general tone of it would make you think they'd found ground up glass in the mousse, not a bit of non-PC gelatin."

Do you remember quite such hysteria when horsemeat was discovered in school meals? I don't.

But then, Bolton Council has a reputation to uphold:

Bolton Council’s school meals recently won the "best partnership working" prize at the Association of Public Service Excellence awards for its work with Bolton Council of Mosques.

It's not our country any more, is it?