| Hi there, It was with a calm but incisive half-volley that Marcus Rashford completed his hat-trick last night. Thrown on by Ole Gunnar Solskjær in the second half as Manchester United laboured with a fragile 1-0 lead, it took him a stint of 16 minutes to find his three goals and put the game beyond RB Leipzig.
 Such an immediate impact is reminiscent of Rashford's manager himself. It was on a big European night in 1999 against German opposition that Solskjær struck at the death to carve out perhaps the most memorable slice of United's history. The Norwegian would carry that motif for the rest of his career: becoming the quintessential super-sub, a player you could always count on to rescue an improbable situation. With all due respect to the art of his gaffer, Rashford likely envisions a different path for his own future in the game. At such a young age — he turns 23 on Saturday — he has displayed a remarkable ability to lead from the front at United. Even when his side are starved of possession, you can always count on Rashford to put himself about off the ball and make his presence felt. His natural leadership, of course, has shone in a big way off the pitch this year. A loud voice against racial injustice, he has also looked to use his stature to better the lives of the less fortunate in his country. On Wednesday, Rashford voiced his "despair" as the Labour party's plea for free school meals to be extended over the holidays to stop children going hungry fell on closed ears in government. A parliamentary petition launched by the forward, which demands that "no child should be going hungry", received more than 1-million signatures this week. A motion on providing 1.4-million disadvantaged children in England with £15-a-week food vouchers during holidays until Easter 2021 was voted down by the Tories. Earlier, Rashford had clashed with Tory MPs who suggested that extending free school meals "increases dependency" on the state and that the cost could contribute to "destroying the currency". MPs' meals are subsidised, by the way. The UK government has so far spent £12-billion on its test-and-trace system. But, as a result of catastrophic mismanagement, it might as well have used this money as toilet paper: tracing has failed to reach the critical threshold needed to reduce the infection rate. To put this in context, the total National Health Service capital-spending budget for buildings and equipment is just £7-billion.To provide all the children in need with free meals during school holidays between now and next summer term, which the government has dismissed as too expensive, is likely to cost about £120-million: in other words, just 1% of the test and trace budget. To put it in further context, £12-billion is R256-billion at today's exchange rate. That is exactly the amount that the Department of Health last year estimated the introduction of National Health Insurance (NHI) in South Africa would cost by 2022 (pre-Covid figures, obviously). Earlier this month, the system failed to add nearly 16 000 confirmed cases of coronavirus to its national track and trace database because of an Excel error. A number of reports say the mistake was caused when an Excel spreadsheet used to track confirmed cases of the virus reached its maximum file size and failed to update. As columnist George Monbiot notes, part of England's test and trace initiative is being operated by teenagers. Is it a cock-up or conspiracy? Or just plain abdication of responsibility? Although it is commendable to see a young person taking on child poverty, it is very disconcerting that so many have to rely on Rashford's kindness rather than elected officials. Yours in solidarity, Kiri Rupiah & Luke Feltham | 
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