Child poverty is a scourge that shames us all

Unemployment down below two million! Interest rates at a five-year low of 1.2%. Inflation pegged at a happy home- owning rate of 0.5%. Petrol prices being driven down!

Here in Scotland, as with the rest of the UK, all seems, on paper at least, to be fine and dandy.

There’s also a modest rise in our GDP and the very welcome news that in some areas of the nation our life expectancy has improved.

And let’s not forget we have finally found, under the stewardship of Gordon Strachan, a national football team to be proud about. All in all we should be relatively happy…so why aren’t we?

Why is it, when the economy is actually doing quite well and recovery is on the way, that we are continually warned that if we’re not careful it could stagnate and deflation might force everything to become so cheap that the economy would implode.

Well I’ve been around the block long enough to know a good old scare story when I hear one, especially when an election is around the corner, and my nose is finely honed to detect the merest whiff of manure.

The Westminster big three are all at it with The Blue Tories, The Red Tories and UKIP all setting their economic stalls out and playing their disaster cards in an effort to scare the electorate into believing the economy is safe with them.

But it is any wonder stock markets are falling? That the spectre of 1987’s Nightmare on Wall Street Crash has raised its ugly head when they are all talking the economy down rather than welcoming and sharing the small pieces of good news?

Instead of forcing the NHS in England and Wales into strike action over a paltry 1% wage increase, which at the most will cost £450 million (the price of a few drones), Cameron and his goons should instead be doing everything in their power to protect and look after the staff of this revered institution.

They should back up their promises of protection by supporting the staff instead of backing the unions into a corner. They should look at the disgraceful anomaly that has more than 3.3 million working families claiming tax credits in order that they can feed their families.

And finally they should be dealing with the very sobering news that nearly 3.5 million UK children now live in poverty a figure which will not be eradicated by 2020 as they claim but will instead increase by another 100,000.

In Glasgow one in three children are now reckoned to be living in hardship and again that figure only looks set to rise under the Tories.

And don’t be fooled that a Labour coalition with UKIP will change things, not when they are committed to tough deficit reduction measures. Well, that’s if Jellybam remembers there is a deficit.

It is an absolute disgrace and, given that we are meant to be a civilised and prosperous group of nations, an affront to common decency.

We all cry shame when a dog is butchered in Korea, we all run to the phones, credit cards at the ready, when a Third World plight is broadcast on TV. We are always one of the first in the queue to send costly aid, missiles or troops when other nations are in need.

It seems we care more for polythene bags, high hedges and the odd wind farm than we do about those here at home struggling to feed their families and make ends meet.

I’m not advocating that we stop helping other nations but we should be a bit more benevolent, caring, and certainly more charitable to those living in poverty and in need of help here in the UK especially our impoverished children!

Maybe until that day happens we shouldn’t be too happy!