Politics aside, the facts are stark. All of these parties committed Holyrood to targets on child poverty. This included an interim target, now only three years away, of a reduction to 18 percent. But statistics now show that poverty was increasing, even before the pandemic, to roughly one in four.

Source Direct: Child Poverty – Whodunnit?



“If we want young children to develop the physical, social, emotional and cognitive capacities required for long-term health and well-being… we have to put love and play at the heart of state-sponsored early childhood education and care.”

Sue Palmer: Best place in the world to grow up?



Tory attempts to justify opposition to free school meals over the holidays are becoming increasingly desperate, and have a shrinking audience among the public. “Not destroying the currency with excessive QE is also one of our duties,” backbench Tory MP Steve Baker barked on Twitter at Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford, who successfully led a […]

Analysis: QE, Rashford and the new Tory milk snatchers


Around one million Scots were in poverty before the covid-19 crisis, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s new Poverty in Scotland 2020 report finds. That breaks down as 230,000 children, 640,000 working age adults, and 150,000 pensioners. These numbers have been rising over the past five years, especially child poverty, which is up to 24 per cent, almost one […]

Scotland is going backwards on poverty




The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s ‘A stronger Scottish lifeline in the economic storm’, a briefing paper published yesterday, is a good starting point for debate about what needs to be in the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government in September to stave off the most devastating economic impacts of the crisis in the immediate term. Jobs: 628,000 workers have […]

A stronger Scottish lifeline?