Labour's Shame

First of all, apologies to all avid readers of my blog (all 2 of you!), for abandoning you for a week. However, my absence is certainly no reflection of a lack of interest in the world of politics. Rather, I have been out of the country with work, then at my wee brother's 21st birthday party. Then the dog ate my homework...

As it now past midnight, and I risk turning into a pumpkin, I'll keep it brief.

I just want to express my absolute disgust at what I have heard and witnessed today. First of all, it was reported that levels of poverty have increased. That is an absolute scandal. Today, there are almost a million people in Scotland living in poverty. That's one million people who face a daily struggle just to get by. One million people who are being betrayed by a government that claims to believe in 'opportunity for all'. What kind of life chances are open to people living below the breadline?

And for Labour politicians to parade around television studios talking about these people as mere statistics is horrendous. They talk about progress and achievement. As I've asked in previous blogs, just how much longer should people in poverty have to wait for things to change? Labour have been in power for a DECADE. Tinkering around the margins of poverty just isn't good enough. We have a duty to look after all our citizens, especially the most vulnerable people in society like children and older people. We should all be outraged that 'our' government makes excuses for such manifest failure to tackle, what I believe, to be the most pressing problem in Scotland today - the poverty of one fifth of our citizens.