By trying to ride two horses, Brown has inevitably incurred the ire both of "banksters" (as Harold Macmillan called them) and social democrats.

Back in the old days, when Prudence was alive and kicking, Brown liked to pose as a champion of deprived children.

He even set a target: to halve child poverty by 2010, and abolish it by 2020:

Research published by the Treasury on Tuesday shows that the number of children in relative poverty in the UK has trebled in the past three decades.

It claimed the best route out of poverty in the long term was through work and making it more attractive for parents on benefits to find work.

Government measures already announced will provide an extra £6bn a year for children by the end of this Parliament, lifting 800,000 children out of poverty ...   [BBC]

This was followed up by further measures taken in the Budget of 2000: [BBC1]

Concurrent research from the LSE claimed that Budget 2000's measures would still leave 2 million children in poverty.

Reporting in July 2006, Joseph Rowntree Foundation stated:

Getting the second half of children out of poverty between 2010 and 2020 will be far harder. If the Government relied primarily on tax credits and benefits to achieve this, it would have to add about a further £28 billion (1.6 per cent of GDP) to planned annual spending, an unlikely scenario.

Nearly two years later - June 2008 - JRF reported that:

Disappointingly, after a six year period of falling, child poverty rose in the two years to April 2007, wiping out some of the previous gains.

More recently, the government has taken some significant measures which should help turn the tide once again in a positive direction, and this does not yet show up in the figures.

But the rise in child poverty makes it even tougher to meet the stated target of halving child poverty by 2010.

The Treasury estimates that the £2 billion made available in the last two Budgets will take half a million children out of poverty.

But to meet the target, a total of 1.2 million will need to benefit, and this requires even greater efforts in the next two Budgets.

On 30 September 2008, research by The Campaign to End Child Poverty coalition claimed:

... there are 4,634,000 children in England living in low income families, 297,000 in Wales, 428,000 in Scotland and 198,000 in Northern Ireland ... 174 of the 646 parliamentary constituencies in Britain have 50% or more of their child population in, or close to, the poverty line.

The parliamentary constituency with the highest number of children in or close to poverty is Birmingham Ladywood, with 81% (28,420 individuals) ... [BBC2]    [BBC3]    [BBC4]

It's easy, of course, to blame Brown. And much of the opprobrium directed his way is richly deserved.

New Labour quickly became as mired in sleaze as the Tories, inspite of Blair's promise to be "whiter than white".   [NC]

Brown, too, has mixed with dodgy company.    [TEL]

New Labour's attempt to merge its love-in with corporate capital and run a redistributionist social democracy was always going to end in failure.

What with the recession, bailing out the banks, and in the context of the Washington Consensus, redistribution via the tax system has hit the buffers.

Finally, Brown's penchant for bureaucratic complexity acts as its own road-block to further progress.

This BBC report from 2005 is emblematic: [BBC5]

Don't expect any progress in this area from a Cameron government, despite much talk of a "broken society".

Save the Children says severe child poverty 'going up'

Save the Children says the number of children in homes in this category rose 260,000 to 1.7m from 2004 to 2008 ...

Save the Children calculated there were 1.46 million children in what they call severe poverty in 2004-05. Four years later the number had risen to 1.7 million.

The charity claims that at the end of 2008, 13% of the UK's children were living in severe poverty, up two percentage points on 2004 - and that not only have efforts to reduce child poverty stalled, they have gone into reverse ...

The story varies across the UK. In Northern Ireland, 8% of children are extremely poor. In Scotland it is 9% while in England and Wales it is 13% - a figure pushed up by the situation in London where 19% of youngsters live in severe poverty ...

BBC NEWS  28 Jan 2010

Save the Children

Notice how quickly New Labour blame the poor themselves for their plight.

It is not enough that both parents must be out working for what will almost certainly by the risible mininum wage - miniscule would be a more adequate label - they will also become embroiled in the arcane complexity of Brown's tax credits.

Added to which is the lack of concern for the psychological well-being of the children.

The return to Victorian levels in inequality is no longer any concern of what used to be Keir Hardie's party.

Corporate needs must come first, and at whatever social, economic and psychological cost.   [OJ]

Both parents in low-income families could be encouraged to work to help meet child poverty targets under plans being considered by the government.

Ministers are concerned they will fail to meet their commitment to end child poverty by 2020 if only one parent in the poorest families has a job ...

Of the current 2.9 million children living in poverty, half have at least one parent in work but often they do not bring in enough money to lift their families above the poverty line.

"Addressing in-work poverty can get us a long way to the 2020 target," Treasury minister Stephen Timms said.

The focus would on encouraging parents of older children to find work, Mr Timms said, by providing financial incentives and ensuring childcare was available.

But he did not rule out "other levers", including the possibility of compelling both parents to look for work.

The Child Poverty Action Group said low-paid employment and long hours could "damage" the quality of family life and attention should be paid to on creating more well-paid jobs.

BBC NEWS 11 September 2009

Poverty is not the only thing poor children suffer from

Child poverty 'billions needed'

The battle against child poverty

Child Poverty Action Group

End Child Poverty

Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Child Care Globe

Ministers are making it a legal duty for the government, local authorities and other organisations to help to end child poverty across the UK ...

Under the Child Poverty Bill, a legal duty to work together to support families to end child poverty will be placed on central government, councils and services including the police, NHS primary care trusts and youth offending agencies ...

It sets out four targets to be met by 2020 across the UK, which the government says will "define the eradication of poverty".

These include having fewer than 10% of children living in relative low income poverty (i.e. in households with less than 60% of average).

The bill will also establish a child poverty commission to advise on strategies to tackle child poverty ...

DEFINITION OF POVERTY
Household has 60% of average (median) income, before housing costs
In 2007/08 this was £361 per week for a couple with two dependent children
In 2007/08 this was £283 per week for a single parent with two dependent children

MATERIAL MEASURES
There should be a combination of some of the following for children:
A family holiday for at least one week a year
Enough bedrooms for every child of 10 or over of a different sex to have their own bedroom
Leisure equipment such as sports equipment
Celebrations on special occasions
Swimming at least once a month
A hobby or leisure activity
Friends around for tea or a snack once a fortnight
Toddler group/nursery/playgroup at least once a week
Go on school trips
Outdoor space or facilities nearby to play safely

BBC NEWS 12 June 2009

Bill sets out four targets for action by 2020

Ministers will have to show they are aiming to meet all four targets.

The first is relative poverty, and aims to have less than 10% of children living in relative low income poverty by 2020, defined as households with less than 60% of the median income in society.

The second target is defined as material deprivation, and sets an aim of having less than 5% of children living in combined material deprivation and low income.

The third target will be defined as absolute low income, meaning less than 5% of children living in families with an income below an absolute threshold.

The fourth target is defined as persistent poverty, which will measure the percentage of children living in relative poverty for three out of four years. The measure will be fixed at the end of 2014.

The bill will set up an independent child poverty commission to report on progress, and ministers will be required to produce a strategy every three years and publish an annual progress report ...

Guardian 11 June 2009

Child poverty 'billions needed'

'Millions' of UK young in poverty

CPAG

Joseph Rowntree Foundation

A sharp increase in the number of children living in poverty who have at least one parent in work is revealed today, in a study which calls into question government efforts to lift living standards.

When research was last conducted five years ago, the majority of children in poverty had parents who were unemployed. The new study shows the majority of children living in poverty now have at least one parent in work, but they are earning so little they are unable to drag their family above the poverty line.

The study, published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, runs counter to the government's message that work is the best route out of poverty.

It also predicts that the government will fail to meet its much-trumpeted promise to halve child poverty by next year unless another £4.2bn is spent on the problem.

The report offers the first detailed indication of how far the government is from meeting its target to cut the number of children in poverty from 3.4 million in 1998 to 1.7 million by 2010. It forecasts that there will still be 2.3 million children beneath the poverty line when the deadline expires. ...

The sharp rise in the number of working families in poverty is a reminder that low-paid and casual labour does not usually help in pulling families out of deprivation, said Helen Barnard, policy and research manager at the foundation.

"The idea is that you get a job, and through this job, you will progress upwards and be lifted out of poverty in the long term," she said. "But for a lot of people, the jobs they have been going into have been low-paid, casual and short-term, and often they are back on to benefits very quickly." ...

Poverty in Britain is defined by a relative measure, rather than an absolute one, and any household with children where the parents have an income of less than 60% of British median income is classified as in poverty. The poverty line fluctuates, but for a family with two children, it stands at £283.20 a week, after housing has been paid for. The recession is likely to push those already in poverty into an even more severe position, making it much more expensive for the government to address the problem.

The report, based on research carried out by the Institute of Fiscal Studies and the Institute for Economic and Social Research, concludes that government could still fulfil its 2010 pledge if it pours another £4.2bn into increasing child tax credits, a means-tested form of child benefit available only to those on low incomes. This, equivalent to an increase of £12.50 a week for each child, would be enough to push around 600,000 above the poverty line.

In the longer term, the report says, money needs to be spent not just on increasing benefits, but on ensuring sufficient childcare is in place to allow parents to work, and on training so that parents acquire the right skills to secure stable work, with good long-term prospects ...

Guardian 18 February 2009

Child poverty 'billions needed'

Progress and Poverty

IFS

JRF

DAVID CAMERON has personally raised more than £5m for the general election campaign by offering to dine with the party’s biggest backers.

The Sunday Times has established that nearly 100 businessmen have signed up to a premier club that offers them a private dinner with the Tory leader for an annual fee of £50,000.

It is part of a discreet network of Tory donor clubs expected to raise about half the funds for the next election.

Those who join the second-tier “treasurer’s group” for an annual £25,000 meet George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, or William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary.

The Tories have been delighted by the success of the clubs, which are contributing towards their target of more than £40m to “blow Labour out of the water” ...

The Sunday Times  04 October 2009

UK is accused of failing children

Child Poverty Action Group

Joseph Rowntree Foundation

End Child Poverty

Save the Children - UK

Barnardos

Oxfam

No heating, no birthdays, no hope ..

Experts from all disciplines line up to endorse the UN indictment

Britain's children: unhappy, neglected and poorly educated

How we forgot the art of child rearing

Is Britain the worst place to grow up?

Emulating US has led to poverty

Face it - then fix it