TONY BLAIR's pledge to "eradicate" child poverty by 2020 was quietly abandoned last December after the Government rewrote its definition of low income.
When the Prime Minister first announced his ambitious target in 1999, he declared Labour's historic mission would be to ensure no child was living on the breadline within a generation. But the Department for Work and Pensions announced instead that it would aim instead for Britain to be merely "among the best in Europe" on child poverty.
Britain's shameful record on childhood poverty is laid bare in a damning United Nations report revealing that millions of young people are trapped ar ditions among the worst in Euro
A report by UNICEF, the children's arm of the UN, says that Britain has one of the worst records on childhood poverty in the industrialised
Nearly 20 per cent of young people live in families which are below the official poverty line - judged as household income below half median earnings. The report puts Britain below countries such as Turkey, Poland and Hungary, which suffer less relative poverty than the UK.
Countries such as Sweden, Norway and Finland suffer rates below 5 per cent. Out of 19 contries surveyed, the UK came 14th, just above Italy.
Nearly every European country has fewer children living in poor households and estimates say that anywhere between three and four million children live in British households affected by poverty.
The report says that the UK fails on five key indicators of childhood poverty
The childhood poverty rate is high, the number of lone parent families suffering from poverty is high, and the number of workless households is high, as is the number of people who suffer from low wages or have low benefits.
It is estimated that it would cost Britain £10 billion to eradicate child poverty, yet we pay billions to keep British troops in Iraq.
Socialist Resistance supporters demand that New Labour pulls out the troops, and funds jobs, housing and education.
Pensions, what
pensions?
ing for a pension, compared to 73% of those born in the 1960s. blar ww.stopwar.orguk
'education, Fewer than half of people under the age of 30 are in a pension scheme, a lower figure than in the 1950s and 1960s, according to the TUC. Mis-selling scandals and employers "retreating" from paying into workers' pension schemes are blamed. But government figures show that less than half of those under 30 are currently sav-