More than anything else, politics is about the setting of priorities.
There is no unlimited pot of money and leaders realise they have to decide which groups of people should benefit.
The SNP/Green Government faced this dilemma last week when they had £290million to spend on the cost-of-living crisis.
Finance Secretary Kate Forbes’s solution was simple. She decided to give £150 to households in receipt of Council Tax Reduction (CTR) and the same amount to households in band A to D properties.
The former benefitted those on low incomes, while the latter will inevitably help some well-off households.
As anti-poverty groups have made clear, this was not the Scottish Government’s finest moment.
The reality is a well-off person in Scotland in a band D home will receive the same amount as a person in poverty.
A sizeable chunk of the £290million will therefore end up in the pockets of people who do not need it.
A decent counter-argument is that the cost-of-living crisis affects working and middle-class families.
But rising inflation and massive rises in gas bills disproportionately harm those who have the least.
As the Record reports today, targeting the £290million on those on CTR could have resulted in £600 payments for struggling households. This would have been a massive help to people at the bottom of the income scale.
On too many occasions in the devolved era spending decisions have benefitted middle Scotland at the expense of the poor.
The Scottish Government needs to take more time to ensure scarce resources end up with the people most in need.
Violence in home stats raise alarm
A new report on global domestic violence has found that one in four women under the age of 50 has suffered physical or sexual abuse by a partner.
The figures – from a study of 161 countries published in medical journal The Lancet – are truly alarming.
Worse still, given the insidious nature of much domestic abuse, is the belief that these numbers could be just the tip of the iceberg.
Male violence against women is a pandemic for which there is no vaccine.
It is a scourge on society and can only be stopped when men’s attitudes change.
These depressing findings show that much more needs to be done if the international target to end violence against women by 2030 is to be achieved.
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