Vulnerable deserve a voice in this country

✒ THE measure of a civilization, as the quote goes, is “how it treats it’s most vulnerable citizens.”

Reading Councillor Pete Jeffries’ account about SWEP and and the positive moves by Gloucestershire in adopting Cheltenham’s proactive stance is encouraging.

But as he acknowledges, does not address the root causes and is a base line of human compassion.

When the UN’S rapporteur, Philip Alston’s report condemning UK child poverty and treatment of disability welfare and misogynistic systems in the universal credit policies makes uncomfortable reading, and I would argue makes us just Britain, no longer great.

What makes despicable reading is when our Government ministers refuse to acknowledge there is a problem, and brush it aside and patronise the UN by saying they should concentrate on Third World countries’ problems.

This is the crux of the matter, since Thatcher’s policies of managed decline, compounded by hostile environment (May), parts of the UK are akin to a third world within the first world, in part caused by the insurmountable