Salt with your priorities?

‘WE WILL prioritise resources to tackle poverty – especially child poverty.’ So said nicola Sturgeon in her new Year message.

Is this an addition to her previous priority to eliminate the attainment gap or a replacement for her failed attempt to remove the greatest hindrance to getting out of the poverty trap?

Experience requires taking a large pinch of salt when the First Minister makes such announcements.

We know poverty is a multifaceted scourge: there are many reasons for its existence but just two ways out – well-paid employment and support from an administration tasked with providing it. The latter is also responsible for ensuring employment opportunities and appropriate training are widely available.

If this base is weak, then providing resources for those requiring support becomes problematic. Put simply, taxation must be increased to support a rising number caught in the poverty trap – a vicious circle.

Unfortunately, the SnP administration has a poor record on economic policy and training. This is the party of government which cut 178,000 college places in the previous decade, then called for more immigration to fill a skills shortage of its own making in areas such as plumbing, electrical work and mechanics etc.

The SnP boasts about full employment but many jobs carry poor wages and require few skills, hardly a recipe for a vibrant economy.

Adding to this is an increasing number of those now classed as ‘economically inactive’. Is it any wonder poverty is increasing?

After almost 16 years of SnP maladministration, as the chickens hatched a decade ago return to roost, Miss Sturgeon’s latest ‘priority’ will be like snow on a dyke. GrAHAM WYLLie, Greengairs,

Lanarkshire.