MORE than half the British public have been brainwashed into believing Tory propaganda.

UK Welfare Minister Iain Duncan Smith equates benefits with a "culture of entrenched worklessness and dependency".

His sidekick, Chancellor George Osborne, used the lifestyle of convicted child-killer Mick Philpott to justify welfare reforms.

It's politically expedient to stigmatise benefit claimants as parasites - but it's a red herring to cover welfare cuts.

The Tories' 'skivers vs strivers' theory has 56% support in the UK, but it's a myth.

Their own Department for Work and Pensions last week revealed that children living in poverty are now TWICE as likely to come from working families than those without employment.

They promised that work would be an escape route from poverty, but for too many it's a low-wage dead end.

The UK classes poverty as relative (less income than fellow citizens) or absolute (all but destitute).

The DWP say 2.3million UK children live in relative poverty, while charity groups say 3.5m children live in absolute poverty.

It's an absolute disgrace that in Scotland 780,000 people – including 160,000 children and 150,000 pensioners – exist below the breadline.

That's one in seven Scots, largely unchanged in 10 years, yet the SNP takes perverse delight in accurately warning that a slight improvement since 2012 will be obliterated by Tory welfare cuts.

Glasgow is our child poverty capital, with one in three children affected.

Little wonder that 100,000 Glaswegians use high-interest payday lenders, fuelling a vicious circle of debt.

The poor, working and otherwise, need a hand up more than a hand-out.

Holyrood can't backpedal on its pledge to build more social housing and kick-start vaunted shovel-ready projects.

Better childcare access and more free school meals would help, as would action on energy prices for the 900,000 Scottish homes in fuel poverty.

Tax avoidance robs the UK of £70billion every year, more than 60% of its welfare bill. Compared with that, chasing £1.6bn in benefit fraud is a joke.

Why are we ring-fencing £11bn in foreign aid (transferring cash from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries)?

Why are failed banks, bailed out by the taxpayer, allowed to pay billions in bonuses?

If we hadn't been bankrolling wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for 12 years, we wouldn't need a defence budget of £45bn.

And who believes that spending £100bn to replace Trident will deter the stateless terrorist nutters who present the real threat to democracy?

We're notorious for breeding illiterate kids doomed to poor health, teenage pregnancy, welfare dependency and substance abuse.

Most of the 160,000 living in poverty today will escape that fate, but we scorn the poor at Scotland's peril.

RELIGIOUS bigotry has blighted this city since Bishop Briggs was a boy, so the drop in hate crimes is welcome.

Most involved Catholic-Protestant arguments, but I doubt they were sparked by religious debate.

The drop is attributed to increased awareness, and such crimes now being recorded under the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act.

But there is a more compelling reason: the Old Firm haven't clashed since April 29, 2012.

With any luck it's a case of out of sight out of mind.