“It is a bad day for Britain’s poorest children”. That was the sober assessment from the respected children’s charity Barnardo’s of Tory Chancellor Osborne’s first wholly Tory budget.

It was truly a brutal kick in the teeth for the vast majority of ordinary folk. Thirteen million will be directly poorer, according to the Institute For Fiscal Studies, but that is a gross understatement once the cruel four year wage freeze imposed on five million long suffering public sector workers is factored in.

The hard pressed nurses, low paid porters, overstretched social care workers and benefits and job agency staff, already ordered to impose sanctions and cuts to benefits that many of them have to claim themselves, will be plunged further into a spiral of despair as they attempt to manage rising food, fuel, transport and housing costs from static wage packets.

Typically the millionaires will pay less personal and inheritance taxes, but that will be paid for by reducing the living standards of the majority even more.

My blood boiled as I watched the staged theatrics of those over-paid, over-promoted and pompous Tories cheer, guffaw and wave their order papers in the air as further cuts to public services and welfare support were announced. These people who have never had to survive on benefits or endure low pay laughed as they twisted their cruel knife further into the poor.

An 11% wage rise for MPs and the return of obscene bonuses for bankers co-exists with the most prolonged fall in ordinary workers living standards since the Second World War.

Well over a million more children will be plunged into poverty in a country that last year saw the richest thousand's wealth increase by an incredible £77 million A DAY.

In Scotland, despite the electoral annihilation of the pro-austerity parties a couple of months ago, we will be saddled with one thousand million pounds worth of welfare cuts.

Low paid workers going to work every day and compelled to claim in-work benefits to top-up the inadequate wages they receive will be poorer.

It is a social scandal, a democratic disgrace and a constitutional crisis. Don’t be surprised if strikes, demonstrations and angry protests become a more regular feature in the political landscape of Scotland, England and Wales.

What's in a name?

My support in last week’s column for a petition demanding Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board reverse their decision to name the newly expanded super Southern General Hospital after an unelected and unconnected Monarch certainly caused a stir on the Evening Times comments space and several social media sites. Apparently I am raising an issue out of nothing and I should “go back where I came from”. Well just so the anti-Irish and anti-Catholic commentators out there know I “came from” GOVAN and so did my parents. I am proud of my heritage and demand the right to comment on a matter concerning my local hospital. In the space of days well over 10,000 others have signed that petition and I make no apology here for renewing my call on the Health Board to think again. I will not be bullied into silence by the ignorant bigots who constitute such a tiny minority in our country.

Madrid Mayor leads the way

On the topic of renaming public buildings and places, the newly elected Mayor of Madrid has shown the way. Manuela Carmena was elected in May on a left wing ticket of support for workers and public services. He was unhappy last September when the city Plaza was named Margaret Thatcher Plaza after the former UK Prime Minister. Her son Mark travelled to the unveiling ceremony. Well that decision will now be reversed. The Plaza will no longer have that particular woman’s name attached to it. Mayor Carmena said it was unacceptable as she “enslaved the workers”. She certainly did. Well done Manuela Carmena.

Tally No

The brilliant Oscar Wilde once described fox hunting as the ‘Unspeakable in Pursuit Of The Uneatable’. He was spot on. No amount of clever, well-paid for toffee nosed spin will ever convince me that it represents anything more than a cruel, barbaric and unnecessary practice. Pest control should be as humane and efficient as possible. Chasing a fox across the countryside for hours before cheering as it is ripped to shreds by excited hounds does not fit either bill. The Tories are currently trying to frustrate the fox hunting ban through sneaky Parliamentary manoeuvres. I hope the newly elected group of SNP MPs will not see this as an ‘exclusively English’ issue as animal cruelty should surely be of cross border concern. No more Tally Ho. Lets keep it Tally No.