IN recent weeks, the Welfare State and our Benefits system seem to have regularly hit the headlines.

Just this week, David Cameron promised that a future Conservative Government would cut benefits from those people who find themselves unemployed and under the age of 25.

This latest announcement comes hard on the heels of another, one which has divided opinion across the country, the prospect of all those who are unemployed having to work to receive their dole.

As with many interconnected social issues, this topic has been bubbling under the surface for a very long time.

Public spending cuts, challenging economic forecasts, job losses and high unemployment figures are neatly conflated with concerns about welfare being a way of life and generations of unemployed families, and generous benefits, and, the constant commentary of, can we afford it?

Much of this linkage is utter nonsense, but it makes a good story and it galvanises the intolerance of the so called "squeezed middle".

Wouldn't this period of sustained, economic recession be all the more palatable if we could apportion the blame to those feckless, work-shy, unemployed who cost the country trillions of pounds, due to their unwillingness to do an honest days work. If only it were that simple.

Unemployment should never be allowed to become a way of life in our society.

I don't believe the overwhelming majority of those who currently find themselves unemployed, would disagree with that assertion. It's not an acceptable, normal way of living and we should do everything we can to ensure that it does not become so.

Should the unemployed be asked to work for their benefits, actually, in the proper context, yes,

That context comes with responsibility, to ensure that the work is meaningful, adds value to the community, maintains the individual's respect and dignity, is limited in its hours and gives some time to focus upon the needs and skills of the individual.

It develops them, gives them meaning and helps them back into work.

It must not add to the stigma of being unemployed, a stigma which clothes and mobile phones may make invisible, but which is there, is real and is degrading.

Yet, our focus upon this aspect of our society, while understandable, is wholly and entirely out of proportion to the actual problem.

The Department of Work and Pensions has an annual benefits budget of some £160billion.

Its biggest demand is the £75bn spent on state pensions, the bill for long term unemployment (those out of work for more than 12 months) is a slightly less than staggering £2.5bn, or 1.5% of the benefits budget.

Is this the biggest crisis facing debt ridden Britain? I think not.

Too many school leavers in the UK depart the classroom barely literate.

A recent English Schools Report showed that some 20% of school leavers didn't have one relevant GCSE with which to enter the job market.

It's time we stopped using the blunt instrument of retribution upon the long-term unemployed and started properly treating the disease rather than repeatedly re-examining one of its more obvious symptoms.

Unemployment, for the vast majority of our citizens is an embarrassing and degrading experience which damages their self worth but which, mercifully, in relative terms, does not extend beyond a few months.

For those who find themselves in long-term unemployment, the solution lies in removing the use of the blunt instruments and the de-politicisation of the process.

This often produces the environment within which Labour is perceived as being too soft on welfare, while the Conservatives are perceived as being too tough on welfare and the Liberals are, well, too Liberal.

Time we had a Royal Commission which was non-party political, to examine the UK's welfare state - its costs, its benefits and its affordability.

A very unholy war of words has broken out between Labour and the SNP over the disposal of land which was purchased for the Glasgow Airport Rail Link.

It is a great shame that such a vital artery as this, became subject to a mire of political wrangling. The outcome is that we still have an airport which is not connected to our city centre by rail, we still need one.

Time we put the politics away. Time Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council, together with private providers came up with a new proposal.

In the meantime, perhaps we should urge visitors to the Games to run, walk or cycle from the airport to city centre. Well, it would be in keeping both with the spirit of the Games and ability of Glaswegians to make do.