Barnardos chief attacks 'Dishonest' child poverty pledge

Martin Narey attacks government’s “dishonest” child poverty pledge Communitycare.co.uk -

Or at least that doing any more is too difficult and too expensive,” Narey, who chairs the campaign group End Child Poverty said. “The reality is that progress has faltered. The number of children living in poverty has stopped falling and has now begun ...

The former head of the prison service hit out at political parties’ “meaningless” commitment to the target and accused the government of complacency.
“There is no escaping an impression that the government believe they have done enough. Or at least that doing any more is too difficult and too expensive,” Narey, who chairs the campaign group End Child Poverty said. “The reality is that progress has faltered. The number of children living in poverty has stopped falling and has now begun to rise again.”

In the speech to the Public Policy and Management Association in London, Narey also said the numbers of children in prison was “shameful” and attacked the “corrosive short termism” of political decision-making in the Home Office.
He also called for better support for asylum-seeking children and children in care.

...must agree and to tackle child poverty we must tackle parent poverty - increase the minimum wage and stop privitising the civil service and putting parents out of work or onlower wages.

New Labour Ruth Kelly 'faith schools' play no part in segregation?

Messianic Ruth Kelly - where does she live..did you see her enquiry into cohesion that is dangerous, counterproductive and blinkered

The enquiry set up by Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly aimed at finding ways to challenge "barriers to integration and cohesion" has published an interim report that the National Secular Society has condemned as contradictory and counterproductive.

The Commission for Integration and Cohesion's report suggests that "faith schools" play no part in segregation while at the same time admitting that school is probably the best way to break down barriers between communities.

The report dismisses those who oppose faith schools on the grounds that they are divisive as "obsessed", and accuses them of using it as a 'red herring' yet, at the same time, an opinion poll commissioned to go with the report concludes that "Going to school or college together emerged as the top way of encouraging interaction." It cites as evidence 47% of people "identifying using shared education resources as a motivation towards mixing together".

I come from Belfast where faith education can only be described as divisive and as for faith gropups running public services, there was plenty of that in Ireland the The Magdalene Sisters were keen on this approach.

A survey just released by Tearfund, a relief and development agency working in partnership with Christian churches, confirms that a significant majority of the population are not involved in churches and do not hold the most basic of Christian beliefs. In fact two thirds of the UK population ‘have no connection’ with the church and that only a quarter ‘believe in a personal god’, just one of the several minimum requirements to qualify as a Christian