Senior child poverty policy adviser at Save the Children UK Meghan Meek-O’Connor told the PA News Agency: “Today 4.3 million children are being failed. It is an outrage that 100,000 more children are in poverty – they are being forgotten…

…These shocking figures should be an urgent wake-up call to all of us, especially the UK Government. We cannot go on like this. There is no reason children should be going without food, heating, toys or beds.'

She is absolutely correct. The UK boasts the sixth largest economy in the world and yet a catalogue of sustained policies have led to a situation where more than 4.3 million of our children are living in poverty. That's nothing short of a disgrace.

Looking at the data more widely, the annual poverty figures show 600,000 more people are now living in absolute poverty compared with last year - half of them children.

A staggering stat from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that the number of people in households at risk of being unable to afford enough food has risen by 53% in a year. From 4.7m to 7.2m.

These numbers are truly mind-blowing and yet there seemed to be very little coverage of them across the media in the days following.

As policy commentator Sam Freedman and a couple of others pointed out on twitter/x, there appeared to be much more interest in the colour of a small embroidered flag in the lining of the new England football shirt.

That the decision to slightly alter the design of a football shirt garnered far more attention on both mainstream and social media is so disappointing. These numbers should be a national outrage & should be labelled as a disastrous legacy for the Conservative Party after 14 years

Professor Taylor-Robinson told those gathered at the event on Wednesday that the austerity policies of recent governments - from enormous local council cuts, to the two-child limit and benefits cap - have directly led to the deaths of children. It doesn't get more stark than that

While the debate about the colour of the flag on a football shirt continues to rage, it's remarkable and depressing that more people aren't talking about this enormous issue right now.

Full column here:

liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool…