IN the three Scottish Parliament elections that the Scottish National Party has won since 2007, including the outright majority victory of 2011 that the electoral system was designed specifically to prevent, SNP governments have put tackling poverty at the front and centre of its campaigns promoting itself as a party of social justice.

In fact in its 2011 election manifesto it went further than broad-brush commitments to focus on tackling poverty or treating it even as a priority. They said that an SNP government was “committed to eradicating child poverty.”

Following the recent publication of data on poverty and income inequality in Scotland, that commitment reminded me of a quote from the TV series Blackadder Goes Forth, when Blackadder was describing the “one tiny flaw” in the plan to avoid war in Europe in 1914 by having two opposing super-armies. “It’s bollocks,” said Blackadder.