I see that the government is going to admit that it's nowhere near reaching its child poverty target. Obviously it's important that children don't live in poverty but I sometimes wonder what the point of having these grand targets is - it reminds me of Stalin's tractor production targets

Up to a point you could say that the child poverty target has ensured some action to reduce poverty among children. Such a clear commitment gives campaigners something to hold government to account over.

However, the child poverty target also demonstrates the raw realities of the pecking order of political priorities. The government has been falling over itself to appease the CBI and other business interests over changes to the taxation of non-domiciled UK residents and capital gains, watering them down as a result; its decision to raise thresholds for inheritance tax last year, sparked by the Tories promising to do the same, betrays a similar attitude to the upper middle-classes more broadly.

These decisions have taken money out of the Treasury that could have been put to good use in reducing child poverty.