By Fraser Nelson

Like any city, Glasgow is a network of villages - and ones blessed with beautiful, almost fairytale names. Castlemilk, Anniesland, Easterhouse, Drumchapel: when I worked in the postal sorting office in Govan I’d think about the contrast between the romantic notions conjured up by the names on the letters I handled - and the reality on the ground.

The city’s west end is one of the world’s best places to live: architecture, parks, schools and a quality of life only millionaires could find in London. But in its east end, we find some of the worst poverty in Europe.

I’ve just finished making a documentary for Channel Four on sickness benefit and deprivation, looking to see where in the UK is worst affected. The first list of top 20 made came back as ‘England and Wales only,’ a phrase that drives any Scot mad. I asked for the full, national picture and when it came, the top 20 had been transformed. Most of names were Scottish. Easterhouse, Drumchapel, Glenwood, Darlmarnock.

(Image: Fraser Nelson)
The ‘Glasgow effect’ of ingrained poverty is now a familiar term, but we don’t seem much closer to understanding or solving it. When I was a reporter in the Scottish Parliament in its early years, drugs deaths in Glasgow were a national scandal: 9 for very........

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