It is difficult to put this any other way, but the Stormont executive’s recently published anti-poverty strategy is an affront to those in poverty.

Without a single measurable objective, or the identification of even one date for something to be achieved, the document is garbage dressed as government.

Its message is that if you are in poverty, don’t expect Stormont to get you out of it.

The four executive parties which approved this document should hang their heads in shame – Sinn Féin, the DUP, Alliance and the UUP.

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The only useful feature of the publication is that it is a classic example of how the Good Friday Agreement created a new self-serving political class, which has abandoned responsibility for the social, economic and environmental chaos here – but more of that later.

A strategy is simple. All you have to include is what you intend to do and then explain why, who will do it, when, where and how, what it will cost, where the money will come from, and what the risks........

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