When 37% of children are brought up poor, that’s a national humiliation | Polly Toynbee

Sex and Brexit obsess us, while the poverty revealed in the new IFS figures is seen as normal. Yet it's not normal - it's a shameful political choice

Soon more British children will be poor than since records began, back in 1961. In four years, progress will be reversed and all the good that was done undone. Over a million more will be plunged below the decency threshold.

For 37% of children to be brought up poor is a national humiliation. Any politician boasting pride in "British tolerance" should include our remarkable tolerance of poverty, which exceeds all similar European countries. This is who we are and what we expect, so today's chilling report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies didn't make it into this morning's BBC news bulletins. Sex and Brexit obsess us, while poverty is just normal Britishness.

Osborne and Duncan Smith targeted the poorest, and the same families were struck down by cuts time and again

Related: Child poverty in Britain 'set to soar to new record'

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