BACK in 2006, David Cameron said: “I want this message to go out loud and clear. The Conservative Party recognises, will measure and will act on relative poverty.”

While even diehard Conservatives will now acknowledge compassionate Conservatism was a mere chimera, calls this week for Labour to abandon the pledge to remove child poverty by 2020 are depressingly fatalistic.

Mainstream economists and media (and even the Joseph Rowntree Foundation) have suggested it is nigh on impossible.

Indeed, if one uses conventional economic policy, one has to acknowledge this is the case.

However, if we had taxed simply the increase in wealth of the top 1,000 earners in 2009 at 50 per cent, it would have raised £38 billion, six times the cuts imposed by the Tories in 2010.

However, even Labour voters are less sympathetic to the lowest earners in society, most of whom work.

This is hardly surprising: as the language towards those in poverty has coarsened, attitudes harden.

George Osborne understands that well. New Labour never overtly made a case for redistribution.

Reducing poverty is not only about cash, although that is fundamental. But any attempt to reduce poverty must be accompanied by a political articulation that poverty is a scourge on society and unnecessary even in times of austerity.

Richard Bridge, Holgate Road, York.