There is that almost unbelievable statistic again at the end of this piece, almost impossible to comprehend in this society which we consider to be so civilised, and discredited by the assumption that if it were true it would surely be the subject of protest marches and people queuing up to make vehement complaint about the situation on the news. But so it goes. We see and hear what is newsworthy from what is printed and broadcast, and as for that statistic, it's just like wallpaper - nobody notices it any more.

Under proposals unveiled by Tony Blair yesterday, every new baby born in the UK could be given several hundred pounds invested in a Trust Fund. Now far be it from me to cast a sceptical eye on offers of money from politicians, but in such situations I just can’t keep myself from wondering. Is this long term investment really there to benefit infants, parents, or the economy?

Well, it’s probably not enough cash to trigger a rash of pregnancies in the expectation of the financial rewards, especially as it’s not for parents to use to cover living costs. Anyway, a few hundred pounds wouldn’t even make a dent in the expenses that are now seen as an essential part of civilised child-rearing. For we currently live in a society where the joy of parenting tends to be counterbalanced, if not overwhelmed, by the view of children as a financial handicap – each child just another pair of little feet that will need designer trainers.

In our land of two point four child normality, it’s often hard to comprehend how in most of the world children are seen as wealth, the more the richer, a family to surround you and support you as you age. Here we have abandoned such cosseting to the Welfare State, expect the Government to pay the expenses of life in our later years, and expect to die surrounded by white-clad strangers.

Of course, no matter how welcoming the cultural context, not every child is born into loving care. It’s fourteen hundred years since Muhammad had to say “He is not one of us who doesn’t show mercy to our little ones”. Even so, not everybody listened.

But now that we no longer send our children up chimneys or to work as cheap labour in our factories, we recoil in horror when we think that others might still behave that way. Yet as we look out on the rest of the world from our position of moral superiority, we should remember that even now, every two to three days a child dies of abuse or neglect in the UK.

Now if we could do something about that statistic, we would really be investing in our children’s futures.