The UNICEF conclusions on child well-being in the UK correlate remarkably well to the nation's equally appalling place in the league tables on crime and prison population. Instead of indulging in pantomine-Tory rants, you might reflect on how other European countries, including those with significant minority groups in their population, manage to perform so much better on all these counts, without either going bankrupt or restoring the cat-o-nine-tails.

John Duggan, Lisbon, Portugal

Surely the founding of the New Internationalist magazine evidences commitment and expertise in the field of development and adds credibility to the report. Peter Adamson went on to produce The State of the World's Children Report, Progress of Nations and Facts for Life. These pieces of work alone have saved the lives of millions and millions of children world wide.
Thanks to him and UNICEF these children have a voice - we should listen to it.

Naomi Smith, Manchester, UK

You're all right, British kids are exemplary little angels, ever one, Ha ha...
a UNICEF reports confirms what most observant people already suspect and you're bickering technicalities...
Oh, did anyone hear about the third teen shooting in a fortnight by the way?

caesar, brighton, UK

Typical of the garbage that UNDepertments are so good at churning out.

TIme to ehink about withdrawing Briaitn not only from the EU but the UN as well.

What does this useless organisation actually achieve? - apart from finding another cosy little home for trendy leftie graduates who haven't made it in Brussels, the BBC or the Labour & Lib Dem parties.

John Petley, Herstmonceux, East Sussex

The BBC uncritically welcomed this report and then interviewed Muslims from other countries about their drinking habits as a comparison. Not suprisingly the Muslims declared that they didn't drink as opposed to the non-Muslims interviewed in the UK. However, as balance and objectivity have long since left the BBC lexicon, I am not at all suprised.

David Leslie, Perth, Scotland

UNICEF errs in comparing the well-being of children in the U.S. to that of children in, for instance, Scandanavian countries. If only the children of European descent in the U.S were compared, the balance would even out. Unfortunately the many of problems of minorities in the U.S. tilt down our side of the scale.

Politically incorrect, yes, curable, eventually, we hope.

Judith M Shimkus, St Louis, MO USA

Relative poverty is a plainly ludicrous measure of real hardship in a wealthy society. It does, however, have the useful effect of ensuring that no matter how much progress is made in raising overall living standards, there is always something for self-serving charities to berate us about and demand funding to 'Fix'.

If some unimaginably rich philanthropist were to give half the UK population two million pounds each and the other half 'Only' one million pounds each, we should still, no doubt, have the inherently left-wing and ideologically redistributionist charities complaining that half the population still lives in poverty by virtue of having to survive on only two thirds of the average wealth.

The only way to eliminate relative poverty would be to ensure that everybody has exactly the same. Sounds more like a Marxist objective than a charitable one to me.

Francis, London, UK

What this report seems to show is that UK kids have more freedom. Whether this is bad for the kids, bad for the adults they will become, and bad for the UK remains to be proven.

NM, Exeter,

So long UNICEF subscribes to the foolish, insulting and wicked notion of relative poverty - by which the owner of the smallest mansion in Beverly Hills is poor the only sane response if for our country to refuse to subscribe to UNICEF.

Edward Green, Upminster, England

I've made this comment before, but it is central to any "caring" political party or bureaucracy to paint as bleak a picture of social conditions as possible. If we no longer send small boys up chimneys, then exactly what is the point of UNICEF worrying about Western children? And if we are no longer a nation of malnourished forelock tuggers, then what exactly is the point of New Labour? Once created, no such body willingly risks irrelevance, ergo: we are all starvelings who need to be instructed in how to eat and our children are in dire straits.

It is borderline insane that as Britain has grown richer, we have acquired more and more politicised charities to assure us that things are terrible. But without a socail crisis, what would these people do? Work for a living? You must be joking.

jon livesey, sunnyvale, ca/usa