United Nations, November 19 (RHC)-- High poverty rates in the United Kingdom indicate there is great inequality in the country, says a United Nations official, adding that austerity measures have inflicted great suffering on the population.

The United Nations has slammed the UK government over what it calls great misery inflicted by austerity policies.  In a report, a UN human rights expert described the situation in the UK as “not just a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster, all rolled into one.”

Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur who acts as a watchdog on extreme poverty around the world, said about 14 million people, who are a fifth of the UK’s population, live in poverty, adding that 1.5 million of them are even unable to afford basic essentials.

“Clearly there is great inequality in the UK as indicated by these figures and this is an inequality which has been imposed and come about politically through the current government and the many different austerity measures that have been brought in,” Kenneth Fero, lecturer at Coventry University, told reporters over the weekend.

“Now those austerity measures obviously were the result of the corruption and incompetency within the financial system not just within the UK but globally as well and so what we are seeing through this report, the indications of this report are the very heavy penalties that the UK population has had to suffer because of the incompetency of the government and the system of economic capitalism that they have to live under,” he added.