The Foreign Secretary David Cameron is the zombie of British politics.

His political career was killed off in 2016, but he was resurrected from the political grave and lurches among us once again, lunging angrily at the First Minister Humza Yousaf for having the tenacity to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan without a British Government grown-up in the room.

Following the meeting, Cameron sent a tetchy letter to Scottish Constitution Secretary Angus Robertson in which he complained that the meeting breached devolution protocols because a UK Foreign Office official was not given "sufficient advance notice" of the meeting.

In the letter Cameron threatened to close Scotland's overseas offices in British consulates and embassies. The Scottish Government has denied any breach of protocol, and denounced Cameron's letter as being “petty and frankly misguided”, which is a fairly accurate assessment of the Conservatives' entire approach to government.

The First Minister said his meeting with the Turkish president had been arranged at short notice, but that he would have "no problem" with a UK official or even Cameron himself, attending.

He added that the meeting had been arranged at short notice by the Turkish president's team, but since the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office officials chose not to stay with the Scottish delegation the whole day, they ended up missing the meeting.

Now Cameron is blaming the Scottish Government because his own staff wanted to knock off early. You can't really blame the staff, if I was unfortunate enough to have to work under David Cameron, I'd take every opportunity to bugger off early too.

There are a couple of things to take from this, the first and most obvious being the insecurity of a Conservative government which is terrified that the Scottish Government might talk about it behind its back.

This is the kind of stuff you expect from schoolkids. Maybe Cameron was terrified that the First Minister and the Turkish President might be having a giggle about that alleged episode with a pig's head.

It's also a Conservative government which is desperate to remind Scotland of its subordinate position. We've come a very long way from the union of equals and the respect agenda which Cameron promised Scotland during the 2014 independence referendum campaign.

More seriously, we have a Conservative government which is willing to damage the Scottish economy in order to assert its supremacy. The First Minister pointed out that revoking support from the Scottish Government abroad would negatively impact Scotland's economy.

He added: "Most importantly, it will affect Scottish business, affect the Scottish economy. Our exports are worth over £6 billion in whisky alone over the last year showing how important exports, how important international engagement, is to Scotland's economy.

"For Lord Cameron to say he's basically going to stop Scotland's international engagement because of one meeting, where one FCDO official wasn’t able to attend – because, of course, at events like COP, diaries can change quite last minute – is really petty, really misguided."

People in the UK are worse off than anywhere else in Europe

In news that BBC Scotland has not been keen to publicise, a new report from the economic thinktank the Resolution Foundation entitled A New Economic Strategy for Britain has shown that the UK is the most unequal major economy in Europe.

People in Germany, France and the Netherlands are £8300 per year better off than people in the UK. Inequality in Britain is getting worse, the report found that those born in the 1980s are half as likely as their parents to own their own home.

The report is a damning indictment of a decade and a half of Conservative rule which has created economic stagnation and a British economy which is ill-prepared for the task of providing a decent standard of living for most people in the years ahead. From the Prime Minister down, the UK has lacked a coherent economic strategy for years.

The report lays a large part of the blame on Brexit but rather than creating an economy where the number of high-skilled jobs is on the rise, the report says the UK government has focused on low wage, low skills work and as a result workers will be £470 worse off by the end of the decade.

A toxic combination of low growth and the British government's failure to tackle the highest levels of inequality in any developed European economy has created declining living standards for lower income households. The savaging of the social security system since 2010 has turbo-charged poverty.

The report says benefit levels have failed to keep pace with prices in 10 of the past 15 years. Along with wider cuts since 2010, this has reduced the incomes of poorest fifth by just under £3000 a year, a situation made worse by recent high inflation which has seen fuel and food costs soar.

Opinions may differ on how best to tackle the mess and misery that the Conservatives have created, but this report confirms that as part of the UK, Scotland is being held back, and its citizens are suffering.

Better Together did not say in 2014, "Vote No so your kids won't be able to afford to buy a house," but it would have been accurate.