SCOTLAND’S climatic extremes are mirrored, it seems, in the patterns of poverty and affluence that exist in its communities. In any one day here a visitor can encounter sparkling sunshine and then arrive at driving sleet via heavy rain and strong winds. And, in figures revealed by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD), in many places all over the country a person can walk between languid affluence and accelerated poverty within a few hundred yards of each other.

Drumchapel, the neighbourhood that Billy Connolly once described as "a desert wi’ windaes", was deemed to be the most deprived in Glasgow across all seven measures used to compile the figures. Less than a mile away, Bearsden basks among Scotland’s most affluent areas. In Edinburgh, MSPs don’t have far to walk to observe the starkest symbol of the way economic wealth is distributed in Scotland and throughout the United Kingdom.

At the top of Holyrood Road lies the sprawling Dumbiedykes estate which is ranked among the 20 per cent most deprived communities in Scotland. At the foot of that road lies the Queen’s palace at Holyrood and the Holyrood Parliament itself. A member of the Scottish Parliament could tour Dumbiedykes and be back inside the state-subsidised parliamentary restaurant for his couscous and alfalfa crepes 20 minutes later.

The indicators used to quantify multiple deprivation include income, housing, health, crime and education. These were then run across 7,000 small geographical quantiles to pinpoint exactly where poverty resides. The numbers showed that Scotland is a deeply divided and unequal country where your life chances are enhanced or diminished by where you were born. In this country of extremes, no government has been able to lift a community out of extreme poverty. In 2012, the last year these figures were compiled, Paisley’s Ferguslie Park estate was revealed as the most deprived area in the country. Four years later, it still occupies that slot.

In the list of the 10 most deprived areas, several familiar names resonate: Possilpark, Shettleston, Parkhead and Easterhouse. Amongst the most affluent are Giffnock in Glasgow and Comely Bank, Marchmont and Bruntsfield in Edinburgh. There are few people in Scotland who couldn’t have predicted with a reasonable chance of success which neighbourhoods would be rated the poorest and which would be reckoned the most affluent. Those places where affluence and poverty exist have not changed since the first figures were compiled in 2004. Glasgow remains disproportionately poor and Edinburgh disproportionately affluent.

In the 2016 lists, seven Glasgow neighbourhoods are among the 10 most deprived in the country while six Edinburgh districts are among the least deprived. Indeed, Glasgow could have a poverty index all of its own. In a seven-mile stretch of the M8 from Shettleston in the east to Newton Mearns in the south, a 20-year gap in a person’s life expectancy exists.

Playing constitutional politics with these figures just seems crass and cynical. If you’re a Nationalist they don’t make for good reading because the SNP has been in power for almost a decade and the patterns of poverty and affluence haven’t shifted an inch. The figures don’t place the British state in a good light either. It is 37 years since Margaret Thatcher came to power and she began to dismantle heavy industry and reward high finance instead. Many of Scotland’s working class communities were among those hit the hardest.

Tony Blair’s New Labour promised much in 1997 but was revealed to have been Bullingdon-lites whose members drew the short straw at Oxbridge and made to join Labour to maintain the pretence of democracy. The same index, if applied to England and Wales, would reveal that the pattern of poverty south of the Border is a similar tale of the all-too-predictable haves and have-nots. North Sea oil tax receipts were later revealed to have been used by the Tories (with the connivance of Labour) to fund her so-called economic miracle.

Some miracle: coal, steel and shipbuilding were dismantled with oil taking care of the pay-offs. As the financial services sector smacked its lips at the prospect of a new market provided by Right-to-Buy, the notion of state-provided social housing for those unable to participate in this Klondyke property rush was quietly shelved. If you weren’t able to make money Mrs Thatcher deemed you to be superfluous to the needs of the state. She condemned these communities to alienation and deprivation.

However, most of the seven measures deployed by the SIMD, such as health, education and training, housing and crime fall within areas of government devolved to Holyrood. To a large extent its hands have been tied by massive cuts in government spending on benefits but it’s clear that Nicola Sturgeon and her cabinet have a great deal of work to do to make their stated aims of reducing inequality and the educational attainment gap become a reality. It’s clear though, that a critical point has been reached with the publication of the latest SIMD figures.

How can a country claim to be sustainable when its biggest and most populous city is so sick? Glasgow, by weight of numbers, ease of access and business start-ups, drives the Scottish economy yet huge swathes of its population live in conditions of multiple deprivation as Holyrood has cut the city’s block grant every year since the SNP has been in government. It’s an odd way to treat the city that voted Yes.

The plight of Glasgow is a national emergency and the SNP must know that, if it doesn’t act to give its biggest city emergency help to recover, it won't deserve to be in power. Ms Sturgeon should appoint a Cabinet Minister for Glasgow immediately and there should be an all-party agreement to suspend next year’s local government elections in the city.

Instead, a war cabinet should be convened comprising the most talented of each major party's members and several expert lay people such as Sir Harry Burns, Professor of Public Health at the University of Strathclyde, and John Carnochan, the expert on violence reduction. Its over-riding aim ought to be to target those communities deemed to be Scotland’s most deprived and to drag them up. This would be underpinned by Holyrood significantly increasing its direct funding to Glasgow – and granting the city and its emergency coalition a far greater degree of autonomy in spending, housing policy and crime.

The Glaswegians who live in the city are still proud of their poorest places and point to a great community spirit where people routinely chat to their neighbours. In our affluent suburbs a different sort of lifestyle is valued and the phrase “people keep themselves to themselves” is often heard.

The Scottish Government must deploy a special "option for Glasgow" and reach out to the communities that like to talk to each other. It’s the least the SNP Government can do for neighbourhoods that reached out for independence in 2014.