Only a bully attacks the weak. Only the cruel inflict pain on those already suffering. Only those without a conscience or compassion fail to offer a helping hand to those in need.

Each of us, in our private lives, were taught by our parents and grandparents how to deal with bullies - you stand up to them, and give them a taste of their own medicine.

But how can a disabled man or woman defend themselves against the predations of an entire government? They can't. Individuals in conflict with governments need strong institutional allies to fight their corner. Yes, they can organise and campaign - and groups such as Scotland's Black Triangle have fought hard to highlight the very real horrors of life for the disabled under the Tory benefits regime. That alone, though, will not focus the minds of men like Iain Duncan Smith. The pleas and anger of disabled activists will be swatted away with the wave of a patrician hand.

What might focus the collective mind of the Tories, though, is the intervention of the UN. As we report today the United Nations' Special Rappoteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is to launch an investigation into whether the UK government's dismantling of the welfare system has posed a specific violation of the human rights of disabled people. Disabled men and women have been forced back into work only to die of their illnesses. Sick and vulnerable people are being driven not only into penury, but also into despair because of the fear of benefits sanction. People have killed themselves.

Empathy, we are told, is the greatest of all human virtues. So, think yourselves into the shoes of a disabled man or woman for a moment. You are incapable of work but you have been told by the faceless anonymous state to get to work or face losing benefits. How would you feel? For a start, you would be terrified. How will you feed yourself? How will you feed your children?

You would also feel outraged, victimised - and you would feel alone. The UN's intervention offers a glimmer of hope, and the hint of a strong ally who might, just might, buckle on some armour and take the side of the disabled.

But let's be real - the Tories are ideologically hell bent on their cruel redefinition of welfare. They want to bring us back to the days of Dickensian deserving and undeserving poor. Even the might of the UN will most likely not change their mind.

When the UN's special rappoteur on housing last year condemned the hated bedroom tax it was dismissed by the Tories as 'partisan', 'discredited' and a 'misleading Marxist diatribe'.

That report shamed the Tories though in the eyes of all right thinking people. A condemnation with the UN's imprimatur can not just be shrugged off. So, if all this latest investigation achieves is to show the Tories up for what they are - cruel, compassionless bullies - then at least the moral argument will have been won. Although, of course, the human suffering will go on until Scotland rids itself of Tory rule for good.