BRITISH governments have never been slow to badger the United Nations for their blessing to drop bombs on some poor country or other.

It's a different story, though, when UN intervention aims a rocket at current UK welfare policy.

The Westminster squeals of protest since a lady from the UN shook the Tory cage could have given even the Russians and the Chinese lessons in hypocrisy.

Raquel Rolnik knows all about housing problems.

As Brazil's former housing minister, she's an expert on shanty towns and favelas.

As the UN's unpaid special investigator on housing for five years she's reported on human rights violations from Rwanda to Kazakhstan, and most recently lectured the Indonesian government on their slums.

What Ms Rolnik witnessed last week made her, "very shocked to hear how people really feel abused in their human rights. Why, being so vulnerable, should they pay for the cost of the economic downturn?"

No, she wasn't condemning government in Africa or Asia.

She was on a visit to Glasgow, and was seeing first hand the impact of the Tory 'bedroom tax'.

What will she tell the UN human rights council in Geneva? "My immediate recommendation is that 'bedroom tax' is abolished," she said.

"It's so clear that the Government didn't really assess the impact on lives.

"Their mechanism to mitigate it, the discretionary payment, doesn't solve anything.

"It's for just a couple of months. Councils don't know if it's going to be available next year, so it's useless."

Westminster has graciously allowed the Scottish Government to spend £20 million in emergency funds for families and tenants suffering under the tax.

Holyrood ministers are said to have raided other parts of their budget.

They'll need to raid a bank if £20m is to be any more than a sticking plaster.

Ms Rolnik also attacked the Coalition's housing benefit caps, their help to buy scheme and the UK's 20-year failure to replace council housing stocks decimated by right-to-buy.

Not surprisingly, Tories affected outrage.

Welfare boss and 'bedroom tax' guru Iain Duncan Smith branded her, "a loopy Brazilian leftie".

Party chairman Grant Shapps dismissed her views and demanded an apology from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The Department for Work and Pensions also dismissed her, but only because her "conclusions were drawn from anecdotal evidence and conversations, instead of actual hard research and data".

I seem to remember that Duncan Smith dreamt up his new benefits regime during a visit to Easterhouse in 2002.

What in-depth analysis could the millionaire IDS have undertaken during that flying visit to Glasgow, if not anecdotal evidence and conversations with locals?

Ms Rolnik believes British citizens are legally entitled to social rights, with the UK signatories to a 1976 international treaty to provide adequate healthcare, education, housing, and a decent standard of living.

But I won't be the first to tell her that while the covenant may indeed be binding internationally, it's so far been all but useless in UK domestic law.

It's yet another example of No 10's long-standing obsession with being seen as an international mover and shaker while ignoring the needs of its own citizens.

As a former minister in Brazil's Workers' party, Ms Rolnik's opinion on Labour's utter confusion over the 'bedroom tax' would be enlightening.

After all, they were the ones who foisted it on us in 2008 under the guise of a local housing allowance in the Welfare Reform Act.

Ed Miliband and his Opposition mates have backed themselves into a panic room.

They'd love to evict the 'bedroom tax', but despite the insistence of some Scottish Labour wishful thinkers, they have not yet made that commitment.

Ed may be saving that vow as a manifesto carrot for 2015, hoping UK voters will be daft enough to give Labour another opportunity to wreck the country.

There is more chance of Ms Rolnik seeing England win the World Cup in Brazil next year - or of Scotland voting 'Yes', which at least would be one sure way of killing off the Tories and their 'bedroom tax'.