Politically Homeless

Those spending the winter without a roof over their heads will be relieved and gratified to learn that the housing secretary has blandly disclaimed all responsibility for their plight. "Rough sleeping," proclaimed James Brokenshire, "does not represent the values and the country that I strongly believe in." Meanwhile, in the country which the rest of us are forced to inhabit, James Brokenshire's party has been in power for eight years; and in each of those years, doubtless through some EU-fostered bureaucratic oversight, homelessness has somehow managed to increase. Naturally, the Government's eight-year assault on wages and welfare has nothing whatever to do with it; let alone the Government's total lack of interest in either building homes or regulating landlords. Instead, the blame rests conveniently upon the usual Conservative scapegoats: drug addicts, post-Victorian family values and, of course, immigrants; although Brokenshire does seem to have exercised sufficient restraint to avoid blaming market distortions caused by the still-unhoused leftovers from Grenfell Tower. Regrettably, despite the noble values of the country in which he strongly believes, Brokenshire does not appear to have provided any very precise estimate of when he expects the rest of the Government to aspire to his level of idealism.