In an old saying which I may have just invented, it’s a decent rule of thumb that you can judge a country by the way it treats its former armed service personnel. So, imagine how pleased homeless veterans must have been when the minister of state for veterans’ affairs, Johnny Mercer, promised to end all homelessness among former armed personnel. “Hold me to account,” he tooted. But when he was held to account by the great Carol Vorderman and the Labour candidate in Mercer’s Plymouth constituency, former Royal Marine Fred Thomas, because homelessness has gone up, he lost his shit.
Here’s his post from X:
“You are both deliberately misleading people. For clicks. Because that makes your shit lonely life feel better. No-one normal really cares about your view. They think you’re mad. I’m changing veterans lives. What I came into politics to do. Keep going.”
Lovely when our servants in parliament talk to us like that. But I’m not an MP and I can call Mercer out for the little toad he is. Homelessness among our heroes – and that’s how I regard our former armed forces personnel – has risen from 1850 to 2110. An increase of …pause for effect … 14%. Call me old fashioned, but an increase of that amount does not constitute ending homelessness. It constitutes failure.
What would I do if I was Mercer? Well, if I cared about our armed forces – and you would think he did seeing as he used to be one of them – then I’d keep my promise. If I felt I would be unable to keep my promise, I’d say why. If it was my fault, I would apologise and then resign. That would represent honour, wouldn’t it? But Johnny Boy doesn’t have any. For a former soldier, he’s very thin-skinned and seems to have little shame. Shame on him.
I know there are homeless ex soldiers. I have met them at our food bank. They’ve told me their issues, which I won’t repeat here, and trust me they don’t feel sorry for themselves. On the contrary, they are proud to have served our country and, I’ll say it because they won’t, they have been badly let down by politicians; not just by this government. although things have got much worse under Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and now Sunak. It’s like Remembrance Day is all for show. Buy a poppy, stand with a serious expression at the services and forget about them for the rest of the year, just like people who organise Christmas collections for the poor but don’t do a fucking thing for the rest of the year.
In our food bank, I met someone who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was a shell of the man he used to be (his words) as a result of his experiences in the army and the mistakes he had made in his life since he was discharged. He didn’t say what follows, but I do. Whatever he got wrong – and we’re talking family break-ups, not mass murder – he didn’t deserve to be abandoned by a country he served with bravery and dignity. But he was, along with 2109 others. This isn’t just wrong: it’s immoral.
Johnny Boy probably does care about homeless veterans. I’m not calling him a liar. But maybe he has put party political loyalty above loyalty for those who have served? The party political system we have demands that MPs follow the party line, even if they profoundly disagree with it. Honestly, if that was me, I’d tell that party where to go. I’d join another one, or maybe I’d get a more honest job.
How on earth has homelessness in the former armed service population become political? Answer, because Sunak’s government doesn’t give a toss about homelessness and former armed services personnel are collateral damage. Everyone is equal if they’re homeless. Served your country? Too bad, ‘comrade’.
British gammons always bang on about how we should look after “our own” before we look after anyone else. But the politicians they vote for and presumably adore don’t even pretend to look after anyone. Suella Braverman would probably have said: “The only veterans sleeping rough are doing so because it’s a lifestyle choice.” Johnny might pretend to disagree with that, but it’s about actions not words, dear boy. And Johnny Boy’s actions are non existent.
