As people, particularly those with young children, celebrate waking up to a blanket of snow, I am distracted by an item on the radio about homelessness in Bristol. Those of us who can view the world from our centrally heated homes can look forward to a ‘snow day’, people were sleeping in it last night.
It would be churlish, indeed, to begrudge children their opportunity to enjoy this rare weather phenomenon, but it shames our country that we turn a blind eye to those who have literally nothing.
Wonderfully, there were people of compassion in our (un?)fair city who were out among the homeless and rough sleepers last night, offering them additional clothing, warm food and, where possible, somewhere under cover to sleep.
I wonder quite how politicians can live with themselves at times like these. I heard yesterday, for example, that in Manchester rough sleeping has increased by 700% in recent years. When a tired Labour government was removed from power in 2010, rough sleeping was down nationally to the low hundreds. Still too many, but close to ending this scourge once and for all. David Cameron and Theresa May imposed terrible austerity on the country and as a direct consequence homelessness and rough sleeping is back at epidemic levels. In other words, it is a deliberate political choice.
Our country has completely lost its moral compass when a single person is abandoned to live on the streets. In 2019, there are many thousands. Shame on us.
