Hundreds dead and counting...

‘He was 34, that’s no age at all,’ Nick tells me as we chat outside a shop. ‘He had a perforated ulcer. He just went.’

Bearded and always tired, Nick is talking about his friend, a fellow homeless man who had died a few days previously. Nick himself has been homeless for several years after his marriage broke down, he lost his job and couldn’t keep up with home payments. He suffers from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and has recently emerged from hospital. Despite his recent loss, he is looking healthier than the last time I saw him, less red-faced and clearly finding it easier to breathe. He’s still wrapped up warmly, though, despite glowing September sunshine and is understandably disconsolate.

This is just one death, but according to figures compiled by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, more than 440 homeless people have died either on the streets or in temporary accommodation in the last year. In total, 449 bodies have been found slumped in shop doorways, in tents in woodlands in the deep of last year’s harsh winter or died in hostels after being sent there while terminally ill. In one case, a man was tipped into a bin lorry while he slept. Another man’s corpse appeared to show signs of prolonged starvation. 

Many, of course, will have died as a consequence of addiction, to drugs or alcohol, but such fates are hardly exclusive to the homeless community. And, if we were to put ourselves in their holey shoes, can we honestly be sure we wouldn’t be consumed by our current idle indulgences?

The average age of death for homeless men was just 49-years-old, for homeless women, 53. One of those who died was 94, the youngest only 18. Not only have they all been denied any dignity in death, but such a concept appears entirely alien to their existence at the moment.

Almost unbelievably, this appears to be the first time such a count has taken place. A Big Issue editorial notes, with palpable disgust:

‘Their lives are often surrounded in mystery, and no one in officialdom even bothers to count these deaths’.

And the analysis could well have underplayed the true horror of the situation. According to official government figures based on local government estimates, the numbers of people classed as homeless has risen from 1,768 in 2010 to 4,751 in 2017. This seems a vast underestimation of the true situation too; homeless charity Shelter using different methodology, estimated the true figure was in excess of 300,000 in November 2017.

Has there been a time in recent memory when central London had so many people lining the streets pleading for money? Earlier today, by Kensington High Street tube station, a body – whether man or woman it was impossible to tell – lay curled up beneath a blanket. Nearby, a woman was prostrate on the ground, nose close to the pavement, clutching a sign reading ‘Homeless and sick. Please help. God Bless’. The streets around London Victoria station are full of people asking for money, tents erected behind shops and in patches of green space. Those begging range from young, probably drug ravaged people, to a woman in at least her late 60s, pleading for help.

The government wants to eradicate homelessness by 2027 and half it by 2022. Heather Wheeler MP is the minister responsible for homelessness. In March, Ms Wheeler refused to accept welfare reforms and council cuts had contributed to the big rise in official figures of homeless people. It isn’t hard to conclude that while the government may have the best of intentions, it is beset by so many other issues, ideological and practical, that anticipating a solution to the current situation is hopelessly optimistic.

And one cannot simply lay the blame at the government. Every day we walk by these people with barely a glance, almost as though they are exhibits who once sparked interest but now simply provoke sighs. A decade of flat wages, in-work poverty and general disaffection cannot help their cause.

One positive from the publication of these figures, though, is that it has prompted the Office for National Statistics to say they will try and monitor and publish the deaths of homeless people going forward. One can only hope that becoming a value in death, they might become more valued in life.

The mood music of Salzburg

The make-up, under the lights of the press conference in Salzburg, didn’t do Theresa May any favours. Her face ghostly pale, the foundation seemed to have been heavily caked-on in a vain attempt to hide layers of tiredness, frustration and anger.

But her disappointment and exasperation towards the leaders of the EU and the other 27 member states was vivid and unmistakable.

The Chequers deal, unveiled earlier this summer with the fanfares of apparent cabinet unity, was a considered attempt to bounce not only her government but backbenchers into what the prime minister considered a compromise plan. It was hoped that, while the EU might not approve of every aspect of the package, they would see it as a template to work with and, eager not to see Britain fall out of the European Union without a deal, would find a way to make it work. That there had been encouraging signals from the likes of EU negotiator Michel Barnier and European Council president Donald Tusk, makes the humiliation of the Salzburg summit – where the package has been dismissed as ‘unworkable’ – so painful.

The prime minister and her allies would not have expected Jacob Rees-Mogg’s European Research Group (ERG) to swing behind the deal.  They remain sizeable in number and the group has considered dethroning Theresa May.  But fractures are clearly visible in that movement, widening as they find themselves unable to forge an alternative plan that could be supported even amongst themselves, let alone by parliament. And, while it is undoubtedly true a no-deal would not, in fact, be ‘the end of the world’, the brighter members realise it could inflict chaos upon the country for which they may never be forgiven.

Downing Street did hope more pragmatic remainers would have reinforced her position. Instead, Mrs May has been under fire.  Justine Greening, for example, called the Chequers plan an ‘unpopular, undeliverable mess’, ‘less popular with the public than the poll tax’ and a ‘dead horse’. The prime minster, however, has continued to flog it. Even May loyalist Sir Mike Penning, who helped run Ms May’s leadership campaign, has performed the last rites on Chequers, calling it ‘dead as a dodo’.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party seem unhealthily obsessed with internal party democracy and functions and their position on Brexit remains vague, though Emily Thornberry did helpfully say the party would vote against any plan presented by the government.

Poor Theresa May, who has clung to her job with the tenacity of a limpet on a wave-lashed rock, looks as though she has been taken hostage by several intransigent gangs simultaneously, yet each cannot decide what ransom demands to issue.

Where does the prime minister go now? It’s hard to see a passage through which Brexit can be navigated with any semblance of control. In her Salzburg press conference, Ms May has a deadline of October to present a new solution to the Irish border question, a date, she confided to Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, which appeared impossible to hit. According to Donald Tusk, this remains ‘the moment of truth’, with the threat Brexit talks could collapse completely.

Theresa May is sticking with the Chequers deal for now, despite Rees-Mogg, David Davis, Iain Duncan Smith, urging her to dump it, repeating her line – which is true – that it remains the ‘only deal on the table’.

It is worth noting the actions of EU leaders in Salzburg would not have done them any favours among the British public. Despite the suggestion that warm words would be ushered forth as part of a ‘Save Theresa’ campaign, and regardless of the few scattered comments of comfort from those who declared that they remained ‘hopeful of a deal’, the likes of Donald Tusk and Emmanuel Macron publicly humiliated the British prime minister today. Many die-hard remainers have made clear their disapproval of these methods. And leavers will point to today as evidence the EU cannot be negotiated with and we’re better off escaping the whole structure, regardless of the consequences.

In Peter Shaffer’s play ‘Amadeus’, the writer imagines Salzburg’s most famous son Mozart working himself to death, trying to finish his Requiem. With her authority draining away, it could prove that Theresa May is forced from office and the responsibility of delivering Brexit is handed on. But, May’s singular determination has been unappreciated before; it would be a bold prediction to write her off again.

Whose policy is it anyway?

The mayor of London has unveiled a new strategy to tackle knife crime in London, the creation of a Violence Reduction Unit, and everyone seems to want to take credit for it.

 

Sadiq Khan says the decision to form the unit, announced on Wednesday, will adopt a ‘public health’ approach towards the problem, and comes after researching and investigating ‘the public health approaches in Glasgow where their own long-term approach over more than a decade has delivered large reductions in violence’.

 

According to City Hall, the new unit will ‘improve co-ordination between the Metropolitan Police, local authorities, youth services, health services, criminal justice agencies and City Hall’ and an initial £500,000 has been put aside to establish the new unit.

 

The unveiling of the new tactic was on the front page of today’s Evening Standard, edited, of course, by former chancellor George Osborne, with the headline ‘Sadiq Khan’s Crime U-turn’. The paper claims it is a policy it ‘demanded’ two months ago and the editorial jibes that the mayor ‘didn’t find time to credit us’.

 

Curiously, the paper itself didn’t manage to find space to mention the role of a certain former Chancellor of the Exchequer who oversaw an 18% fall in police funding between 2010/11 and 2015/16, after taking inflation into account. It also didn’t mention the fall in police officer numbers of more than 21,000 since 2010. Or even that the Metropolitan Police has had to make £1billion of savings since 2010. It’s a pain when a story has to be cut for space. And I wonder what happened to that ex-chancellor; he must feel terrible about his legacy.

 

Meanwhile, London Assembly member Andrew Boff, who hopes to be selected as the Conservative Party’s mayoral candidate to challenge Sadiq Khan at the next election in 2020, claims the current mayor has lifted the policy from his manifesto.

 

In a release sent out today, Mr Boff claims he has been advocating the policy ‘for some months now’ and far from being the mayor’s own idea, Sadiq Khan is ‘just playing catch up with the Conservatives’. He then, teasingly, suggests the mayor reads more of his manifesto for some other good policies.

 

And now this evening, the Liberal Democrats have pitched in and said it’s their idea and the mayor has picked it up after years of ‘tireless campaigning’ by the assembly member Caroline Pidgeon.

 

Clearly, then, this is a popular idea. But after more than 100 murders in the capital this year, Londoners will be more interested in whether it proves effective.

Soho days

The cartoon drawn for Norman Balon's 90th, by Michael Heath

My mind has drifted back to Soho in recent days. There was a time, a dozen years or so ago, when I was a regular in the Coach and Horses in Greek Street, or Norman’s as landlord Norman Balon hoped it would be called but rarely was.

A new book ‘Soho in the Eighties’, by the excellent Daily Telegraph journalist Christopher Howse, has triggered this wave of nostalgia; not that I was present for the escapades he recounts, with the tragicomedic figures likes of Jeffrey Bernard, Daniel Farson, and Francis Bacon dominating his work. Many of the stories, though, are familiar and a few of the characters were known to me.

A central figure in Mr Howse’s enjoyable book is the aforementioned Norman Balon. Now approaching 91, Norman styled himself as the ‘rudest landlord in London’. Every Christmas, regulars would be handed a mug bearing the slogan alongside a cartoon of Norman bellowing ‘You’re barred!’. I had four or five of these once but they have all gone but for one which is hidden from view and all are forbidden from using.

The surviving mug

Norman could certainly be very rude. One quiet afternoon in the early 2000s I was there with a drink, a couple of others were elsewhere in the pub and Norman was leaning over the bar reading a newspaper. A family of American tourists entered and a very-mannered lady possessing a grating, nails-on-blackboard accent, asked ‘could we see the hot menu please?’

Without looking up from his paper, Norman growled: ‘We don’t have a hot menu and we don’t serve fucking tourists, now fuck off’.

Clearly shocked, the American lady replied: ‘Well, that wasn’t the reply we expected’, before swiftly scuttling from the bar.

The few people there simply swallowed their laughter in their drinks and Norman looked up smiling, ‘I enjoyed that’.

Another time, I found Norman with his arm in a sling. I asked what had happened and it emerged he’d been pushed to the ground after leaning on the car of a fellow who had foolishly parked outside the pub in Greek Street.

‘He told me to get off his car and I told him to “fuck off cunt” and he pushed me and I fell to the ground,’ he cheerily recounted. The police had turned up and asked Norman if he wanted to press charges.  ‘No,’ he’d replied, ‘it was my own fucking fault.’

Despite his best efforts, however, Norman was not only a good pub landlord but evidently was and remains a decent man with a warm heart. It wouldn’t have looked so good on a mug though.

Soho in the Eighties, by Christopher Howse, is published by Bloomsbury. 

Untouchable Javid set for the top

How many members of Theresa May’s cabinet are unsackable?

In normal times Boris Johnson, for all of his breaches of cabinet collective responsibility, freewheeling policy-making and gaffes,  would have done enough to warrant dismissal several times over.

By refusing to take another cabinet position, indeed enhancing his current role, in the midst of a reshuffle, Jeremy Hunt also showed the power of his position and, conversely, the weakness of the Prime Minister.

Now Sajid Javid is showing he is untouchable as he brings a fresh approach to the Home Office; he may not make it ‘fit for purpose’ but he is examining things from a new perspective and appears set to try and sweep away much of the stagnant thinking that has dominated it for so long, dating long before Cameron and the coalition cane to power.

It is possible Theresa May thought she was appointing someone of a similar mould when she was forced to replace Amber Rudd following the exposure of the Windrush scandal but, cautious though she is, even the Prime Minister must have realised the home office needed a drastic intervention, giving it distance and distinctiveness from her time in the job. After all, the blame for the Windrush mess could largely be placed at the door of Number 10; there were loud calls for the Prime Minister herself to resign. Demonstrating that she had listened was crucial. Javid, therefore, cannot be moved. Regardless of how much he might rile his boss in the months, and perhaps years, to come, May knows that she cannot afford to get rid of him. 

Regardless of the May's intentions, in the short space of time Javid has held the position he has signalled a policy break from May,  simultaneously creating for himself an identifiable powerful platform in common with liberal Toryism from which he could be perfectly placed to launch a leadership bid.

Apart from his repudiation of the phrase ‘hostile environment’, Javid has, in recent days signalled students from abroad will be removed from net migration figures - an act that has long had broad cabinet support - and seems set to reform the Tier 2 visa cap which has prevented much needed medical, and other, professionals getting jobs here. Even the longstanding, unachieved and likely to be unachievable, pledge to cut net migration to the tens of thousands could be on the way out.

These have all been shibboleths of Theresa May’s time in government, as Home Secretary and as Prime Minister but no longer.  Even though all Javid has so far offered is words, it seems that these already are able to strip some of the totemic power from May's catchphrases.

Jacob Rees-Mogg remains favourite to succeed May as Tory leader, but for all the Victorian pizzazz he might bring to the position, wiser heads in the party will know he lacks the broad appeal that could win a general election, especially against the Jeremy Corbyn who has shown himself to be a consummate campaigner.

Possessing the ability to attract a wider voting base, while draining much of the bile from within the Home Office, in coming months, Sajid Javid is likely to assume the slot as May's natural successor. The son of a Pakistani bus driver - like Sadiq Khan - and rising, through hard work, from a penurious background to great success and wealth, Javid possesses a rich hinterland that fits perfectly with the Conservative Party's self-image. He would be wise, though, not to blithely dismiss allegations of Islamophobia within the Tory Party by relying on his own success as proof and dismissing the organisations like the Muslim Council of Britain, not least because he, as Home Secretary, is very likely to need their support and assistance in the future. And he certainly doesn't want to challenge the Labour Party in the 'who can handle allegations of racism worse' competition.

Nevertheless, for all those who claim few Home Secretaries rise to the highest office of state, Sajid Javid is putting himself in the possible position of proving them wrong, for the second time in a row.

A penny whistle

I 

She’s hard to miss. Short haired, angular, sitting in a scruffy wheelchair not a stone’s throw from Victoria Station in London. She often shouts at commuters as they flow by, like a stream disregarding a bleating sheep as it gushes down a slope.

On her lap is a piece of cardboard, sometimes used as a sign describing her desperate state monosyllabically; at other times it is a display table, used for bits of tat, urban driftwood, she waves at the ignoring stream.

The other day a whistle echoed down Victoria Street. It was the day after the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. I half wondered if it was the sound of police outriders heralding the return of the happy couple to the capital. But it was this lady, offering a blow of her whistle to anyone who gave her a donation. If the donor preferred, they could have a kiss from a grubby soft toy she clutched in her other hand. 

The day after, she was slumped – asleep or passed out – a filthy, crumpled cardboard cup clasped in her right hand. Around the wheels beneath her, there had gathered piles of rubbish, plastic drink bottles, screwed up pieces of paper. 

How had this person ended up here? Surely a failure of multiple agencies. With no knowledge of her circumstances I would venture she suffered from mental health issues but I clearly can’t be sure. She is clearly vulnerable and obviously lacking any useful level of support. But, she isn’t alone.

In the few hundred yards of Victoria Street I walk almost daily, I count those sitting on the street begging, or squatting on rolled sleeping bags. Rarely does the total sink beneath a dozen. Behind a café, for weeks, a tent was pitched. The legs of its inhabitant were often visible. The walls of Buckingham Palace garden were some 500 yards away.

Outside Pret A Manger, another woman with a cardboard sign, scratched with pleading, often sits. Painfully thin, hollowed out, she sometimes just sits there weeping.  Closer to Victoria station, the numbers dwindle. A few regulars sit in familiar places, clutching their signs, draped in a sleeping bag, but they are often moved on by police or security guards who grandly traipse around the station and its environs.

Two regular, smiley, helpful, sellers of The Big Issue stand resolutely on their pitch, helping tourists with directions and chatting with their regulars.

These are stories from just a few hundred yards of one, admittedly busy, street in central London. It horrifies me every day.

Fallon's fall is not part of a war on men

It has only ever been a minority of men, in my experience, who think that the sort of locker room talk boasted about by the likes of Donald Trump is acceptable. And there is no one I regard as a friend who would think it's normal to touch, grope or molest a colleague. Sadly, those who would act in such an unpleasant fashion tend to be men, and sometimes women, in positions of power and influence. They can assume that their elevated status gives them extra privileges and makes them as irresistible to others as they are to themselves when they look in the mirror.

It is no surprise to see rumours of sexual impropriety and bullying swirl around Westminster, as well as Hollywood.  How long will it be before the media is similarly engulfed? By its very nature, politics can attract the sort of person who revels amid misplaced notions of power and privilege. Characters such as Nicholas Fairbairn and Alan Clark are indulged when in any other walk of life they would have been seen for what they were; angry, unpleasant, drunk lechers. Fairbairn, according to Matthew Parris, once remarked 'what is a skirt but an open gateway'. As is often the way, these characters create their own cliques - traditional party boundaries are irrelevant - in which such behaviour becomes normalised and encouraged.

With Michael Fallon's resignation it appears as though he thinks he has been a victim of changing times rather than his own misdeeds. We are almost being asked to feel sorry for him rather than the people with whom he now realises he has behaved inappropriately towards over the years. When Fallon claims that behaviour that would have been acceptable 10 or 15 years ago isn't now, he is wrong. Any behaviour that has forced his resignation would have been unacceptable at the turn of the millennium and years before. We must assume he has not resigned for merely touching the knee of a political journalist. What has changed is the atmosphere; enough people no longer think it reasonable for people in positions of power to get away with its abuse in the pursuit of sexual gratification.

Many of those who have come forward to recount the times they have been attacked or preyed upon have been met with comments such 'why haven't they said something before or gone to the police'. That many were targets when they were vulnerable, at the start of their careers and fearful that coming forward could jeopardise their futures is ignored. That so many of the victims remain anonymous and have chosen not to name their attackers shows these concerns still exist.

A female Conservative commentator yesterday said on Sky News that the campaign to flush out sexual predators in politics was a 'war on men'. It is not. Workplace romance has not suddenly been outlawed. For most, it is easy to tell the difference between harmless flirting and persistent unwanted sexual advances.

The problem with the apparent ‘dirty dossier’ that has been circulating is that it includes people who happen to be working together and are having ordinary relationships with each other, as well as people who appear to be suffering from great personal crises alongside possible sex pests. 

If beleaguered Theresa May (has any prime minister been dealt out such a wretched hand?) can start a process that begins to weed out offenders and encourage a change in the culture then she will being doing politics and the wider country a valuable service.