At the beginning of the year, I co-wrote a defence of Rishi Sunak when Twitter unfairly pilloried him for seeing a homeless person as a three-dimensional human being, complete with a past, skills and ambitions. It was a nauseating experience. A bit like finding yourself humming along to a Take That tune. Still, I believed he deserved a fair shake. It didn’t take long for him to remind me of his incompetence and cruelty though.
Homelessness charities warned this week that rises in energy bills and underfunded council contracts threatened their very existence, which risked returning homeless people to a cycle of sofa-surfing and rough sleeping. There are around 271,000 homeless people in England, and that number is set to rise as the cost of living continues to grow. One charity told the Guardian that its annual gas and electricity bills could rise by £500,000 from May. It is asking the government to raise its funding in line with inflation. At the moment, it doesn’t look like the government will oblige.
