The facts on rough sleeping are against the Tories – so they lie
Mapped out: This graph shows the increase in the number of rough sleepers in the UK since the Conservatives took office.
The Conservatives have been caught lying about the number of people sleeping rough in the UK.
They said fewer people were sleeping rough now than when Labour left office in 2010; in fact there has been a 169 per cent increase.
The Tories have a flagship policy to eliminate rough sleeping by 2027, and have announced an increase in funding of £100 million to achieve this aim.
… Except none of this is new money. Half had already been committed to the policy, and the rest had been “reprioritised” from other existing budgets.
The Conservative government is doing what it always does – trying to fool you that the poor are better-off than the evidence shows. Meanwhile, their policies continue to ruin lives across the UK.
[Communities Secretary James Brokenshire’s Parliamentary Private Secretary falsely claimed on the BBC’s Westminster Hour that] the number of rough sleepers is now lower than it was when the Tories came to power.“That number is by the way lower than it was when the last labour government left office in 2010,” he said.
He admitted the figure had gone up in the last year, but claimed: “In recent years it’s been rising but it’s still lower than it was when Labour left office.”
This is untrue.
According to government figures, the number of people sleeping rough was estimated at around 1,768.
The most recent estimate for 2017 was 4,751 – a total estimated increase of 169% since the Tories came to power.
Source: Tory minister admits none of £100 million ‘boost’ for rough sleeping is new money – Mirror Online
Visit our JustGiving page to help Vox Political’s Mike Sivier fight anti-Semitism libels in court
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
Are they trying to prove to their reducing number of voters that they have a heart ref the fallen vulnerable and homeless. Where did this act of so called kindness spring from……….after all this time
While the Times pictorially demonstrates (subliminally?) how demonstrably relaxing it is for the entitled classes to stroll by, unconcerned at the fate of the homeless cowering in the unoccupied shadows of societies public spaces:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/100m-blueprint-to-end-rough-sleeper-crisis-cf0w5pn86
Note: No pay wall to visit the prominent de-sensitizing and permissive propaganda allowing all to comfortably ignore this pesky issue!
One problem here is that large numbers of people actually believe the Tory lies.
Calling them rough sleepers is the first lie. Unfortunate people who have no home to go to are homeless! And I bet the number is in the thousands in London alone.
People can be designated homeless while sleeping in B&Bs, allocated by the local authority. “Rough sleepers” refers to those who actually sleep on the streets.
I was homeless in 1977 after my vallium- and lager-addicted mother kicked me out the house the weekend after I left school at 16. Occasionally I was able to sleep rough on someone’s settee but it was rare, because I think people were wary of somehow being lumbered with me, so most nights I spent locked in a public toilet cubicle in which I couldn’t even lay out straight. I’d already lost my possessions which mother had thrown onto the pavement that day, so I had little extra clothing to put on on cold nights.
I accept there’s a new definition of “rough sleepers” but I won’t use Tory newspeak. I wasn’t sleeping rough, I was seriously homeless.