GIVE THE HOMELESS THE VOTE

The homeless are the most ignored section of our society.

These people are left to sleep and starve on the streets while the public at large shop in Primark and eat in McDonald's.

No one seems to care that people are dying just metres away from Tescos.

Politicians seem to see them as an inconvenience, not as people. Where I live, in Brighton, the official statistic for homeless on the streets is around four people homeless - only four - anyone who lives here can tell you there are many, many more homeless then that - the labour government, supposedly a left wing, caring government, has changed the criteria of homelessness to only count those bedded down before 10 o'clock as being vagrants. They have purposely twisted the statistics in order to "meet" targets by changing the goal posts. This game of numbers and statistics, treating people in need as problems instead of humans happens for one reason only: the homeless don't have the vote.

Politicians care about their voting constituency only - because they prioritise being voted back in over doing their job well. If you don't have the vote, you can, quite literally, fuck off and die.

It is a problem with democracy that needs to be fixed.

I've talked about this problem in earlier posts - the state of England being one of instant justice - where the comfort of the area of society that has the highest vote turnout (the middle class) has been prioritised so much, that we need government think tanks to figure out where we are going to let kids play now that children have been segregated from the streets as a result of the use of ASBOs in the name of tackling "anti social behaviour" in Labour's mad dash to secure more votes. Politics has been prostituted to the comfortable middle class - who were raised with the ideals that they should vote in every election. Other areas of society (except the upper class who will always vote conservative) generally only take an interest in politics in great times of need - so Labour just needs to make sure they're not particularly upset, and then they can rest assured they wont turn up to the polling booths. This means the middle class call the shots, and it is the middle class who Labour and the Tories are competing for.

So, with the homeless out of the voting arena, they will never be helped in any meaningful way by the government. In fact, government policies for helping the homeless are aimed at those soon to be homeless- i.e. still have the vote. Police policies towards the homeless is to get them out of the middle class's way - if a tramp is found sleeping on a bench he is woken up and told to move along. If I'm found sleeping on a bench I'm left alone. If a tramp is found sitting on some steps he's told to move along. If I'm sitting on the same steps as the tramp at the same time, the police tell me have a nice day. I'm not acting any differently. It's not the tramps behaviour that's wrong, it's the fact that he's a tramp. Doesn't that make you sick?

The best way of staying in power is to take away the vote of the needy. That way no one will try and change anything. The only way we can get the homeless back on their feet is give them the vote - because if they had it, they would damn well use it, and that is when the government would start giving a shit.