Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Racism, sick jokes and
Hose homeless off streets, says Housing Minister
THE new Tory Housing Minister admitted he made life “uncomfortable” for the homeless as part of a zero-tolerance crackdown.
Kit Malthouse became the eighth to hold the post in eight years after Dominic Raab was promoted.
But he can expect scrutiny over his previous approach to homelessness when deputy leader of Westminster city council.
Under his watch, the council was accused by one London Assembly member of adopting a “ruthless” policy towards homeless people that included “hosing them out of doorways”. Asked in 2008 if he was behind such a “hosing” policy, Mr Malthouse replied: “We certainly instituted a policy of making life – it sounds counterintuitive and cruel – more uncomfortable, that is absolutely right.” He added: “...we analysed the problem, and one of the issues was that in many ways – it sounds counterintuitive – life was too comfortable on the street.
“There were, at the time, plenty of well-funded night shelters and night centres... The difficulty was getting rough sleepers into those centres so that they could be interacted with, their needs could be met.”
A Labour local government spokesman said: “In her desperation, Theresa May has appointed a new Housing Minister whose callous disregard for the lives of homeless people should immediately rule him out of the job.” Johnson mentioned “flagwaving piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” in a 2002 column for the Daily Telegraph.
He wrote: “What a relief it must be for [Tony] Blair to get out of England. It is said the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies”. In November, he told MPS Nazanin Zaghari-ratcliffe, 40, was in Iran training journalists. In fact she was visiting family. It was claimed his words contributed to her sentence being doubled to 10 years.
In 2015, Johnson had to