A laudable call to alms, but beggars need more
FULL marks to Nicola Sturgeon for her humanity when a rough sleeper hailed her on the street and she shot over as fast as her purple stilettos could transport her.
It reminded me of my grandfather’s favourite story about Robert Burns, who fell into conversation with a tramp – a ‘peripatetic independent tradesman’ in these excessively PC times.
A clergyman tried to dissuade the Bard, pointing out the man’s filthy rags, and was told: ‘I’m talking to the man, minister, no’ the clothes.’
But Miss Sturgeon alighting from her chauffeured car – she is said to have taken notes about the man’s plight – does not make her Mother Teresa.
The encounter came in Glasgow, close to one of its glitziest shopping streets.
It was also near Central Station, whose surroundings are a magnet for rough sleepers, aggressive panhandlers, street drinkers and injecting drug users.
I am often guided into a nearby car park by a drunk ostentatiously waving his arms to make sure I avoid his bottle of sherry or cider.
The morning minimum unit pricing on alcohol was implemented, I had to stop my car while two police officers and two paramedics dealt with a sparked-out street drinker.
When I leave at night, I regularly see surreptitious drug deals and addicts dropping their trousers in a sidestreet to inject into their groins.
Now before that bloke from the Big Issue starts frothing about the ‘callous Mail’ (again) on Radio Scotland’s Shereen show, I do not think the problem should merely be moved out of sight. It’s not even a question of individual compassion. My heart goes out to these people, but what good does a handful of change or a sandwich do?
Many charities doing amazing work on the streets caution against handing out money and food as alms fail to address the core issues.
Unlike us, Miss Sturgeon has long been in a far better position to make a real difference.
Top of the notes Miss Sturgeon took from that poor soul in a sodden sleeping bag in the rain should have been: ‘Mental health provision.’
Many on the streets are there through sheer bad luck. Many more are there because of mental illness or its handmaiden, substance addiction.
Those huddled on streets right across Scotland have, all too often, been turned away from hostels because they are drunk or stoned.
Chancellor Philip Hammond has pushed an extra £2billion into mental health in England. All I’ve heard from the SNP is partisan drivel about being short-changed in his Budget.
This is the same SNP which runs a high-tax regime and Scottish Government budget surplus; which blew £1million on a woolly climate-change project so Miss Sturgeon could pose as an international stateswoman and MP Angus MacNeil could mumble a couple of words in Icelandic; which sends millions to Malawi when the gargantuan UK foreign aid budget cannot be spent fast enough.
A chance encounter with a homeless man has highlighted Miss Sturgeon’s sensitivity.
Can her Government show its mercy with a cogent policy on homelessness and sensible use of the billions already at their disposal?