Cause and Effect

Walking through the city centre on the way to the dentist one morning - icy wind freezing my face - I passed a few doorways where rough sleepers were emerging from mounds of assorted bedding, cardboard and polythene. I imagine they are jobless as well as homeless (though I've never concerned myself enough with their plight actually to ask them) and therefore in no rush to get to work. But the Big Issue sellers were already up and at it, as were the street entertainers - 'human statues' and buskers - whose physical extremities must be endowed with better circulation than mine. Later, leaving the dentist, my face frozen now by novocaine, I saw that the beggars had taken up strategic positions at lucrative patches. Another day, another dollar, as someone once succinctly put it.

Life is tough these days: the safety net of the welfare state is not as tight-meshed as it was, nor am I optimistic for its future robustness. Globally the trend is for private wealth to increase as public funds diminish, reminding me of the time I asked an Italian why so many of Italy's historic monuments were closed pending renovations. Could they not afford to maintain them? "Italy is a poor country, full of rich people" she replied, referring obliquely to the widespread practice of tax avoidance. Given the rate at which wealth is being concentrated in the hands of fewer individuals and given also that the more wealth they have the more of it they can divert towards avoiding taxes, we are all set to go back to the future - C19th levels of inequality.

The struggle to make a living at a time of job famine and welfare drought does, however, stimulate human ingenuity and creativity. While circumnavigating the beggars and smelly doorways I was struck by the quantity, quality and diversity of the buskers on the streets: a young man with a terrific voice rendered a lovelorn "poor me" ballad (though he needs to work on his guitar technique); a young woman sang classical music prettily and without an amplifier; and a boy/girl duo took me back to Peter, Paul and Mary days with their lachrymose but tightly harmonised version of 500 Miles. Later, while enjoying the musical virtuosity of TheImpossible Gentlemen in the warmth and comfort of that most excellent venue Band on the Wall, I thought of the freezing buskers and hoped that they too would someday be able to command big ticket prices.

The next evening I attended a meeting for the 20,000 city-centre residents to talk to the police. A small room had been reserved, which was just as well because those present were the Divisional Commander, the City Centre Commander, the PCC, two councillors and about ten of us, eight of whom had come to voice personal grievances. One man wanted to know why the police didn't clamp down on people smoking joints outside his building; another was concerned that not enough police were available to prevent drink-and-drug fuelled disturbances in the wee small hours; another objected to beggars and homeless people on the streets - and so on. They were missing the point: our police chiefs were patient and polite but they know the problem is that we have a diminishing number of cops chasing an increasing number of petty criminals.

The police can't get on top of such a situation. It's up to us to change laws which criminalise people unnecessarily - marijuana, for example, could be legalised and taxed - and to regulate pub and club licensing hours so that trouble is contained. Measures like this would allow police to concentrate on serious crime and fraud while we set about resolving the causes, not the symptoms, of joblessness and homelessness.