A message to you, Andy: the nation needs you to keep your word on rough sleeping

I have temporarily stolen two of the props quite ordinary-looking people trying to look meaningful use on stage – sunglasses and what’s called a pork pie hat. This was not a conscious decision but I was caught a few weeks back having to do press about Andy Burnham’s commitment to end rough sleeping. Outside in the fierce sun for the interview in the park, I had this jazzy garb on. 

The first time I wore sunglasses without the sun, the obvious sign that you are courting the idea of hidden importance, was at the age of 15 when I was rough sleeping and hiding from the police. For 65 years I then avoided sunglasses. The first time I wore them was to fit in with other wearers of ‘shades’, as we called them in the bohemian cafes of Earl’s Court in West London; in Chelsea and Soho. I’d hoped they would make me significant looking. But once the glasses were off I was again a rat-like rough sleeper and beggar. 

However, a few weeks back I stumbled onto the television screen looking, as one friend said, like the lead singer in a ska revival band from the ’70s, or a saxophonist from the ’50s. 

The feedback was not about what I said but the way I looked, decorating myself without increasing my appearance of substance. A lack of substance in appearance swept away the last elected PM, Keir Starmer. Could he have increased his presence if he had got people thinking about what he wore more than what he said? Could he have remained in power if his wardrobe had been addressed more jazzily?

Certainly I did not increase my significance by a hat and shades, but a remarkable amount of people noticed me. In the same way that Mr Binface did well wearing a bin (his significance though was to underline his disdain for Nigel Farage and his politics). 

Andy Burnham’s attire also drew attention, with right-wing commentators transfixed for a short while by his love of black T-shirts. But that soon melted away as it became obvious that there was much of a trying nature to attend to on the governmental plate. And that’s what critics could focus on more productively. The summer passes, black T-shirts and bins – and my hat and shades – disappear with the scorching sun. Now business is to be done seriously. 

Read more:

• Rough sleeping a ‘source of national shame’, government told
• Burnham is singing from Big Issue’s hymn sheet on rough sleeping. It gives us reason for hope
• Terry Hall: ‘The Specials have always been about protest’

But appearance is of remarkable importance in our political and leaderly life. Speaking of appearance, it’s great news that Lady Victoria Beckham’s fashion house has for the first time made a profit, whereby she joins her husband’s gargantuan importance as a successful businessman and former sportsman. The appearance-
delivering Beckhams are important politically because soft power, as they now call it, buttresses real power in the world. In fact the UK might have more soft than hard power at this moment. 

Appearance is important to many of our world leaders, with Trump’s assertion of world power scuttled by a determined Iran, challenging his appearance. But underneath all this appearance old problems reassert themselves and belittle appearance’s efforts. Environment, Ukraine, cost of living, oil and Hormuz, Palestine, to mention but a few. AI’s rampant takeover of business and work is another threat to the world beyond the appearance. The sense of a lack of control and many doomsayers predicting disastrous futures for us all are paramount. And those terrible floods in Nepal add to the idea that we are in great peril. 

Peril is unhappily forecast by so many sources of supposed knowledge – newspapers, podcasts and political contenders. Wherever we turn, a bleakness seems inherently being factored into our daily lives. And government’s first job must be to rescue us from such paucity of hope. Change the optics and hopefully change will come. 

The lessons of the past seemed to lead to the belief in a new appearance which leads to hope that leads to improvement. If we are doused in doubt we will end up with its products, which are pessimism and its attendant illnesses. Paucity of optimism is a killer.

We need that light at the end of the tunnel, even if at times we have to fake it. But one thing that hope needs is to be accompanied by realism. None of that appalling denying of the truth about things. None of that government cover-up which asserts that all targets are being achieved. If only government itself could recognise that more of the same is not good enough. 

The Andy Burnham regime must be honest and truthful with us. It should recognise that government flannel has proved the ineptness of all governments in reducing poverty, the biggest political and social driving force of today. New systems and methods must replace the old. Converging the fight to end poverty through a central ministry set up to end poverty should be the agenda. More of the same will just change things for the worse. 

The dog days of summer are over. Our hopes need raising that we have not changed one rider midstream for just another inept one. 

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. 

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