Home secretary Suella Braverman touted as a possible successor to Rishi Sunak

MADE any major life-style choices lately?

Cut out the booze for a bit? Gone for a run up the Heath? Slept overnight in a pavement tent? Lose a general election.

Home secretary Suella Braverman’s latest gabble – that rough sleepers are choosing to be on the street – shouldn’t really be dignified with a reaction that it craves.

But politicos were this week touting her as a possible successor to Rishi Sunak.

It is likely that every high street shopping parade in Camden will see rows of tents pitched up at night.

And with this kind of rhetoric being hammered home by high profile politicians, it is no wonder many people feel unnerved by them.

This government so often resorts to cleaning up its own mess with reactionary legislation and fighting talk policies.

Don’t like the look of tents as homelessness rockets? Ban them!

Don’t like peaceful protests about government climate change inertia? Don’t worry, we’ll ban those too.

It is ironic that a government so obsessed with crime and punishment seems so at ease with ignoring the consequences of its actions.

Ms Braverman has also proposed the introduction of a civil offence that could see charities fined for giving out tents on the street.

It’s a special kind of dying government that picks a fight with the homelessness charities.

Shouldn’t someone tell the Tories that right now being as brash and mean as possible isn’t so much of a vote winner as it has been in recent years?

The tents talk is just another example of this tired old narrative that has underpinned so many years of Conservative rule: that there is a kind of sub class of people out there who would be all right if they just tried a bit harder.

There is no talk of making lasting changes to the homelessness crisis. No message about intervention.

It is rarely talked about with much seriousness, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that in 2019, the Labour manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn included a pledge to “end homelessness”. Not by criminalising it, but actually ending it.

“There will be no more homeless people in this country – the state will provide,” he had said.

Tony Blair’s government created one new criminal offence for every day it was in power.

The Conservatives look almost certain to lose the next general election with Sir Keir Starmer looking a shoo-in for PM.

The question is what kind of path will he be leading us down: banning tents or ending homelessness?