Letter: Tories to blame for the beggars' plight

Sir: Tony Blair says that homelessness and begging on the streets are not to be tolerated; some commentators see this as an attack on the people who are begging (report, 2 January).

Was I born in a golden age? For 35 years I lived in towns such as Norwich, St Albans and Swindon without seeing a single beggar. Begging was something which happened in the Third World. Then suddenly, within a year or two of the 1987 election, young people began begging on the streets. The effect was to inspire guilt, anger and a feeling that we could not be part of an inclusive prosperous society nor proud to be British.

Tory spokesmen wished us to believe that human nature was at fault (as though it had suddenly changed that year) and that the beggars were idle and feckless people: certainly it could not be connected with the changes in eligibility for the dole of vulnerable young people who moved away from their parents to seek their first job. These changes occurred against the backdrop of a Chancellor transferring money to wealthy and middle- income people in the form of tax cuts.

Through a boom, recession and recovery, the beggars have remained on our streets. The Tories won't change their welfare and housing policy to try to remove the problem, preferring to hold individual beggars responsible for their predicament. Will New Labour do differently?

NICK WATTS

Chippenham, Wiltshire