Oh Brave New Britain.

There is a chronic shortage of affordable housing in the UK at the moment. In fact, there’s a chronic shortage of housing generally, one consequence of which is that there are now hundreds of thousands of homeless people when there used to be effectively none.

What is disturbing Mrs Braverman, our valiant Home Secretary, is not so much the causes of this iniquity, but the increasing incidence of tents appearing on the streets of our green and pleasant land, pitched by homeless people seeking shelter from the elements. She intends to make it illegal, she says; there is no excuse for being on the streets, she says; it’s a lifestyle choice and she won’t tolerate it.

This is another step beyond her recent pronouncement that she won’t tolerate having the ills of America polluting our Great British cities, conveniently ignoring the fact that the decision to redirect British culture to accord with the American Dream (and, in consequence, to follow the American Way) was taken by a former Tory Prime Minister.

Do forgive my descent into triteness if I quote that much-loved line: Oh brave new world that hath such people in it.