Something else that has been irritating me recently, and which I noticed again today. Leeds, in the UK, where I live, has instituted this campaign on begging. I've seen it in other places before, and it bothers me.

The campaign goes something along these lines: Don't give money to beggars. Give it to this organisation we're setting up to get beggars off the streets.

Initially, that seems attractive. After all, we all know beggars just spend money on drugs and alcohol, so it's wasted on them, right?

Well, it rubs me up the wrong way for a number of reasons:

1) It's my money. I'll use it how I please, and if that means giving it to a beggar or a busker, that's what I'll do, and it's not up to the council to tell me what to do with it. They already get my taxes. Let them concern themselves with those.

2) It's rather paternalistic. It's saying to people: "Because you're homeless you obviously can't be trusted to choose how to spend your own money." The same reasoning is what led to giving vouchers to asylum seekers instead of money. (Vouchers, incidentally, which shops could take but didn't have to give any change. So it's "all you've got is a ten pound voucher? You want a loaf of bread? Change? In your dreams.") The same reasoning leads to proposals for the unemployed to be given vouchers not benefits. It's arrogant and unpleasant.

3) Maybe they will spend the money on drugs. If they are drug addicts, they almost certainly will. But think about it. If I don't give those beggars the money, and if no one else does, then they are still going to need the drugs. (They're addicts, right?) So how are they going to get them? They'll mug someone for the money. Or they'll break into a house. Which is worse? The begging or the violent crime.

4) Do they really think that the people who gave money to a beggar on the street when asked are actualy all going to put that money aside and then go and seek out a donation box for the council's homelessness organisation. No. The money will stay in people's pockets or purses. The homeless won't get it. The council won't get it to use to prevent homelessness.

5) If the council cares about homelessness and drug addiction then they can use some of those aforementioned taxes to deal with it. But of course they don't. And if they care about alcoholism, why have they allowed a hundred massive bars to open downtown in the last few years?

No, the council and this campaign care little about the homeless. All they want is for the homeless to disappear and leave the streets clean for decent (read: rich) people. Preferably, they'd like the homeless to drop dead (somewhere out of sight, of course). This campaign can only aid that.