OPINION

Angela Rayner has had a ludicrous idea (Image: PA)

Only someone with limited intelligence could have given the go-ahead for Britain to be turned into one big shanty town. Yes, step forward Angela Rayner who ludicrously thinks that, by scrapping a 200-year-old law which prevents rough sleeping, she’s “drawing a line under two centuries of injustice”.

And what that means is that your street, your pavements, your parks could soon look like downtown Islamabad with tent encampments everywhere. They could be outside your front door, outside the gym, your doctor’s surgery, Tesco. And with all those tents will come armies of organised beggars – even though begging is illegal and often controlled by criminal gangs.

There’ll also be other crime – thefts and violence. There’ll be junkies off their heads on drugs which will make them do stupid things like hurt and rob people. Maybe worse. But no, in Rayner’s thick head, she believes the way to tackle the problem of rough sleeping is to decriminalise it.

Really? So, why don’t solve all crimes by decriminalising them – rapes, murder, robbery, thieving? Oh, hang on, we already have.

Rayner, who’s repealing the 1824 Vagrancy Act introduced during the Industrial revolution to tackle the homelessness crisis, says: “No one should ever be criminalised simply for sleeping rough.”

No, they shouldn’t and mostly they aren’t. Doesn’t she know many parts of the act have already been repealed and the parts that still exist see cops moving rough sleepers on, NOT prosecuting them. And no, homelessness shouldn’t ever be a crime. The real crime here is NOT housing people who need it. And this Government and every council in the land is guilty of that!

London has 4,612 people living rough and we’re told its execrable Mayor, Sadiq Khan, who just got a knighthood for public service (HAH!), is doing “everything he can to get people off the streets”. Well, clearly it’s not enough.

Instead of taking care of their homeless, local authorities would rather spaff our money up the wall on woke projects and sky-high salaries. Sleeping rough is a hellish stain on our society, but the solution isn’t to make it legal, it’s to get the rough sleepers off the streets and into decent accommodation.

So, instead of putting illegal migrants, who’ve done sod-all for Britain, into four-star hotels, why not put our own homeless into them and give THEM a bit of room service.

I’m talking about Brits who’ve fallen on hard times – the jobless, the service vets suffering PTSD, the youngsters who’ve left home for whatever reason, the mentally ill. Those people have more right to be looked after than those who come here illegally.

And anyone who doesn’t see what’s coming by repealing this law should look to the once beautiful San Francisco whose politicians once had the same loony liberal views as Rayner.

That liberalism resulted in crime riddled, trash filled streets with junkies fighting, shooting up and having sex in full public view. Properties were damaged, businesses were damaged, people didn’t feel safe in their homes and tourists didn’t want to come.

And all this liberalism didn’t solve homelessness, it rocketed nearly threefold in five years, which is exactly what will happen here in Britain. It’s why the US Supreme Court recently empowered cities to enforce anti-camping laws. And guess what – the homeless stats are already better because more shelters and housing has been made available.

You don’t solve the homeless problem by making it easier for people to sleep on the streets. Because what happens is that you cause God knows how many other problems for decent law-abiding citizens who just want to bring up their families in safety and in peace.