And slick metropolitans should be careful of simply dismissing the fears of those who tremble when the piece of mobile defensible space that is their Mondeo is invaded by a shouty youth with a mop. Mr Straw’s speech will have struck a chord with a large number of British people. The fact that since in Scotland, Wales and northern England people tend to be less alarmed by their fellow citizens the chord will mainly have resonated in the breasts of Middle England does not make it any less valid. Or more cynically struck.What Mr Straw claimed he was seeking to do was to find a way to improve street life for us all. Monday night’s speech was that of the Roundhead complaining about the Cavalier; the Leveller blaming it all on the Libertarian. The name is the giveaway: Jack Straw – what better moniker for a Cromwellian?This is not to say that Mr Straw is not addressing a genuine fear in large numbers of British minds: a fear of confrontation, of embarrassment, of the kind of disconcerting encounters that occur on city streets.

It was, rather, a reminder that the love of cleanliness, peace, decency and social order has long been as much a part of Labour philosophy as Tory. To wish to see the streets freed of grubby youths with ill-mannered dogs, of confrontational beggars with poor personal hygiene and, most of all, of teenagers with foaming buckets who assault the nation’s windscreens at every set of traffic lights, is not the aim of the right It is the goal of the Puritan. Perhaps wishing to distance himself from John Major’s remarkably similar-sounding desire for a Britain of lengthening shadows on the cricket field and warm beer in the pavilion, he said he did “not hark back to some golden age”. Moreover, his comments should in no way be miscontrued as axiomatic of any right-ward lurch. After all, he commented, “it is 16 years of right- wing policies which have made crime a near-universal experience”.In this sense, Mr Straw is correct His speech had nothing to do with right and left. Joe Oldman, of the homeless persons’ charity Char, wrote: “it is cowardly to attempt to boost the electoral fortunes of his party at the expense of the weakest, most vulnerable members of the community”; another correspondent compared, somewhat illiberally for the reader of a liberal newspaper, Mr Straw’s policies to Hitler’s.Mr Straw himself claimedthat his robust attitude to street life was an honest attempt to “secure a quieter life for innocent people”.

The launch of a North-east edition of the ‘Big Issue’ is imminent How many? About 8,000 nationwide. Preventive action? The ‘Big Issue’ helps to combat homelessness Winners and losers? Everyone wins from the ‘Big Issue’. The punters get a paper and the homeless get some cash.DRUG USERSWho are they? Wealthy young white males make up the biggest group of drug users, but hard drugs are used most regularly by manual and unskilled workers. Where are they? Urban centres: London, Liverpool, Manchester, and especially Glasgow and Edinburgh. But the problem is spreading to rural England, particularly the South-west How many? One in five Britons takes illegal drugs Fewer than 1 per cent use hard drugs. Preventive action? Clinics funded by charities and the Government.