There's no place like home

Once upon a time, at this time of year, little Theresa May used to listen to the Christmas story of a young family with nowhere to stay while sitting by a warm fire in a dry and secure home. These were sadly distressing times for Theresa May, and she's now doing her very best to make sure as many children as possible have completely different memories of Christmas. 

'We've delivered on housing', exclaimed Theresa May passionately during PMQs this week. To specify, that includes the delivery of over 120,000 children in the UK into homelessness or in temporary housing  (including ~118 families from Grenfell Tower who are still in emergency accommodation); fewer new homes than any political party in one hundred years; the fewest actually 'affordable' homes built for over two decades; and lower levels of home ownership. 

Theresa May also announced an ambitious ten-winter response to homelessness. Her plan aims to bring the number of rough sleepers back down to 2010 levels by 2022, and completely eliminated by 2027. Unfortunately, she was unable to pledge that the number of rough sleepers would go down by this time next year, but then inflation has risen to 3.1% (and Philip Hammond has meanwhile been busy freezing wages and benefits), so perhaps few other people would be able to make that pledge that either. 

Keen to educate our children, the government has provided an excellent history lesson by reconstructing environments of victorian-level poverty, as demonstrated with the return of rickets (and other diseases associated with malnutrition). In their defence, the government had to make some tough decisions — although Theresa May's government spends 44% less to Children's services than 7yrs ago (~£1bn in total), bankers said they really really needed that £5bn tax cut.

Theresa May lost some of her powers on Wednesday after a super-combo move from 309 MPs blasted away her chances of dodging a 'meaningful' vote in parliament on the final Brexit deal. Oddly, 305 MPs voted to not have a vote on one of the most important events in modern political history...