From Rwanda to rough sleepers: Suella Braverman is better at controversy than she is at governance

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. “But we cannot allow our streets to be taken over by rows of tents occupied by people, many of them from abroad, living on the streets as a lifestyle choice.” Don’t worry guys, Braverman was very careful to make the distinction between the “genuinely homeless” and those who are, I assume, just out there for a laugh. Normally when somebody says that “nobody in Britain should be living in a tent on our streets”, they mean that nobody should suffer the indignity of being homeless – not that people living on the streets literally shouldn’t be allowed to live in tents. It’s another in a string of outrageous statements by the home secretary, with other recent highlights including the “hurricane” of migrants she warned of at this year’s Tory conference, her attack on pro-Palestine protests as “hate marches”, and her insistence that being gay or a woman isn’t enough to qualify for asylum, even if the person will be deported to a country that persecutes women and LGBT+ people. Braverman’s words would be beyond the pale even if those things weren’t true, but to say such a thing when families are struggling with an ongoing cost of living crisis, the ripple effects of a global pandemic, and a housing problem that only seems to get worse by the day, is a low point even by her barely existent standards.