Freedom works.

If anyone still doubts whether British society is broken, they should read the reports of the Centre for Social Justice. When we consider family breakdown, educational failure, economic dependence, indebtedness and addictions, the human and financial cost of decades of top-down bureaucratic control becomes heart-breaking. And let’s not forget that, these days, the poor pay tax to support the very services which fail them.

The sheer scale and quality of the work of the Centre shines through their reports and there can be no doubt that those on the centre right have the best interests of the poorest in our country close to their hearts. As Iain Duncan Smith writes:

Our interim report Breakdown Britain charted the extent of the problem in extensive detail. Britain tops the ‘league tables’ when it comes to spiraling levels of drug addiction, single parenting, poor education and debt. Many people told us that the quality of their communities had deteriorated, maintaining that the crime levels were much higher than those reported to the police. The recent rise in gang warfare, which resulted in a spate of teenage stabbings and shootings in our cities, is a savage illustration of the deep fractures in so many of our inner city communities. A recent UNICEF Report concluded that we have the lowest levels of child well being in Europe. A further report has shown how young people in Britain are more likely to be unemployed and out of education than in almost any other country in Europe.

IDS names some of the inspirational people who have personally set out to serve their fellows, and goes on:

These inspirational people showed me that things could be much better if politicians learnt from them ‘what worked’ and ‘what didn’t work’. Government action, though filled with good intentions, can often exacerbate existing problems or create new ones. I was reminded that communities need strong families to bind them together and that families were vulnerable to a society that no longer valued the institution of marriage. I was shown by them what happens when family life breaks down and when the only male role model for a boy is the drug dealer or the gang leader. I saw first hand how drug addiction is destroying families and how parental addiction is too often repeated by their children. Too many of our children are growing up in sad communities where failed education is hereditary and worklessness is a way of life.

And so the Centre sets out to provide practical policies to mend our broken society. Thankfully, the Conservatives are heading in this direction together. As David Cameron has said:

We know we have a shared responsibility; that we’re all in this together; that there is such a thing as society – it’s just not the same as the State.

I will be manning our local night shelter between January and March.

Homelessness is a subject close to my heart. It is a scandal that — in this age and with such levels of spending on social security — people are forced to sleep rough. It is a scandal we should not tolerate.

A young homeless woman asked me to buy a Big Issue just outside the conference area and then asked me, “If you get in, what are you going to do about poverty in this county? The Government seems very keen to get in with everyone else, but what are you going to do in this country?”

Happily, I was able to answer, but that’s not the point of the post.

She looked unblinkingly at me and said, “I’m a victim of the State”, before explaining some of her life. Abused by her mother – along with her 15 siblings – she was placed into care, where her ADHT was met with beatings. Made homeless at age 17, she was soon in prison for shoplifting to eat, which she saw as “fair enough” as she was “bang to rights”. She’s less keen on the occasions when she has been convicted, she claims, essentially because she wouldn’t grass someone up.

In prison, she got off drugs – though she still has DVTs from injecting – and started a course in counseling, which she is now 3 units from completing. While inside, she worked for The Samaritans and she would now like to attend college, complete the course and help others. She has qualifications in hairdressing and Indian head massage.

Of course, without a fixed address, she can’t get the job or achieve the stability that would enable her to see this through. She is constantly moved on and harassed by the State, but not helped to settle down and help others.

Now aged 27, this young woman has learned to deal with her mother’s physical abuse in childhood, but the State has just decided to prosecute the woman, so she has been asked to relive every detail in court. Is it any wonder she looks 47?

She told me other anecdotes, with obvious sincerity, but I haven’t the heart to write them down.

So there she is on the street, in the rain trying to round up £17.50 for a hostel room for the night, from people who seem unable to see her, while avoiding the teeming army of people ready to move her on. She is articulate, interested, interesting, willing, able and very nearly qualified to help others out of their mess, but she is stuck in her own. She needs opportunity.

This is a self-proclaimed “victim of the State”. This is Britain in 2008. Someone ask me again why I am going into politics.

Poverty in Britain remains horrifying. For example, about 7% of households cannot afford a single hobby or leisure activity and a quarter cannot manage to save £10 a month for rainy days or retirement.

Bleak.

But the DWP plans to spend just over £130 billion in 2008. Surely some mistake, so I did a quick calculation based on 2007 numbers:

Now, as a first estimate, it appears that DWP manages to spend almost twice as much as the poverty threshold for every person in poverty. This is optimistic too: I used the threshold figure for a single person with no children. If we took the figure of £260 per week for a couple with two children, and divided by four, it would appear DWP spends about three times the threshold per head.

These are devastating ratios, but worse, it is not working:

Using a still lower threshold of 40% of median income, however, the pattern is rather different: unchanged levels throughout the last decade. In other words, there has been no reduction in the numbers of very poor people.

Sustained misery, maintained at vast expense, is a tragedy.

Thank goodness, then, for Iain Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice and for Chris Grayling. We are getting there.

A pity millions of people must wait for significant change to begin.

There’s a homeless man I see every day, who sleeps in a subway. He’s pleasant and harmless. He used to be a promising chef apparently. People choose to give him money: he never asks. He keeps himself smart and clean, thanks to a nearby centre that opens in the week, during the day. He’s handing out Christmas cards to people who have helped him this year.

He was arrested this week for begging. He spent the night in the cells as bail was not granted. He claimed this was fine by him: a warm dry night with hot food and drink and he didn’t have to walk to court in the morning. The judge fined him £20 but dismissed it in recognition of the night in jail. He was straight back where he started, doing no harm, although now he is a trainee Big Issue seller.

He alleges that the following night, certain uniformed individuals approached him and offered that if he disappeared that night, they wouldn’t bother him for a year. Apparently that night was the night the homeless count was to be taken.

This seems to me quite evil. It’s bad enough that people get trapped on the street, without others fiddling the statistics. What happens when the area’s 500 (say) homeless find their centre is closed because it was funded for 50?