Empty gestures make the most noise

Staff at a homeless centre in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, are being laid off this evening because funding has run out.  Northamptonshire County Council is no longer able to provide a grant of £30,000 a year to keep this valuable service going.  The future of the Daylight Centre, which has been providing, food, shelter and support for homeless people for sixteen years, now seems in doubt.

What has this got to do with the monarchy?

It will almost certainly not have escaped your attention that Prince William has recently been in the news for spending an evening “sleeping rough” on the streets of London to raise awareness for a London-based homeless charity.  In fact the online world is still ringing with plaudits for this generous, public-spirited act of self-imposed hardship.

Chances are, though, that you won’t remember the name of the charity he was supposed to be promoting.  Because the real reason for this cynical PR stunt was not to raise awareness of the plight of London’s homeless, but to raise awareness of just one very privileged young man.

His experience with road sweepers and cold pavements may have provided him with some amusing stories to tell his old school chums, but when the real benefits of his empty gesture are counted up they will amount to 10% of fuck all.

Meanwhile,  the plight of the Daylight Centre has slipped almost completely beneath the radar.  At the sharp end of Britain’s homelessness crisis, staff in Wellingborough will be serving up the last meals this evening for people who have absolutely nowhere else left to go.  For these people a night on the streets is not a jolly wheeze: it’s a way of life.

It costs £750 a day to keep the Daylight Centre open.  Yet in secret negotiations with the Treasury, William’s father was able to net himself an annual windfall of £700,000 a year by claiming the cost of William and Harry’s official “duties” against his personal tax allowance.  To have to point out the massive gulf between these two ends of the social spectrum is surely not necessary.

Anyone who is able to read this without felling a deep sense of disgust is as cynical as the spin doctors in the Buckingham Palace press office.  How much longer are we supposed to take all of the patronising crap about “charity work” from the Windsor family?

The next time you get the officially sanctioned bullshit about what a tremendous job the royals do, remember New Year’s Eve 2009.  Remember the homeless in Wellingborough, for whom life’s essentials of a hot meal and a warm bed have been denied for the want of the cost of a royal butler.

And then picture, if you can, a man who has had everything handed to him on a plate, who needs for nothing, and has never had to put his hand in his own pocket for any of it.  A man who thinks that a few hours of discomfort, under the watchful eye of his bodyguard, are enough to salve his privileged conscience.

William, when you celebrate New Year this evening, I hope you choke on your champagne.

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