Hi brian, your conclusion has moved from suggesting this verges on the criminal to a stronger position of it being criminal. What changed to shift your view? Personal experience or what you’ve heard and/or read?

I found myself chatting with one of the women last Saturday. We’ve acknowledged each other for quite a few years now. We smile and say Hello. I said to her that I was disheartened to see her still on the street selling The Big Issue. I wondered where she saw her life was going because it seemed to me that she’d been doing this on and off for almost 5 years. I said it must be a boring and unfulfilling endeavour.

She shrugged my concerns off and I felt that our longest conversation ever was at an end.