Joe Lycett trolls Suella Braverman for depicting homelessness as ‘lifestyle choice’
Joe Lycett slammed Suella Braverman for depicting homelessness as a “lifestyle choice” like choosing whether to ‘decorate a bathroom with a bowl of potpourri’. The comedian asked people to donate to Crisis via an image of potpourri on Instagram. (Getty)
Joe Lycett has ripped into Home Secretary Suella Braverman after she described rough sleeping as a “lifestyle choice”.
In a thread shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, Braverman claimed many rough sleepers are “from abroad” and that “living on the streets as a lifestyle choice”. She also alleged that British cities would see “an explosion of crime, drug taking and squalor” if action were not taken.
Lycett issued an epic takedown of Braverman’s remarks while also launching a fundraising campaign for Crisis UK, the national charity for people experiencing homelessness.
The comedian particularly called out Braverman for describing rough sleeping as a “lifestyle choice” when he “always thought” such decisions included whether or not to put out potpourri in a loo.
He accompanied his takedown with a picture of an aforementioned bowl of potpourri, asking folks to donate to Crisis.
“My old friend Suella Braverman has described rough sleeping as a ‘lifestyle choice’,” he wrote on Instagram.
“I always thought lifestyle choices were things such as cargo pants, fishing and decorating your bathroom with a bowl of potpourri.
“Let’s see if this image I found on Google described as ‘Wooden Botanical Fragrant Potpourri Bowl With Lemon’ can raise £50,000 for homelessness charity [Crisis UK].”
The campaign has raised over £14,200 at the time of publication.
Upon discovering the fundraising effort, Crisis issued a heartfelt: “Thank you so much Joe!”
Crisis also condemned Braverman’s comments in a post on X, writing that “sleeping on the streets is not a lifestyle choice”.
“We don’t have nearly enough affordable homes and rents are soaring, leaving people destitute and forced to sleep rough,” the charity wrote.
Crisis highlighted that people sleeping rough “often face violence and abuse”, which has a “significant” impact on their physical and mental health.
Homelessness charity Shelter slammed Braverman’s “unacceptable” comments on X and made it clear that “living on the streets is not a ‘lifestyle choice’ – it is a sign of failed government policy”.
“No one should be punished for being homeless,” Shelter wrote. “Criminalising people for sleeping in tents, and making it an offence for charities to help them, is unacceptable.”
This isn’t the first time that Joe Lycett has trolled Suella Braverman.
In October, the comedian crafted a hilarious spoof letter to mock Braverman after the home secretary after she argued that “simply being gay” should not be enough to gain protection via asylum-seeking for refugees, under international law.
She later claimed people were lying to be LGBTQ+ to enter the UK.
In Lycett’s spoof letter, he joked that he “devised a plan that will eradicate all those fake sausage-noshers” and “massively reduce successful asylum seekers”. Lycett said the fake plan was that all immigrants would be excluded from the UK “UNLESS they can prove that they are gay (to me)”.
