It just annoyed those of us who were waiting for the next sentence. I also suggested yesterday that much of what happens on TV and radio may be explained by the leg-pull theory, by the impulse of producers to put one over on their controllers. and what is the reason for that?Miles Kington: I think both the restaurateur and the pub landlord are taking the mickey Can I carry on now?Reader: Sure.Thank you. A reader writes: What sort of odd, inexplicable pattern are you talking about, Mr Kington? Miles Kington writes: Well, for instance, the way in which people who run restaurants say that they make a profit only on the heavily marked- up wine, not on the food, whereas people who run pubs say they cannot make a profit on the drink, only on the food.The reader again: Hmmmm...

Yesterday I tentatively introduced a third way of thinking, a theory for when the other two have failed - the leg-pull theory. When things happen in odd, inexplicable patterns, it may be that somebody somewhere is taking the mickey. None the less, Ms Carey's view that soup "is the beginning, not the end", should not blind us to real need. Many of those who sleep rough have deep-seated troubles, including drink and drugs, and they may not want to go anywhere else. They have a lessened life-expectancy, but they do not starve, nor are they short of clothes The charities rightly see to that.We can, and we must, help But it is - as they say - a free country. People, including rough sleepers, and even at Christmas, have a right to go to Hell their own way.. PEOPLE, IT is said, divide into two classes: those who explain things by conspiracy theories and those who prefer the cock-up theory.

In a civilised country, help must be given, but it is help that will never cease to be needed. Many sleepers-out can be wooed into a regular off-street life; others will never be. The official estimate is that in England, 1,600 people sleep rough every night, between 600 and 700 of them in London From passing observation, this may seem an underestimate But compassion should be spiced with toughness. The Salvation Army makes its London soup run after midnight; otherwise it gives food to many people who come into the city centre for the day to beg, before catching the last bus home.To go back, as Tony Harrison did, to classical comparisons: this is a labour like Sisyphus's, for ever pushing a boulder uphill.

By now, pounds 250m of government money has been spent on hostel places and social work. Yesterday the Prime Minister gave a Christmas-time sales-pitch of his own Government's continuation of these policies. He unwrapped a new study carried out by the Environment Department's Rough Sleeping Unit, headed by Louise Casey. He also confirmed - for he came bearing no new money - that there will be more beds for them and more help for young people leaving council care.

Between a quarter and a third of those currently on the streets have been in council care at some point.So far, so good But this is a very tangled social knot. But the prime ministers who succeeded her, John Major as well as Tony Blair, realised the force of such imagery. A specific attempt must be made to get the sleepers off the streets. There was, of course, a clear, charitable impulse which should not be sold short. But in London especially, businessmen, shopkeepers and the tourism trade wanted to see the streets tidied up, and the Underground wanted sleepers and beggars out of the Tube stations.The Rough Sleeper Initiative was launched in 1991.