The Home Secretary has decided I’m not a person

Slightly disquieting to start a Sunday discovering the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has decided I’m no longer (or perhaps never was?) a person, but there you go. The reason? I’ve been know to be out after midnight in Hackney and – shock, horror – to be walking along the street. Apparently, no real people actually do this, as she explains to today’s Sunday Times:

In the interview, Smith, the first woman home secretary, was asked whether she would feel safe walking on her own around Hackney at midnight. She replied: “Well, no, but I don’t think I’d ever have done. You know, I would never have done that, at any point during my life.” Asked why not, she answered: “Well, I just don’t think that’s a thing that people do, is it, really?”

Slightly more worrying than discovering that I am therefore not a person, I also realise I must be seriously ill – because I could have sworn I’ve seen quite a few other people walking around too. Anyone know a good cure for large-scale, life-like hallucinations?

Bad luck too if you’ve got a job that finishes after midnight; I guess you can’t be a real person either unless you have a car on the doorstep to leap straight into without a trace of walking.

P.S. It is perhaps no surprise that the Sunday Times also reports, “After the interview, a worried aide called The Sunday Times saying the wording had not come out as the home secretary had intended.”