Video: a person sleeping rough outside legendary tax-dodgers Starbucks in the Stratford Centre on Friday. Hope Newham Council does not slap an Asbo on this person.

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Ok. Today, I will give you an example of our one-rule-for-the-rich-and-one-rule-for-everyone-else society in action:

Almost to the day that Maria Miller gave her non-apology for ripping taxpayers off for a house and her own financial gain, I stood outside Newham council’s housing offices with a group of young people who were there to plead for accommodation. Some of the young people were Focus E15 mothers, the group of young women who lived or still live at the Focus E15 hostel in the mother-and-baby unit and have been campaigning for social housing in the borough. Others were young people who aren’t parents, but who live in other parts of the Focus E15 hostel and are worried about eviction.

So. It was pretty hard not to think about the rank hypocrisy of the political class as I stood with this group of people outside Newham’s housing offices. There’s so much of this hypocrisy around now that you actually find yourself watching it unfold live. You can stand in a London street reading updates on Maria Miller’s meaningless “apology” on your phone while a group of people who have no money plead with council officers for homes. This is the time and place we’re in. We live in a society that is constructed entirely of double standards. Maria Miller has money – a lot of it ours, it would seem. The young people outside Newham housing offices on Friday, on the other hand, don’t have money. They have no money and no connections. Some of them have “problem” histories. They are dismissed because of those things. They are young, but will be dismissed forever because of those things. This double standard will finish us all if you ask me. Maria Miller gets the warm support of David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith and a wee slap on the wrist for hoovering an incredible amount for her second home (and so what if she is ultimately sacked or demoted. She’ll be back. These people are never sacked). By comparison, the young people campaigning for housing outside Newham council on Friday regularly get called sluts (because some of them have babies), wasters and layabouts and told that they’ve done nothing to deserve a roof.

I’ve heard variations on that theme ever since I started writing about the Focus E15 mothers’ campaign. Worthies at this recent women’s event asked me, for example, if I really thought that the young campaigners deserved social housing. Did I really think that would be the best thing for them? The concern seemed to be that housing these “poor” people securely would awaken the dreaded, so-called sense of entitlement in them. Of course – no mention was or is ever made of the startling (and poisonous) sense of entitlement that people like Maria Miller have. You never hear about that. Ever. You only ever hear about the greedy, grasping, aggressive poor who will take an inch and then a mile and then your wallet. It’s the double standard that gets me. The double standard is unreal.

Anyway. Off these young people went to Newham council housing offices on Friday to find out where the young mothers’ housing applications were at. People were also keen to find out exactly who was going to benefit from the council’s most recent property wheeze. Newham council has just announced plans to set up a company to build homes for private rent. People wanted to know how affordable any “affordable” rents in that project will be, exactly what sort of help people on low incomes will get to pay to live in them, if any of the housing will be social housing and if people on benefits will get places (Newham council prioritises people who are in work ahead of people who are not in work for housing). I’d ask the council these questions myself, except that it refuses to talk to me.

As the group approached the housing offices, the council locked the office doors.

Which of course was very frustrating for people. People are getting pretty desperate about housing. They want to know when, where and if they will be housed. They don’t want to meet with slammed doors. They want problems solved. They want a chance to speak. They know damn well that queuing politely gets you nowhere if you’re Nobody. You have to show up with a few banners and friends, and make noise. If you’re an MP with fancy connections, you just help yourself to expenses. I have my own theories re: why the council tried to keep the group out on Friday. I think it’s because these young people strike too deep a chord with people who are in the same situation. Last time the Focus E15 mothers occupied these housing offices for an hour or two, the waiting room was full of people who were very worried about their own housing problems. Some were homeless. Some said they were being sent out of London to live – miles away from anyone they knew. One woman cried as she explained that she had nowhere to go. People started to talk to the mothers as the women unfurled their protest banners in the room. Some people even applauded the protest group as they went off to their own appointments with housing officers.

There were shades of that sort of connection again on Friday. I don’t mean that in a wet leftie, Group Hug sense, either. I just mean that connections are made every time this group goes out. That puts the wind up the political class very badly. As I say, some of the young protestors on Friday were Focus E15 mothers. Others were not from the mothers’ campaign. They were young people who live in Focus E15, but not in the mother-and-baby-unit. They said they’ve been told they must leave the hostel. They said, as many do, that Focus E15 could be a harsh place – heavy security on the door, regular visits from the police, a lot of residents who’ve had problems with drink, drugs and homelessness, – but it was still a place to live. They wondered where they’d go when made to leave. Here’s one young woman asking council officers why she’d received an eviction notice. She was very worried about finding a place to live and being able to afford a place to live.

“Where am I going to live? How am I going to afford to pay for somewhere to live?” These are questions plenty of people are asking. I suppose there’s one easy answer to them – if you can’t house yourself and you’re worried about money, just stand for public office and climb aboard the expenses gravy train. You can house the whole family if you feel like it. Live the Maria Miller dream.

Your other option is to make sure you’re born into royalty, or marry into it. That way, you can get a palace and upgrade it.

If you can’t arrange those things – well, I guess you can just piss off.

Pity most of us are in that category.

Video: Focus E15 mothers ask council officers for social housing: