We know it is wrong, even undignified, that some people have no option other than to depend on soup runs in order to survive. On that, there can be little disagreement with Tory-run Westminster Council.
But its plan to ban a charity-run soup kitchen on council land outside Westminster Cathedral (pictured) has more than a whiff of spite and nastiness.
Oddly, the council's move is supported by some other homelessness charities, including Thames Reach and St Mungo's, although not the Coombe Trust, which provides the sustenance.
Surprising is Thames Reach's reaction, which last year highlighted the shocking desperation of the rough sleepers who resorted to eating rats. It says street handouts do little to help in the long-term.
Westminster maintains that the soup runs "attract" homeless people to the borough, as if they were economic migrants. What will Westminster claim next? That there is selfish and excessive demand for gluten-free minestrone?
The basic human rights laid down by Unesco are food, clothing and shelter; the Coombe Trust aims to help fulfil the first of those. If Westminster, with the help of homelessness charities, fulfilled the third, the demand for the soup runs would reduce naturally.
Currently, the Coombe Trust is performing a duty which, one must assume, is very much in keeping with the ambitions of David Cameron's Big Society vision - a voluntary organisation doing the work that local authorities cannot be bothered or cannot afford to do.
But Westminster, which is attempting to give the impression of being cruel to be kind when it is just being cruel, is doing its best to kill the Big Society a mile from 10 Downing Street.
It's being strangled at birth on your doorstep, Dave, and even the Daily Mail is appalled. It must be bad.
Picture: Glenn Copus/Evening Standard/Rex Features
