A new Big Issue for campaigners

Petersfield's less than popular Big Issue seller could be on the move - if campaigners have their way.

The seller, known to shoppers as Mona, regularly entertains visitors to Rams Walk with a high-pitched Eastern European roma song along the lines of "Beeeg Eeeeshu pleeeease".

But she is being targeted by HATE (Homeowners Against The Europeans) who want a local - preferably white, middle-class - homeless person to take the job.

"Charity begins at home," declared Colonel Jeremy Bufton-Tufton (retd), president of HATE.

"If we must have a homeless person begging on our streets, it should be a homeless person who lives in Petersfield.

"The sight of a raggle-taggle, down-at-heel woman sitting at the edge of the Square does not really present the right image to visitors, and her wailing can be quite frightening.

"If a few lefties actually want to support charities like the Big Issue, then we could surely make it available in WH Smith. But if it really does have to be sold on the street, then we should insist the seller's general appearance and, most importantly, their skin tone match the surroundings in a respectable Hampshire market town."

Selina Pert of PYM (Petersfield Yummy Mummies) added her insubstantial weight to the campaign, saying: "Mona's whinging selling style is simply too much to bear when I'm enjoying a skinny latte outside Caffe Nero - she should go. There are plenty of young students who could sell the Big Issue at weekends to help pay for their ski trips."

Petersfield haberdasher Matt Tress said: "I don't care who sells the bloody thing - the big issue as far as I'm concerned is to keep a steady flow of traffic past my shop..."

Nobody from the British National Party was available for comment.