This piece specifically says the Pet Shop Boys were reacting to Young's remark while he was serving under John Major. Which ties in with my memory that it was about twenty years ago, when I was living in London; I remember it made me think that the Tories underestimated the gravity of the crisis over homelessness because they disliked public transport (rail and Tube stations being the places where I was stepping over the homeless every day) and only encountered them outside the opera.