Let the State clear up after me
Why, asks Dalrymple, are Britain’s councils and its highways agency
so negligent?
Local public administration
is incapable of organising street-cleaning properly, and does not see it as an important part of its duty. After all, it has chief executives to pay.
Why do the British
turn practically every road into a ribbon development of the rubbish dump of a Latin American town?
England’s streets are
by far the dirtiest in Western Europe. A Briton’s street is his dining room and litter bin.
The English seem to think that
what a beauty spot really needs is an empty, glaring-orange Lucozade bottle.
Circumambient slovenliness
The explanation lies, Dalrymple points out, in the deep selfishness of the British.
In order not to litter when it might be convenient to you to do so, you have to appreciate that you are not the only person in the world, that the world is not made just for your convenience.
If you look at the British,
you would think they were like shrews, that they have to eat twice their own body weight every few hours to survive. It is hardly surprising that people who exert no control over when and where they eat exert no control over where they leave the remains.
It is no coincidence that the British,
being the dirtiest people in Europe, are also the fattest.
