Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

It's a long time since I've lived in a city (70s and early 80s London) and a long time since I've lived in suburbia (80s Harrow) so when I do go back to those places it's a shock to see how much litter and mess there is.

Part is due, I'm sure, to council budget cuts meaning fewer staff and less street cleaning but also a lack of what the French call "civisme" which is taught in schools and usually, but not always, means you have basic manners and comportment and don't go messing in your home environment. Doesn't seem to work on graffiti in public spaces tho and doesn't stop holiday makers littering resorts, just chucking stuff out of car windows sometimes cos it's not their problem away from home.

 

Do they still salute you as you drive past.
I think I've got a key to their phone boxes somewhere.

 

I think the simple answer to litter is that many people nowadays no longer have any sense of responsibility. To their mind, there will always be someone else to take care of things. Doesn't just apply to litter either.
As for reminders of how old you are getting - IME you don't need much more than getting out of bed and looking at what you were going to do yesterday, last week or even last year

 

I think it was always the case though. I remember being taken out litter picking in a lay-by by a main road when a small child. The litter was pretty different - I was old enough to be able to read and I wondered for a long time what "milk of magnesia" was used for. Often you'd come across a whole newspaper which had separated its pages and blown all up and down the road - not so much now.

What has really changed is fast food - McDonald's opened it's first branch (in London) when I was still at school. Fast food was limited to fish and chips, which came wrapped in newspaper, and you did used to find chip wrappings and wooden forks discarded. Then of course there's all the supermarket "meal deals" with the accompanying quantity of chuckable plastic. I see a lot of disposable vapes too; but in the past there were cigarette butts absolutely everywhere you looked. I remember climbing up to a local scenic spot, standing by the monument there then looking down and being quite disgusted.

I'm not excusing the people who drop it - just pointing out that they have always done so. Otherwise we would never have needed the "Keep Britain Tidy" campaigns of the 1970s.

 

My children were taught from a very young age about litter. 'If there isn't a bin, put it in your pocket and bring it home' was my mantra. It's always been a 'thing' for me, ever since I was young, because my Mum gave me a row for having my pockets stuffed with rubbish, and it annoyed her as she then had to empty them before washing the jacket. I always forgot to empty them when I got home, but I could never understand why she criticised me for not just dropping it at my feet, when there wasn't a bin anywhere nearby, as was often the case. My children were also told that story, and I know they've not forgotten it, as they're the same as me about litter.
I see littering everywhere, and it's now in places you never saw it in the past, because there are people going into wilder, rural or mountainous areas, with no concept of the consequences of their disgusting behaviour.
We desperately need campaigns to get the message through to people, but would they see it? When I was young, the only source of info for anything was radio, TV or newspaper [and kids didn't look at those] so it would have to be social media or similar.
It comes down to parenting again though, and much as I admire people who litter pick, it doesn't solve the problem, because it's just enabling those morons to carry on doing it. 'ach, someone else'll clear it up....'

 

I've noticed an improvement in recent years. I walk along a road that has a McDonald's, and I used to get very annoyed by the amount of trash I came across. For a while the McFlurry cups were the biggest offenders, and I was tempted to gather them all up and march into the McDonald's with them. But I rarely see any now - either someone's litter picking it (I do see an old chap out with a picker sometimes - but I walk that route early in the morning so doubt he can clean the whole neighbourhood before I'm out), or people are getting better at disposing of it properly. There were some huge new litter bins installed a year or too back so maybe that's had an effect.

 

I like to think that most people still care and it's just population density that has caused more rubbish. The one I hate here is the amount of broken glass we have on our streets, it's never cleaned up and there for months. I pick some litter occassionally when I'm out on a dog walk but there aren't any bins around to deposit it in because the council removed most of them.
We have our 11th mcdonalds opening soon, despite the council's protests (they couldn't afford to fight it in court any longer) and it backs onto our local woodland, so it remains to be seen where all the rubbish will go.

 

So ... Angela Raynor has resigned. Whatever the details of this particular case, surely what it shows is the system is too complicated and allows those with money wiggle-room? Close all the loopholes and the black hole in the nation's finances would shrink dramatically.

 

I was vaguely aware of the higher %age Stamp Duty for 2nd home purchases but hadn't known about the Trust Fund get out prior to this recent debacle.
If A R has now resigned, I doubt the govt. will wish to enquire further. With one thing and another, their first year isn't going too well it would seem. I expect the Reform lot are loving it.

 

I expect they are also loving the fact the Greens have a new leader who has trouble with the concept "woman". That boat has sailed. Politicians seem unable to keep up with the public discourse on key topics.

 

I saw a statement from the government website on the TV yesterday and even I could decipher it, so it must have been in plain English.

It said that a house that you put in trust is still considered your property for tax purposes.

I dont think there is wriggle room, must admit I'd find the whole tax system hard reading but to these legal people its their job and you would expect someone in charge of housing to at least have an inkling about what is allowed and what isn't.

I dare say she will be back at some point, or even join Jeremy Corbin's answer to the monster raving loony party.

 

If she's had a mortgage based on her income that's now reduced how is she going to afford the repayments and if she's got the money where did it come from