Britain is a crime scene

27 Mar

That I write so little about the domestic affairs of my own country is down to lack of time, not of interest or concern. Sometimes I yearn to shed political writing altogether. And do what? Why, augment my pictorial essays on walks and canoe trips with ethnomethodological musings, of course!

Near the end of a Friday spent walking the banks of the Soar with Tebay, I rounded a bend on a country lane near Sawley to be greeted by this.

Naturally I was outraged. Who wouldn’t be? The contempt for their fellows of the offenders – small time builders by the look of things, since the big contractors couldn’t get away with it and it wouldn’t be worth them trying – is staggering.

But if we set aside our feelings for a moment, and ask how – as a matter of practicality – this could end overnight, the answer is clear. Stop charging White Van Man for using the local tip. Reverse this insane drive by the few to monetise everything, at costs beyond measure to the many.

The true crime scene is neoliberal Britain.

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6 Replies to “Britain is a crime scene

  1. You are absolutely right. And this kind of dumping is the least of our worries which run the gamut to include such things as child prostitution, human trafficking all the way to shop lifting. And of course wars of aggression. Neo-liberalism is designed by criminals to produce crime.

    • Interesting example, shoplifting. As far back as the sixties I recall reading of a store which, finding its losses to this high risk/low gain offence to be below the sector average, concluded that its goods weren’t accessible enough to tempt customers. It made said goods more available, hired a store detective and, bingo, both shoplifting and profits went up!

  2. Ha! And on a lighter note (and I’m feeling much in need of lighter notes at the moment): I mentioned in conversation recently to an American friend that I had passed a No Fly Tipping notice, and she asked, much puzzled, why we Brits needed to be told not to give gratuities to insects…

    • I’m reminded of the film and album ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ with Arlo Guthrie (Woody’s son) where he avoided the (Vietnam) draft because he’d been previously charged, along with his hippie accomplices, of illegally fly tipping in the Town Dump (fined and told to clear up the mess) and was therefore not of fit character to serve in the military.

      It seems to be a common feature in the UK which is not limited to the legendary ‘White Van Man.’ I’ve seen household goods, including kids toys, dumped in a ditch in the countryside more than once. On one occasion, during a walk which took us above the Strines reservoir we encountered a pile of builders rubbish in the middle of the road between the rear of Moscar Top and Ughill.

      It seems to be ingrained in the DNA the amount of rubbish one sees in the street in the UK. To the point where on a visit to India two years ago it was obvious the British had been there. Even the tracks of the ‘toy train’ through Himalayan foothills up to Shimla were strewn with plastic and other detritus.

      Conversely, back in 2017 the sum total of a weeks observation in Moscow and St. Petersburg were three tab ends.

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