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Keep Britain Tidy has launched the UK's largest ever litter picking campaign, designed to get the country looking its best for Her Majesty's 90th birthday on the 21st of April.
Shame on those 'liberals' who rubbish efforts to clean Britain for the Queen
By Toby Young For The Daily Mail
When I went on Twitter to ask for volunteers to help me pick up litter in Acton Park, West London, this weekend, I was surprised by the ferocity of the response.
It was as if I’d asked people to join me on a badger cull.
‘I’d rather bash my head in with a toaster,’ tweeted Kieran Polland, a Scottish student, adding a profanity for emphasis.
‘Are you Harry Hill?’ said one person, referring to the TV comedian. ‘Your jokes need more work.’
The mistake I’d made was to include a reference to Clean for the Queen, the national effort to get Britain looking its best in time for the Queen’s 90th birthday and which kicks off this weekend.
For many people, myself included, this is an inspiring campaign. This Saturday and Sunday, you can expect to see lots of well-known public figures picking up litter on the evening news, from the Prime Minister down.
Hate
It would be an exaggeration to say the campaign has united the nation, but the range of people joining in is impressive.
Community groups, local authorities, High Street retailers like John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, McDonald’s and Greggs, schools, boy scouts, girl guides, the Women’s Institute — they’re all making a concerted effort to tidy up Britain.
There’s even a Clean for the Queen event taking place in Ambridge on The Archers this weekend.
‘I would rather swim in sewage than clean for the Queen,’ screamed the headline above an article by Michele Hanson, columnist for the Left-leaning Guardian newspaper.
‘This single image is enough to make me want to empty my bins across the road,’ tweeted Jay Rayner, the restaurant critic for its sister paper the Observer, above an image of Boris Johnson in his ‘Clean for the Queen’ hi-viz vest. What has upset these republican firebrands is the very idea that anyone should be asked to do something for the Queen.
According to them, that involves treating people like subjects rather than citizens and reinforces the worst aspects of the English class system in which people are expected to follow the commands of their social superiors, including picking up rubbish.
Needless to say, it doesn’t occur to these bien pensant liberals, living in their £2 million homes in Camden Town, that they are the ruling class of today or that, in ordering people to boycott this campaign, they sound far more like the arrogant toffs of yesteryear than the Queen ever could.
Nor does it cross their minds that the main beneficiaries of Clean for the Queen (www.cleanforthequeen.co.uk) will be ordinary people who don’t have the luxury of a 100 ft garden or a cottage in the Cotswolds.
It’s not the posh areas of Britain that are getting buried beneath a mountain of litter, but the neglected corners.
Last year, 30 million tons of rubbish were collected from England’s streets — enough to fill Wembley Stadium four times over. For the most part, that litter was collected from places like Rotherham, Ipswich and Stoke, not Hampstead, Islington or Chelsea.
In 2013-14, local authorities dealt with 852,000 fly-tipping incidents in England and Wales. Chances are, those old mattresses, discarded TVs and cardboard boxes full of rotting food weren’t piled up on the doorsteps of well-to-do Guardian columnists.
Litter is one of those issues, like immigration, that doesn’t really affect the metropolitan elite, which is why they don’t regard it as a problem. No, they’d prefer to sneer at efforts to tidy up Britain, rather than roll up their sleeves and get stuck in.
I know from my own experience how unfashionable it is to care about keeping our streets clean. Eight years ago, when I first moved to Acton, I appointed myself the unofficial litter monitor on my street.
Every evening, you can see me with a pair of Marigold gloves on, picking up fast-food containers, empty cigarette packets and discarded tissues.
I hoped I would lead by example, with the local population becoming more conscientious as they saw me hard at work, but I’ve been disappointed.
Instead, people stare at me, clutching a plastic bag and trying to scrape a piece of chewing gum off the pavement, as if I’ve got a screw loose. What kind of lunatic picks up other people’s rubbish?
It’s not an exaggeration to say that in some parts of Britain it has become more socially unacceptable to pick up litter than it has to drop it.
And woe betide the brave citizen who actually confronts the louts doing the littering.
Not so long ago, I would always greet the sight of someone tossing aside an empty crisp packet or a Coca-Cola can with the same standard response: ‘Excuse me, I think you dropped something.’
Poisoned
But after nearly getting thumped half a dozen times, and at the advanced age of 51, I no longer risk it. Instead, I simply pick up whatever it is they’ve dropped, smile at them, and put it in the nearest public bin.
Cue the usual fusillade of dirty looks, as if I’ve just poisoned the atmosphere instead of doing something to clean it up.
One of the things that drives me up the wall is when Lefties blame Britain’s litter problem on ‘the cuts’.
‘If litter is a problem, [a] big reason is cuts,’ announced another Left-wing newspaper columnist in a tweet last weekend. ‘So enough gurning Tories with rubbish claws, brooms, etc.’
“Those on the metropolitan Left, who claim to care so much about helping the less fortunate, should also get out there this weekend ”
Cuts? What about the yobs who drop the stuff in the first place? Absolutely nothing to do with them, I suppose! It’s typical of a certain kind of metropolitan liberal to assume that the only solution when it comes to cleaning up our streets is for the state to spend more money, rather than encourage people to be a bit more civic-minded.
In fact, dealing with the mountain of litter piling up on our beaches and roadsides is precisely something for which groups of volunteers can take responsibility, rather than relying on cash-strapped local authorities.
If we’re going to stop living beyond our means and bring down the deficit, picking up litter is exactly the kind of area where cuts should be made.
Tireless
Clean for the Queen is the Big Society in action, a great example of how a volunteer army can take on responsibility for a vital public service and do a better job than the state.
Where the Government can help is by insisting that shops charge for items that people are far too willing to toss aside, such as plastic bags. That’s a measure that was introduced last year, thanks to a tireless campaign by the Daily Mail.
Beyond that, it’s our responsibility to keep our country tidy — and, frankly, I don’t care whether you do that as a citizen or a subject.
Personally, I’m delighted to have the opportunity to do something for the Queen, after the devoted service she’s provided to this country, and I’m sure millions of others will be, too.
But those on the metropolitan Left, who claim to care so much about helping the less fortunate, should also get out there this weekend.
If they spend half-an-hour of their precious time picking up litter, they’ll be doing far more to help ‘the community’ they claim to care so much about than when they sit in their private members’ clubs in Soho, moaning about the monarchy.
Litter is a blight on our green and pleasant land — and it’s time we all put party politics aside and did something about it.
So if any of them would care to join me, I’ll be assembling my team in Acton Park at 3pm on Sunday. All comers welcome — I’ll even bring some Che Guevara T-shirts for those who can’t bring themselves to wear a ‘Clean for the Queen’ vest.
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