Scruffy ways

SIR, - Our communal resolution for 2008 must surely be "to put all rubbish where it belongs" in an attempt to escape the truly humiliating label of "the scruffiest country in Europe" which we now deserve. Not just for domestic trash spilling into the street outside our homes, often for days before collection, but the casual discarding of packaging of every kind wherever we happen to be - even out of car windows.

No amount of street cleaning will cure this attitude. It is a serious anti-social problem and a national disgrace. Lax instruction at home or at school - plus the politically-correct inhibiting of any criticism of poor conduct - means that a defiant generation deliberately fouls its own environs, scrawls ugly graffiti or intimidates others with noise and vulgarity. Putting litter in a bin apparently reduces "street cred" yet we hear about "aggro due to being dissed" when insufficient respect is shown to a main man. So who runs this place now? Surely not the council?

Actually council tax payers are subsidising this arrogance which infects a wide age range from children to adults. However few senior citizens behave in such a way because they have known the value of discipline in their early years. For them contempt for authority is now growing because it seems to be too weak in the face of such challenges. If we are worried about global warming etc, then we must all realise our resolve is measured in our willingness to curb our careless ways, and the desecration of our planet is all too likely if we cannot be bothered to take the basic first steps to help its survival.

Next time you dispose of a fag-end or spit out gum or drop a carton, bottle, can or leaflet, remember, find a bin to put it in. Do this and in one month we shall see a difference - and regain some pride.

KEN PEAK,

London Colney Village Concern.