3mo ago

Tory MP launches plan to 'make Britain vaguely civilised again' - BBC News

www.bbc.com Tory MP launches plan to 'make Britain vaguely civilised again' - BBC News

Neil O'Brien's ideas include big fines for playing music on transport and a crackdown on spitting.

His list of proposals include:
Action to stop e-bikes and scooters being ridden on pavements
An end to 'street scars', where gaps in street paving are replaced with tarmac
A "galvanising" national goal to reduce the amount of litter
Councils to sort dumping of fridges, mattresses and broken cars
Action to stop phone boxes and street furniture being covered in graffiti

What a bastard /s.

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It's almost as if he's annoyed by the total decimation of local services that used to be able to handle such things his party has brought about since 2009.
- Local services is part of it, but I also think there's a lack of communication around safe, considerate societal behaviour. For example: There used to be PSAs all over the TV, but there's nothing now. We don't need to go back to 70s one that traumatised kids but some common understanding of what's accepted is missing.
  Guess the death of broadcast media doesn't help.
  
  Are kids even taught manners in school anymore either? People see this stuff as backwards, but it goes a long way in making a better society.
  
  Admittedly, I don't take the train or bus anywhere near as much as I used to, but when I did there were always poster adverts about being respectful towards other riders and staff. Have those gone away, or is it that there is another influence supplanting that messaging?
  Perhaps phones being much more engaging that people actually spend a lot less time reading the PSAs and adverts around them?
  In a weirdly similar way, I remember pre COVID there used to be so many more drivers that would be blasting music with their windows down that it rarely deserved a second thought. It's much more rare to hear it nowadays, to the extent that when I do, it seems so much more obnoxious.

Literally all of these things are because of his governments decision to cut funding from everything.
People riding bikes on the pavement because there are no safe bike lanes for them to be in, either because there are no bike lanes at all, or because there are cars parked in the bike lanes because the law is not enforced.
Pavements get replaced with tarmac because local councils don't have money to do it properly.
There's a huge amount of litter on the streets because local councils don't have the money to clean it up and also because there's no bins anymore.
There's so much graffiti everywhere because there's no police. There is police because there's no funding.

Whilst these are all problems that it would be great to solve, I feel the vast majority of the public want to see politicians proposing ways to deal with more significant issues.
To me, this sounds like a list of things they feel the older generation dislikes strongly. They want to retain that base as much as possible so they'll put out statements like this ones without having, I suspect, much desire to follow through if and when they do have some power.
But I'm happy to be proven wrong on that.

"including "large and instant fines" for passengers playing music on public transport"
I hope he means people playing music without headphones, otherwise I'll be screwed.
I do dislike people playing music or watching tiktok so I could get on board with this. Not sure how it would be enforced though.
- A lot of (all of what he's suggesting) is nice in principle but totally unenforceable.
  Instead of fines, he'd do better to improve social respect and pride in your community at a young age such that you grow up considerate of other people you have to share a community with. But that will probably be decried as child abuse or something.
  
  It's also funny that the tories are the party of small government so they'll likely outsource it to some poor sap from G4S or similar.
- What does an instant fine mean anyway?
  Like they have to pay it on the bus they're not allowed to get off until they've paid the fine.

Tory MP launches plan to 'make Britain vaguely civilised'
Is he going to take all his colleagues and fuck off somewhere else?
- Can I propose Rwanda. Apparently its very safe now so the tories should have a great time.
  Ps sorry Rwandans but your government was the ones dealing with them. So you sorta deserve them.

Brilliant idea. I'm sure he'll be the first to sign up to work for the council or the police for free.

All of that would have required his party not having cut council funding to the bone and then off at the knees.

Beware of the miasma that spills forth from litter. Makes ya ill, see? Clogs up the social body or something

Go back to the original red phone boxes.

Action to stop e-bikes and scooters being ridden on pavements
So he's gonna push investment in cycling infrastructure, right?

An end to 'street scars', where gaps in street paving are replaced with tarmac
Can't wait to get to see where he gets the money to replace all the missing granite slabs around Leeds, never mind whatever expensive materials other cities were originally built with
A "galvanising" national goal to reduce the amount of litter
So he's going to push installing more public bins, right?

Councils to sort dumping of fridges, mattresses and broken cars
They... they do. Like you have to request it but they'll send a truck round to collect them.
Action to stop phone boxes and street furniture being covered in graffiti
Oh come the fuck on, the graffiti is the only decoration we have left.
- Councils to sort dumping of fridges, mattresses and broken cars
  This seems to be a standard attack strategy of Tories. 30p kept going on about it before he got kicked out of the party.
  It's like they think It's everyone's number one concern or something. It's really weird.

why does this read like a monster raving loony manifesto?

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