Rishi is finally cracking down on fly-tippers – here’s who he should go after next

With both parties seeking to crack down on street crime, Will Gore wonders if novel deterrents could be the answer

Sight for sore eyes: a fly-tipping site near Erith in Kent (PA Archive)

Antisocial behaviour is a perennial favourite of campaigning politicians – even if some of them have hardly set the best example in recent years.

In among the jousting over the economy, healthcare and immigration policy, crime has not had much of a look-in so far in the current election battle, but Rishi Sunak did make a couple of headlines last week for his plans to tackle fly-tipping. “Everyone”, he said, “has the right … to feel a sense of pride in the place they call home.” And that’s why fly-tippers will, if the Tories are re-elected, face getting points on their driving license if they don’t change their ways.

When I was a boy, I thought fly-tipping was a prank you could play on a bluebottle. The reality is less jolly (except for bluebottles), and there is something strikingly grim about meandering down a country track only to find a huge pile of rubbish blocking your way.

But will Rishi’s plan work? After all, fly-tipping is already illegal, and councils can already impose a £1,000 fine. Large-scale dumping can result in an unlimited fine by the courts and a prison sentence. Yet local authorities currently deal with over a million fly-tipping incidents a year, which rather suggests the litter louts are not deterred – if indeed they are even being caught.

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said the policy was just “empty words from a chaotic Tory party” which had “let antisocial behaviour run rampant”. Labour says it will put 13,000 neighbourhood police officers and PCSOs on the street to actually catch criminals, which sounds like a good start. They will also bring in “respect orders” – punishments similar to Blair-era Asbos – so any crims who are still partying like it’s 1999 had better watch out.

Still, there is something about the novelty of giving fly-tippers points on their driving licences which I rather like. After all, it potentially tackles the problem at its source: if you can’t drive a van, you’ll struggle to shift a ton of rubble and old tyres. Any fly-tipper who is resolute enough simply to switch to a wheelbarrow would deserve grudging admiration.

In any case, if Dominic Cummings is to be believed, there isn’t enough thinking outside the box in British politics, so at least this feels like an effort to try something different. Then again, the same could be said about sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, which is hardly an argument in favour of blue-sky thinking.

Still, when it comes to antisocial behaviour, novel deterrents could be the way forward. If driving licence points work for fly-tippers, perhaps those who merrily tie bags of dog poo to trees could face the prospect of cleaning public lavatories by way of punishment. Alternatively, they could be added to a register banning dog ownership – there are too many canines knocking about these days anyway.

As for people who persist in using obscene language in public, there could be enforced periods of silence, enforced by waspish librarians. Repeat offenders could then have their mouths washed out with soap.

Graffiti is a trickier area, given the quality displayed by some graffiti artists. After all, a concrete underpass is vastly improved by a lively paint job. So perhaps the point here is simply to raise standards. If your graffiti is good, you can have a blank wall and some free spray cans; but if it’s not up to scratch, or if you’re just leaving a trail of tags, then it’s off to fine art school for some lessons in how to draw. Banksy can be judge and jury – though of course, he’ll have to hand down his sentences from behind a screen to preserve his anonymity.

MPs have long had their own rules to ensure they behave properly, but in light of recent lapses, there may be room here too for some novel responses to antisocial activity. People who attend lockdown parties, for instance, might be banned from eating jelly, cake and ice cream for a decade. And those who get boorish in the Strangers Bar will have to write 1,000 lines to be presented to the speaker of the House, then pinned up in Central Lobby: “I promise I will not be a plonker when I drink too much plonk.”

Finally, there should be a way to deal with those who come up with dumb policy proposals. On 4 July, there might just be.