GOING off the flippancy of Environment Minister Michael Meacher's reply to Burnley MP Peter Pike's call for action to end the mess caused by discarded chewing gum in our streets and public places - "I am certainly not stuck up on these kind of problems" - it looks like we are stuck with this pest (and the gobbed-out gum) for the foreseeable future.

But why should the rest of society have to endure this nuisance?

All the talk about making a biodegradable gum for moronic cud-chewers so our streets are no longer spattered with eyesore filth is simply pandering to the disgusting anti-social behaviour that is at the root of the problem.

Fine 'em instead?

Oh, yeah - when was the last time you saw anyone up in court for any kind of littering?

If the government is already upset that the Old Bill aren't nicking enough muggers, you are going to wait a while for the bubble gum mob's turn to get done for the mucky mosaic outside McDonald's.

But there is an answer. Why not ban the stuff - like the no-nonsense government in ultra-clean and well-ordered Singapore has done?

No-one's going to die without it; it creates a huge and expensive environmental problem and in its small, but still-real way, it contributes to the dissipated yob culture that this country has too much of already.

Will the Mr Meacher chew on that - or is it too much like common sense for his frivolous approach to such problems?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.