TIDY Britain chief Professor Graham Ashworth states a manifest truth today when he says our streets are full of litter because litter louts are allowed to get away with it.

For, as new Home Office figures show, set against an annual clean-up of £320 million for England alone, the fact that fewer than 500 people were prosecuted last year for littering amounts to disgraceful complacency by the authorities - almost to the level of tolerance of widespread law-breaking.

But why should council tax payers pick up the enormous tab for it.

Surely the police and councils, who have the power to issue on-the-spot fines, have a duty to act on their behalf - and to get much more tough.

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