'Uncivilised' Britain needs ‘crackdown’ on spitting, e-scooters and music on public transport claims MP

Shot showing legs of a person on an e-scooter on  a path
-Credit: (Image: Getty Images)


Britain is a “disorderly” and “uncivilised” place to live and clampdowns are needed on some of society's biggest bugbears, according to a Leicestershire MP. Neil O’Brien has called for a “crackdown on spitting”, “action” to stop e-bikes being ridden on pavements and a “national ban” on playing music aloud on public transport.

The Conservative MP for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston said in an article on Substack that the “most under-discussed and under-appreciated” thing in politics was the “unrealised desire” of people to live in a “civilised, orderly society”. That, he said, was something “often promised” by those in charge, but which had “not been delivered” in his lifetime.

He blamed politicians on both the left and right for the apparent failure, saying his own party was “culpable” as it “prioritised other things more”, while Labour was “far too quick to tolerate dangerous behaviour” if perpetrators could tell a “sob story”, he claimed.

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Mr O’Brien said he felt that there was “a lot of direct suffering from low-level disorder” and from the “loss of civilised standards". He asked: “How many people reading this have heard people playing obnoxious music on public transport and weighed up saying something, versus the risk of trouble if you do?

“How many people have got used to frequently smelling cannabis on the streets of London and our other cities? How often do you see graffiti in a day?”

Conservative candidate Neil O'Brien
Conservative MP Neil O'Brien

He went on to suggest a number of things that he believed could be done to deliver “pleasant, civilised and nice” places to live.

He called for:

  • A national ban on playing music out loud on all public transport, enforced with more staff onboard and large and instant fines until the norm is changed.

  • The end of “street scars” (where sections of paving have been repaired with different materials to the wider pavement) which make our streets look messy and disorderly.

  • The end of ‘box blight’, in which phone boxes and street furniture are covered in graffiti and stickers.

  • a crackdown on spitting – which is endemic in bits of London.

  • the setting of a galvanising national goal to reduce the amount of litter.

  • the planting of trees in every residential street in the country where this is remotely possible.

  • a national push to clean up all the graffiti in the country, catch more of those who do it and give them more serious sentences.

  • a push for and the incentivisation of the vernacular replacement of ugly buildings (increasingly common across Europe).

  • councils to sort empty shops (including using rental auction powers in LURA 2023).

  • councils and housing associations to sort dumping of fridges / mattresses / broken cars in gardens.

  • action to stop e-bikes and scooters being stolen / ridden on pavements.

  • requirements that public e-scooters should be of the docking station variety, rather than scooters being simply dumped across pavements.

  • councils to sort derelict or unsightly buildings, including more aggressive use of Section 78 (requiring property owners to make the building safe or allowing the council to take emergency action to do so) and EDMOs (Empty Dwelling Management Orders).

  • more use of notice to complete on stalled building sites.

  • a push for hotspot policing everywhere and shift from reactive to preventative policing – plus reconsideration of PCSOs (Police Community Support Officers) vs officer balance.

  • actual enforcement of the law on cannabis.

Mr O’Brien further claimed a “disorderly society” was a pathway to “crime and really serious disorder”, but said he felt that “elites” were “programmed” to think pushing for a more orderly society was “silly” or “cringe”.

He said: “Above all, I think the idea of doing things that would make Britain more orderly is just regarded as uncool, cringey or naff. Instead, today’s elites still valorise people like Banksy, whose work is painfully obvious and trite.”