Gum control

Atax on chewing gum sounds a thoroughly good idea. But like the nasty stuff itself, the appeal grows less the more you chew it over. True, chewing gum is accursed matter. There may be worse things, but it isn’t easy to think of any at the moment you discover the sole of one shoe irremediably attached to your favourite Tabriz rug. It’s little better when your finger runs up against a lump stuck by one careful owner under the edge of a table. But what will a tax do? Just as London’s congestion charge did not reduce congestion, so a tax will not cure the murrain of gum blighting every public surface. Worse, it might make users think they have paid for its disposal, so they will jolly well dispose of it wherever their degraded tastes suggest. No, criminal fines would be better, enforced by a crack chewing-gum constabulary.