Bin city: mountains of rubbish fill Leicester Square in 1979
(Picture: PA Photos / TopFoto)I’m considering running for mayor. Slogan: ‘Make London Filthy Again.’
It will be a short, sharp, single-issue campaign aimed at mobilising the unhygienic vote. Time to get back to basics: rats, squalor, decay. Muck the place up a bit. Okay, it might not have the same purchase as ‘Take Back Control’ or ‘Make America Great Again’. And I can see that, in the light of a not-very-amusing global pandemic and an ongoing air-quality crisis, my plans for unleashing a cloacal stench over Knightsbridge and lovingly restoring the Great Dustheap of Somers Town might seem a little distasteful. Irresponsible, even. But better out than in, I say. And my plans for re-filthing Oxford Street (replacing the concrete with mud, releasing a few wild pigs) would be a demonstrable improvement. Restoring a few Thameside tanneries and slaughterhouses might be a good way of capitalising on the post-Brexit regulatory landscape, too. From Rotting Swill Gate to Pest Ham, from Spew Gardens to Cockfesters, the whole city can wallow in its own crapulence, no longer ashamed of its essential functions.
