CHEWING gum firms should chip in toward clearing lumps of spat-out gum from pavements, says the Local Government Association, and there are people in Swindon who agree.

Well, it makes perfect sense to me.

There are parts of this town where you can stand on one leg in a high wind and not be blown over because your shoe is anchored to the ground by about a dozen globs of the stuff.

It’s only fitting that somebody takes the blame, but the crucial question is who that somebody should be.

At first I was a little bewildered as to why the chewing gum manufacturers should be in the firing line, but I can only assume the LGA knows something we don’t.

Perhaps they’ve discovered that the chewing gum manufacturers put a special chemical into their product which causes users to spit it out uncontrollably after a set time, instead of chucking it in a bin.

Yes, that’ll be it. The gobbers of gum aren’t really horrible little anti-social nodules with the IQs of slugs and the civic consideration of locusts; they are in fact in the grip of an irresistible compulsion.

Or perhaps the LGA has discovered that the chewing gum manufacturers are somehow forcing our lawmakers and magistrates not to prosecute the gum-spitters so they get away with it.

We should all thank the LGA for showing us the light about this matter, and for its sound common sense in deciding who is ultimately responsible for the problem. Justice demands that the same principles are followed in other criminal matters.

From now on, when a person is caught littering, we shouldn’t prosecute them or even give them so much as a severe talking to. No, we should throw the book at whoever made the thing being chucked away.

I suggest fining manufacturers for every tin can, chocolate wrapper, fast food paper or fag end found on our pavements and making them pay the clean-up costs.

If drunks get into fights, vandalise public buildings or otherwise make nuisances of themselves because they can’t be bothered with self-control, how dare society suggest it is in any way their fault?

Clearly it is entirely the fault of the breweries, distilleries or vineyards which produced the booze, even if 9,999 out of every 10,000 consumers manage to use the product without committing any criminal offences afterwards.

Something else we should be concerned about is knife crime. It seems we can’t go for a week without hearing of a court case involving somebody who’s taken a carving knife, penknife or other bladed weapon and used it to inflict mayhem and misery.

We should therefore immediately organise a series of crusades to Sheffield and other centres of the cutlery industry and demand that they stop making knives forthwith. If they didn’t make knives, there would be no knife crime.

Maybe we should even picket the steel mills and demand they stop producing metal. No metal, no knives.

And don’t give me any crypto-fascist reactionary libertarian nonsense along the lines of: “If there were no knife criminals there would be no knife crime.”

Next you’ll be telling me that the only just way to prevent problems such as our streets being spackled with spat-out chewing gum is to target and punish the spitters.

DEFRA says Swindon households produced a lot more rubbish in the 2013/14 financial year than we did the year before. Officials are bewildered by the increase and so am I.

I think we should call in a vet, as the urban foxes, rats and other vermin are clearly off their grub.

They usually snaffle anything left out, especially the morsels in recycling boxes which have up to a fortnight to become really ripe and tasty.