Under the new mayor, London has a new 'food tsar', Rosie Boycott, who according to Regen.net is proposing that young people subject to antisocial behaviour orders could be told to tend allotments.
Why not indeed? But three quick points, if I may...
Why does every initial reflection on how society finds ways of punishing some of its members always have to begin, and sometimes appears to end, with young people? Antisocial behaviour is so far from being the sole preserve of young people that I fear there are a couple of generations in almost complete denial.
Could we consider precisely the same solution for the as-yet-unexposed people in suits with huge salaries in financial institutions, whose unprincipled lending practices, expert opinion suggests, have contributed most to the economic crisis? A kind of 'walk of shame' to a food market (as opposed to a financial one) clutching a scruffy string of onions, might be a well-earned purifying experience in some cases.
Might it be worthwhile consulting with people who already use allotments and enjoy their time there, in case an unexpected invasion sparks a negative reaction amongst them? (Although I quite fancy the prospect of some kind of local civil war with a wellie-booted dad's army, armed to the sunhat with sharpened hoes and beanpole bayonets, using spies in scarecrow disguises, setting rotten carpet traps, and pummeling officials with sprout shrapnel and heat-seeking manure)...
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