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I've had enough: fine anyone with a backpack on the Tube
Evening Standard
|June 18, 2024
IF YOU wear a backpack on public transport, then I think you ought to pay a penalty.
No, I'm not being funny, not being arch, but I think you deserved to be taxed. And taxed properly. You are not only a public nuisance, but you take up approximately 10 per cent more space than anyone else on the bus or the train, and therefore should be punished. Hashtag not even joking.
And this tax should not just be a token, either, but something properly punitive, a figure that affects your ability to pay your rent or the mortgage on your house. Something you're not going to forget in a hurry.
Tourists I can forgive as they know no better, and nor should they, especially the Americans. If you're over here from the Midwest, the Ozarks or the wilds of Oregon, and you're bumbling along on the Circle line between various London museums, inevitably lost, then I think it's fine for you to turn around suddenly and whack some poor unsuspecting schoolkid in the face.
This story is from the June 18, 2024 edition of Evening Standard.
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