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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » In praise of Boris – the cycling enthusiast
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » In praise of Boris – the cycling enthusiast
What might be looked back on as one of the biggest decisions when the lockdown was being introduced in March was to include bike shops amongst the retailers that were specifically allowed to remain open. Quite what role Boris had in that move I don’t know but it is hard to see that exception being made if someone else had been elected Tory leader last year.
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I'd love to see more and more infrastructure protecting cyclists and some stringent anti-driving measures, which won't happen under the tories.
p.s. I sold my car for environmental reasons and don't own one.
Even when an incident might, just possibly, be framed as an accident, they just can’t help themselves.
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1268759072876224514
Certainly seen such bikes in Bangkok, around Chulalongkorn University. Don't recall seeing anybody riding one though.
Sadly my balance is now such that I've had to give up riding mine. Might see if I can get a tricycle, though.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-bikes-don-t-improve-health-or-reduce-pollution-nhmrv920k
It is possible these findings are outdated; it is a report I came across (but cannot read as it is paywalled) while unsuccessfully looking for collision statistics which iirc favour Boris bikes.
Given the lack of hills in Bedford, cycling isn't a problem.
Will be interested to see where the tax revenue comes from cycling. Loss of VED, fuel duties, VAT on new cars, spares & services.
@Richard_Nabavi is right. The self-flagellation is becoming extreme.
Its history is far more balanced and complex. In fact, compromise and balance with local populations and rulers was usually British Government policy - it was local settlers who tended to be aggressive, and HMG tried to reign them in.
A treaty like this was one of the causal factors behind the American revolution (they didn't like the British Government reserving Indian lands to their west in the 1763 Treaty of Paris) and you can see the different attitudes to the treatment of native populations in the subsequent histories of Canada and the USA. There was a mass movement against slavery in England from the 1770s onwards, including it being abolished under common law in 1772, which was successful in banning the trade in 1807 and throughout the Empire in 1833 - pioneering for the world, particularly since so many politically influential Britons benefited from it. The Royal Navy spent much of the rest of the century suppressing it worldwide.
Then there's the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 to protect Māori rights and lands and balance them with those of the colonists in New Zealand. In South Africa, the Boer republics broke away from Cape Colony because they found British rule too liberal as it granted blacks some voting rights on a property franchise (just as in the UK) and was therefore suffocating - they wanted their own policy towards natives. It was an Afrikaner party that introduced apartheid in 1948, not the British.
Then, you have the heavy investment in educational institutions in India, including mass infrastructure of railways, telegraphy, roads and ports, from the 1850s onwards, which led to the growth of democratic values (and Congress) and the development of progressive self-government in India from 1919. People mention Amritsar quite often (it was awful, and probably changed Indian history) but it's notable they struggle to think of many other examples. It was very much the exception, not the norm; that's why it shocked. And it's notable that, today, India today is the world's largest democracy, and the only vaguely democratic bastion of China (Hong Kong) is a legacy of British rule too.
So, forgive me if I'm a little sceptical of claims we invented racism and are responsible for all the world's ills today. The world would be a darker place had it not been for the British, and it's time to stop beating ourselves up about it.
Admittedly, that’s partly due to the presence of Cannock Chase. But there’s also a dedicated kerb-separated cycle route all along the A5 to Brownhills, at which point you can join a bridle way and go to Lichfield. And from Lichfield, there is a dedicated cycle route all the way to Burton.
The great disadvantage is that it’s so hilly, so cycling long distances can take quite a time.
I wonder if America has more of a policing problem than a racial problem sometimes.
I'm sure they are richly provoked and insulted, but dealing with that is part of the job and it's far rarer for British police to do this.
(1) MAMIL cyclists are really annoying. Like BMW drivers on bikes. I'd like to see far more family cycling
(2) Many roads need to be graded and separated better, from both pedestrians and vehicles - particularly lorries and buses - to be safe.
(3) Security. Bike security is poor (even the best locks) and there aren't enough boxes or lockers at stations. There need to be more and thefts dealt with far more firmly, with bikes tracked better for recovery.
police side shown here is shocking and hopefully action will follow.
"All hail Boris the cycling King!"
And we see the same problem on a smaller scale in Britain. Kettling non-violent demonstrations. Tasering anything that moves. Thank heavens the Metropolitan Police were denied the use of water cannon by our greatest Prime Minister of the past ten years!
But Japan and Thailand are two examples, are they better or worse off than their neighbours who "benefited" from European rule?
In any case, anyone mentioning "railways" as a benefit of the British empire always strikes me as very silly. You do realise there are trains running in countries that were never ruled by Britain?
The drivers, however...
I'd hope these new driverless jobbies make some sort of effort.
In fact one of the Tsars paid a South Walian ironmaster a huge sum to go to Russia and set up a steel industry.
Which would tend to support your point.
Welsh miner ancesters were in lockstep with Paul Robeson. I daresay they had no idea how their cigarettes, sugar and cotton clothing arrived in their possession.
If 'we' means those with an ancestry of Bristol slave traders, by all means don't beat yourselves up over the misdeeds of your forefathers, but neither
do you have cause to celebrate their dubious "achievements".
Back on topic. If cycling were to be the most memorable legacy of the Johnson Premiership then the nation will be in a much happier state than it is in now. I am not holding my breath.
It is pathetic to expect people to feel guilty about something some rich punters did hundreds of years ago and is typical of the state of the morons in this country nowadays. What next will it be pick a century and select your evil in it. Just as today a small handful of greedy people make the money out of anything they can.
We had a pivotal role because we were the preeminent maritime trading nation at that point in history, and used that position to then subsequently repress it, so that's no reason to amplify guilt in my view.
What does this have to do with Boris and his Livingstone Bikes? Nothing. I wouldn't ride one or any bile in London if you paid me. And the CS routes? Not exactly well planned / built...
In Scotland, you can cycle with the attendant perils of either hypothermia or a respiratory tract constantly full of midge.
What's the bit I do celebrate? Spreading liberal democratic institutions around the world.
Countries like the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, modern India, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong wouldn't exist without the British empire, and it is for that I am grateful for.
I think our record in Ireland, the Middle East and North Africa is less exemplary. And we lost the plot a bit in South Africa, which could have gone much better and didn't need to go over to an Afrikaner reverse takeover.
So, like most things in history, complex and mixed. You have to judge it in the round and based upon what the alternatives were at the time, as well as critiquing wrongdoings and what could have been better.
Most of the minor roads were adapted in a way that made me, as a car driver, feel extremely unwelcome. Indeed I was constantly anxious that I should not be where I was. The road surface, furniture, narrowing, obstacles etc all made it feel as if the road was more of a path. I drove extremely slowly and gave way to everything, as I believe you were supposed to. The consequence was that unless you were using the vehicle to transport anything heavy it really added nothing to the pace of the journey. Bikes were clearly quicker but it was also noteworthy that the cyclists were quite traditional upright bikes, not the sort of boy racers that plague our cities. Because they too were slower they worked in with the pedestrians more safely.
On the larger roads there were cycle lanes which had their own filters and turns on traffic lights etc. It was well beyond what I have seen in the UK where the "cycle path" is all too often a 1m wide strip that cars intrude into all too casually.
If we have anything like this in the UK I have not seen it. It is a psychological change. The benefits for the local population were evident. Obesity was very rare and the air quality was remarkably different. I find bikes on our current roads a nuisance to be frank. I get irritated when they weave through lines of traffic, ignore traffic lights and constantly swing from lane to lane. But things can be different. Very different.
I keep my mouth shut.
guilt. My understanding was that as he relaxed in the Conservative Club in Llanelli his big takeaway was his utter disdain for the Missionaries.
Take slavery, for instance. How many of us really learned much about this at school? If we did, no doubt we learned about William Wilberforce and the abolitionists. Surely of greater relevance than the fact we abolished it is that we profited from it for over 200 years. We were one of the major players in probably the greatest crime against humanity ever perpetrated. When it ended, we compensated the slave owners. We've never compensated the slaves or their descendants.
In fact until recently we were deporting the slaves' descendents, illegally, back to the same islands we dragged their ancestors to in chains all those years ago. In my view it is indisputable that the Windrush scandal would never have happened in a country that had come to a proper understanding of its past.
I say all this not because I want people to be ashamed of their country. Personally, I am not ashamed to be British, and I don't think anyone should be. But until we have a proper reckoning with all of our history we will never move on as a country, and we will be doomed to relive a never ending cycle of prejudice, white privilege and black resentment.
This matters to me a lot. When I was at primary school I once racially abused an Asian kid. In the heat of the moment, the word just came out. It wasn't something I had learned at home. It was the pervasive racist attitudes of the society I was living in, where racist attacks in our neighbourhood were a daily occurrance and attitudes of white supremacy were rampant. This is not to excuse my own moral failure - it is the thing I am most ashamed of. And the great irony is I now have three half Asian kids. I never want them to have to face the same prejudice. So I don't want to hear any more excuses.
End white supremacy, teach our history, learn from our mistakes, and move on as a country.
I think in South Africa we should have kept developing just Cape colony, which includes the diamond mines, as a multiracial liberal democracy - even if it started off with a property qualification - and not fought so hard to integrate the Boer republics.
I think they would have then changed and joined in time and we'd now be in a different place.
Who knows how we'll all shape up in years to come?
And winter in most of the UK is nowhere near as harsh as in Sweden, Denmark and Eastern Germany, all places where cycling is a lot more popular than in the UK.
As DavidL pointed out, a major disincentive to cycling in the UK is that cars have de facto right of way over cyclists. In Germany all cars who want to turn have to give-way to cyclists and pedestrians who are going straight on. They will wait on the main road if a cyclist is coming from behind near the kerb, other cars behind them also have to wait. My experience in the UK is if you stop on the main road just before turning the car behind has to do an emergency stop, just because they are not expecting you to stop.
https://www.shanelynn.ie/wet-rainy-cyling-commute-in-ireland-with-wunderground-and-python/
Slavery is a horrible blot on our history. It is bewildering it was ever thought morally acceptable. It was both brutal and brutalising. And it created a legacy of racism (as a means of self justification) that we still live with today.
To me you sound exactly like Chinese government propaganda about all the wonderful progress (and yes they do always mention the railway!) Chinese rule has brought to Tibet.
Good on you for admitting your past failings and learning from them. It's good of you to share that. But there is no 'white supremacy' now and hasn't been for decades.
We need to move on from upping the ante on battles largely fought and won 30-40 years ago, and address any residual issues proportionately, or we'll fuel further culture wars in the West, you'll get another Trump (or worse) as a reaction to that and China will exploit the divisions and weaknesses as way of establishing its global domination.
Let's move on.
As I said last night there is no point saying it was purely a cause of morality, its aim was to boost Britain economically and militarily which it did.
It did a few good things as well and a lot of bad things but its purpose ultimately was about expanding power as it was for most nations which created an Empire
Mr. Royale, aye. It's like those who think medieval peasants were unclean, as if they chose not to have access to disinfectant and vacuum cleaners.
Part of the weather thing is that paths and trails are not designed for all weather use by everyday people. Often they have a shale or a gravel surface - which is fine for MTBs at weekends but not for Donna or Dennis in their office clothes. Properly built, properly drained tarmac is what is needed. And if it is not perceived to be safe enough for a solo 10 year old, and also for an average cyclist doing 16-20mph, then it is not good enough.
>As DavidL pointed out, a major disincentive to cycling in the UK is that cars have de facto right of way over cyclists. In Germany all cars who want to turn have to give-way to cyclists and pedestrians who are going straight on.
The highway code is explicit that peds have right of way crossing sideroads (Rule 170), but one example is that we need to change these big radius entries that cars do at 20mph to near right angles that force a speed reduction to 10mph or less.
The best way is to separate the 3 modes - motorised, bike, pedestrian.
You could also add that for hundreds of years British people were enslaved by barbary pirates or that slavery continues in parts of Africa today.
Or for that matter that while the slaves were toiling away on the Jamaican plantations my ancestors were toiling away in the mines of Wales and the Midlands.
Slavery was a means of profiting from exploitation - the same profiting from exploitation which has always happened and continues to happen.
And there's very few people in this country who don't benefit from that.
Just saying.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/12/robots-deliver-food-milton-keynes-coronavirus-lockdown-starship-technologies
Nobody wants a culture war, but the very fact that that is the reaction when these issues is raised is in itself an obvious manifestation of white supremacy and white privilege. In my experience, people who get angry when you bring up racism tend to be racists. (I am not talking about you).
Their surname was one they were born to and their first name was given by someone else.
Now they could be using the aPI rapidly created by experts in the 2 companies who know what can and can't be done on the phones they design and build. But hey they are experts and while currently things are driven by science, experts are still to be ignored (which is why lockdown has been eased but nothing has changed).
I'm sure racism is still all too commonplace, and it should not be tolerated. That includes turning a blind eye to the abuse of children because of their skin colour (and/or class). Terms like white supremacy or white privilege judge people according to their skin colour, propagating rather than opposing overt bigotry.