Attending a very successful cycling conference in Church House, Westminster, I was surprised to be told, along with the 300 odd other delegates, that it was not allowed to cycle round the quadrangle of DeansYard. Given the large number of cars parked in Deans Yard who presumably have to be driven round it to get in and out, this must be one of the few places in London where cars are allowed to be driven but cycles are not. I suppose this is because the Church of England in Westminster might still be seen as the Conservative party at prayer where, in the immortal words of Andrew Mitchell (as reported by plebs), only plebs ride cycles and ‘we don’t really want them here!’
A few months ago I was invited to Clarence House to advise on helping the poor dairy farmers by advising on carrying milk by rail. I arrived on my Brompton, but was then asked by Security for my driving licence. I pointed out that one did not need this to be allowed to cycle. They then asked to see my passport instead – I asked if Clarence House was now a foreign state. Instead, I offered my House of Lords security pass, but this was rejected out of hand. I was about to phone regretting that I was not allowed into the meeting, when my friend Stephen Joseph from the Campaign for Better Transport appeared, saying that he was
coming to the meeting too; whilst welcoming this I asked why; he replied that he was my minder as I was a known republican. I am not; I just think that there are too many royal hangers-on travelling at taxpayers’ expense and that the roles of the monarchy should be clarified and transparent. But then plebs who arrive on bicycles are clearly a serious security risk!
It is so elsewhere all over the Developed World (and no doubt increasingly in Less-Developed countries):
the more pricey your ‘private’ car (or often your ‘business-‘ or ‘essential-services-‘ vehicle)
the more Christian you are,
and the more legal-right you have to block the entrance to your local Church
against both other (no doubt ‘lesser-Christian) cars,
and even ‘tightly’ against cyclists and pedestrians.
This is surprising as so many MP’s and Lords use bicycles.
Had I been in a similar situation as you I would have left and not returned. You were insulted. No doubt the security had been told each person must have adequate ID, but, to send a guardian was pure and simple humiliation.
If they felt you were a threat, why invite you? Make a meeting elsewhere if they felt so inclined.
And we now read the royal line is wanting to lobby parliament without what he is lobbying for being in the open. It must be hidden from public view as it may turn people off his accession.
This is utterly ludicrous. We pay a huge sum of money for these people to remain in their seat of power, but, must not know what they are pushing for us to live with.
Any letter sent by a royal would be hugely favoured over Mr Average. We are supposed to be a democracy, for the people, by the people.
Why did they decide we mustn’t see what it is he wants? After all, we may agree with his leanings. I don’t like the architecture or the idea of contaminated food either. So, it could be that he is a champion for the people. Couldn’t it?
Quite right.
We should know how our money is spent, and to whom it is paid. Everything. Down to the penny. Published online for all to see.
We should indeed know how Our Money is spent
/…/
(“Our Money” = The Common Purse, Lord Blagger might or might not agree)
the vital mind-functional-deficit, of every Human-Civilisation,
but especially of the current Western default-English-speaking world-‘leading’ One,
being the constitutional-law and market-economical formulations that require the Leaders, Governors, and “Best” of both Workplace-employees and Lifeplace ‘socialites’ themselves to become less and less sustain-worthy
the higher they are lifted and selfish-ambitiously climb up the respective Workplace and Lifeplace “healthily-competitive” ladders & pyramids
I mean, what kind of human-civilisation is it (apart from an insanely phantasmagorial one) that grades a psychiatrist as being many-more-than-two human-beings ? (The psychiatrist personal income lies somewhere between £600 and £6000 per week
which (at a legislated sufficient-income of £150 per week) adds up to between four and forty human-beings-worth
with no pay left over for a checks-and-balances Officer to name and call this Deluded core-block of Delusion-spotters and treaters
to account.
Lord Blagger would be bulls-eye right if he would include the fact(or)
“income and expenditure is no longer a Private matter on this Earth, but a very Public one”.
========
World War 2 at least ‘levelled’ British Society onto making one resolute common-pathway
a survival-pathway that produced the regular BBC programme in which featured such truly-patriotic and sustain-worthy clarion-calls as
“Is Your Journey Really Necessary ?”
and “Mind My Bike !”
Alas! ‘though “We” were seen to have won that war
we now are being seen to have lost the Peace,
the pedal-cycle being just one of the instruments of peace, health, safety and sustainworthiness that Crown and Commons alike have turned their noses up at.
“very successful” ? Clogged-up by Cars ?
Iatrogenia applies here, as well as to Medical and other Domains.
Consider that “iatrogenic” has the real-life-on-the-ground Sense of not only
“Injury caused by the Doctor (physician)”
but of “Injury caused by authority’s NEGLECT to do the right thing,
including failing to give all the appropriate and right information and advice:-
e.g. a GP having prescribed an antibiotic
(which kills-off all the friendly-bacteria in the gut as well as some bad ones)
then fails
firstly to prescribe follow-up replacement of acidophilus-bifidus
secondly fails even to mention to the patient that it should be taken immediately to re-befriend the patient’s gut
AND
That such is available at cost across the HealthFood shop counter
a case of double-iatrogenic malpractice, I think.
—————-
I say that Anti-Iatrogenic legislation should be raised, raising Insight, Discipline and Rule,
for ALL Public and Human-Support or Development Authorities, Services, Places and Workers (including those who train or command workers and ‘appropriate-&-right information & advice’ services)
but especially needs to be raised-high throughout the Governance, Training, Judicial, Civil-Service, Education, and Enforcement classes of Workers, such as Consultants and Legislators.
———-
Wasn’t it a respected British historian Hugh Davies in “An Unfinished History of the World” who reported that
Bicycles and Trains were the best and most sustainworthy transport advances introduced by the British (into India ?)
not Cars.
I do hope our noble opponent Lord Norton does not see this post; he’s got something going with referend-ums, whereas we should be far more used to the word pleb-iscite (and possibly the value of them too).
I used to park my bike on railings in Dean’s yard regularly until 2001 and nobody ever objected provided it was done discreetly. Security changed in Westminster after the 09/11 attack.
As for the status of bicycles, the noble lord
Berkeley should perhaps join the London Cycling Campaign (LCC)to get a real taste of cycling democracy at work, though I can not say I would recommend the recently inaugurated WNBR, on the strength of unpredictable weather alone!
The Barclays bank scheme for bicycles seems good but I still bring my own by train on a good day, and only wish I could afford a Brompton; a good purpose for claiming HofL (or any)expenses one day!
There should be more supervised push bike parking in the area not less.
I agree with, GH. And what happened to the notion that bikes are better than cars in the City, therefore, encouraging them rather than being awkward should be de riguer by now.
Surely, Boris, and his bike people should be making a stink about this. If, as they say they are, green is truly their mantra.
The Barclays bank scheme for bicycles seems good
==========
Have you looked at the economics of it?
5,000 bikes.
140 million cost.
Cost per bike on the road, 28,000 pounds.
Bit of a mystery on Clarence House – could be spotty plague issues? On the subject of being a republican and in no particular order:
1. Do you regularly phone into the C-Span network?
2. Do you sleep in a Queen sized bed?
3. Wearing red and white striped pyjamas.
4. Do you own a genuine spitting image original of Roy Hattersley.
5. Do you ever drive on the right hand side of the road?
6. Do you keep a self portrait in the attic?
7. Do you own a portrait of Oliver Cromwell with his warts removed?
8. Did you fight at the battle of Naseby?
9. Do you feel Elvis is King?
10. Do you think Joan of Arc was an electrician?
11. Are you for gay marriage?
12. Do you know who killed Cock Robin?
13. Do you approve of Lidl increasing its price of milk to £1?
14. Do you ever feel recycled as a peer?
15. Do you feel the dept of Transport needs a new baker?
16. Have you ever voted in a General Election?
17. Should the Royal ‘We’ be spelt ‘Oui’?
18. Do you feel the Duke of Clarence haunts Clarence House?
19. Do you think the Tories will win the next general election?
20. Do you feel the Lord Mayor of London should be Caesar?
If you answer yes or know the answer to more than two questions you must consider yourself as having republican leanings.
Does Blagger have any details of that accounting available? I have my doubts.
It is a first class advertising medium;
butts on seats; customers with accounts.
Has anybody gone absent without leave and ended up at John o’ Groats?
This ostensibly ‘little and friendly’ topic of Cars vereus Bicyles
is very probably one ‘lurking cause’, that will sooner or later be leading to a worsely-mechan-ical
“settling of scores” here in Britain;
don’t you think ?
———
From the longer-term world-wide super-strategic overshadowing, underlurking, and insidious-accrual and amassment
of individual, neighbourhood, tribal, sub-national, national and international
“Unsettled Scores”***
and the world-wide increasing of weapons,
other than Cars and Bicycles,
in the hands of sub-national, tribal, and neighbourhood Bodies, as well as in the hands of disparate and unstable individuals **
and the oath of the USA President that “America will go-after any-one who messes with America and will hunt them down”
(beginning with those who have been messing-up Libya, since its UN-NATO-USA-Free-World ‘liberation’, by spreading amongst its population three times as many deadly-weapons as there are Libyans)
and our ‘own, world-leading Democratic’
failure to establish first-resort Method III Problem-Solving
and instead to perpetuate mere “Compromises”*
* witness lack of even second-resort Cooperative Problem Solving, in People-Protestations e.g. by “Occupying” mildly-key Public and Governance-empowered Places, such as St Paul’s in London, and Wall Street in USA:
each was ‘reasonably-benignly’ compromise-promised,
but in efect nonetheless Suppressed.
** it is said that even here in Britain there is “one gun under every fourth bed (1990 figure)”
*** serious “Scores” such as Privations and Persecutions ‘flood’ the overseas-world;, but there lurk also myriads of lesser ‘scores’, and mere ‘donations-to-charity’ are not going to ‘win-win-win’ resolve these issues;
one such is this ‘persecution’ of bicylists,
whilst toxic-cloggings by Cars are deliberately and ‘constitutionally’ increased;
and minorities-&-disadvantageds are increasingly variously-seriously persecuted world-wide under the falsely- legitimised heading of “Cleansing”.
————–
Cleansing is needed, but of our “Civilisational-Tools”
NOT of “scapegoated people”;
surely ?
What is most impressive about Westminster cycling is the blue cycle way from W along/
past Milbank which surely goes all the way to Hammersmith. The number of cyclists on a dry evening and probably every evening at the rush hour, numbers in the tens of thousands.
Intra cycling accidents are not something I have ever given any thought to, as a mere non competitive mortal, but there must be a certain number along there at either rush hour.
As for non recognition and non acceptance in Dean’s yard that is absolutely disgraceful.
There seems to be a school there……
Is Senex starting a quiz? May I have a go?!!
Just like another prof of politics here.
,i>one such is this ‘persecution’ of bicylists,
whilst toxic-cloggings
The market place is not quite as easy as Miles Denton would imagine, since Bi-cyclists, as he might have put the word in his own hyphe….lutin
language, does not merely comprise PUSH bi-cyclists, but another class of vehicle entirely,known as the “Motor bicycle” of which he may not have heard, which causes more noise (especially high pitches) and fume than the motor car, pro rata.
What is unfortunate about the huge enthusiasm
for the PUSH bike in this Olympic and Tour de
France win year, is that it gives MOTOR bike selling, which is a hard sell indeed, a huge impetus amongst young people as well.
The electric bike, which also has a motor of a certain kind, is little better. Over a certain capacity the electric bike does, of course, have the same licence requirements as
any other motorised vehicle.
The DfT has a permanent member of staff dealing with definitions and classifications of vehicle, amongst which the push bicycle is included.
I would say that the simple push bike should be declassified as a vehicle (as it is in France)but that the electric bicycle should continue to be considered as the vehicle that it is. Then it would be clear to neophyte “cyclists” in which way the market place is trying to lead them.
As for wheel chairs I shall not deign to mention further except that if injuries are caused by them they should be considered as “vehicle used on the footpath”.