Cycling UK Forum

Sorry to revive this corpse.

There is an advantage to discussing politics here rather than, for example, on The Guardian. There being so few readers, this forum is not a likely target for sockpuppets, astroturfers and shills. Wherever the debate is considered to be influential, you can expect organized campaigning on behalf of industry or political pressure groups, usually with aggressive or disruptive contributions. I don't get the impression that there are any here. Who'd pay them? Vladimir Putin doesn't care what we think.

It means that most of the opinions aired - however wrong or mad - are honestly held.

Ben@Forest wrote:I think discussing politics is integral to daily life but I also think the milieu has become nastier. There seems to be an increasing trend to regard the Tories or someone who has voted Tory as 'evil'. This is generally not an insult that's used by the right-wing about the left. But of course the left-wing are happy to use such insults about politicians like Tony Blair, who evidently are not 'left-wing' enough or who have made decisions in public office they do not agree with.

There's been a news report today about a plant centre owner (in the south of England) who put up a noticeboard saying he's charging people who voted Conservative 10% more and that he doesn't want the business of UKIP voters. What if he'd put that up about blacks, or gays or people with learning disabilities? And that is what I mean about a 'nastier' attitude.

I can think of lots of words to describe the Tories but evil isn't one of them - it's incredibly lazy journalism. Disingenuous is the strongest word I have for them (not including you) - but for me that really matters.

To make matters worse though, I had emailed the man in the plant centre to offer my support and share the laugh. He replied to me that the response he had had showed that people lacked a sense of humour - it really was meant lightly and, in a sense, forgivingly. It was black humour at a time when people are feeling really low and shocked - it's a way of dealing with it.

For me it's a time to grieve over many things that are dear to me: the loss of landscape due to road building, the crumbling of historic buildings, the threat to wildlife protection and many other things that get reported much lower down in the columns of the Guardian.

I will personally do well financially out of the Tories but the world that I love dearly will, I believe, not. Strong feelings may lead people to reach for words that they might not otherwise use.

The problem is that 'strong feelings' becomes a convenient justification for the language that is used routinely as well as that used exceptionally. It is not merely in the immediate aftermath of the elections that people have become more abusive to those with whom they disagree. People of all political persuasions feel strongly about their politics but that ought not to conflict with the duty to respect others. I grew up in a proper Labour heartland and my parent's generation would never have considered voting Conservative back then. As a result most of my generation had strongly socialist views as youths. Nevertheless, our parents would have been so ashamed of us is they'd seen us calling other people and politicians 'scum' for their political beliefs as appears to have become acceptable in 2015. Yobbery masquerading as politics.

Bicycler: I don't think any of this applies to us on here. The forum is strongly moderated (too strongly in some people's view) and anything that degenerates into "scum" and "evil" soon gets ignored or moderated. Those of us who have been on here a long time stay around I am sure because of the quality of the debate. My point was that strong feelings will occasionally allow something to slip so it's excusable - to a degree. Most of the time. there's little to worry about.

I'll suggest it's the immediacy of the technology which causes a lot of the heated posts. The opportunity for a bit of quiet reflection can be missed. The quicker the reply is fired off, the more likely it may be intemperate. And I'm not always at my most diplomatic in the evening after a glass of wine.

horizon wrote:I will personally do well financially out of the Tories but the world that I love dearly will, I believe, not. Strong feelings may lead people to reach for words that they might not otherwise use.

Personally I only did well out of the last parliament because of the LibDem led push on raising the tax threshold. However the tories have taken it on board and plan to raise it which is good for me personally and many others.

As far as the world goes I seriously doubt the Tories have that much influence on the World (you do know UK is not the world, there is a place outside of it??). Facetious I'm sorry.

All posts on here of a political nature boil down to beliefs. Like religion you will never be able to prove your Gods are right and the others are wrong. As such I have come to the belief that these discussions are just a way for alpha males (and females) to get one over on the others through verbal jousting and the throwing in of favourable links and facts. If that does not work you turn to the next option of insults. If this was a face to face discussion among everyone in one place then ultimately insults could become physical aggression. Then that would be fun for the moderators to sort out. I doubt the few moderators could stop a fight somehow (although I have no idea how big they are so perhaps they could).

My view is a political thread should have similar rules to any other. Insults get deleted or the thread locked/deleted if it is degenerating badly. Perhaps one warning then cut. We need a friendly discussion and advice space here. That is what it was to me when i first signed on and that is what will keep me here. Politics is not worth ruining this space IMHO. Especially since the Guardian, Independent and Telegraph are better places for politics than here. Keep riding and inspiring others with cycling related threads is a better idea. However there will always be some who feel the need for political oneupmanship masquerading as political debate.

One thing though, I think there should be something about excessively one sided threads. If one thread descends into say a tory, labour or UKIP trashing thread such that no-one feels able to defend their views then that is no longer friendly political discussions it is abuse. Abuse of any sort is wrong and should be stopped. I have felt on a few recent threads that they got too biased and unsafe for opposing views.

Tangled Metal wrote:One thing though, I think there should be something about excessively one sided threads. If one thread descends into say a tory, labour or UKIP trashing thread such that no-one feels able to defend their views then that is no longer friendly political discussions it is abuse. Abuse of any sort is wrong and should be stopped. I have felt on a few recent threads that they got too biased and unsafe for opposing views.

AIUI, this forum is supposed to be biased. Basically you come here because you believe that cycling is a good thing and you enjoy it. All the discussion is contained within this basic shared belief. That has to be the case to allow us to discuss the detail without first having to justify the basic concept - it simply wouldn't work as a practical forum otherwise. If someone asked, "Which bike is best for a 70 mile ride?" and the answer was "You're mad, it's quicker by car!" then it's really not much use. OTOH when pwa recently suggested that meic do his Welsh journey by car, it was within the context of it being possible and reasonable by bike. The forum really is meant to be an unsafe place for "petrol heads" for this reason, but a very safe place for cyclists. I am sure you can agree with this.

But moving on to political views, we're on shakier ground. I think this forum is left leaning so members expressing say Conservative views may feel uncomfortable. I don't think that's necessarily wrong: the argument isn't "Should greater priority be given to bikes?" but "What do we do about these dreadful Tory councils and their attitude to cycling?". When a Conservative leaning forum member pops up (who likes cycling as much as the best of us) and begs to differ, it makes for an interesting discussion. But I think the "inbuilt imbalance" is the correct starting point.

That's a convenient justification for bringing one's own political opinions into discussions. I think that's often unnecessary. Local council attitudes to cycling vary too much and depend upon individual councillors too much to tar them all with the same brush. Cycle policy can be changed for better or worse by one councilor on a mission or with an axe to grind. Council decisions have to be looked at individually and solutions to problems will depend on local circumstances. Turning a thread into a generic whinge about tory councils is unlikely to be productive and will detract from discussion of the particular issues relevant to the OP.

Also, the Tea Shop is not dedicated to cycling or campaigning, so if there were some justification for inherent bias in some sections of the forum it wouldn't apply to general discussion in the Tea Shop.

horizon wrote:But moving on to political views, we're on shakier ground. I think this forum is left leaning so members expressing say Conservative views may feel uncomfortable. I don't think that's necessarily wrong: the argument isn't "Should greater priority be given to bikes?" but "What do we do about these dreadful Tory councils and their attitude to cycling?". When a Conservative leaning forum member pops up (who likes cycling as much as the best of us) and begs to differ, it makes for an interesting discussion. But I think the "inbuilt imbalance" is the correct starting point.

I'm not sure that members of this forum would be left-leaning or particularly environmentally aware. I can see the point that those who make conscious decisions about transport, living healthily and the environment may see cycling as a political choice. But what about those who cycle only for sport and happily drive 100 miles each way to take part in a race or sportive or who fly to Biarritz just to knock off the Col de Tourmalet over a weekend?

Ben@Forest wrote:
But what about those who cycle only for sport and happily drive 100 miles each way to take part in a race or sportive or who fly to Biarritz just to knock off the Col de Tourmalet over a weekend?

Well, AFAIK, there are countless forums for them to discuss just that. Although this forum is a very broad church (and better for it), it generally tilts towards seeing cycling as something different from that. That may ebb and flow by the way and in fact maybe it's in the ebb and flow that the interesting discussions take place (inter-tidal ecology is supposed to be really fascinating).

For my own part I'm not very interested in people's party politics but (and this I accept is a big but) my belief is that the sort of cycling I like to see is mainly supported by the left and shunned by the right. I would only be too delighted if someone challenged me on that (i.e. the Conservatives supported cycling) and I am sure that there must be some evidence in that direction. How about a new thread - "How the Tories support cycling" - and I'm not being facetious - it could be really interesting.

Boris? At the door of no 10 in cycling clobber…

Al

al_yrpal wrote:Boris? At the door of no 10 in cycling clobber…

Al

And talking of politics, and Boris, and after the Conservatives explaining what a good thing zero hours contracts are during the election campaign and, now Boris has one and he's not a happy bunny about it.

Ian

My daughters happy with hers with Devon CC. It allows her to do her songwriting, recording, gigs, festivals,spend lots of time with her little boy pretty flexibly. In her case it works both ways and provides a bit of extra cash.

Boris is obviously getting 20p a mile so hes happy I expect.

Al

Psamathe wrote:And talking of politics, and Boris, and after the Conservatives explaining what a good thing zero hours contracts are during the election campaign and, now Boris has one and he's not a happy bunny about it.

Another Milibandism which helped to lose the election. According to the ONS only 2.3% of all the workforce are on zero hours contracts. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lmac/contracts-with-no-guaranteed-hours/zero-hour-contracts--2014/index.html. And apparently more than half of them like it that way. I don't have a source for that one but that's from pollsters anyway and we know how accurate they are...

horizon wrote:Well, AFAIK, there are countless forums for them to discuss just that. Although this forum is a very broad church (and better for it), it generally tilts towards seeing cycling as something different from that. That may ebb and flow by the way and in fact maybe it's in the ebb and flow that the interesting discussions take place (inter-tidal ecology is supposed to be really fascinating).

I don't know that you're right - there are 28,000 people registered on this forum. A huge amount of them have posted less than 10 times - to ask one-off questions about the charity LEJOG they're doing or what bike to buy for their teenage son. A lot of the rest are only interested in technical issues, the right saddle, the right spokes etc, etc... not political choices. How many regular posters on Tea Shop - 600 maybe? Of the 28,000 forum members overall I think that at this point about 37% of them vote Conservative, 30% Labour, UKIP 12% - you can see where I'm going with this (oh and adjust for Scotland).