Cycling UK Forum

I used to buy The Independent until I read an article like this in it. That was quite a while ago and I haven't bought a copy since because it gave a nasty character to the whole paper. This one does it for the Times. I'm sure that they will get the message if that becomes a trend.

The Sunday Times used to include a Drivel section full of the typical Jeremy Clarkson type articles about cars (where he spends two pages fantasising about tosh before finishing off with a paragraph on how the car he drove there in was rubbish because it had a less than 400 horsepower engine). They obviously felt the wind changing direction because now its called 'In Gear' and includes articles on health, activity and even a token cycling column. All of the crackpot articles by fanatics like Nigel Havers and the like have gone and would be totally out of place now. You can bet they haven't done it because they want to be nice to cyclists but because its what sells papers. Narrow-minded bigotry only appeals to a minority. Editors sometimes have difficulty spotting narrow-minded bigotry but they notice when if affects circulation.

This is nothing short of a hate crime inciting murder AND providing clear instructions on how to do it!

I have reported it to the Met Police as such and the more of us that do so the better.

You can report hate crimes here:

http://www.met.police.uk/reporting_crime/index.htm

I am totally disappointed in the CTC Newsnet article on this. It just says to write to the Editor. Being as how he's the bloke who passed off the Parris column in the first place, don't expect fireworks.
I will accept nothing less than the prosecution of Parris by our Legal Department for incitement to murder.
The CTC must stand up on this one.

Eric the Red wrote:I will accept nothing less than the prosecution of Parris by our Legal Department for incitement to murder.
The CTC must stand up on this one.

What CTC legal department ?
As far as I know, when necessary, CTC take legal advice from a company of solicitors and they pay for this at the going, legal-market rate.
Eric, what are you intending to do if/when CTC do not invoke a private prosecution against The Times or Parris ??

I suggest CTC are not inexperienced when dealing with such matters and their advice, via Newsnet, should not be lightly dismissed.

Graham wrote:

Eric the Red wrote:I will accept nothing less than the prosecution of Parris by our Legal Department for incitement to murder.
The CTC must stand up on this one.

Eric, what are you intending to do if/when CTC do not invoke a private prosecution against The Times or Parris ??

Private prosecution? Surely, this is a criminal matter?

Not exactly "A Modest Proposal"...

Eric - please take the trouble to read the entire thread.

Velo wrote:Not exactly "A Modest Proposal"...

I'd thought that as well - but the Parris article is devoid of irony.

simon l6 and a bit wrote:Eric - please take the trouble to read the entire thread.

I have - thank you!

No falling-out please . . . . a united front is the essential requirement.

Parris' comments are just what one would expect given his political background and are also exactly the sort of material one would expect to see printed in the mass-media in a car-centric country dominated by right-wing hierarchical-authoritarian 'values', such as Britain. Hence all those articles one sees which demand 'zero tolerance' policing and 'harsh punishment' of low-status social 'out groups', such as cyclists, whilst at the same time it is argued that the enforcement of the law as it affects drivers (as a higher-status and socially dominant social group) amounts to the "persecution of the beleaguered motorist". This is despite the fact that illegal and anti-social driving kills thousands and injures tens of thousands every year and yet irresponsible cycling most often places only the perpetrator themselves at risk. (Even such respected bodies such as the Transport Research Laboratory have concluded that the way cyclists are treated in Britain is largely a reflection of the fact that in the UK they constitute a low-status social 'out-group'. For example see TRL report 549 'Drivers' perceptions of cyclists').

The only way in which Parris' views appear to run counter to those of the typical right-wing authoritarian is that most such individuals are hostile to any low-status out group who they regard as posing a challenge to the 'norms' of society, from beggars to homosexuals and Parris has spoken out against anti-gay prejudice. However this is hardly surprising given Parris' own homosexuality!

Taken in isolation it might be possible to write off this article as an aberration which merely reflects on Parris' own personality and attitudes. However, this is not really possible given that, firstly, it is printed in one of the country's leading papers (and The Times does appear to specialise in such articles, even more so than more openly fascist papers such as The Daily Mail), secondly it is just one of a constant stream of similar articles in the British media and thirdly, going by many of the comments posted in response to the article on The Times website, it expresses views which many support. When this context is considered it is clear that rants such as that by Parris actually say something significant about the nature of British 'society'.

It is worth bearing in mind that many others (usually with right-wing political opinions) have also written about cyclists in a manner which advocates a terminal 'final solution' to the 'cyclists question', if only as a rhetorical device. For example, shortly after using Nick Freeman ('Mr Loophole') to get her off a serious driving charge Emma Parker-Bowles, writing in The Sun in 2006, called for the "humane extermination" of cyclists on the grounds that:

"They even look annoying - all that nasty, tight Lycra makes them look like sticks of Peperami with arms drawn on…Physically, they take up a few inches, but morally they take up the whole damned road. They are so smug and pious, but this conceals a very serious attitude problem because they are bitter that they can’t afford a car." Etc. Etc.

Similar comments could be added from a wide range of people such as Tony Parsons ("I have always thought that it should be cyclists that are chained to lamp -posts, and not their bikes… Bicycles are like mast-urbation - something you should grow out of"); David Thomas of The Daily Mail ("Why I really hate cyclists" being typical of his oeuvre ); Jeremy Clarkson (who, writing in The Sun has described cyclists as being "Lycra Nazis" and yet has also written in The Sun that cyclists should stop at red lights otherwise "if I'm coming the other way, I will run you down, for fun". On the other hand stopping would also seem to be a bad policy as he added that if any cyclists were to stop in front of him at lights he would "set off at normal speed and you will be crushed under my wheels" concluding "You are a guest on roads that are paid for by motorists so if we cut you up, shut up"); Bryan Appleyard (whose "One day I'll kill a lycra lout" was yet another anti-cycling rant printed in The Times ); M.P. Kate Hoey ("The real menace on our roads are selfish, aggressive, law breaking and infuriatingly smug lycra louts" was the Mail On Sunday headline which summarised her rant); Jasper Gerard of The Daily Mail ("With the possible exception of Osama Bin Laden, the greatest terrorist threat facing this country is from cyclists."); Damian Whitworth (motoring editor of The Times who described cyclists as "a common pestilence" and argued that the lycra-wearing cyclist should "pedal off to a shrink" in order to "explore the reasons for his perversion at his own leisure and expense"); Jeremy Vine; Andrew Marr; Jon Gaunt; Nigel Havers; motoring writer Ruth Brandon (who has described cyclists as "two-wheeled hyenas"); Shelia Hancock; Nina Myskow; Bonnie Greer (who has said of cyclists "they are PESTS, they are RODENTS". Mmmm now who else was it who described human beings as being 'rodents'?) and so on ad-infinitum. Even Baroness Betty Boothroyd revealed herself to be a cyclist-hater and motoring bully, once boasting in the House of Lords how she had, on seeing a cyclist using a mobile phone "taken matters into her own hands" coming up behind him in her car and laying on the horn so loudly that the cyclist was so startled that he "had no alternative but to drop the telephone". Such attitudes have even entered into British popular 'culture' as with the alien-like 'The Cyclists' in the animated series 'Monkey Dust'. ('The cyclists' is also the most popular outtake from the series found on the 'YouTube' site).

Of course, whilst all of these writers would apparently like to see 'strict discipline' and 'harsh punishments' for cyclists, not all are prepared to 'extend the logic' of their beliefs to the extent of freely and easily using terms such as 'extermination'. Then again certain other extreme hierarchical-authoritarian movements only came upon such a 'final solution' by degrees, with sterilisation also being a popular option. This is something which Richard Tomkins (the chief features writer of The Financial Times) apparently thinks would also be a good solution for the 'cyclists question', with Tomkins writing in the FT on 26 October 2007: "Some while ago I read a newspaper story saying male cyclists who rode a lot risked impotence because of the damaging effect of the saddle on their reproductive organs. It quite made my day. In my opinion, anything that stops cyclists breeding is to be welcomed as an unmitigated good."

Perhaps such people would benefit from watching that old Sheena McDonald documentary 'Five steps to tyranny' or reading up on the work of Jane Elliott!

To add to the above...

Britain's right-wing press is filled with this constant stream of attacks on cyclists not simply because they are perceived to be 'lawless' and nothing raises the bile of the typical right-wing authoritarian more than seeing a low-status group 'breaking the rules' but also because of the values they are perceived to stand for in the eyes of the typical right-wing commentator. Fairly typical was one feature in The Telegraph (Which is nowhere near as anti-cycling as the rest of the right-wing press, even if it does have a worryingly 'libertarian' attitude to the issue of speed enforcement). This argued that "Sometimes they [cyclists] are merely self-righteous, but they all have the seeds of sanctimonious militancy." Similarly cyclists are frequently labelled as being "muesli-munching enviro-mentalists", "Guardianista" and so on. Such attacks have been a common feature of Britain's car-centric and right-wing media since the earliest days of the car. The only real difference is that back in the 1920's cyclists were referred to as 'Cads on castors' rather than 'Lycra louts' and 'Bolsheviks' rather than 'Guardianista'!

Much of the 'war of words' targeting cyclists is clearly a product of the motoring lobby's ongoing campaign to preserve the privileges and power of the private motorist and the existing 'hierarchy of the roads', with the tactics they use simply reflecting the political landscape of the country as a whole. However, it is evident that the scapegoating of cyclists in Britain also reflects wider social pressures and the scapegoating of cyclists in the UK is not entirely due to Britain's political climate giving free-reign to motoring bullies and quasi-fascists. For example, reading court reports and so on from the first half of the 20th Century it appears that many magistrates and others in positions of authority often regarded the targeting and inequitable treatment of cyclists and the refusal to hold 'Gentleman' drivers to account when they caused harm to others as helping to maintain the existing social order, not least because drivers tended to be drawn from the 'social elite' whilst most of those run down were drawn from 'the lower orders'. Conversely, bowing to the demands of cyclists for greater justice was regarded as being but a small step away from undermining the existing social order with dangerously egalitarian or even 'Bolshevik' values. To a large extent we are still living with the attitudes and precedents established at this time, attitudes which have being further validated in recent decades by the undermining of concepts such as 'social responsibility' and their replacement with the neo-liberal, 'there is no such thing as society' individualism which dominates modern politics.

Perhaps most fundamentally Britain is one of those countries which, riven with division and unsure of it's identity, often attempts to define who is an integral member of 'society' and who best represents national values largely by defining who stands outside of those values. Given that Britain is overwhelmingly right-wing, car-centric and status-orientated it is perhaps no surprise that cyclists should be so frequently portrayed as representing something 'alien' and potentially threatening. (As with the quite literally 'alien' cyclists in the 'Monkey Dust' animation series). For example, consider all those comments (including that by Emma Parker-Bowles) which associate cyclists with poverty, a rejection of materialist and aspirational 'values', left-wing politics and so on. What's more cycling has often been associated with threateningly 'foreign' values. Anti-French xenophobia in particular still runs deep in the British psyche and the word 'egality' has always struck fear into the British ruling elite! (Even so cycling as a sport can be vaguely acceptable - though it seems not by the BBC - in so far as it represents 'values' close to the neo-liberal agenda such as 'competitiveness' and commercial enterprise).

It is also the case that Britain is a highly inequitable and hierarchical society and, as has been the case throughout history, it is well understood that one of the best ways to maintain a hierarchical system and to relieve tensions which arise within such a system is to marginalise or even demonise certain groups at the bottom of the hierarchical 'pecking order'. This gives those who are being 'pecked' from above a target lower down hierarchy against whom they are able to direct their frustrations and feelings of anger. (For a much more detailed analysis of the role of scapegoating in society see the writings of the French Philosopher Rene Girard).

Also, that cyclists have become such a focal 'out-group' in British 'society' may well reflect the fact that they are one of the few 'out-groups' remaining which can be openly vilified in the media, especially given the introduction of laws against the targeting of other traditional 'out groups' such as racial minorities and (ironically enough given Parris' own sexual orientation) homosexuals!

Crikey Howard!

At least you've put into words the increasing shame, anger and frustration of being British and living in Britain being experienced by an ever increasing number of us.

I, for one, have long thought that the best thing was to just go and leave this dreary little rock.

But, where? Is the other man's grass really greener?

nigel_s wrote:Crikey Howard! I, for one, have long thought that the best thing was to just go and leave this dreary little rock.

I reached that conclusion some time ago and now live in the French Alps. So far it's great!

Looking at "Monkey Dust - The cyclists", I chanced upon Monkey Dust - The Diary Of Ann Frank. Much the same?