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The Real Reason Drugs are Still Illegal.

I have outlined many, many times why drug policy is insane, and how a properly regulated supply-chain, generating taxes rather than spending them on the futile task of interdicting supply, would be better than the current system of prohibition.

The arguments are compelling to all except those who cannot accept that “Drugs are bad” does not equal “Drugs should be illegal”. Think about the issue in any depth, and most people come to the same conclusion. Politicians such as Nick Clegg and David Cameron have been on record as favouring a more liberal drug policy, as do many police I’ve spoken to on the subject (in a social, not *ahem* professional capacity).
So why does nothing happen when such people get to the top of the tree?
Most people do not take drugs, (at least outside the unofficially sanctioned, and generally accepted “few spliffs at university”) and hope their children won’t either. Many are absolutely persuaded (wrongly, as it happens) that one puff of a spliff is a first step on the road to becoming a smack-addicted self-arguer in the underpass. It is more reasonable to think of substance abuse as a mental illness, afflicting some people who take drugs. Alcohol is at least as bad in this regard as some substances listed as Class “A”. Let’s not pretend there’s much difference between the self-arguers in the underpass with special brew, and those who inject Heroin. In fact they’re often the same people whose objective is oblivion. The drug used to achieve it depends upon circumstance and personality. The dependence isn’t a feature of the drug, but a consequence of multiple factors. Such substance abusers are highly visible. They are also a small subset of people who take drugs.
Ultimately the problem with drug laws is the people most affected: users, are either highly visible and acting as cautionary tale, or utterly invisible to officialdom. No-one is asking the happy stoners, the gak-snorting partiers, or the functioning junkies who only get high/stoned at the weekend and pay for it out of income, what they think. These people have to hide their opinions on drug laws. They either don’t really care as their fix is just a phone call away, and won’t rock the boat and cannot take the risk of coming out publicly as being users. Furthermore, should these people get caught up in, for example, a drug bust, all legal incentives will be for them to claim the drugs as a “problem”, and hope to be treated as an “addict” rather than be dealt with administratively by courts. Problem users and drug related crime are therefore created in the statistics where absent the illegality, there would not be. Any hard data on drug use and effects on any but the most extreme problem users, is hard to come by, which skews the data, most of which is in any case highly motivated, assuming cutting use is the purpose of policy, not minimising harms.
Thus the media picture of “drugs” is set according to the availability heuristic: A problem, leading to destructive behaviour; when the reality, for most users, is vastly different.
Politics is full of solutions that are simple, easy to understand and wrong. The opponents of drug liberalisation have the simple logic of the statement “Drugs are bad, so ban them”. The legalisers have to make the complex, counter-intuitive argument that most, if not all, of the harms that flow from drug use are a direct consequence not of their psychopharmacological effects, but of their illegality. And frankly most people to whom you need to make that argument will already be assuming you’re a filthy junkie and will be ignoring you anyway. It’s an extremely difficult argument to make to most people.

For example, it’s likely there would be fewer heroin users were a full recreational pharmacy available legally than there are now. Why? Because of the pyramid marketing of drugs is particularly effective for heroin. Users become dealers to fund their habits. There were few problem opiate abusers before it was made illegal, and most of those picked the habit up in hospital. Just try making that argument to a Daily Mail reader.

Secondly, and perhaps more pertinently to any politician thinking of putting drug law on a less insane footing, is prohibition has gifted the most profitable business in history to criminals. In doing so, it has created rich, powerful and ruthless people, used to violence who have thought nothing of assassinating politicians. 
Any politician who looks like getting the supply-chain out of criminal hands would be a direct threat to the people currently in charge of a multi-billion dollar industry in a way an enthusiastic drug warrior would not be.

There is no public clamour for drug reform. Users are people who by definition can already get the drugs they want. Most people are happy that drugs are illegal, and are inherently conservative. And there are vested interests in law-enforcement and the criminal fraternity in favour of the status quo. A simultaneous monstering from the Tabloid press and the immediate threat of assassination by some of the most ruthless criminals on earth? Is it really a surprise when politicians who’re known to be privately in favour of liberalisation keep their heads down over something of such marginal interest to most of the electorate, who in any case, have already made up their minds?

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How to make Him/Her Fall in Love With You

US Glamour magazine has found itself under fire from the perma-outraged social justice warriors of Twitter and facebook for its guide to women who want to make a man fall in love with them. Outraged, single women have been sharing this list with the words “Wow! I can’t even…”. The scale of the outrage is directly proportional to how long they’ve been single.

Women, who think men want “strong, independent” women will probably stay single, because they’re guilty of projecting. “I want a strong, independent man” the thinking goes, “so he must want a strong, independent woman”. We mostly want a kind, stable, supportive woman. We like strength and independence, but they’re not first on the list as they are on a woman’s list for her ideal man. A thought developed more here.

Disappointingly, glamour has taken it down, which is a shame, because it’s actually a pretty good list. Far from being a “parody of a 1950s housewife”, If you do these 13 things it means you’re thinking about what your man wants, not, as women are encouraged these days, to think about what you’ve been brainwashed into thinking men should want. No-one’s suggesting this  list should form a daily routine, but that you should try to think about the list from time to time, and surprise your other half. And when you think about it, you could write a list aimed at men, and it really wouldn’t look all that different.

The list is as follows:

1. Stocking the Fridge with his favourite drinks. Bonus points: Bring him back to his fraternity days by handing him a drink as he steps out the shower.

Honestly, This works for ladies too. Bringing a glass of prosecco as she steps out the shower isn’t going to piss her off on a Sunday morning, is it?

2. Make him a snack after sex. Simple It doesn’t have to be a gourmet meal: Grilled cheese or milk and cookies will do.

Women don’t get hungry and sleepy after sex in my experience. I guess chaps, aftercare: cuddle her until your arm goes dead and long after you’re bored. Don’t check your twitter feed while doing so. No, nor watch telly. Think about whatever you want while you’re stroking her back, but when she asks say, “how in love I am” or something, not “whether Hamilton’s disastrous performance at the Hungaroring means he’s over-rated” or whatever it is you’re actually thinking about. That would piss her off.

3. E-mailing him the online gossip about his favourite TV show. You don’t have to have a BFF at HBO, just share applicable links from your twitter feed and pat yourself on the back.

It’s called taking an interest in the other person’s interests, and works for chaps too.

4. Bragging about him to your friends and family, the stranger on the street corner, whomever. Proclamations of pride will make his chest puff out and his heart swell.

Exactly the same for women. I mean really, what’s to be offended about here? If you’re going to fall for someone, you’ll be proud of them, and want to show them off to people important to you.

5. Answering the door in a neglige, or better yet, naked.

Yes. We chaps do like this. A LOT. Don’t you ladies like to be swept off your feet as soon as you walk through the door, and carried off to the bedroom by your chap too?

6. Be open to what he wants to try, in and out of the bedroom. An open mind is attractive whatever your playground.

Yes. Same goes for chaps: if (s)he wants to try public sex, sky-diving or a cookery course, even if it’s not your thing, try to enjoy it together. I don’t think my girlfriend is that into cycling. But she’s agreed to come on a 3-day battlefield tour of the Normandy beaches by bicycle with me.

7. Let him solve your petty work problems. Many men don’t do gossip, but they do like to fix things.

This is the best piece of advice in the list. Nothing makes a man feel better about himself than solving a problem for you. The flip side is Chaps! Shut the fuck up and just listen to her occasionally. She doesn’t actually want a solution; she want you to listen, agree and support.

8. Spitting out sports stats for his favourite team. Showing an interest in his favourite players will earn you points on and off the field.

Taking an interest in your other half’s interests is sexist is it?

9. Making a big deal out of his favourite meal. Does he like hotdogs cut up into his boxed mac n’ cheese? Serve it on a silver platter, and see him smile.

That sounds disgusting, but chaps! Bring her comfort food on a silver platter, with an ironic smirk. Really, doing thoughtful things for your other half will certainly not hurt the relationship, will it.

10. Treating his friends as well as you treat your own. If you win their affection, you’ll win his heart.

This would probably appear unaltered in an equivalent list for men. Nothing sexist to see here. Move along.

11. Sitting side by side while he vegs out to TV. It may not feel like quality time to you, but it’s the best time to him.

Yes, ladies. Shut up from time to time. We’ll marry the one who doesn’t need to fill every second with ceaseless prattle. The chaps list in this spot would probably say something like ‘turn the TV off and talk from time to time. It’ll make her feel special’.

12. Give him a massage. Happy ending optional. In fact a foot-rub works just fine.

Women don’t like a massage? Honestly “give her a massage” is on every “how to make her fall in love with you” list from FHM/GQ/Loaded/Nuts. Nothing sexist to see here. Move along.

13. Take him back to third grade with a gentle tease over how you’ll dominate him on the basketball court, to the weird way he just styled his hair.

Playfulness and teasing are important in relationships. You need to be friends as well as lovers and friends tease one another. It shows you’re equals.

The response to this list just shows how far from reality perma-outraged, petty-minded internet feminism is. The fact is men and women are, on average, different, and like different things, and this seems to offend them. Men like movies about explosions, whereas women like movies about people crying over relationships. Women like drama, men like sport. Men like great slabs of meat, women like salads, for some reason. That’s not to say men cannot like a watching a TV drama about relationships, while eating a salad; but women should remember that’s not what most men would choose, were they still a bachelor. And Vice Versa.

Stepping outside your preferences, and into those of your other half, is what makes a relationship work, for men and women. That perma-outraged internet feminists think men’s preferences should be the same as women’s, which shows hubris, arrogance and a staggering lack of self-awareness. But as this will lead them into a life of celibate cat-wrangling, it’s their loss not ours. Every feminist going on about how “strong” and “independent” she is, is one fewer to compete with for ladies who’re prepared to empathise with the other Gender.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

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On the African Boat People and Katie Hopkins.

My CV reads a lot like that of Katie Hopkins. We both went to RMA Sandhurst. We both dropped out close to commissioning, and both on medical grounds. We both then became polemicist commentators: her on TV, me on here. She made a living out of it, I didn’t though. The Strapline of this Blog is “moderate opinions, immoderately put”. For much of what Hopkins says is genuine, realpolitik sense spoken in a way morons can understand it. And she winds all the right people up, sort of like a skinny, female Jeremy Clarkson, without the wit.

Then Hopkins referred to the people crammed onto fishing boats trying to cross the Mediterranean sea to get to Europe, as “Cockroaches” and there she and I part company. That such things are said and thought shouldn’t surprise anyone. That they are printed in a national paper, though, should. That they were yesterday was shocking, to the extent I don’t recognise my country. Hopkins as one who wanted once to be an officer in the British Army, and in the Corps to which she applied, should know better. Much better. Such rhetoric from a bully pulpit such as a Sun Column is how pogroms start. Germany went from Civilised to Nazis in a little under a decade. It could never happen here? I’m not so sure now.

So, Katie Hopkins put herself way, way beyond the pale to me yesterday. She will be forever tainted with those callous, dehumanising words. Ultimately, I’m a libertarian, and believe in the fellowship of man, and feel enormous sympathy with those driven by poverty, to seek a better life. I believe borders are an affront to human dignity, but they are often an unfortunate necessity, when there’s a precious example of freedom and good government to which adding too many ill-educated migrants brought up in war-zones would risk. Without the example of the West, the experiment in free-market liberal democracy could be snuffed out to everyone’s long-term dis-benefit. Europe cannot accept thousands upon thousands of people from Africa and the Middle east, nor should we be expected to, simply because we are rich, though we should, like the enlargement project seek to extend the principle of free movement, slowly, surely and incrementally to countries which share our values.

Given that the Northern European countries who’re the ultimate destination of the migrants, cannot and will not accept everyone who wants to make Europe home we must try to stop them coming. But nor can we let people drown at sea. It was noticed during the previous ‘Mare Nostrum’ rescue operation that the traffickers would simply get into EU territorial waters, send a mayday signal, and scuttle the boat, the rescue ensuring their charges made it safely to land. EU Navies were being used as a leg in the Journey. It was thought denying the Traffickers the use of this leg would stop the flow. It did not.

So what should be done?

Big picture: we need to work with the Governments, however corrupt and vile, where the migrants come from. The less vile the regimes, the less hopeless the economies, the fewer refugees and migrants will be tempted to leave and make their way to Europe. UKIP and their poujadiste allies in Europe are wholly wrong on Foreign Aid to suggest that budgetary and technical support to governments is “wasted”. No-one though should expect rapid results.

One of the reasons for the current tide is the instability in Libya. One of the things Gadaffi* did for us was to stop the boats. (I am not sure letting them drown at sea is much worse than the methods he used… but ‘out of sight out of mind’ is the key principle of international humanitarianism…). Western governments, France and the UK especially are partially culpable for helping topple the regime, but not committing the resources for stability. But the culpability is limited. Qaddafi* was going to be toppled anyway, the current chaos was probably inevitable, and the UK and France probably averted a massacre in Benghazi. Nevertheless, the Libyan authorities need help to secure the country. This will require an appetite for an Iraq sized counter-insurgency for a decade, but Britain and France. Yup… this is unlikely to be popular.

An attempt to stem the ‘push’ from the homelands will be slow. So we need to make the journey less likely to be successful. We need to police the waters, turning back the migrant ships to their ports of origin on the North African coast. This will require investment in Naval and Aviation capacity from the whole EU and their maintenance on station for decades hence, and being comfortable with the use of force. I’m not holding my breath there either.

The good news is for humanity, the forces needed to police the sea lanes in the Mediterranean will also be capable and on station to rescue migrants whose boats sink. There is no need to turn the guns on the people in the boats, nor is there a need to be callous about their survival in the water. We are better than that.  If there are people in need of rescue, however, the rescue at present means the traffickers and the migrant has won. They’re in the EU, and there are plenty of people able and willing to play the system to make sure they are never returned from whence they came. So we need somewhere where the rules can be applied a little more quick and dirty.

What the EU needs is somewhere rescued boat people can go to be processed by the Bureaucracy. And unfortunately this means a camp, somewhere outside the EU. This is the Australian approach, they have camps in Nauru and Papua New Guinea where migrants who don’t make it to Australia are sent, to be returned home. It’s likely, if this is a goer, an enclave will need to be taken from Libya, with or without the host Government’s permission. This would require the EU to contemplate the long-term use of Hard Power, and this being legislated for EU-wide and under the fire of the Human Rights lawyers. Nope, I’m not holding my breath there either.

Make no mistake. This is a horrible problem, dehumanising for all concerned. But given the unwillingness of Europe to accept people, the journey must be made as difficult, as humanly possible without making it inhumane. No-one comes out of this looking or feeling good. And those who accept some of the necessary steps above, will baulk at the others: A UKIPper despises the foreign aid and unified EU action, like a Green will abhor the necessity of Extra-territorial camps and capable Naval flotillas pointing guns at people.

This is what will work to stop the flow of migrants without letting them die at sea in their thousands. But this is not what will happen. This is why the African boat people are not being mentioned by politicians on the stump. Any soundbite on this subject, will be an anathema to one or other section of the electorate. There are no votes to be won in sorting this mess out, only votes to be lost.

*I never spell it the same way twice.

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The Tory Party Wants to Win Again.

Even the awkward squad have been silent. There is no dissent from the back-benches and Cameron’s gaffe – that he will not serve a third term – meaning there will be a leadership contest at some point in the next parliament, is being described as “a disaster”. And it isn’t good news for the Tories: it’s certainly and own goal and an unforced error from the Prime Minister. But it has made Cameron, quite a lot more popular than Miliband, the subject of discussion. I am not sure this is a wholly bad thing. Labour are so inept, they considered running with “vote Cameron, get Boris” as if replacing the most popular party leader with the country’s most popular politician and current mayor of London would be a disaster for the Conservatives.

one reason the Tories will win

Given the Tories discipline, and they wheeled out some pretty solid performances yesterday from even those named as potential successors, dismissing it as “a politician answering a question” is a successful line to take. And this was repeated by journalists on the news; Even Alastair Campbell struggled. The Tories defence gained traction, and so I think this will be less damaging than it could have been.

This incident though also goes to show what’s wrong with our “political class”, and it’s not the politicians. It’s not they unrepresentative. Women are selected in roughly the proportion they put themselves forward, ethnic minorities are only slightly under-represented and may be about the same proportion as in the general population after the next election, and not only sitting for “diverse” seats. MPs are middle class, but is it surprising that the working class, who seem to despise education, aren’t producing many men and women of ideas to sit in parliament?

You have people stating as fact parliament is too “male, pale and stale“. ‘Middle-class’ is a term of abuse and the lie that politics is unrepresentative is constantly repeated. The people doing this are the media. To the kind of “young people” that turn up on the media, anyone in a suit is “middle-class” who “doesn’t understand” what young people experience. It’s nonsense of course, but the media feed it.

What do you want? Parliament filled with semi-educated failures who’re representative only of utter grockles? Parliamentarians chosen by gender and race, but utterly compliant to the whim of the executive? This is Labour’s way. Because it seems ensuring diversity of appearance ensures a monoculture of political ideas. Worse you get risible Children like Red Princes Will Straw and Euan Blair or Princess Emily Benn who said

“I represent the ward I was born in, which is y’know more important than where you come from…“

…While the cameras were rolling. She’s 25, and is being wheeled out to demonstrate their commitment to youth issues. By which labour mean tuition fees. Which they introduced. I am sure having Great Granddad, Granddad and Father all Labour MPs had absolutely no bearing on her selection.

“Judge me,on my ideas“

…I look forward to it. The Tories have always been less ethnically diverse but a broader church of ideas, and so harder to lead.

But they want it bad this time. The hatchet has been buried. The awkward squad are satisfied they will get their deepest desire: the EU referendum, and are working for it. Cameron has unified the ununifiable behind him, for a couple more years at least.

As for the election? The polls are neck and neck to a slight Tory lead. And the campaign proper has not yet begun. Labour are going to be near wiped out in Scotland, and have Ed Miliband “in Charge”. When the broad mass of the electorate have a good look at him, they will say “urgh”. Labour MPs openly call their leader a “fucking knob“. UKIP are slipping, 18% a few months ago, nearer 14% now. Plenty of their supporters won’t bother, or will vote Tory to keep Labour out. Thanks to the Scots, the national Labour inbuilt advantage is no more. A ten point move during a campaign is common. And there really is only one way it can go….

There will be a Tory majority.

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“I hope Putin wins”

I know it’s cheap and tawdry to base an essay on a comment on the Daily Mail website but bear with me OK?

The Mail pointed out that the Ukraine crisis might just be the start of WW3. Personally, I think this unlikely. I doubt Russia will even Annex Kiev, but will take eastern Ukraine back into its fold. Next up is Moldova, with Russian bases in Transnitria, already swirling down the plughole of Russian annexation. Further conflict with Georgia beckons as does closer ties with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Belarus. None of this will be fought over by anyone in the West. Meanwhile the damage this will do to the Russian economy, will be immense.

By far the most entertaining comment to this story, and there are many such on the Daily Mail website, reads

I hope you are RIGHT! the west has started this, with its Liberal ways, forcing our ways on to the rest of the world whilst our own communities suffer and fail… I hope Putin wins.

By someone calling themselves TheTruthHurts. However lumpen and stupid wishing a war over our “liberal ways” or thinking “our communities”, which are amongst the richest and most free on earth, will “suffer and fail” might be, he has stumbled onto a Truth. Putin’s Russia IS seeking leadership of socially conservative countries that reject gay rights, women’s equality and all that messy democracy stuff. And there will always be a market for people like our friend above who admire a dictator’s “strength” over what he perceives as a democrat’s weakness.

It is precisely this Fuhrerprinzip that led Farage to suggest he admired Putin “as an operator”. And there are no shortage of CyberKIPpers ranting about how the Ukrainian crisis isn’t a failing former superpower meddling in its former empire, but actually the EU’s fault for daring to enter trade deals with sovereign countries on its borders. Of course UKIPpers blame the EU for the rain, but Putin knows free market, liberal democracy works. He, as a former KGB operative, just doesn’t know why.

the world’s queer-basher in-chief.

But for now, Putin, and his pathetic little Lord Haw Haw, Nigel Farage, have a ready audience of people whom the world has passed by. People who reject Gay rights, ethnic diversity, immigration, women’s equality and who yearn for strong rulers from an imagined past. In Britain’s case, Churchill and Thatcher, and in Russia’s case Peter the Great and Stalin, who’re associated with the pomp and power of empire.

Of course democracies aren’t weak. We are quite capable of expending enormous amounts of blood and treasure, if we can persuade the people our cause is just. Which is why free men from around the world stormed ashore in Normandy, to defeat the most odious tyranny, and why we maintain expeditionary forces round the world to this day. Indeed, we’re stronger now than then and can win wars without making the Guns/butter trade-off. The US defence budget is just 4% of GDP, yet it dwarfs the next dozen or so. All but 2 of the 10 largest defence budgets on earth are NATO democracies.

It’s economies that win wars. Putin’s isolation from the rich, free and extremely powerful west will eventually cost the people (and more importantly, the oligarchs) money. In the short term, the Russian regime will absorb more economic pain than can the administrations in the west, but in the longer run, Putin needs German money, even more than Germany needs Russian gas. Already the isolation is hurting Russian growth, which far from the days of the BRIC boom, is forecast to grow a measly 1.3% this year. And if the Oil price falls, Putin will struggle to pay his over-manned and decrepit army.

The Annexation of Eastern Ukraine will isolate Russia, and even potential allies like China are keeping their distance, fearful over their own shared and disputed borders. This is not the Beginning of WW3. Putin’s isolation and Russia’s economic weakness will see to that. The friends Putin can reliably call on, fellow gay-bashers like Iran, have no power or pull. There’s no alliance of powers capable of posing a threat to NATO, so long as our political will remains. The risk to the west comes with Estonia, an article 5 NATO country and member of the EU. Will we fight for a few Eastern Counties of Estonia? If we do not, NATO which has guaranteed security in Europe for so long will be finished. But there is a lot of water to cross before we get there, and I’m not sure Russia has the appetite, or even the economic and military capacity for the journey.

The Borders of Europe will be redrawn, and not for the last time. If you want historical parallels, this is probably the Galtieri Gambit, not the march into the Sudetenland. Like the Argentine general, Putin’s military adventures were popular. For a while, until the cost of taking on a democracy, and rousing it to anger became apparent.

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Top Trolling from Rod LIddle in the Spectator.

Off yer bikes! Cyclists are a menace to society — and self-righteous to boot 


You are just pedalling, you plastic-hatted ninnies, not saving the bloody planet 

 Rather than the invisible cyclist, who’s American, perhaps fat, out-of-shape, double-chinned Labour party member, Rod Liddle could have started his Spectator rant with an article about why stupid, working class, labour-voting ignorant chavs cannot control themselves around cyclists, written by someone who lives in the UK and who knows what they’re talking about. Like this one, by me. Instead he finds a pretty harmless piece of hyperbole from a San-Fransico Blogger to start with.

‘Such anti-cyclist anger reminds me in many ways of the feelings about gypsies that I would hear expressed when I lived in central Europe. In Hungary, people would tell me they disliked gypsies because they were lazy and dishonest. The truth was that gypsies — like, I would suggest, cyclists — were unpopular principally for being different.

So he starts with a cyclist complaining that others treat them (us) as an outgroup. Liddle Then moves on to a classic piece of trolling – nice and controversial treating cyclists as an outgroup:

Like many people, I am worried that too few cyclists are being killed on our roads each year.

Q.E.D. Can you imagine being able to write that in the Spectator about any other group of people? Premiership footballers perhaps.

While the number of cycling journeys undertaken in the UK has risen enormously since 2006, and exponentially since the exciting, hirsute Sir Bradley Wiggins won a bicycle race in France in 2012, the official statistics show only a moderate rise in fatalities.

The first error of fact. Wiggins’ win in the Tour De France came long after the number of cyclists started to rise.

This suggests to me that car drivers have become more accommodating in their behaviour towards these people and have lost their radical anti-cycling zeal.

This is a good thing. No-one is bothered by black neighbours any more either. The only people who still hate cyclists are stupid, ignorant, working class, labour-voters mostly in white vans, who hate anyone different. Hate. It’s a bad thing, Rod.

They have been bullied out of it, one suspects, by official propaganda that insists that knocking cyclists over, deliberately or otherwise, is somehow ‘antisocial’, and by the effusions of lionised celebrity cyclists like Wiggins, and that also ennobled Scottish man who cycles round and round a track very quickly indeed, like a sort of thin-lipped ginger hamster with outsized calf muscles.

Propaganda?

Wiggins and the Scottish man are both militant campaigners against the killing of cyclists, and they are also in favour of more cycle lanes (which cyclists like to see built, but never use)…

To understand why few cyclists use the laughable provisions in the UK, see the excellent Warrington cycle campaign’s facility of the month.

…and further speed restrictions on the people who actually pay for the roads (car drivers), but the government is on board too.

Of course car-drivers don’t “pay for the roads”. Most cyclists also own a car, and indeed are more likely to do so than the average member of the public. Cyclists are drawn from two populations: those too poor to own a car, but these are now outnumbered by affluent people for whom cycling is an enjoyable way to get to work. Of course Rod Liddle, being a member of the Labour party, is not concerned with tiresome research, or so-called “facts”.

My concern is that if killing cyclists is no longer allowable in a free country, then it is the thin end of the wedge and it may be that down the line cycling will become an ‘acceptable’ pursuit for normal people. We have seen this happen before with homosexuals, single mothers and some foreigners; one moment we are enjoined not to victimise them, the next they are clamouring for equality. Somewhere, surely, we have to draw the line.

OK he’s trolling. Good work.

Well, ok, I jest, in predictably bad taste. And you were probably aware that I was joking, unless you are a committed cyclist who is determined to be outraged. By ‘committed’ I do not mean that you are the recipient of state protection in a secure asylum….

Thanks for admitting you’re joking. But what… there’s more to this article?

…but rather that you are one of those people with an expensive bicycle, a lot of Lycra, a pompous little pointy plastic hat, hilarious goggles, a fatuous water bottle and the fervent conviction that you are a Victim as a consequence of your Vulnerability. And that in being a Victim as a consequence of being Vulnerable you are somehow empowered to take it out on everybody else you see on the public highways, especially car drivers and pedestrians.

Oh, so having said you’re joking, you then start with the SERIOUS BIT? About how we’re all so insufferable for not wanting to get crushed by a fucking truck? Or for expecting drivers to respect our safety? Is that what you’re saying Rod?

There is nothing quite like considering yourself a Victim to bolster the self-esteem, nothing like resentment to make the hours go by a little quicker. Not all cyclists fall into this category of course, far from it. But plenty do. Dare to disparage the cycling fraternity and all hell will break loose; when you are a certified Victim all sense of proportion — and humour — departs.

Well forgive me for not wanting to be crushed by a truck.

I discovered this when I mentioned in a blog recently that I was not sure why I had to pay, through my taxes, for my friend to have a new bicycle — there’s a government scheme on offer which effectively gives you a bike on tick, interest-free.

No there isn’t, Rod. There’s a scheme which lets some people (but not soldiers or the self-employed) to buy a bicycle out of pre-tax income via their employers. It saves at most £400.

Ooh, the fury. But it was nothing compared to the opprobrium heaped upon the head of my colleague Matthew Parris who jokingly suggested that life in his village would be improved by piano wire strung across the roads to decapitate the hugely annoying cyclists.

But this has actually happened. And so some of us don’t think it funny.

Cyclists — or some of them, a lot of them — have become, these last few years, full of themselves, puffed-up with righteous anger. Part of this has been encouraged by the success of Wiggins and the Scottish hamster-man. But part of it too is because these people don’t think they’re simply pedalling from High Holborn to Paddington; they think they’re saving the bloody planet.

This is a charge often levelled, but it’s a straw man. Most people cycling from High Holborn to Paddington (a route containing some of the best infrastructure in London, incidentally) will do so because it’s cheap, healthy, fun, sociable and pleasant way to travel. Few cyclists think they’re “saving the planet”. And if some do, so what?

And they think that the rest of us are destroying it. As the anonymous blogger put it in that quote at the top of the page, they think that they are different.

No we don’t think we’re different, the blogger you quote doesn’t think cyclists are different. But you clearly think we are different, don’t you Rod? You’re projecting your own prejudices.

No — you’re not. You just can’t afford a car or are deluded about the impact cycling a few miles makes to the environment. And you can’t be bothered to walk.

Interesting how Labour members think they’re allowed to sneer at the poor. Of course even Jeremy Clarkson admits a city without cars littering the place is simply a nicer place to be. Cars do ruin the environment. It’s not just about Carbon. It’s why we pedestrianise streets. Because cars scare people away.

Cyclists are another one of those things about which the government and establishment are of one mind and the general public another. There is absolutely no doubt that the behaviour of some cyclists, the militant lot, enrages both pedestrians and car users — i.e. the vast majority of the British public.

The militant cyclist is unlikely to be the same person as the pavement cyclist, who’s much more likely to be from the tribe openly sneered at by Liddle – too poor to own a car.

I had always thought, when I saw two cyclists riding abreast on a narrowish road, holding up the traffic, that they were unaware of the annoyance they were causing. That maybe they didn’t know there was a car behind, and another 50 cars behind that car.

If it’s not safe to pass two cyclists, it’s not safe to pass one cyclist. There’s no extra delay.

Oh, but they do, they do. Check out the cycling websites and you will learn that they ride two abreast precisely to stop cars overtaking them, because on narrow roads they are convinced that car drivers will cut in too close to them as they pass.

Convinced, because IT HAPPENS.

So they block the entire road and feel good about it, because they are Victims. The law states that they are allowed to ride two abreast

…on any road, not just…

…on a big, wide, straight road, no bends and curves, where there is plenty of opportunity and width for cars to pass by in comfort; but a hefty majority of the posts I saw on several websites revealed very different strategies. Their view is that unless a car has room to pass two cyclists, it shouldn’t be trying to pass one. And with that they wrap themselves in self-righteousness as the queues of traffic tail back further and further.

There is no right for you to get past at will, and no obligation on cyclists to “get out of the way”. That you, a fat, slovenly, Labour voter is so filled with a massive entitlement complex that you think you have a right to get past, just shows how fat, stupid and selfish you are. Your 30 second delay (and it really is just that) is more important to you, than another human being’s safety. Which is just fucking grotesque when you think about it.

Likewise, riding on the pavements and thus maiming pensioners. The law is clear about this, for a change. They should never do it.

And if you go to “cycling websites” you’ll find the “militant cyclists” pretty universal in their condemnation of pavement cyclist, but never let the facts get in the way of a good rant, Rod.

But they do it because they feel safer there, of course.

Most pavement cyclists are poor people trying to get about. They feel threatened on the road. Because you think you have a right to get past.

Listen, you plastic-hatted ninny: if you don’t have the balls to cycle in the road, then ditch the bike.

Most pavement cyclist don’t wear helmets. Unless they’re small children. Who ARE allowed to cycle on the pavement. Facts, Rod. They’re out there if you look….

It is still the case that, mile for mile, pedestrians are far more ‘vulnerable’ than cyclists. Mile for mile, more pedestrians are killed. They — we — are the real victims, even if we do not whine about it continuously.

Yes, Rod, they’re killed by motorists, not cyclists.

And the number of pedestrians maimed by cyclists is also rising by the year, to the extent that legislation has been proposed to ensure that cyclists respect the laws of the land the same as everyone else.

The grotesque exaggeration of the number of pedestrians hurt by cyclists is a tiresome trope of this sort of piece. How many people are hurt by cars, and how many by cyclists, Rod?…Rod?

And of course, there are other irritations and dangers. I get infuriated by the cyclists tearing past me on the rural footpath where I live, scattering dogs and kids like confetti, believing that because they are allowed on the path, they are under no obligation to consider anyone else who might be using it.

This happens occasionally. But equally frequently, the ‘shared use’ path has pedestrians wandering about on the bit set aside for cyclists. Who’s to blame? The council for engineering conflict.

I am thinking of training my dog to attack cyclists who behave like this, catch up with them on the uphill stretch and chew their tyres off. I think I will use, as a signal to the animal to launch its attack, the word ‘Hoy!’

Funny, using the name of the cyclist whom you pretend to not remember. Well done, you fat, Labour-voting twat.

And of course there is the running of red lights, a continual complaint from car users, and the weaving in and out of traffic with an expression of rectitude on their faces.

It had to come. The “red-light” crap. Car drivers too regularly run red lights. At least as frequently as cyclists. It’s just for reasons that are obvious, only one motorist will see a motorist do so, whereas dozens of motorists will see a cyclist run a light. It happens. But cyclists running the occasional red is simply not a big problem. Cars doing so is.

And while it is true that by far the greatest number of pedestrian injuries and deaths are caused by car drivers…

…Nice of you to admit it…

…as a pedestrian you always have the sneaking suspicion that, in general, car drivers will try their best to avoid hitting you, while cyclists not only don’t care but will happily blame you for any injury which occurs.

“Sneaking suspicion” of nothing except Rod Liddle’s brute prejudice. A straw man, ideas put into the heads of cyclists (THEM!) whom he has not bothered to consult.

It is the last point which is the crucial one. It is about attitude.

Yes it is, Rod. If you see a cyclist and think, “I’ll slow down, pass when it’s safe, I’ll probably not be delayed at all”, then you won’t feel the hate. Calm down, Rod. You’re fat and out-of-shape. Your heart might not take the stress.

For a long time car drivers have had it drummed into them that what they are doing is antisocial and undesirable and have been subjected to ever greater strictures about what they can and can’t do in their cars, how fast they should travel and why they should leave the car in the garage to ease congestion and save the planet.

Well, Rod, it’s not cyclists causing congestion is it? And you think people should be allowed to go as fast as they like, or abandon their vehicles wherever they choose? These “strictures” aren’t for the cyclists’ benefit, but for pedestrians. And motorists.

As a consequence, they have become mindful and cowed. By contrast the cyclists have been told that they are doing a Good Thing, that it would be better if we all cycled (it wouldn’t — it would be better if we all walked) and so believe they can do no wrong.

Simply not true. This is a mere projection of Rod’s own feelings of impotence when stuck in traffic. Traffic of course being created by other fat people like him in cars.

They have the moral high ground, which includes the pavement, since you asked.

I’ve dealt with the Pavement issue.

I think we need a bit of legislation to sort them out, to penalise adult cyclists who ride on pavements, to book them for dangerous driving when they’re cutting lights or riding two abreast on unsuitable roads. And either to make it compulsory for cyclists to use cycle lanes or for local authorities to stop providing them (and turn the existing ones back into normal roads). Then the cyclists will feel an even greater sense of victimhood, and thus be happier.

Or maybe, just maybe, proper, segregated infrastructure will encourage those people who want to cycle to do so without enraging fat, idle, Labour-voting inadequates as the fat about in their fat-mobiles, and indeed making their lipid lives a little easier. More, better cycle lanes will engineer out the conflict. But that would involve giving “THEM” (a word which along with “They”) appears 71 times in Rod Liddle’s article) what they want, and that would not appease Rod “fat labour” Liddle’s sense of victim-hood which flows through this article. The word “They” usually indicates a lack of thought, a generalisation about another group, and such generalisations rarely stand up to scrutiny.

This is an embarrassment to the Spectator, riven with ignorance of the subject and full of internal contradictions.

Did I mention Rod Liddle is a fat member of the Labour Party?

Update: Before you comment, be sure to check your “thoughts” against this Cyclist-hate Bingo card. I want to collect the lot:

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Why Politicians don’t “tell the truth”.

Because they can’t.

Every utterance is not reported on its merits. When asked a question like “are green taxes good for the economy” the answer, as anyone who’s looked at this, or any other issue knows, “it depends”.

Politicians will therefore be asked to elaborate. I’m going to answer that as if I was a junior minister in the Department for Energy and Climate Change:

“So there are some good taxes, and some bad taxes. For example, I am in favour of fuel duty because tax has to come from somewhere, fuel duty’s fair, provides an incentive to drive less, slower, in a more fuel-efficient car and so reduces pollution and congestion; but think the VED is ridiculous. Green Levies on utility bills are regressive and distortionary, but taxes on extracting Oil and Gas from the ground aren’t. There’s a case for state subsidy of renewables & nuclear, but wind-power is ridiculous“

That answer will piss EVERYONE off. The anti-tax, anti-green band of conservatism exemplified by the Taxpayers’ Alliance will focus on support for Fuel Duty. The Daily Mail will report it as “Minister wants you to pay MORE for your petrol“, but the Guardian will contrast the “greenest government ever” with support for cutting green levies on utility bills. In the media hive-mind WINDFARMS=GREEN POLICY so a politician trotting out the summary of my opinions above will risk being branded a “climate-change denier” which will mean being ignored by about a third of the electorate from that day hence.

Papers report politicians in a way to ensure politicians are even less popular than Journalists (which is incidentally why politicians are beating up blameless utility companies right now – the abused victimising those even more hated), by focussing on the comments which will annoy that paper’s readership the most. Everyone thinks the politician in question is “an idiot” who “doesn’t know what he’s talking about“. Everyone’s prior assumption of politicians being stupid, ignorant arseholes, who’re only in it for themselves, or possibly their mates in the Union lobby/city/big business/EU (delete according to taste), is reinforced.

So politicians don’t answer the question. Instead they position themselves on whichever “side” of the debate on which they wish to be reported as being by the media, and utter the soundbite they wish to get into the papers.

And that, in a nutshell is why politicians don’t answer anything to the satisfaction of economists, experts, bloggers or,indeed, anyone paying attention. They can’t, because Journalists don’t report in enough detail. A politician’s comments might get 30 seconds of broadcast news. Even newspaper journalists don’t report in enough detail because we, the public, aren’t that interested in politics. And so we get the politicians (or the caricature of them presented by the media) we deserve.

Meanwhile politicians actually do try to create the best legislation they can, according to their beliefs and principles. And everyone will hate them for it, despite the UK being a reasonably well-governed, orderly and pleasant place to live. Our politicians are obviously doing less wrong than in much of the rest of the world.

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Twitter’s first Flash-Crash

Yesterday, some jolly trickster hacked into the Associated Press’s twitter account (@AP) and tweeted

“Breaking: Two explosions in the White House and Barak Obama is injured”

Predictably the market collapsed 0.8%, before rallying on the news that it’s a hoax.

It would be so easy to earn serious money, with almost no chance of getting caught. You need the password. You need to open a trading account for CFDs or Spread-Betting. You need to establish a pattern of trading. You need to have a situation where a $100 a tick position would be entirely normal. You need to open just such a position, shortly before your associate, working from an internet cafe elsewhere, logs into AP’s Twitter and tweets the bogus bomb story.

The fact this happened shortly before the market close suggests the plan was to go long in the final seconds of trading, ensuring another big profit, when the markets open up today on news of the hoax getting around.

As it happened, the hoax was spotted quickly, and the Markets recovered before the close of play. Still, it would be quite possible to make hundreds of thousands of Dollars in a couple of minutes work. This post is of course, an elaborate double bluff.

“Of course I’d do no such thing. Look, I’ve written about it, yer ‘onner.” 

Can anyone get me Reuters’ twitter password?

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Leveson & Niemöller

First they came for the Tabloids, and I said nothing because I read the Guardian on my iPad. Then they came for the Guardian, and I said nothing because I’d assumed it was going bust anyway. Then they came for the blogs, and I said nothing because bloggers are just hairy-handed self-abusers, aren’t they? Then they came for Twitter, which I only use to post pictures of my food, (organic, nach…) so I’ll probably be OK. Then I criticised the Government on Facebook, and there was no-one left to speak for me.

Peter Lilley yesterday said the new regulator has the potential to become an Orwellian ministry of truth, and the press should resist it. If you can’t see how the regulator will have a chilling effect on investigative journalism of the sort that exposed the expenses scandal, you’re a moron. Britain’s chaotic, anarchic, brutal free press will either resist this regulator or be tamed to death. We will see fewer exposes of powerful people doing bad things, which often have dubious sources. Is this price worth it to prevent journalists listening to someone’s voicemail.

It isn’t the News of the World that killed Millie Dowler, and there’s precious little evidence anyone from the paper even listened to her voicemail. The press is being regulated because of Labour’s desire for revenge for this headline:

Because of cheap and chippy spite, we have sleepwalked into a regulated press. Blogs and websites with News-related content will be swept up in the legislation almost by accident, because when have judges ever left anyone out of regulation, even when it’s parliament’s clear intent (for now) to do so?
The victors of this: Politicians, who will face a less powerful press scrutinising their decisions. Celebrities will find their private lives a little more private. And because of this, fewer people will buy papers and the electorate will be less informed.. And the regulation of the Blogs, who have less resources than the once-mighty press-barons, will be easier, now the rubicon’s already been crossed.
The left has long sought to tame the press. That they succeeded yesterday is not because the press were too powerful, but because they’re now so weak. One of the Glories of our democracy was the savagery with which the press dealt with our lords and masters. Not any more.
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“I was almost knocked down!” and Other Journalistic Tropes About Cycling

There are a number of Journalistic tropes trotted out when cyclists are mentioned in the press. There’s the idiotic “They should pay road tax”, when, of course, road-tax was abolished in 1937, and cyclists are more likely to own a car than the general population. Furthermore many cars are 0%-rated for VED, smart-cars, or many old vehicles for example. These don’t pay “road-tax” either. Are these less entitled to the road than a Range-Rover.

There is the stupid idea that cyclists on the road should be compulsorily insured. Of course in an accident, the cost of wiping blood off a car is negligible.  And in any case, cyclists are to blame for serious accidents in around only 7% of cases (where someone, almost exclusively the cyclist himself) is killed or seriously injured. The chances of a cyclist killing or seriously injuring a motorist, or damaging their vehicle, are so low that it really isn’t worth the bother. Dragging a motorist out of its vehicle and beating it to death with your bare hands is covered by existing statute. Alas. Most regular cyclists are insured, for their own protection. The public liability cover is given away nearly free, as it is so rarely needed.

Licensing cyclists so they can be caught breaking the law is another silly idea given a regular airing by fuckwits in the press. This has never worked, anywhere, ever. Everywhere where it has been tried, it has been abandoned as a costly and intrusive failure. Red-light jumping by cyclists get wankers hot under the collar because they think as the mondeo-man is held up, everyone else should be too. If you find yourself whinging about red-light jumping cyclists, please repeat this phrase: “bicycles are not cars and cannot block junctions”. Red lights are to keep the traffic moving through junctions, and are not about safety.

Cyclists should be made to wear helmets? All that does is reduce the number of cyclists. Of course some would hail that as a victory, but given one of the tightest correlations between a city’s “livability” and quality of life is its bicycle modal share, this is idiotic. No-one wears a helmet for utility cycling in the Netherlands, because no-one needs to. Helmets and other individual protective equipment such as High-viz clothing is a sticking-plaster on the gunshot wound of unbelievably hostile roads.

Removing free on-street parking is always criticised by local businesses, especially if a cycle lane is put in its place, because people routinely over-estimate the importance of driving on custom, often by orders of magnitiude. Even now, cycling and walking play a much greater part in the short shopping trips to town than most people realise. Pedestrianising streets and protected bike lanes increase footfall, in New York’s case by up to 25%. Walkers and cyclists take up less space, stay longer, visit more shops more often.

Finally, there’s the “I was almost knocked over“. I have never met anyone who was actually knocked over by a cyclist, and in two decades of regular, urban cycling, I have never hit a pedestrian, nor seen one get hit by a cyclist. My guess is that “I was almost knocked over” actually means, “something fast-moving in my peripheral vision startled me, and I cannot tell the difference between an involuntary endocrine reaction and danger” As the number of cyclists increase, maybe pedestrians will start to look out for us, as they do currently, and without complaint, for the cars which do, far far more regularly ACTUALLY hit pedestrians. And of course the consequences of hitting a pedestrian on a bicycle are usually vastly less severe than doing so in a car. However special ire is reserved for cyclists.

If journalists are to be believed, all cyclists run red lights, get simultaneously in the way of motor vehicles, and ride on the pavement. They are all dangerous scofflaws while the saintly motorists obey the rules of the road. If a motorist makes a risky pass on a blind corner, this is justifiable in the face of provocation from “lycra louts” who deliberately get in the way. Did we mention that all motorists obey the rules of the road, well of course we meant apart from those silly rules about maximum speed and parking of course, which are part of the “war on the motorist”. And if a cyclist ends up crushed by a motor vehicle driven by a near-blind illiterate who hasn’t slept for 20 hours, then he’s only got himself to blame for not wearing high-viz and a helmet and riding “in the way” not in the gutter where he belongs.

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