Let's talk about cyclists, Cambridge

Yeah, let's talk about cycling. Because no one else dares mention it.

I'm joking, of course. If you've lived in Cambridge for more than 35 minutes, you've had this conversation. Or read an article in the local 'newspaper'. (I use inverted commas because to be honest the Cambridge 'News' is a misnomer). Or, even better, chuckled at a furious, incoherent, frothing-at-the-mouth fact-free, mindless, bigoted tirade from a resident masquerading as a 'contribution to the debate' in epistolary form to said publication.

Bloody bikes. Yobbos in lycra. No lights. No helmets. Nearly ran over a kid or granny. Jumped a red. Scraped my car. Cycle in the middle of the road. Don't pay road tax. Should be licensed. Smashed one of my front lights when I ran straight into one. Scratched my passenger door when I knocked one over. Slow me down on the school run by lying bleeding in the middle of the road.

Cyclists rule this city. It's ours. We own the roads. And yeah, sometimes the pavements. Get used to us because we aren't going anywhere. Actually, that's the whole point - we are going somewhere, unlike you lot - stuck in traffic for hours every day, cursing every other road user, apparently unaware that you are are just as much traffic as they are, and that each cyclist whizzing gleefully past you and your execrations represents one fewer vehicle in front of you. You should be silently thanking every single cyclist who zips by.

Cambridge is a very small, very old city with a growing population far in excess of what its streets can reasonably support, to get in and out of and move around within it. As generations of both students and locals have discovered, riding a bike is the ideal way to actually get anywhere.

Cyclists are the dominant road users here, with good reason, and as such not only are we not going to disappear any time soon, but we're not going to apologise for our presence, silently accept every piece of nonsense written about us, meekly back down in a confrontation, or refuse to proclaim our inherent superiority in any debate about transport that actually works for Cambridge.

This city would have ground to a halt without us decades ago. Cycling allows tens of thousands of students to get to and from their lectures, sports matches, shopping trips, parties... You want every student to drive here? Half? Ten percent? No? Surely not even the most fanatical petrol-head would think that's a good idea. Cycling also allows locals to move around, get to work, shop, go to the pub, cinema, station etc, without city centre roads resembling a car park choked with stationary vehicles and toxic fumes - well, more so than it is already.

Everyone knows the health benefits of cycling, and that it's less harmful to the environment, and far, far cheaper than driving. In short, it's by far the most sensible way to travel here; and this city should be designed predominantly for cyclists.  Anything else is just madness. Yes, I'm aware we need trucks and vans to deliver goods, and taxis, and we have to provide support for people who can't physically ride a bike (the elderly, disabled, infirm) - of course, but let's focus on the majority road users, cyclists, and give them every help and encouragement to continue cycling.

And if we do sometimes ride in the middle of the road, it's usually with good reason - most commonly because the cycle-path is obstructed or dangerous or there are parked cars blocking us or junctions with drivers who don't look before turning - but mostly to deter you from attempting to impatiently overtake with not enough clearance and unnecessarily risk our lives for the sake of a few seconds. If we accidentally bump into you or your child, sorry. It's not deliberate. But just thank God it wasn't a car. Look up the stats involving pedestrians in accidents with bikes and with cars. Then thank us for being on a bike so we didn't kill you.  Yeah, we're not perfect, but generally we have more patience and awareness of what's going on around us than someone cocooned in a small steel box with four wheels.  If we do jump a red light, get the fuck over it. We're not saints. But give me an asshole on a bike rather than one behind the wheel. Every. Single. Time.

So don't come to Cambridge and whine about how many cyclists there are everywhere, or one of them doing something you don't approve of.  If you don't like it, stay away. Go somewhere where there aren't any bikes and drive around there to your heart's content. Move somewhere where no-one has the temerity to ride a kind of vehicle you don't like. You don't get to dictate who lives here and how they get around. This is cycle country and it's not going to change. Tweet, whine, post, write all you like about how that offends you; vent as much as you like about some fantasy scheme where everyone on a bike has a licence plate and rides at 5mph on the few cycle lanes you'll tolerate, meekly deferring to your presence on the road to get out of your way. But it's not going to happen. We're not getting out of your way. We're growing in numbers. The city (if it has any sense) is going to be more and more designed for our convenience, and less and less for yours.

My advice is, put down that green pen, leave the car in the drive, get your coat on, walk down to the nearest cycle shop (there are hundreds) and join us.  You'll live longer, you'll be less irate most of the time, and you'll get that lovely feeling of flying past your former self sat, stationary, behind the wheel, fulminating at the horror and unfairness of it all.

Why Leave voters still want to leave (at any cost)

As a hand-wringing liberal in an affluent city in the South-East, I have in turn been shocked, angry, saddened and bemused by the outcome of the EU Referendum and the ongoing news of its ever more damaging consequences.  Like most of my friends and colleagues, I've been through several emotional phases of the grief cycle, but to be honest I'm not sure any of us will reach 'acceptance' any time soon.

How could so many people believe so much disinformation about the EU? How could they swallow the notion it was responsible for most of what was wrong with their own situation – social deprivation, limited job prospects, and years of under-investment in public services? Or how could they confidently vote to leave knowing (being told) so little about its structure, its working, the practical operation of its institutions and the enormously complex and expensive process of extricating ourselves from it after 40 years of membership.    

Why were they so blasé about walking away from millions in regeneration grants to areas such as rural Wales and Cornwall, jeopardising legal protections for workers or food safety laws, abandoning co-operation on scientific research and environmental policy?  Didn't they care about the threat to the integrity of the UK they professed to love so much, the border between NI and the Republic, the increased likelihood of a second Independence Referendum in a pro-EU Scotland?  

How could so many respond to dog whistle xenophobia blaming all their woes on 'out of control' levels of immigration? And above all, how could they possibly believe that arch neocon Tories like Liam Fox, David Davies et al really had their interests at heart? What was it in their political track record that convinced Leave voters these campaigners really cared about the plight of the ordinary working man 'left behind by globalisation'?   

I found it all as mystifying as it was disturbing. This was a nation half of whose population I didn't recognise or understand. But of course I was – and still am - hopelessly disconnected from the sort of Brexit voter I occasionally saw in vox pops on the news or read about it in the newspapers. Even the language was becoming alien to me - "will of the people", "metropolitan elite" - sinister, loaded phrases lifted straight from the pages of 1984 into common circulation. Toxic clouds circling in the wind. 

But then, as the news of a harder and harder Brexit kept on coming, with May stubbornly doubling down on her cynical, expedient Leave-at-all-costs policy, something struck me.  I had an epiphany. 

Leave voters* don't care about the consequences of Brexit. They're not scared or even concerned about serious risks to our future prosperity.  

It's not that they don't believe the direst forecasts of political isolation and economic catastrophe; those that don't just dismiss these predictions out of hand welcome them. Every piece of bad news vindicates their decision. They court the unfolding chaos. 

When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. So when you're offered the opportunity to lob a grenade into a system that has spectacularly failed you, you seize it with both hands and pull the pin with barely a thought. The more damage the better.  You don't want to see a small puff of smoke and then watch everything return to normal as the dust settles. You crave as large an explosion as possible, with wreckage all around. 

Because who will suffer most from the economic decline of the UK? The people who are already bumping along the bottom, who have given up on mainstream politics and are increasingly seduced by fascist movements whose only message is anger, hatred and division?  No, it's the people they resent, in steady work, in liberal, multicultural urban areas, those they perceive to be an out-of-touch 'elite', who may ultimately be dragged down to experience the pain they've been suffering, ignored, all this time.  The more debate, the more controversy, the more fear, uncertainty and doubt, the better. 

They cheer on Theresa May as she pushes for a harder, cleaner, potentially more devastating exit. They sneer at experts who warn of the consequences. It's not that they believed the ridiculous rhetoric about 'sunlit uplands' or promises of lucrative trade deals around the globe, or hold any real hope their circumstances will be improved; they just don't care if disaster is unleashed across the nation. Because why the fuck not. You can't seriously expect people who have moved beyond despair into apathy to feel a collective responsibility towards the future of a country that has done nothing for them for decades.  

Their message is different: bring it on. Whatever "it" is.  

*not all. Some leave voters genuinely believe it's a good idea. They're just fucking deluded. 

Just a few comments about this piece

I have no evidence for it.  I haven't interviewed any Leave voters, commissioned any polling, or read anything anywhere that suggests it's demonstrably true. 

It's based only on my own contemplation of what might be motivating an apparently large number of people to disregard the mounting evidence that Brexit is going to be a calamitous shitshow. 

It's obviously a massive generalisation.  17 million people can't possibly want to bring down rack and ruin upon the entire population. Can they? 

My characterisation of Leave voters is a stereotype, and not representative of everyone who voted Leave. Are they all from run-down post-industrial Northern towns, resentful of liberal London elites, and angry at the immigrants they were encouraged to blame for stealing their livelihoods and overwhelming their schools and hospitals? Quite clearly not.  This is a lazy narrative, which divides the nation into two homogeneous tribes, divided by geography, income and education. Of course it's not that straightforward. 

I know a few intelligent, comfortably off Leave voters*, who presumably voted to leave the EU because they were genuinely critical of it as an institution and believed we will prosper outside it. Maybe they also bought into the argument about reclaiming our lost sovereignty and 'taking back control'. Maybe they were swayed by Boris Johnson's reverie painting the lyrical possibilities of a UK unshackled from the suffocating strictures of the EU. Maybe they thought the persuasive charms of Liam Fox will deliver a dizzying raft of successful trade deals to revive our economic prospects.  Maybe they are ideologically opposed to big government or supranational structures and believe a bonfire of regulation is exactly what's needed to revive our businesses, like a controlled fire in the Outback renews the soil. Maybe a future as a tax haven appeals to them. 

Maybe they seriously believe that this bright future includes additional job opportunities, higher spending on public services, and will bring hope to the more benighted regions of the UK.  

Whatever good things they think will happen, I think they're wrong. But at this point, we're both peering into the gloom of an uncertain future, trying to discern shapes in the distance.  Perhaps the reality will be somewhere in the middle – neither as disastrous as I believe, nor as beneficial as they claim.  History will reveal all, when we're all older and greyer and wiser and hoarser from shouting abuse at each other.

So perhaps it's unfair to cast all Leave voters as alienated, disaffected anarchists, whose primary motivation is to inflict a misery familiar to them on the majority.  Those who paid any attention to the referendum campaign will have been able to cherry-pick at least a handful of bogus arguments as to why a Leave vote would be "a good thing".   

How many Leave voters still want to leave because it’s easier than admitting they were duped into making a terrible mistake?  Can millions of people be so easily hoodwinked, misled, sold a fantasy? The history of politics tells us categorically that the answer to this is yes, repeatedly, unquestionably yes. But it's hard to concede being wrong when the chorus of voices saying "I told you so" and calling you a fucking idiot is so loud and shrill. You just shout back, dig your heels in that bit harder, and retreat to the safety of your tribe, "the majority", the people whose will must be obeyed.  After all,  you got numbers on your side. 


*this is a lie. I know just one (excluding my Dad, who probably voted Leave but hasn't ever admitted it to me or my sister)