Dodgy Dave, who wrecked

Get Britain Cycling report, is back in town

For all those who take refuge from the noos by reading Facebook posts by souls enjoying a meal or boasting of their achievements,  look away now.

The news this week does nothing to calm our nerves, as the headlines screamed: David Cameron is back in government.

Cameron! Or Dodgy Dave, as he became popularly known among the downtrodden.

 

This is the man who as prime minister refused to fund the widely acclaimed

Get Britain Cycling report in 2013.  He had raised hopes by praising it but then refused to commit government to implementing it.

Which in my book confirms that cycling issues just don’t grab any British government.

Instead Cameron passed the buck to Local Authorities where there was no danger of anything coming of it. He surely knew the LAs

had neither the £billions needed nor, in most cases, the political will to get on with the greatest cycling initiative ever.

 The former prime minister of course is remembered chiefly for his controversial Austerity measures which led to cuts in many public services and hardship for poor families.

 This is the man who allowed a public referendum which resulted in Brexit, and the UK leaving the European Union, something he hadn’t counted on.

Brexit set the country further back, from which the country today is still struggling to recover.

He disappeared for several years, surfacing in the Lords.

Now Lord Cameron slides back into the fray as Foreign Secretary.

His appointment by Rishi Sunak smacks of a drowning man thrashing around and grabbing any flotsam in a bid to remain afloat, a strange decision considering it was Cameron’s government which left the mess Rishi knows he must fix if he is not to lose the next General Election. 

This mishmash of double talk goes on at all levels, with cycling issues one prime example.

It is 15 years since writing of the remarkable rise of British cycling which first kicked off following the hugely successful 2008 Beijing Olympics.  In the decade following I would occasionally pause to ask myself the following. 

Do I need to reappraise my brutal assessment of how British politics has continually and willfully failed cycling this past half-century?

And the answer each time was no.

So today I am motivated to look back once again at the utter failure of the government to improve cycling conditions, which we felt certain would be addressed as cycling success continued.

I called this, the Marriage of Success to Failure following the 2012 London Olympic Games, when British riders again scooped a multitude of medals, following Bradley Wiggins famous victory in the Tour de France. What a marvelous year, as thousands of new followers took up cycling.

Then we had the brilliant Get Britain Cycling Report – to be sidelined, like many previous excellent recommendations - this time by Dodgy Dave.

Ditto post Rio 2016. Ditto post Tokyo 2020 Games. At each Games British riders  shone, but the success failed to permeate down to cycling transport policy.

Oh, government may say they want to invest in cycling, they do the talk. They’re good at talking, putting up a few £billion before taking it back, slashing funding.

Despite tirelessly lobbying by Cycling UK, the national cyclists’ organisation, funding remains woefully inadequate for the government’s so-called Active Travel Policy to encourage walking and cycling.

Such mismanagement of cycling policy serves as a perfect mirror for the nation’s woes.

How fitting that this devilish blog should coincidentally run to 666 words.