Revolting French bikers…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ‘I love the French the bastards’…

In case you haven’t seen or heard, the French have been revolting again. This has been well documented by fellow biking blogger UK France Bikers and by Bikes in the Fast Lane among others.

Of course we all know that the French are second to none when it comes being revolting. Demos, strikes and riots can be triggered by almost anything. But mass disruption on the streets becomes almost inevitable if their politicians take a break from having affairs and talking bollocks in French – and try to do something that limits civil liberties. Even rider’s civil liberties. And, for reasons that I will explain shortly, news that 40,000 or so riders of motorbikes and scooters have been jamming traffic as only they know how, reminded me of a poem by a good friend of mine. Once, long ago, he was sent to jail for upsetting the English establishment by publishing a magazine they didn’t like called OZ. Then he published a top selling bike magazine for a while back in the 1970s before making shed loads of dosh by publishing other magazines throughout the world. And his poem starts like this…

I love the French – the bastards,
I love the French – the swine,
I galls me to admit it,
But how I love their wine…

Read more…

But any chance I might have had to forget how good the French are at revolting, or how much better they are at it than us in the UK was completely buggered the other night.  I was trying to have a quiet beer with the NTBPT Chairman Warren Djanogly, to catch-up and discuss what’s been happening but…

“WE SHOULD BE LIKE THE FRENCH” shouted W. THEY DON”T MUCK ABOUT WHEN THEY DON’T LIKE SOMETHING, THEY TAKE TO THE STREETS IN THEIR TENS OF THOUSANDS AND THAT’S WHAT WE SHOULD BE DOING HERE! OUR BIKERS SHOULD BE LIKE FRENCH BIKERS!

W went on on this theme for some considerable time and at a volume that could quite possible be heard in France, even though we were actually drinking in my favourite watering hole in Soho, which incidentally, my now poetic chum Felix Dennis was a founder member of, along with some of his mates.

Anyway, I tried to explain to Warren that we were not in France. And that while I accept that all bikers and scooterists have much in common these days, I also tried to suggest that UK riders have not been in the same high profile Street Fighting Man league as the French are for a very long time – if ever. The nearest we got was probably back the 1960s, when mods and rockers were embroiled in headline grabbing ‘clashes’ and bouts of bashing seven bells out of each other.

However, W was having none of this and carried on shouting that UK bikers SHOULD BE LIKE FRENCH BIKERS! ETC.! So, with all due respect to a man of passion in mid-rant I drank my beer with good cheer – and quietly had random thoughts about what we do and don’t have in common with our sometimes allies and sometimes enemies across the channel. And that’s when I began to recall the poem that in my view sums up our love hate relationship with them rather well.

But yesterday, as I started writing my next column for MSL along such lines, I realised that there were stronger links between the cause of the latest outburst of biker’s rebellion in France and the trigger for my old mate’s brief stay in jail. Right now, French riders are protesting big-style against a smart arse move to fine them for doing things that French and UK riders have done for years – and to benefit of all road users most of the time. It’s called filtering or ‘lane splitting’ as the French authorities choose to call it.

But the reason for big trouble now is not because filtering has been made illegal in France – it’s because some bright spark has come up with a money-spinning way of using camera systems to ‘enforce’ the laws against it that have been quietly ignored for decades. As you may imagine, the promoters of this new application of an old and unused law are trying desperately hard to claim it’s all in the name of good old road safety. But it seems that riders in France have one thing to say about that which is: My derriere!

Meanwhile, back in the days of OZ, the law that Felix and his co ‘conspirators’ was prosecuted for breaking was one that had not been applied in living memory. According to the establishment, he and his chums were ‘conspiring to corrupt’ the morals of young people and were being prosecuted under obscenity laws. But in reality the real corruption was within the ranks of those who were supposed to be upholding and enforcing such laws as this article reveals. It also turns out, forty years on, that none of the kids who were supposed to be protected from the infamous schoolkids issue by enforcing old laws were never in any danger from publications by Dennis or any of his old chums.

Now we can be sure of that about the poet and I am equally sure that eventually we will find that the ‘dangers’ that French authorities claim they wish to protect road users from by fining riders for filtering are just as exaggerated…

Bike parking tax latest: Truth, lies, rot and lawlessness…

I’ve had a number of thoughts following the most recent official and lawful NTBPT demo ride that was focused by a civic dinner where Westminster City Council spent around £23,000 entertaining the’ great and good’ who might be impressed by such doings.

This has prompted me to think long and hard about the acts of lawlessness and allegations of lawlessness that are linked to moves to extract a new parking tax from motorbike and scooter riders – under the official guise of that blanket for a multitude of sins called road traffic ‘demand  management’. In a nutshell, it seems to me that boundaries between truth and lies get blurred by government officials at times but various recent events have inclined me to take a step back and think again about  what that means for riders if it leads to lawlessness…

One of the things I love about work and play in the motorcycling world is that the vast majority of people in it have a very honest and practical approach to truth and lies. On the whole, that leads to distinctions between what’s right and wrong that are simply based on considering what seems fair and best for those concerned with an issue or problem. In stark contrast, the thing I hate most about some of the folk I meet in the policy world is their seemingly infinite capacity to blur the boundaries between telling the truth and lying.

That’s not to say the UK biking community is entirely populated with visionary saints and angels. Thankfully as far as I’m concerned we have a great range of colourful characters with warts an’ all. But it seems to me that the passion we all have in common for riding machines with two or three wheels, is something that keeps us ‘honest’, in a simple but powerful way. No matter whether you’re a fearless looking Hells Angel or a beady eyed Classic Bike buff, lying about how well you ride will not fool anyone else beyond the first corner in any and every ride.

Conversely, from what I’ve seen over recent years, there is a very different approach to truth and lies among the gang of politicians and government officials who have most impact on the extraordinary range of people who ride motorbikes and scooters. Some of these policy bods are sound. But it only takes one bad apple or two to inject a nasty element of rot that slows progress towards fresh ways to tackle motorcycling issues, or turns tough situations into bad ones. This sort of rot can be hard to spot though. With varying degrees of success, it’s buried in ‘politically correct’ policy-speak language, and is sometimes part of so-called ‘hidden agendas’.

As it happens, the catalyst for rot spreading in policy processing rarely comes from motorcycling. But that does not give UK riders immunity from moves to push them into solving problems that are not actually caused by motorbike or scooter use. In my view this is because we are in an era where there is one big problem and ‘hidden agenda’ above all that clouds government views of all motorised road users. Our governors have far less cash than they are committed to spending. But they are also in the delicate and politically dangerous situation of wanting to win votes by promising to maintain public services – without taxing the majority of voters more.

So, to summarise where we are in my view, I’d say we are in an era of car-crash politicking. This hurls even the straightest thinking policy-shaper into increasingly tricky situations – and ones where simple explanations of why moves are right can be harder to make. Inevitably, there will be trouble ahead for everyone as our governors scratch around for New MINORITIES  to tax. And my big concern is that there may be more trouble ahead for bikers than we deserve. Here’s why.

Now it seems that the key tests of what’s right or wrong for some ‘transport policy’ developers, are critically different to those of bikers. And from what I can see, there is a dwindling amount of evidence to show that the rightness or wrongness of new schemes is being judged honestly by practical considerations of whether they can really solve the problems they are supposed to address.

Worse though, an inconvenient truth about a few ‘motorcycling policy’ developers is becoming increasingly clear. They are decreasingly concerned about whether the things they say are true than what they can get away with saying – and regardless of the real causes of the ‘problems’ or the rights and wrongs of their proposed ’solutions’. This is not a new phenomenon, but what is new is the extent to which old boundaries are being bulldozed.

The most worrying thing for me about blurring boundaries between truth and lies is what happens when measures are aimed at intelligent and fairness valuing riders when the official ‘reasons’ for them seem to have little or no foundations in the truth at all. Wrongly or rightly this can trigger reactions that exceed the boundaries of lawful protest. Some bikers and scooterists have an absolute limit to their tolerance for what they see as being lied to and unfairly taxed or charged. Recent examples of these limits being exceeded has however forced me to think twice about lawlessness.

In the last few weeks I have seen more and more evidence of lawlessness centred on the new M/C parking charges scheme that is being pioneered in Westminster to prepare for spreading it nationwide. In full public view on many streets, signs to enforce the scheme have been vandalised with paint or taken down. This is clearly in breach of laws we all depend on to keep our highways civilised. But, behind the scenes beyond the public’s gaze, I have seen a far greater range of what looks to me like evidence that other laws we depend on have also been bent or broken. These legal limits are there to ensure that government powers to manage traffic are not used for other reasons – like creating new revenue streams. That’s a job for the tax office, not the traffic department.

I have no doubt that attacks on signs are unlawful. Unfortunately, we will have to wait some time for courts and EU commissioners to judge whether the scheme they give notice of has been introduced by unlawful means. But the biggest problem in the meantime for all who ride a motorbike or scooter on UK public roads is that one type of lawlessness is far easier for all to see than the other. One is also far easier to prove than the other.

However riders are being treated I am always bothered by lawlessness linked to motorcycling and scootering as it looks bad for all concerned, but I understand what drives people to it at times and on either side in this particular battle. All I hope now is that the truth prevails over lies, and that riders and policy-shapers can get on with their lawful business and lives as soon as possible…

Was WCC Officer Gilchrist too busy to deliver conference talk on PIP or is he loosing his bottle due to a rising pile of stiff legal challenges?

Updated Sat 6th March…

The BBC announced today that Westminster City Council’s parking department is facing an EU Probe over “alleged contractual irregularities” – a fact that I first reported back on the 7th of December last year.  However, the beeb go on to link that investigation with news today that Alastair Gilchrist, the leading officer behind Westminster Council’s hugely unpopular M/C parking tax scheme, was “too busy” to deliver a key speech at a parking services conference to explain the merits of the PIP ‘Framework Agreement’ on which the scheme is based.

As is often the case with these sorts of things though, there is more to these events than has come to light as yet. Not least of which is that there is even bigger news to report since the BBC were told by the EU Commission that they are at the “first stage of our infringement proceedings” – and that If they are content with the UK government reply, they will close the case – but if not, “we move to the second stage of infringement proceedings”.

Now, I have just heard a whisper from a usually well informed and reliable source in the land of Brussel Sprouts that the EU Commissioners may not be as satisfied by the explanations they have had so far that procurement procedures were fine and dandy – as promoters of the scheme might hope. And, although nothing is confirmed as yet, I gather that it could even be the case that that sleeves are being rolled up in readiness to open the second phase of EU investigations…

Anyway, for those who are new to these events, PIP, aka Partnerships In Parking is a consortium of London councils which was set up and led by Westminster’s officer Gilchrist and Cabinet Member, Cllr, Danny Chalkley who have both featured in a number of recent posts here and on other motorcycling blogs here in the UK and France.

However, I am wondering if Gilchrist really was too busy, as he told the BBC, or if he might be loosing his bottle to espouse the virtues of a contractual arrangement that is the focus for a rising pile of legal challenges and an investigation by the EU commissioners. Oh, and lest we forget, there is also that matter of a Fraud allegation and potential investigations that may be on Gilchrist’s mind as well.

Currently I have no way of determining whether Gilchrist was too busy, so I will not indulge in idle speculation at this stage. Nevertheless, it does seem like an unfortunate coincidence of happenings in the hectic life of this would-be M/C parking tax pioneer to say the least. Anyway, all I can say for the moment regarding this officer who I have witnessed acting in bullish fashion in the past is this. Oh dear!