My Lords, we all know the Mayor of London’s addiction to cycling, [editor’s note: this is simple not true] but is my noble friend Lord Higgins not absolutely right that what is happening now has done more damage, and is doing more damage to London than almost anything since the Blitz? — Baron Nigel Lawson of Blaby (Dec 14th, 2015)

As community vultures were bike-bizzing clickbait misquoting in the process, many self flattering rubes chorused a smug knowingness and contempt for this senile, stupid unhinged and very very wrong…

former editor of the Spectator,

former Barclays bank director,

former President of the British Institute of Energy Economics,

former Chancellor of the Exchequer,

former Secretary of State for Energy,

former Financial Secretary to Her Majesty’s Treasury,

founding Chairman of climate denying Global Warming Policy Foundation…

…and shrewd political operator integral to Thatcher dominating politics long after her tenure. That name should ring a bell because Mark Thatcher funded an armed coup of Equatorial Guinea in 2004 and I’ll leave readers to guess what product now represents 97% of exports. It’s very seductive and comforting to disappear a hugely complex system behind a wig of stupid people doing stupid things.

The precise motive for such hysterical comments is unknowable but one can measure effects and map to known political strategies or attempt to see patterns elsewhere. There is no remarkable insight offered by pointing out forty-thousand Londoners killed and one-million homes destroyed has no honest relation to a few miles of roadworks— I don’t believe he believes. To debunk is to promote. The Blitz doesn’t even compare well to motoring because road death runs into the hundreds of thousands if not millions. People (and conveniently trams) were bombed so they could be driven over with cars made in Germany so maybe there is a fair comparison somewhere after all.

Outrageous statements are more likely to be picked up by journalists who will likely find agreement in fundamentals but condemn the inflammatory rhetoric. Negative positions on cycling like those of Zac Goldsmith or Sadiq Khan mentioned earlier can be established as the new normal because extreme politics makes space for false-moderates to move into and seem more reasonable. Despite running a police force that has killed ten-thousand Americans in no trial executions, a kidnap-torture colony at Guantanamo bay, an expanded drone war, and a military that deliberately bombs hospitals, people can’t see Obama’s fascism for Donald Trump’s hair. One demands total surveillance of the muslim community, the other moderates but insists “muslims must confront [islamic extremism] without excuse”. As one commenter astutely remarked wild rhetoric pushes the Overton window — what the public doesn’t accept today may do so tomorrow given enough fear. (If you want further understanding from an apolitical-political vantage research price anchoring — it is essentially providing a 200£ football shoe that’s not supposed to sell so you think paying 70£ is quite reasonable.)

This works in “road safety”: first people walking must remain on “sidewalks”, then they must only use crosswalks. Then they must push buttons and only use crosswalks. Then wave yellow flags, push buttons and only use crosswalks. Now “road safety” organisations are trying to make contrived visibility aids a night-time legal requirement for people on foot, walking dogs or cycling. They are literally smearing ponies with reflective paint. DriveSafe.org an initiative ran by the Greater Manchester Casualty Reduction Partnership, now targets cycling with the slogan: “Night or day, LIGHT your way” (pictured). This is not some charity but a QUANGO accountable to Greater Manchester’s Police, Primary Care Trust, Fire & Rescue Service, along with the Crown Prosecution Service, Her Majesty’s Courts Service and the Highways Agency. How long before this becomes a legal requirement? Stop resisting. This is exactly how jay-walking was contrived and the same industrial block are successfully pushing the Overton window in regards to what should be considered jay-cycling in polite society. London police are already stopping daytime riders without helmets and silly coloured clothing. One may contest motive but the likelihood of blundering towards legal immunity for their favourite customers and stricter controls on competitors seems incredibly slim. Electric bicycles must be physically limited to 15mph — for comparison a non-athlete can easily achieve 20 to 30mph just from pedal power. There are no such physical limits on motorists who can tear up Britain’s roads literally with racing cars and any effective counter-strategy such as speed cameras must be aggressively blocked. No one is demanding cars be painted bright yellow to assist those that walk or cycle and I’d suggest there are no accidents in road safety (or politics for that matter). Imagine a scenario where motorists must ring a bell as they pass road crossings: “You hit this man and didn’t ring your bell! Guilty as charged!” Deny responsibility, outsource risk and blame the victim.

There you have it — the police don’t just enforce the law they help create the law by softly applying what later will be codified officially and in the process, always engineering favourable economic conditions for dominant interests. This is because drilling through the rhetoric of the police, Rees-Mogg, or Lord Blabberby, these are all just expressions of the same greased handshake between Parliament and the London Stock Exchange — quite literally. Both are dominated by oil and gas ready to stomp competition whether worker, wind-turbine or bicycle.

Dirty fuel as a sector is the largest by market share and Royal Dutch Shell valued at 135b£ crowns the exchange. Third in line is the princely British Petroleum. Many other sectors especially banking, energy, engineering, insurance, and major hauliers build out from this foundation of dirty fuel (and dirtier wars). In summary 20% — 400b£ of 2000b£ — is directly buried in oil and gas but beyond half are immediate stakeholders. The global reach of just Royal Dutch Shell alone historically and presently is staggering from the first Malaysian wells in 1910 operations are now on all continents including 4.6b£ invested in just one Arctic lease alone.

Payoff from any initial investment sees significant lag— first exploration, negotiating with local government, changing laws, perhaps overthrowing a government by military action, creating ISIS to take out Syria, lobbying for subsidy, building drilling platforms, building pipelines, refining, distributing, then inducing consumption. To take fracking for an example, such extraction is only viable when prices are sufficiently high simply due to the unavoidable technical and political complexity. Fracking is untenable without sufficient demand says the classic economist and invasion of the middle east might have quicker payoffs and be more easily sold to politicians. In some cases certain “opportunities” are decades in the making. Former Vice President Dick Cheney, publishing mafioso Rupert Murdoch, former CIA director James Woolsey, along with others including Jacob “Cliche” Rothschild run Genie Energy. It took 40 years of Israeli military incursions, border expansions, Palestinian internment and billions in US war funding for them in 2013 to enjoy license to drill in the contested Golan Heights. Syria is the other party. Before any well is tapped they need to be damn sure demand will exist in years to come, and that might mean some daft statements from a kooky lord.

I can only touch on the vastness of this industry but it all works to ensure the UK has twice the oil available than can be produced from indigenous North Sea reserves alone. Of all the oil products consumed in the UK 77% goes on transport, 56% on motoring fuel.

Marketeers, politicians, advocates and campaigners throw around modal fluctuations quite arbitrarily— at least in public. In private there will be paper shufflers in Canary Wharf and Shell deeply engaged with excruciatingly detailed analysis of emerging transport scenarios. Even Sustrans can deliver moments of insight: if school run mums could instead have their children walk or cycle 2b£ of oil revenue disappears. Throwing even 10k£ at gobshite opinionists like Angela Epstein to write articles literally extolling the moral virture of driving her daughter 1.5miles to school makes complete economic sense. Unsurprisingly she is a lead agitator for cycle licensing, taxation and police oppression. Those wanting a 10% modal shift need to reconcile billions of pounds being wiped from the value of the stockmarket.

However glorious that sounds, motoring provides significant employment, along with virtually all transport taxation and the bulk profit needed for the sector to remain viable. One must convince road builders like McAlpine or Balfour Beatty (essentially to be understood as tarmac manufacturers) that laying cycle infrastructure requiring less maintenance, engineering and materials is a wise business decision. Not that motoring tax provides for all road expenditure, take that away and other parts of the economy will be imposed upon even more severely. This could be as simple a higher food costs as hauliers pass on overheads and such concerns are seemingly endless:

How many motorists can be removed until a shortfall in government revenue and taxes must be introduced for aviation fuel? Would boozed Brits cease to brawl the streets of Faliraki as Easyjet fails?

How many motorists can be removed until the haulage industry becomes untenable due to internalisation of cost previously shared or completely outsourced?

Can the insurance industry survive if autonomous cars are truly as safe as marketing claims? Government spends 100m£ per day dealing with collisions yet underwriting motoring has operated at a loss for the last 23 years. Maybe hysterical calls for mandatory cycle insurance are actually sincere and quite rational.

dealing with collisions yet underwriting motoring has operated at a loss for the last 23 years. Maybe hysterical calls for mandatory cycle insurance are actually sincere and quite rational. Publishers are hugely dependent on adverts for cars and insurance products, how will they cope if people just start using Uber?

If the UK commits to a plan limiting consumption how will the deficit ever be closed? Why would international finance value British Sterling in a shrinking economy?

How many people cycling will it take before incursions into Libya or Syria cannot be supported due to loss of consumer demand for oil? Is cycling therefore a “threat to national security”?

Does Shell and BP have British police embedding spies in environmental groups? As part of their cover do they impregnate activists then disappear once their “tour of duty” comes to an end? Who has been entrapping politicians with child rape in a similar strategy as deployed by General Motors against political rivals wanting road safety reforms? Who has that alleged picture of Cameron fucking a dead pig or anyone else for that matter saved for a rainday? Which industry has had concession after concession met from a government happy to bend-over encouraging drilling with abandon?

These issues should not be considered hypothetical, only one was even speculative —the younger skeletons that maintain an obedient David Cameron may be left for future historians to unearth. Such a modest proposal as cycling reducing motoring revenue provokes an extremely dedicated and powerful adversary with vested interests at all levels. Let me labour the point:

Congestion charging applies in London but solving that problem does away with 2.5b£ in revenue per decade. Half has been diverted to bus subsidy but implemented by aerospace and defense contractor Chemring Group, such a system doubles as a tool of mass surveillance hidden in plain sight. Every number plate logged and route mapped. That may even be the primary goal but keep laughing at Kippers and Trumpets. Elsewhere, government is already wanting tax increases to solve an emerging deficit as people are bribed towards electric cars which have been historically tax exempt.

In similar fashion, private capital also manoeuvres to ensure fertile ground, to do otherwise is to evaporate. Uber is already matching the valuation of General Motors despite just really being a payment processor. Tesla Motors are trying to drive a current 25b£ valuation up to 700b£ and promise to have a production of one-million units per year by 2020. It’s convenient for this nascent industry that ethics have suddenly been found for emission targets meaning Westminster has had to fake concern for a scandal they’ve long known about. (Initial research outing the fraud came from alternative energy research units in the US.) Emerging therefore, is something of a Reformation of the Motoring Church. A rightwing conservatism demands a continued relevance and must accommodate a disruptive liberal leftwing pew only interested in mutually assurred coexistence. The House of Rothsminster must marry the House of Musk. For the Musks sparks fly whether powered by photovoltaic cell or gas-turbine and fundamentals like road privatisation, smooth tarmac sheets, a four wheelster bed, fetish for rubber and a shared hatred for heathen cycling sees much agreement. However, pre-nuptual tension still exists with minor squabbling over permissable auto-asphyxiation and whether monogamous vehicle relations should give way to a promiscuous sexting of cheap rides. An orgy of sardine-can metro-sexuality may be an acceptable compromise on special occasions, but only for the common commuters. Most importantly though will the wedding be held under the sun, or go up in smoke?

Any transition to solar from the emmisive combustion engine inevitably requires pivoting commercial and military domination towards world lithium reserves excluding the possibility of some carbon nanotube breakthrew. Is it a coincidence that Latin America suffers an increasingly rightwing lurch of political groups supported by the Whitehouse regime? The same for South China seas becoming a military contest as Polyenesia has increasing significance as capital demands virgin ground to defile. However charming Elon Musk appears diplomacy will not be the only power projection as US-led imperalism secure long-term material interests. Staying with soft power though, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership looms on the horizon which gives corporations exclusive right to sue municipalities that attempt policy that would negatively effect profit. Manchester Metrolink has seen mostly private investment in the region of 4b£ and is managed by french multinational RATP Group, itself owned by the French government. Considering the sums involved is it likely that such corporations would sit idly by as cycle lanes undercut their business models?