Is cycling ‘woke’? Cycling and culture wars discussed with a Conservative aide, plus Lucinda Brand and Eli Iserbyt on the future of cyclocross

Thank you very much for proving my point. At no point was I rude or offensive, it was just another viewpoint. As I pointed out, people, just like you it seems, do not like another viewpoint and resort to name calling and using offensive words. 
So, I am a horrible person because my views differ from yours, no other reason. You are a classic example of what I described earlier, my view differs from yours so you throw your toys out of the pram and hurl insults, rather than being adult and accepting different opinions. 

I need say no more, my point is proven. 

You haven't proven anything, you are acting kind of snowflakey though. Having your intollerance called out does not equal me "throwing my toys out the pram"

You are not an awful person for having a differeing view, you are an awful person for the fact that repeatedly your comments show a lack of basic common decency and empathy towards anyone different to your ideal, not to mention a complete lack of understanding of "woke". Your comments on both migrants and trans show this. 

p.s. as Clem noted, you have thrown every insult possible around, so don't act inncocent. And guess what, you're still here, not cancelled.

I was noticing a hint of snowflakery, but then that would come under their definition of wokery...

I thought I smelled tofu.

Biker Phil wrote:

 At no point was I rude or offensive, it was just another viewpoint.

So you can be as offensive as you like as long as it's "just another viewpoint"? You are a revolting racist, homo- and transphobic, nationalistic, close to if not already there, fascist bigot. Don't take offence old son, it's "just another viewpoint."

PS Fairly sure I've asked this before but for the love of God, please stop using Bruce and Clarence as your avatar, they would despise your views with a passion.

Now you are getting childish. Yet again proved my point. Every bit of abuse I get further proves my point that nobody is allowed their opinion without being ridiculed or abused. In your world there is one view, any view which you don't like is disregarded and ridiculed. Again, I have not launched a personal attack on any individual, but you have, including the good old racist trope.  
" You are a revolting racist, homo- and transphobic, nationalistic, close to if not already there, fascist bigot. " A wonderful response.

When have I been racist? When have I been homophobic? Is it racist to be concerned about the seemingly endless flood of migrants coming to our shores? What is wrong with being proud of this once great country? Listen, if someone is fleeing persecution then we should welcome them into our country and help them where we can. But we are not talking about people fleeing persecution, who are travelling all across Europe to get into a small boat to come to the land of milk and honey. Our hospitals, schools, doctors surgeries, road network are falling to pieces. The good old taxpayer is being squeezed left, right and centre. We have men who fought for this country, living on the streets and forgotten about yet we can find hundreds of millions of pounds to house, feed and clothe young men who choose to come and live here and are NOT asylum seekers. Get your head out of the sand.  And having a dig at my avatar shows how desperate you are to attack someone with a different viewpoint than yours. Perhaps you should listen to the words in Born in the USA carefully to see what it is actually about. 

Well done. 
Thank you. It says more about you than it does about me. 

Biker Phil wrote:

Now you are getting childish. Yet again proved my point. Every bit of abuse I get further proves my point that nobody is allowed their opinion without being ridiculed or abused. In your world there is one view, any view which you don't like is disregarded and ridiculed. Again, I have not launched a personal attack on any individual, but you have, including the good old racist trope.  
" You are a revolting racist, homo- and transphobic, nationalistic, close to if not already there, fascist bigot. " A wonderful response.

When have I been racist? When have I been homophobic? Is it racist to be concerned about the seemingly endless flood of migrants coming to our shores? What is wrong with being proud of this once great country? Listen, if someone is fleeing persecution then we should welcome them into our country and help them where we can. But we are not talking about people fleeing persecution, who are travelling all across Europe to get into a small boat to come to the land of milk and honey. Our hospitals, schools, doctors surgeries, road network are falling to pieces. The good old taxpayer is being squeezed left, right and centre. We have men who fought for this country, living on the streets and forgotten about yet we can find hundreds of millions of pounds to house, feed and clothe young men who choose to come and live here and are NOT asylum seekers. Get your head out of the sand.  And having a dig at my avatar shows how desperate you are to attack someone with a different viewpoint than yours. Perhaps you should listen to the words in Born in the USA carefully to see what it is actually about. 

Well done. 
Thank you. It says more about you than it does about me. 

Try as you might to paint yoursely as such, you are not a victim here. You are showing that you have bought into pretty much every piece of rightwing rhetoric about trans and immigrants.

Well said. This one's happy to fling stereotyped tropes around and addresses others using terms in a derogatory manner, but plays the victim if challenged. Straight out of the playbook I'm afraid.

I think you'll find you've proved my point, which is that you think that you should be allowed to say whatever you want because it's "just another opinion" but as soon as anyone disagrees with your opinion in any way they're "woke" or whatever and shouldn't be expressing such an opinion.

With reference to Mr.Springsteen, I suggest you go and listen to "American Land", "We Take Care of Our Own", "Galveston Bay", "Matamoras Banks" and many other songs, interviews and speeches where he protests against the treatment of immigrants and celebrates diversity.

"The poor old taxpayer is being squeezed left, right and centre." Did you know that for the average taxpayer, £2 of what you pay each year goes on asylum seekers? £100 of what you pay each year goes on covering benefit fraud and errors. £3000 goes on making up the shortfall caused by tax avoidance schemes. Yep, it's them immigunts that are squeezing the poor old taxpayer, that's for sure. As a matter of fact immigrants are less likely to claim benefits than native-born Britons, and immigrants make a net positive contribution to the economy. You are the absolute epitome of the old joke about the rich man, the working man and the immigrant who sit at the table with 100 biscuits, the rich man takes 98 biscuits, gives one to the immigrant and one to the working man and then says to the working man watch out, that immigrant will steal your biscuit if you don't do as I say. You're simply being a useful idiot and doing exactly what the government wants, which is for you to fixate on a minor issue and blame that for everything that's wrong whilst they and their corporate allies rob you blind behind your back. We live in one of the world's richest countries, there's plenty of money for a decent health service, infrastructure, care for the homeless, care for veterans and even to look after asylum seekers in a humane and productive manner. The reason we find it so difficult is not because the money isn't there, it's because successive governments of all hues from Thatcher onwards have convinced people that it's better to have a few more pounds in your pocket from low taxation than it is to pay a sensible amount, and particularly for the richest to pay their fair share, in order to benefit all of society.

Biker Phil wrote:

Thank you very much for proving my point. At no point was I rude or offensive, it was just another viewpoint. As I pointed out, people, just like you it seems, do not like another viewpoint and resort to name calling and using offensive words. 
So, I am a horrible person because my views differ from yours, no other reason. You are a classic example of what I described earlier, my view differs from yours so you throw your toys out of the pram and hurl insults, rather than being adult and accepting different opinions. 

I need say no more, my point is proven. 

Sometimes less words are worth more, it's clear to see here that my points and yours are being proven.

We are tolerant, we have principles they say, but they will accept anything. It's absolute tripe.

Yet my and your opinions will get cancelled. We'll see who's laughing last

Well I'm still laughing. I always do when you post. Now go and marry your milk bottle.

Still here then. Not "cancelled" yet.

Despite that apparently being your goal here.

Adam Sutton wrote:

I think we can safely say, and Rendell will agree, I fit in this place like a square peg in a round hole.

If we can disagree with civility then I'd much prefer it if you stuck around and kept posting. Although it's nice for everyone to agree, it can get a bit too comfy and I'd prefer that my own prejudices, ideas and misunderstandings were challenged.

The immigration issue is just racism. People don't seem to mind Polish, Irish or Ukrainian people coming here. Which is just as well as my dentist is Polish and I (and several hundred other people) would otherwise have been without a dentist since 2005. In the small business where I work we've had German and Irish 'immigrant' colleagues and the latest to join us is originally from the Gambia. All are well educated, more than adequately qualified and good at their jobs. Unlike the one selfish, racist Farage admirer that no-one likes who has never bothered to do a day's work in her life and doesn't want to learn anything.

The surgeon who cut out my malignant tumour in July is south Asian, as were several of his colleagues. He was working at the weekend on top of doing long weekdays in the local hospital. The dental surgeon I had to visit last month was also from the region. Several of the surgeons at the local specialist orthopaedic hospital with a great reputation are of south Asian origin. One is in our cycling club while another of our club members originally from the middle East is a renowned physio who has worked with several British Olympic teams and been head physio at EIS. Bloody foreigners, coming over here and mending our teeth, fixing our bones and helping us win Olympic medals. The cheek of it! Yet people like them are the targets of racist behaviour.

Everyone knows that the NHS only operates in its current state due to the huge number of people who come here from other countries. They are all working and paying their taxes. So too are the overworked people who deliver parcels for Amazon, DPD, Evri etc and the many cleaners, security, healthcare workers, porters any many others who do work that lots of people wouldn't want to do for not much money.

The number of people who move from the UK to other shores is often ignored. Trained, experienced NHS staff are moving to other continents or quitting the NHS because it has been run down so much, a deliberate choice by the Tories. Lots of people move to Europe and elsewhere for a better quality of life; and since most of them stay there then I suspect it genuinely is better where they've gone. I know of a number of people who moved to Australia many years ago and will never return.

So I say "fuck off" to all this shit about 'immigrants', whether pathetic people like Phil want to decide for themselves whether these people are 'genuine refugees' or not. None of us has any more right to live here because we are white and we say that our parents were born here. We are all descended from immigrants anyway. I can only wonder at the desperate situation anyone must have been in to leave their home country to rebuild their life with only the bag on their back. Does it matter whether the homeless person was born locally, elsewhere in the UK or another country? No. They are homeless. That simply shouldn't be happening in a country as wealthy as this one in the 21st century.

Well said. I think a lot of people in this country don't realise how lucky they are. There are people abroad who live with the constant fear of violent death on a daily basis, something we can't begin to understand. Is it any wonder anyone would want to seek a better life elsewhere?

Very well said. I don't know if you saw this Tweet which went viral last week in the aftermath of the race riot in Dublin, summed it up very pithily:

A very good post, apart from the first line of paragraph two. That's just lazy. I am not against immigration, I have had life saving surgery in recent years, performed by an Indian doctor, I was looked after by Indian nurses. My dentist is Asian. 
I fully support immigration to enable us to get the skilled people we need. 
What I am against is this current uncontrolled mass migration to our shores. These young men arriving on the boats from France are not asylum seekers. They are not fleeing persecution, they're coming here for a better life, paying gangmasters thousands of pounds to get them here. If they're fleeing persecution then why travel all the way through many safe countries to get here? Simple. Because they know that we're a soft touch. 

Youre right, many people do move to Europe and Australia for a better life. The difference is, they sell up and move there with a pot of money to buy a house, they don't move there expecting someone else to foot the bill.

We have absolutely no idea how many of the young men who are arriving in their thousands each week are terrorists, murderers, rapists or gangsters. Nor have the government who are beyond useless. Do you know who these young men are? 
I don't know the situation where you live, but here we have a four star hotel a few minutes away which did a roaring trade in weddings, last year it was closed with no notice, weddings cancelled and it opened up for the migrants, who have plagued the area, hanging around the streets making unwanted advances towards the young women and even schoolgirls. This is just one hotel, there is another one a few miles outside of the next town.  Do you see this in your day to day life or are you fortunate to live in an area where migrants are not placed? People such as this will affect this country in a negative way, if they do work it will be in the black economy, delivering pizzas and washing cars. They will not add to the country in a positive way. It is not racist to be against this mass uncontrolled migration.

There was no need to get personal, that ruins your argument. I will reiterate what I have said before, when someone has a different opinion there is no need to resort to bad language and insults.

We have different views, we can air them on here, but when someone's view differs from yours, accept it, don't resort to name calling.

And yet you resort to appeals to emotion. What was it, "you're crying for this once great country" and you choose to correlate migrants with terrorists.

It might shock you, but I want to stop the small boats. Why? Because I have empathy, these are human beings, many fleeing situations we cannot fathom. I want proper cooperation between the UK, EU and France obviously in particular, to make sure these people are processed as soon as possible and the UK does what it can, taking it's fair share of refugees etc. Because we don't if you actually look at the stats.

Why might you ask do they want to come here? Well ironically those that claim the "wokes" and "liberals" want to erase history seem to want to disregard the history they don't like. Thanks to our days of empire and colonialism English is widely spoken and the second language of many. So if you speak English but not German or French or any other language, where are you going to head?

Ok, so how many are fleeing desperate situations? I don't know and neither do you. For every person genuinely fleeing a desperate situation, you can bet there's at least one who's coming here for the generous benefits. I'm all for helping those genuinely in need of help, but how do we sort the genuine ones out from the non genuine? How would you address that?

We have some wonderful immigrants working here and contributing to society, but we cannot continue to let in the number of migrants which equals the population of a town every year. Something has to give, we are seeing the effects of mass migration in our deterioration of essential services, it isn't the migration but the sheer speed and numbers of the migration. What is the answer? Genuine question, if you were in power, how would you address this?

But how many are terrorists as you have claimed?

What objectively is the financial cost? Everything I have seen and read indicates it is more positive than negative. And you do realise that anyone illegally entering is not able to claim benefits despite what the right wing press would have you believe.

As for how I think it should be dealt with, read what I said again. We need better cooperation with Europe and the EU to handle this, only that will stop profiteering by the criminal gangs operating the small boats.

FYI here's the stats for the number of refugees taken. In by EU countries.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SM.POP.REFG?locations=EU

And here's the UKs

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-y...

Kind of embarrassing really.

I don't know how many are terrorists. But that is my point. Neither do you, neither do the authorities. What financial cost? Our schools, hospitals, doctors are at breaking point. Many councils who have spent millions housing migrants are going bankrupt.  I'm not saying that's the fault of migrants, but it certainly doesn't help, and is part of the financial cost. I'm not talking about the migrant doctors, nurses or dentists who have come to make the UK their home. These people don't arrive in inflatable boats. We have absolutely no idea who is arriving here. What better cooperation? We are giving France tens of millions of pounds whilst they stand there watching the boats leave. It's no use blaming Brexit either, migrants were coming here in their thousands before Brexit. We need to address why so many want to come here and leave the safety of France. It isn't just as you claimed because of the English language. If that is the case, why is so much money being spent on interpreters? Our local police force is spending thousands of pounds every month on interpreters, is that because so many cannot speak English, or is it because there's so many committing crimes whose first language is not English? 
 

Biker Phil wrote:

I don't know how many are terrorists. But that is my point. Neither do you, neither do the authorities.

I think - although the numbers are contended or require interpretation - some kind of analysis of scenarios and probabilities based on (agreed) facts is required. (Required for discussion, that is. Shouting the odds, or opining, or sadly lots of our politics clearly favours the opposite.)

TL/DR - it will be tricky but - like drivers - it will be to our advantage to stop shouting about increasing prices and a slight reduction in convenience. To swerve the populist pundits and politicians promising more jam or to stick it to some others / make them respect us.

We *should* all be having a conversation about this. It has to be wider but more nuanced than "woke - good or bad" or even "how do we stop those wrong'uns over there coming here? "

We should acknowledge that globally the UK is an extremely rich country, with unbelievable freedoms and opportunities. That isn't a given - freedom in particular is fought for or absent. We should also recall that this position is built upon a history of much violence and duplicity (even within the current UK). Not to self-flagellate but so we don't expect what we have as our right.

We have a geophysical inheritance too - we have many resources and - it appears - in the future the UK may mostly be above water, with fertile land, drinking water and a liveable climate. And the population density isn't wild. Such locations may be globally scarcer.

And obviously - given all that - LOTS of people may want to come here - for all kinds of reasons.

Because of this we actually have other priveledges. Since people do want to come so we can harness the energy and ingenuity of migrants (benefiting us). We *are* able to support some desperate people with hardly any reduction to our living standards. Which are high, even for our poor - and BTW councils are going bankrupt for reasons unconnected with migration - that would appear to be a matter of record...

The world is changing though - not just the climate, the demographics.

We need to talk. (Maybe a cycling site is an odd venue though? )

So once again you do not have any evidence and it is purely emotionally driven. There is more evidence from the way you are posting that you have been radicalised by the rightwing media and are a threat. Lets not forget the terrorist attack carried out in London 1999 by David Copeland targetting ethnic communities and the LGBT community with nail bombs. The 7/7 attacks were by British nationals, unless you want to get into their skin colour or religion.

We also had this lovely white lady in Chatham - https://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway/news/jihadist-calls-for-terror-attac...

The point being ideoligies no nothing of borders. As a gay man though all the hate I have ever received on religous grounds has been from Christians.

"Our schools, hospitals, doctors are at breaking point." This is more due to deliberate underfunding. Our doctor is a nightmare simply due to the rapid overdevelopment of the area and lack of provision of additional doctors. In fact our GP merged with another two practices exacerbating the issue. This is nothing to do with immigrants.

"We are giving France tens of millions of pounds whilst they stand there watching the boats leave" our government wants to send migrants to Rwanda at a cost of £170,000 each (home office figures, it would also cost less to keep them in the UK) on top of an agreed £120m upfront, and you are concerned about additional spending with France to come up with something that stands a better chance of solving the problem at the source. OK. 

"It's no use blaming Brexit either, migrants were coming here in their thousands before Brexit." It is simple fact that the unprecedented level of migration from outside the EU is due to brexit and the level of skilled workers from the EU we have lost. The UK is no longer attracting skilled workers from the EU to the same level.

"We need to address why so many want to come here and leave the safety of France. It isn't just as you claimed because of the English language." Sorry but it absolutely is why the UK is attractive. It would also make sense to learn English since again, due to the glory days of Empire English is so widely spoken. Having visited, France, Germany, Czech republic, Hungary, Norway, Denmark. I have never had an issue with not speaking their language. I work for a global company and represent the network team on a bi-weekly chaired by a Frenchman, and with colleages from Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark. It is held in English.

Adam Sutton wrote:

So once again you do not have any evidence and it is purely emotionally driven. There is more evidence from the way you are posting that you have been radicalised by the rightwing media and are a threat. Lets not forget the terrorist attack carried out in London 1999 by David Copeland targetting ethnic communities and the LGBT community with nail bombs. The 7/7 attacks were by British nationals, unless you want to get into their skin colour or religion.

We also had this lovely white lady in Chatham - https://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway/news/jihadist-calls-for-terror-attac...

The point being ideoligies no nothing of borders. As a gay man though all the hate I have ever received on religous grounds has been from Christians.

"Our schools, hospitals, doctors are at breaking point." This is more due to deliberate underfunding. Our doctor is a nightmare simply due to the rapid overdevelopment of the area and lack of provision of additional doctors. In fact our GP merged with another two practices exacerbating the issue. This is nothing to do with immigrants.

"We are giving France tens of millions of pounds whilst they stand there watching the boats leave" our government wants to send migrants to Rwanda at a cost of £170,000 each (home office figures, it would also cost less to keep them in the UK) on top of an agreed £120m upfront, and you are concerned about additional spending with France to come up with something that stands a better chance of solving the problem at the source. OK. 

"It's no use blaming Brexit either, migrants were coming here in their thousands before Brexit." It is simple fact that the unprecedented level of migration from outside the EU is due to brexit and the level of skilled workers from the EU we have lost. The UK is no longer attracting skilled workers from the EU to the same level.

"We need to address why so many want to come here and leave the safety of France. It isn't just as you claimed because of the English language." Sorry but it absolutely is why the UK is attractive. It would also make sense to learn English since again, due to the glory days of Empire English is so widely spoken. Having visited, France, Germany, Czech republic, Hungary, Norway, Denmark. I have never had an issue with not speaking their language. I work for a global company and represent the network team on a bi-weekly chaired by a Frenchman, and with colleages from Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark. It is held in English.

...and breathe

Ta muchly, and this post is bang on the money.

What is a snowflake? Someone that's thin skinned & quick to take offence? Seems that there are many fine snowflakes on both sides .... just only one "side" that constantly throws the term about when their toys come out of the pram. Although how we have heard them when they're constantly "cancelled" is beyond me.

As for you being upset that if someone has a different opinion then they get abused & name called...... I mean it's not like the habitual users of terms like "snowflake", "lefty", "wokers" "libtard" "remoaner" are doing it out of respect and tolerance is it?

This country is indeed being destroyed by a very vocal minority. Usually playing the victim and gaslighting others.

Clem Fandango wrote:

As for you being upset that if someone has a different opinion then they get abused & name called...... I mean it's not like the habitual users of terms like "snowflake", "lefty", "wokers" "libtard" "remoaner" are doing it out of respect and tolerance is it?

Bingo.

This country has been wrecked by the right wing. We've had 13 years of right wing government and the economy and every single British instituion is on its knees. The NHS, education, transport, industry are all suffering thanks to the Tories. They've made everything worse and broken. If you can't admit that then you're part of the problem. All this anti-woke stuff is just hot air to distract people from who has actually broken Britain.

With the added irony of having to shore up these services via unprecedented levels of immigration from outside the EU, thanks to Brexit.

It's fine though - we're in control of our borders now! And all will get fixed after the next election because (like Blair) Starmer is dropping hints that really he might be the heir of Thatcher. That's probably enough to get in, if the electorate believe...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67604830

(Living in Scotland this has less bearing on some things - like the amount available for active travel - but it doesn't make me smile. )

I fully agree with you. The Tories have ruined this country. I do not support the Tories at all, and hope they get humiliated at the next election.