Red Flag Phrases

 Another day, another attempt to whip up sympathy for a wrong 'un.

The father of a Cardiff man who has spent 20 years in prison after stealing a mobile phone has said his son has served a "life sentence" behind bars.

Not yet. But we can hope.

Leroy Douglas, 44, was handed a minimum term of two-and-a-half years in 2005 for robbery, but remains in custody as he is subject to an indeterminate sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP). The controversial measure was scrapped in 2012, but campaigners are calling for those currently serving an IPP to be resentenced and have filed a case against the UK before the United Nations.

Hmmm, I'll bet he lets slip a few clues about just why his son is still behind bars in the course of this interview.... 

Anthony Douglas, 63, said his son was a "normal kid" growing up who was "easily led" to make bad decisions.

Translation: 'es a good boy, it's everyone else's fault! 

Mr Douglas admitted his son had struggled with poor behaviour while in custody, but said being in a prison environment from a young age had created the "product that he is today".

Translation: Unable to follow instructions and ptone to fits of temper. 

"He started to act out because he doesn't think it's fair that he's been kept in there that long, so that's had an impact on his behaviour."

Translation: the apple doesn't fall far from the tree - like his father, everything bad that happend to him is doen to someone else, never his own actions.

So once again, they've found someone who actially belongs behind bars indefinitely. Strange how that keeps happening, eh?

Does No-one Read For Pleasure Anymore...?

 Or do they just read to see their own desires and worldview reflected in the pages?

Yes, it's Reactormag again. 

For me, reading was always an escape from my world, and a chance to see another, either real or invented. How sad for today's generation, unable to appreciate anything that doesn't 'reflect their reality'.

They Will Never Stop Until They Are Made To Stop...By Parents

Primary school children aged just four are being taught about surrogacy when they learn where babies come from for the first time. Reception classes are told that children can have a ‘tummy mummy’ as well as a ‘mummy and/or daddy who will be their parents’ when learning about the basics of reproduction.

 They are four. At four, most children have a hard time learning more important concepts, like not sticking everything they are offered up their nose!

Among ‘key vocabulary’ four and five-year-olds must learn are ‘surrogacy’ and ‘donated sperm or eggs’ in a module titled: ‘Where do babies come from?’

That seems a bit harsh, until you remember that one four year old in class who could pronounce all those dinosaur names correctly. And that had more value to their future life than this nonsense!  

Parents and campaigners say it is ‘highly inappropriate’ to teach these topics to such young children, saying it is only likely to confuse them. They add that the concepts should be introduced only to much older children ‘as part of lessons on thorny ethical issues such as euthanasia and abortion’.

Ball's in your court, parents - take an interest in what's being taught and pull your children from school if you find it's something you don't agree with. 

Helen Gibson, founder of Surrogacy Concern, said she is ‘appalled’ to see surrogacy being taught to such young children and has written to the Department for Education (DfE) to raise concerns.

A letter they will throw straight in the bin. 

The DfE said the teaching material was developed by a private relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) provider and is not compulsory in all primary schools, adding: ‘The RSHE guidance is clear that where schools choose to do so they must make sure they teach age-appropriate topics.’

A very modern response - 'it's not our fault, big boys did it and ran away'. 

Yes, Because Nothing Urges Children To Read Better Than A ‘Worthy’ Book With A Mission

This year’s Carnegie medals for children’s writing, awarded on Thursday, brought to light an unexpected trend. At a time of widespread public anxiety about the decline in boys’ reading habits and the rise of the toxic influencers of the online “manosphere”, male friendship and masculinity were front and centre on the shortlist.

Well, if preachy literature can’t solve this, what can? We clearly can’t rely on proper parenting, can we? 

The winner, Margaret McDonald’s superb debut, Glasgow Boys, tells the story of the relationship between two looked-after children on the threshold of adulthood who process trauma in different ways. Banjo’s aggression and Finlay’s avoidance could be seen as two models of dysfunctional masculinity. Luke Palmer’s Play, also on the shortlist, tells a story of male friendship which touches on rape culture and county lines drug gangs, while teenage gang membership is the focus of Brian Conaghan’s Treacle Town.

Ah, remember when children’s literature was full of adventures in far-off lands or fantasy worlds, rather than avoiding getting stabbed by the local imported hoodlums? 

Nathanael Lessore won the Shadower’s Choice medal (voted for by young readers). King of Nothing tells the story of Anton, a pre-GCSE hardman for whom reputation is everything. Anton hangs out with a thuggish crowd whose worldview is shaped by gang culture and Tate-like influencers. The arc of the plot – boisterously comic at first, but increasingly moving – shows how Anton’s developing friendship with the uncoolest boy in the school changes his priorities.

Ugh!  

Though the books were judged for their individual qualities, the panel’s chair, Ros Harding, observes a pendulum-swing in publishing. “We’ve gone from children’s adventure books, where it was always the boy as the hero, then there was a backlash against that, making sure that girls could be the heroes as well, which then maybe led to some boys feeling that things weren’t being written for them.” Now, she says, “another wave of books” is addressing that.

The people they broke something being the best ones to fix it?  

The explosion in so-called toxic masculinity is taking place at the same time as statistics tell us that reading for pleasure, especially among boys, is on the decline.

I wonder why? 

Novels are empathy machines: they invite you to imagine what it might be like to be somebody else. So they are, at least potentially, an antidote to the misogynistic influence of the manosphere and gaming culture.

if they ever perform that function, it’s usually as a side effect, rather than a main plot objective. Children aren’t stupid, and are really good at sensing when they are being patronised and preached to. 

Infiltration Intensifies!

 Once more, I dive into ‘Reactor’ magazine to get an idea of what is coming up in the world of science fiction, and once more, find that fantasy worlds and imagined alien societies for daring heroes and heroines to negotiate takes a back seat to …. this:

Even in the earliest stages of editing the anthology Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity, I knew the book would open with an epigraph from the late queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz’s Cruising Utopia—where he argues that “the future is queerness’s domain.” Or, put another way: something about queerness is always “not yet here.”

Really? It seems to be omnipresent, these days! Gone are the days I’d make a trip up to ‘Forbidden Planet’ in London to peruse the latest imports, mostly selecting titles by the quality of the artwork on the front cover (a dragon or alien big cat on the cover being a sure clue I’d like it!), secure in the knowledge that they were mostly written to enthrall the reader and sell copies, rather than push some personal sexual agenda. 

Speculative fiction, too, is grounded in thinking about what has been, what is not, and what could be. In sf, we imagine our way into other worlds and other futures! Given that, I think there’s a natural connection between queer/trans life and culture and speculative fiction itself—it’s in those horizons of possibility.

Relentless propaganda is what it is - I'm old enough to remember when sci-fi was a beacon of hope, written by people whose desire was to entertain, not proselytise. 

Sounds More Like It's Been Captured By Retards...

The prestigious centre-Right unit found that George Floyd’s death in 2020 led to schools hastily including material about ethnic minorities to appear ‘anti-racist’. Former history teacher and chairman of Campaign for Real Education Chris McGovern said it was ‘clear that the subject has been captured by the Left’.

Oh! Give us some examples, then: 

Children are being taught that Stonehenge was built by black people and the Roman Emperor Nero married a trans woman as woke narratives increasingly infiltrate schools, according to an education think-tank.

🤣😂🤣 

They are also being told – in pro-transgender resources – that genital mutilation of slaves was a form of ‘gender transition’.

Why on earth are ‘pro transgender resources’ ever necessary in schools? 

It comes as the Government conducts its curriculum review to ‘reflect the issues and diversities of our society’ – which the report says may be unnecessary as schools already do it. Backed by former education secretaries Lord Blunkett and Nadhim Zahawi, it also calls for pupils to be impartially given a better overview of British history.

Forget it - we know full well whatever is delivered is not going to be impartial, the teaching unions will see to that!  

🎵Friend, either you're closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge, or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated by the presence of emojis in your community..🎵

Police and schools have issued warnings to parents about a 'sinister emoji' code used by incel teenagers in the wake of the success of Netflix hit Adolescence.

Is there no end to the ridiculous panic over this TV propaganda? Now every quango and charlatan wants a piece of the 'incel' grift... 

Teachers and police forces have distributed a 'periodic table of sinister emojis' believed to be used by under-18s to conceal disturbing messages about violence, sex, drugs, and extremism.

In case any parents were thinking 'Whew! At last, the police and schools are on OUR side!' then I caution you to think again.  

Merseyside Police have already circulated the emoji table to schools and parents, according to the Liverpool Echo. However, critics have dismissed the warnings as 'moral panic'.

And they are right.  

Amit Kalley, the founder of education charity For Working Parents urged mothers and fathers to 'keep researching and asking the right questions' about their children's digital lives. He told the Telegraph: 'The table I created is far from an exhaustive list, but I wanted to include emojis beyond incel and misogyny, because lots of young people are groomed online into drugs and violence and lots of young people are involved in dangerous sexual behaviours, which they can hide from parents by using emojis and acronyms. '

OK, Amit, I'll ask questions: Why the hell is anyone expected to listen to you and your little grift frightening parents about what their kids might be getting up to? You don't appear to have any qualifications for this, after all.  

We Don’t Want To Watch Propaganda, That’s The Real Issue Facing Television

The UK’s television industry is being hit by a “perfect storm” that risks leading to British stories disappearing from the small screen, Elisabeth Murdoch has said.

Maybe part of that storm is down to the relentless drip, drip, drip of propaganda, when what we really want is entertainment?  

Murdoch, co-founder of the production company Sister, said that a crisis within British television was leading to an exodus of production talent – as well as a danger that British stories were struggling to be told. It follows warnings that cash-strapped British broadcasters are targeting their resources at dramas with international appeal. She said: “British producers are making excellent content for global platforms, with British talent, set in the UK – but those aren’t the same stories that the BBC or Channel 4 seek out. Those stories, from all corners of the British Isles, are struggling to be made in today’s economic reality. The BBC has projects that they have greenlit and provided foundational financing but the gap to budget remains unattainable.”

And of course, the answer is to stick their hands in other people's pockets: 

Some have suggested that tax breaks could be used to help the industry. Peter Kosminsky, the Bafta-winning television director behind Wolf Hall, has suggested a levy on the streamers to help fund local content.

Yes, of course, charge people more to watch the things they like and are happy to pay for in order to fund the things the luvvie mafia think we should watch instead!  

“The question is how much will be addressed by allowing market forces to work and where intervention could and should positively intervene to support all that is great and valuable in the UK TV industry.”

I'm in favour of market forces. Get your fingers off the scales and we'll see just what value you create.  

Entertainment Or Propaganda?

Stephen Graham has revealed the two harrowing real-life incidents that inspired his new Netflix hit Adolescence, recalling that they made his 'heart hurt'.As an executive producer on the show, which aired on Thursday, Stephen, 51, said the idea for the series came to him from looking at the epidemic of knife crime in the UK.

Did it really?  

'Look, it started when I read an article, and it was an article about a young boy who'd stabbed a young girl to death, and it just, you know, it made me feel cold.

'And then a couple of months later, there was a piece on the news, and it was about a young boy who'd stabbed a young girl to death, and if I'm really honest with you, they hurt my heart.

’Young boy’ is all the description of the perpetrator you’ll get. Note that. 

'And these two incidents were opposite ends of the country. And I just thought, "Why? Why is this happening?"'Not just because I'm a father, but I think any kind of human being with an ounce of moral compass can look at that kind of situation and think, "What's happening? What's going on with society today that we're in?"'

Well, it's certainly made him a few pennies. And the critics are raving about it.  

Co-stars and critics alike have praised Owen, 15, for his chilling performance, and Stephen was so impressed at the young British actor's first audition, that he's since revealed he turned to co-writer Jack Thorne when Owen left the room and said 'I think that's him'.

Strange then, because this is him: 

 So, why cast him? 

And yes, I've had a progressive idiot on FaceBook say he was cast so Graham could play his father, but I thought mixed race families were usually all the rage in TVland? 

So that feeble excuse hardly holds water, does it?

It’s as if Netflix decided to do a film on the brutal mauling death of Ian Price, and showed him being savaged by a pair of cocker spaniels…

Well, I Can’t See This Going Wrong…

Half a million students studied GCSE or A-level history in the UK last year, but just 2,000 of them tackled the origins of the conflict raging in the Middle East. Why? According to one history teacher, Meredith Cann, schools often fear criticism from parents if they tackle sensitive topics.

Mainly because they do it wrong.  

Children are hungry for the chance to study contested and topical periods of history, says Cann, the programme manager at Parallel Histories, an education charity.

Are they? Is there any evidence of that? 

It’s not just Israel and Palestine; other contested subjects often avoided by schools include the impact of the British empire, and the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Really? I thought modern history in schools was 100% 'the British Empire is the root of all evil'..? 

Most schools, she says, restrict their history curriculum to periods that are distant in time or geography.

Well, it IS in the title, after all... 

Parallel Histories promotes new ways to study and understand conflict, helping teachers confidently explore the roots of contemporary wars from Ukraine to Gaza with students, and assess the legacy of leaders such as Winston Churchill. It seeks to reach across community divides and provide an antidote to populism and extremism.

Oooh, I bet it doesn't. I bet perpetuating conflict is its main goal. It is, after all, a fakecharity that gets most of its money from grants, almost certainly from government and other quangos...

“It’s really easy for children to think of history as a list of dead people and what they did. But history is the version of the stories which have shaped and are shaping so much of the modern world,” Cann says. “It’s about how things have been interpreted, and how people have used this history. And that’s where we link to current affairs without treading that line into politicising.”

Good luck trying to walk that line! But let's see an example of the stuff they want to churn out to the kiddies, shall we? 

Parallel Histories works with prominent historians and spends months sifting through sources to draw up the ebooks that are the basis of debates on each topic. For example: was Winston Churchill a racist warmonger who used inhumane forms of warfare? Or was he a visionary leader who saw the threat posed by nazism from the start and led Britain to help defeat Adolf Hitler?

I can pretty much guess the answer. 

The materials on Churchill include a chilling account from his memoir of a military campaign in Afghanistan. Acts that today would probably be considered war crimes are described in his own words. “We destroyed the houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the great shady trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation,” Churchill wrote.

See? 

Rejoice! Free Propaganda!

Konnie Huq, Jamie Oliver, David Baddiel, Adam Kay, Mary Portas and Joseph Coelho are among those collaborating on an ebook about the climate crisis which will be free to access for every UK primary school.

And I'm betting the ones squawking about celebrities writing children's books won't be uttering a single peep about this.... 

The ebook, Children for Change, is edited by Huq and features contributions from more than 80 writers, illustrators, environmentalists and young people including Tom Gates author Liz Pichon, The Gruffalo illustrator Axel Scheffler and TV presenter Chris Packham. The book contains stories, poems, illustrations and features about a variety of topics related to the environment including fast fashion, rewilding and measuring our carbon footprint.

Ugh! Children are usually pretty good about avoiding propaganda and stories adults encourage them to read, so hopefully, they will regard this with as much horror as I once regarded stuff by Enid Blyton.  

The introduction advises children to “start anywhere” in the book. “It’s a chocolate box, essentially”, said Huq.

Well, Jamie Oliver won't like that! He's a health nut now, isn't he? 

“What I love about the idea behind this book is that it’s not all doom and gloom,” said Young Bond series author Charlie Higson, whose writing appears in the anthology. “It’s about letting kids know there are things they can do to safeguard their futures and encouraging them to get involved.”

Because how else can the next cadre of eco-terrorists be raised? 

Huq said it was important that the book was made available for free because there are many children who do not own books, as well as schools that do not have libraries.

A school with no library is an abomination.  

Well, I Was Wrong...

...I've just seen a worst one, and it's from North Yorkshire Police this time:

One of the lines of enquiry relates to the behaviour of the dog to help explain, as far as possible, why it attacked the girl.

If the idiot parents had illegally bought their child a king cobra (and she'd probably have been safer with one!), would you be wracking your tiny brains to try to explain why it bit her? No. Of course not. 

All indications so far suggest it was out-of-character, with the girl and dog having a close, loving relationship.

'Out of character' for this particular mutt, or for the breed? Because all police farces should know by now this is absolutely in character for this breed. 

Pointer puppies grow up to point, border collie puppies grow up to herd, pitbull breed puppies grow up to savage the everliving life out of something. 

Due to the circumstances of the incident, the dog will be destroyed.

It should have been shot by armed cops when they turned up. Police need to treat these things like suspected IEDs, rendering them harmless at the scene, not taking them back to kennels to tinker with and endanger the kennel staff. 

In the meantime, we again urge people not to speculate about the incident and to respect the family’s wish for privacy to grieve in peace. Our officers are continuing to support the family while enquiries continue.

You should be treating them as murder suspects. They endangered the life of their child and everyone else in the vicinity. 

Officers are conducting detailed enquiries covering all aspects of the incident.

Like how and when the girl 'acquired' her 'new pet' when it's been illegal to sell or give away one of these hellhounds since January, hmm? I bet you aren't enquiring about that.

Why are the police PR teams trying to appease the pitbull lobby here? What on earth is in it for them?

News Manipulation

That was the headline for the story. So the casual viewer probably flicked past it without even noticing a crucial point - it should have said 'claimed', not 'revealed'. 

Those two words do not mean the same thing. As the article makes clear.

And yesterday, we had this:

Surely the word they were looking for there was 'murdered'? 

And it's not just the MSM, the locals are at it as well:

The 'victims' in this case were the thieves who stole the bike. Some might say that disqualified them from the status. 

The Media Lying To Us Again....

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are displacing healthy diets “all over the world” despite growing evidence of the risks they pose and should be sold with tobacco-style warnings, according to the nutritional scientist who first coined the term.

“UPFs are increasing their share in and domination of global diets, despite the risk they represent to health in terms of increasing the risk of multiple chronic diseases,” Monteiro told the Guardian ahead of the conference in São Paulo. “UPFs are displacing healthier, less processed foods all over the world, and also causing a deterioration in diet quality due to their several harmful attributes. Together, these foods are driving the pandemic of obesity and other diet-related chronic diseases, such as diabetes.”

And how does 'The Guardian' choose to illustrate this article? Not with anything any normal person would consider 'food', but rather sweets and snacks: 

Want to see some real ultra-processed foods? Here they are:

Although judging by their continuing presence on the 'yellow sticker' shelves, not enough people are buying it. 

 

DEI Takes To The Air...

The world’s largest airline pilot union suggested airmen and women stop using terms purportedly offensive to women and LGBTQ individuals, calling out terms like “cockpit” as non-inclusive.

My my, is it April 1st already? Time, like snowflake flight crew, really does fly! 

Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l, represents over 70,000 pilots worldwide and states that it collaborates with a United Nations agency on its policies.

Well, there's your first mistake!  

According to a diversity, equity and inclusion language guide released in 2021, the ALPA lists numerous terms and phrases to avoid — especially “masculine generalizations” — that it deemed to be non-inclusive.

Now you know why Virgin Air thought this advert might be a crowd pleaser!  

“Inclusive language in communications is essential to our union’s solidarity and collective strength and is an important factor in maintaining flight safety,” the guide states.

What about this contributes to 'flight safety'? 

“The purpose of this language guide is to offer examples of terms and phrases that promote inclusion and equity.”ALPA, for example, suggested replacing the word “cockpit” with “flight deck.” The purportedly offensive term “has been and may be used in a derogatory way to exclude women in the piloting profession,” the guide states. “Many women have heard a variation of ‘It is called a cockpit for a reason’ by a male pilot, suggesting that women do not belong in the piloting profession,” the guide said.

I like my equality messages in my stage shows, but can't say I care too much when actually getting on a plane... 

H/T: Melindi Scott via Twitter

"Baby, you and me, we ain't nothin' but mammals..."

Anderson said the perception that same-sex sexual behaviour was rare in animals had fed into a narrative that it was “unnatural” in humans.

“I think that record should be corrected,” she said. “One thing I think we can say for certain is that same-sex sexual behaviour is widespread and natural in the animal kingdom.”

Lots of behaviour is widespread and natural, but do we really need to see it all in nature documentaries, breathlessly narrated by David Attenborough? We've got popular sci-fi for that sort of thing.   

Respondents said they were not influenced by sociopolitical concerns, but many remarked that journals appeared biased against publishing anecdotal reports compared with systematic studies.

Showing they perhaps had more of an eye to social norms than the researchers.  

Josh Davis, of the Natural History Museum in London and author of A Little Gay Natural History, said: “Around 1,500 species have been observed showing homosexual behaviours, but this is certainly an underestimate because it’s seen in almost every branch of the evolutionary tree – spiders, squids, monkeys.

“There’s a growing suggestion it’s normal and natural to almost every species,” he added.

“It’s probably more rare to be a purely heterosexual species.”

The spiders are probably just avoiding becoming a post-coital snack... 

In the past, same-sex sexual behaviours were often framed as a “Darwinian paradox” – apparently contradicting the evolutionary pressure to survive and reproduce. There is growing evidence, however, that some same-sex sexual behaviours can have evolutionary advantages. In black swans, male-male couples frequently court each other, steal eggs, raise chicks together and are more successful in ensuring these chicks’ survival than heterosexual swan pairs.

Misogyny wins again? 

There's Never Any Evidence If You Make Sure You Don't Collect It...

...or if you ignore what is collected and pretend that it isn't.

A spokesperson for the Dogs Trust said research had shown that "no breed of dog is more likely to be aggressive than another".

Oh, really? 

"There is no evidence the reported increase in dog attacks is down to one particular breed of dog as, even in fatal cases, the breed of dog does not need to be recorded," they added.

But it is recorded, isn't it? Maybe not by everyone, no, but in this very article the people dealing with the aftermath are only too aware of which breed is doing the damage:

Assistant Chief Constable Dan Thorpe, of South Yorkshire Police, said each year the force had seen "significant increases in dangerous dog-related incidents".

"In 2018, we saw 77 of these incidents, and have already seen 180 in the first six months of this year," he added. ACC Thorpe said the American XL Bully breed had accounted for 25% of all the dogs seized by the force since January last year.

"We can't ignore the fact that the XL Bully breed is disproportionately represented in the number of dog attacks we attend," he said.

It seems those with a vested interest in perpetuating the myth that a chihuahua is just as likely to attack as a pitbull can ignore it just fine...... 

So, Why Did You Buy It Then..?

My son sat on the stairs of our home crying on Monday, and for once I had no more words. I could not justify my decision to not cook his tiny, budget pizza beyond that of making sure we practised being poorer. I didn’t feel able to cook it because it would cost too much to turn the oven on for this one small thing.

And what did you end up doing, making the kid eat it raw? Shouldn't social services be having a word?

Once, this would be something I, and no doubt many others, would have asked in the comments. But the 'Guardian' long ago decided that awkward questions should never be asked, so this article doesn't allow them, of course.

I have seen our gas and electricity charges double. We have just had our toughest winter yet as I couldn’t afford to turn on the heating. Instead, we bundled up in bed to stay warm. There is now a minimum of a third less in my shopping basket for the same money. It’s largely fresh food we are cutting back on, short shelf-life items, tiny luxuries and toiletries too, but even that won’t be enough soon.

And don't forget those pizzas that you buy but won't cook! Might as well cut those out too, unless the goal is to torment your child...

How dare those in power tell us how to spend the appallingly low budgets we receive on social security while we perform the mental gymnastics of just getting through the day on 500 calories. Crying because we know how living in this way will affect our children, how deadly poverty can be for vulnerable people and older people among us.

The person who's 'affecting children' seems to be you, actually. 

The stigma of living like this stops those suffering from speaking out.

Except you, getting a column in a major newspaper, under your own name? 

My son’s response about the tiny pizza was tears and rage at the inequality of it all. As staff at energy companies receive millions in bonuses, we can’t afford to heat a budget pizza. When I said to him that that this is why we need to speak out and help people, he told me through his rage: “I can’t help the people mummy, I am the people.”

Do those sound like the words of a 12 year old with 'additional needs and significant sensory processing issues' to you, Reader?

Or like the words ascribed to him by a political operator in the 'Guardian's' poverty porn troops? 

It's The Unique Way They're Funded...

...that lets them be disingenuous. Obviously:

As Twitter was quick to point out (did you think no-one would notice, David?) this is the most expensive tariff, for 4K with simultaneous stream to 4 devices. Most people are happy with £5.99 a month. 

Especially since Netflix don't expect to be able to slam a single mother in clink if she refuses to take their product...

Wait, We Built It And They Didn't Come...?"

“Would-be cyclists” are being urged to use new pop-up bike lanes if they do not want to see them removed.

Well, why put them up in the first place? 

In recent months government-funded cycleways have been setup in Chichester, Crawley, East Grinstead, Horsham, Shoreham and Worthing. The lanes, intended to encourage people to opt for more active modes of transport, have delighted cyclists.

But motorists have argued that they are the cause of congestion in some areas, taking a lane of the road which was originally allocated to traffic.

Good old government, spending taxpayer money on things they believe the taxpayer should want again... 

West Sussex County Council says there are to be no more pop-up cycle lanes, and encouraged “would-be cyclists” to try them out for themselves.

A spokesman for the authority said: “An important part of assessing the cycleways will be to monitor usage: these are trial schemes, so if people want them to stay, please use them.”

People, you know what to do! And demand a refund.