I was thinking just the other day how we haven't heard from our old enemy Sustrans lately, when an email dropped into my inbox from Fahrenheit211.
It seems they are out of favour, and there's a new fakecharity on the block; this mob are aiming at schoolkids, promoting - with the full blessing of the teachers, naturally! - the national scheme called 'Walk to School Week' (run by an organisation that used to be called the Pedestrians Association and used to be a genuine charity in the old sense but has now been hollowed out by the Left, who are wearing it like a skinsuit and dubbing it 'Living Streets').
But Julia, you cry, isn't it a good thing? Well, maybe, except it's the usual rubbish about climate change and the obesity 'crisis' and how evil the internal combustion engine it. And you're paying for it.
Because just like Sustrans, it's getting its cash not from public donation, but by siphoning it direct from the taxpayer, via the Department of Transport. They have a three year strategy. Bit ambitious of them, the communists used to give themselves five!
I've been monitoring how this 'walk to school' thing is being run and it appears that the children whose parents have naively bought into this project from Living Streets are being rewarded with badges and stickers whilst those children whose parents who either do not buy into it or live too far away from the school to take part, are not.
ReplyDeleteThis is looking more and more like political indoctrination of children using reward/not reward to encourage compliance. Dr Goebells would be proud.
Well we had the Tufty Club at school with a badge, and I remember a talking Beacon called Billy Beacon talking about crossing the road.
ReplyDeleteI am sure these were not sponsored by the communist party
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_Ry9tiz9_c
Tufty Fluffytail was born in 1953, as a creation of the late Elsie Mills MBE. Original stories for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents featured the squirrel and his friends to introduce clear and simple safety messages for children. Tufty was joined in his adventures by Minnie Mole and the naughty Willy Weasel along with Mrs Owl the teacher and Policeman Badger, who always popped up in the nick of time to save the children. In 1961, the Tufty Club was set up as a nationwide network of local groups. At its peak there were 24,500 registered Tufty Clubs. The characters' images were changed to keep up with the times in 1979 and again in 1993.
Bloody hated the Tufty club. The woman that ran it for our school was also the examiner for our cycling proficiency. When my class took our cycling proficiency test she stood grandly in front of the class and stated "Now children, you all think I am very nice don't you?" I said in all honesty "I don't know." She said "right that's one already failed." After I did my cycling test perfectly the bitch said "right all the class has passed except you" pointing to me. I will never forget that.
DeleteBeing a person who cycles a bit, I would be a supporter of Sustrans if they actually did what they were claiming to do. There is a cycle path on the old Hull to Hornsea railway line. Bits of it have been surfaced badly. Bits of it have been surfaced really well. Bits of it have not been surfaced at all and are barely passable in the winter. There are probably several thousand miles of old railways being used as cycle paths in the UK. Surely the amount of money this fake charity has had over the past few decades could have surfaced most of them if the funds had been allocated properly.
ReplyDeleteOr have brought back Tufty and Billy the Beacon
ReplyDelete"...the children whose parents have naively bought into this project from Living Streets are being rewarded with badges and stickers whilst those children whose parents who either do not buy into it or live too far away from the school to take part, are not."
ReplyDeleteDivide, and conquer. The oldest trick in the book, because...it works.
"I am sure these were not sponsored by the communist party"
Indeed! And their loss has probably encouraged the appalling risks I see adult pedestrians taking every day, never mind the children!
"Being a person who cycles a bit, I would be a supporter of Sustrans if they actually did what they were claiming to do."
They are an arm of government, why would you think that was likely?