#GE2017 - Fighting for the MPs that represented cyclists

There are two candidates who have served on the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group, and in the past both have played an important role in giving a voice to cyclists and representing cyclists.

Those candidates:

1. Julian Huppert for Liberal Democrats and the Cambridge seat
   
2. Ruth Cadbury for Labour and the Brentford & Isleworth seat
   
   

Typically I have kept LFGSS out of politics, but that hasn't necessarily served us well and some things are just plain important. It's extremely likely that the Conservatives will win the election with a sizeable majority, so in this case this is about how LFGSS can help assist 2 candidates who will represent cyclists in that new government.

Julian was the Cambridge MP but lost out by a few hundred votes in 2015, and is now fighting to regain that seat.

Ruth is the current MP for Brentford & Isleworth but only by a small margin of a few hundred votes. She is at considerable risk from the Conversative candidate.

I am going to personally donate £100 to each candidate, and I will contact Ruth and see how I can help locally.

If you wish to donate to either, here are the links:

• Julian for Cambridge: https://backjulian-cambridgelibdems.nationbuilder.com/
  
• Ruth for Brentford: https://donate.labour.org.uk/brentford_isleworth/1
  
  

If you live in either, please consider contacting them and volunteering. There is a real need for people to help make sure the young are registered to vote.

Additionally I will be making stickers or something and would like other volunteers to help place them strategically to get the most eyeballs (tube and rail stations, key bus stops, etc) which probably means a morning or two of cycling around Brentford or Cambridge to put them up and make sure they stay up.

If you want to know the kind of thing that the APPCG get up to, read the excellent report and recommendations about Cycling and the Justice System: https://allpartycycling.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/appcg-justice-report-2017.pdf

Specifically there were 14 recommendations:

• The Highway Code should be revised
  
• The driving test must be changed to help improve driver behaviour towards cyclists
  
• Professional drivers should be retested more frequently
  
• Roads policing should be given a higher priority
  
• The Government and other local authorities should adopt similar partnerships to the ones in London in other parts of the country, to counter the risk posed by illegal freight operations
  
• The Department for Transport and Ministry of Justice should research the growing discrepancy between road casualty figures
  
• More police forces should adopt close passing enforcement practice on a wider scale
  
• The police must ensure that a higher standard of investigation is maintained in all cases where serious injury has resulted
  
• All police forces should ensure that evidence of common offences submitted by cyclists, or other witnesses, using bike or person mounted cameras or smart phones is put to use, and not ignored
  
• The length of time required by the Police to serve a Notice of Intended Prosecution for a road traffic offence is currently just 14 days and must be extended
  
• Confusion and overlap between ‘careless’ and ‘dangerous’ driving means that often bad driving does not receive the level of punishment that the public feel it should, the MoJ should investigate how these offences are being used
  
• The police and CPS should ensure that victims and bereaved families are always kept adequately informed throughout the process of deciding charges
  
• The Ministry of Justice should examine the reasons behind the decline in the use of the penalty of disqualification
  
• The Soft Tissue Injury Reforms – the ‘whiplash reforms’ – should not include injuries to cyclists or pedestrians
  
  

Some of those include things that we have collectively been asking for, for ages. We need these candidates to win their seats and to be actively working with the APPCG.