#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.

Good work boss. I'll tweet Julian with this thread

According to this, there's also been support from Keir Starmer and Tim Farron, but then one of them hates immigrants and the others a freakish Thatcherite homophobe evangelical. Also some Tories, but they're Tories.

http://www.cyclinguk.org/news/20160523-cwis

I've chosen 2 who:

• Sat on the APPCG
  
• Actually care about cycling
  
• Have had some impact in that role
  
• Have potential to be elected although it's not at all obvious that they will be elected (i.e. we could make a difference in helping them be elected)
  

Hi there - many thanks indeed for this; it is much appreciated. I am passionate about cycling, and would love to get back into Parliament to make the case again! I lost my seat last time very narrowly - by just 599 votes.

In terms of what you can do:

• if you live in Cambridge, please vote for me, and put up a sign to encourage others - http://www.cambridgelibdems.org.uk/garden_posters

• wherever you live, encourage anyone you know in Cambridge to vote for me, and come and help me! I need volunteers every day; we have an office at 15 Ronald Rolph Court CB5 8PX. Sign up at http://www.cambridgelibdems.org.uk/volunteer or ring 01223 210667. We may be able to find accommodation for overnight stays.

• Donate! My site is at http://backjulian.co.uk - all contributions are welcome.

Many thanks!

Julian

Spam.

That's great Julian. Thanks for posting.

Julien is also now the recommended candidate on #tactical2017 https://www.tactical2017.com/#Cambridge

This is data backed (as good as it can be given the last result was fairly even) though I'm personally glad it aligns with the pro-APPCG bias I have.

Fuck that shit. Vote for the Labour candidate.

I couldn't agree more. The rest is just the usual minestrone...

In Cambridge, under fptp, that's a wasted vote.

Vote for the Labour candidate

Cambridge voted Remain by 74% and the Labour position is still to accept #brexit as a done deal whereas the Liberal Democrats still oppose vehemently. For that area, LIB are well ahead.

If you look at the data, even though LAB won the seat by a thin margin from LIB, the projected likely outcome by several predictors is that LIB have the best change of winning, followed by CON, with LAB in third place.

If splitting the vote puts beating CON at risk, then people should pick one and focus on making that the winner. That the two I've highlighted are both pro-cycling adds to that IMHO.

wasted vote

No vote is a wasted vote, but to not vote is a wasted vote.

Don't vote when wasted.

Deep, man

What if you're always wasted?

In Cambridge, under fptp, that's a wasted vote.

No, the constituency is currently held by Labour.

the constituency is currently held by Labour

Who are probably going to lose it anyway: http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/cgi-bin/seatdetails.py?seat=Cambridge and it was LIB barely 2 years ago so the "currently held by" argument barely holds.

Best chance of winning:

1. LIB with a 39% chance
   
2. CON with a 31% chance
   
3. LAB with a 28% chance
   
   

This pattern is repeated on other data driven sites for Cambridge, the biggest factor is the Remain vote which was extremely strong.

It is likely that this election will end in a Conservative landslide, but honestly... do you want to risk it?

That's the point of forming a progressive alliance and voting tactically, to exclude the Conservatives and have both a local candidate who works for you whilst helping to ensure there is some degree of viable opposition in the House of Commons.

It is likely that this election will end in a Conservative landslide, but honestly... do you want to risk it?

So you think the best way to counter this is to oust Labour from seats that they hold, and back a party that formed an alliance with the Conservatives?

Labour are going to be ousted from a lot of seats they hold, it's going to be a slaughter.

I think it's best to take what fight still exists to form opposition and focus it into the strongest one possible.

No single party can be that opposition. SNP and Labour have both in their own ways guaranteed that. Opposition will have to be an alliance in any case. The right are united (see UKIP standing aside everywhere to boost the Tory vote), and the centre and left are still having arguments about how best to form a numerically effective opposition.

I note that you haven't argued against the data, or against the Remain vote, or against the fact that LAB have declared Brexit a done deal, or against the strong support that LIB candidate does have... you've only argued for LAB, blind to the risk it poses. LAB are 3rd in the list of likely winners for Cambridge... behind CON, yet you would have people vote LAB and against their own EU preference too?

Simple... Waste your vote, then get more wasted.

Well, I argue the data. This data is given when it's still missing days of the campaign before the vote. Also, who is in charge of this data? Are we sure that it's not another manoeuvre to boycott Corbyn while helping the Tories friends? Is not this kind of data never been proven wrong after elections? Maybe Labour won't win but taking votes from them for those is not good.

And, Corbyn didn't take a clear position on Brexit, I doubt very much that it will be the Hard Brexit. What instead is very sure is that he will beat the rich. And I as I said before, even if I don't see a penny of that, it still makes me joyful. And a good beat to all these leeches of bureaucrats trying to make a business around the main parts wouldn't be less of a gratification. Anyway, now let's not dream too much.

Is not this kind of data never been proven wrong after elections?

The thing with data, polls, estimations... when it's been historically wrong, it's only ever been so in a single direction: It's under-estimated the Conservatives.

I would never do that mistake. That's why I wouldn't ever help the Lib Dem, especially at the expenses of Corbyn.

The troubling truth, it seems, is that we're up shit creek. Labour have sold-out the Remainers and further than that they don't, seemingly, stand a chance of winning. The Tories are geriatric wankers, with pretty hard-line, non-tolerant views. And the Lib Dems are a bunch of wishy-washy types, who should really take their share of the blame for enabling the Tory Government they were in bed with to get away with the whole referendum.

Tldr: Do not vote Conservative!

Specifically to Cambridge the Labour win was seen by many as a protest vote against the Lib Dems that Huppert bore the brunt of. It was LD before that. Historically it's flipped between them.

If Lib Dems have the safest chance to make sure the Tories don't gain ground, there's no reason to vote Labour.