What's worse than a new UK health secretary who believes in homeopathy? How about a new transport secretary who broke a cyclist's neck while recklessly driving a 4x4 through the streets of London? (via @bengoldacre)

  • Nylund

    There’s a crop of conservatives in the US that like to drive their SUV”s endlessly around in circles during Earth Hour purely for spite and to “undue” any energy savings those dirty hippies may do.  Those people probably think this guy makes an excellent transportation secretary.  I’m guessing they don’t like cyclists.  Actually, just go to any local newspaper with an article that talks about bike lanes or bike paths.   The comments will be vicious.

    • http://boingboing.net/ The Life Of Bryan

      My favorite are the comment threads in news stories about cyclists killed on the streets.

      • andygates

        I’m a fan of the comment threads on all those stories about people killed by cyclists. Oh, wait…

    • SpaceBeers

      I almost got sucked in to a cyclist / motorist / pedestrian debate in the local paper’s comment sections. I don’t get why people can’t agree that their are good cyclists / bad cyclists. Good drivers / bad drivers etc. 

      Saying ALL cyclists are dangerous is as ridiculous as saying ALL drivers are careless and ALL pedestrians don’t look where they’re going. It seems like a silly debate to me (cyclists, driver and pedestrian).

      • SpaceBeers

        Saying that, I did almost run a jogger who wasn’t looking where she was going over this morning on my bike (she ran into the cycle lane btw). Maybe we are menaces?

    • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

      We had some talks in our city recently about improving things for cyclists.  But after a round of ‘consultation’ (i.e. old people with little else to do voice their concerns via an event only they were aware of) that resulted in them being scrapped and cyclists being labelled as ‘dangerous’ and ‘inconsiderate’.

      That stuff really irkes me.

      It’s a small city that everyone could get around on with a bike, kind of like Amsterdam. Instead people that choose the most appropriate mode of transportation are labelled as trouble makers because (potentially) 2 years ago a chav road a bit too close to a pensioner with a penchant for writing letters to MP’s.

      • SpaceBeers

        I know what you mean. How do they hear about these things? I’d go to a meeting about cycle lanes etc if I had any idea when and where it was.

        • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

          I honestly don’t know. I always seem to hear about the results of the consultations, but never about the consultations themselves.

          Probably intentional.

        • greebo

          Well, you’re in luck. There’s one coming up in Toronto next Tuesday:
          http://bikeunion.to/event/2012/08/14/wellesley-hoskin-bike-lane-upgrades-2nd-public-meeting?
          However, if you’re more than four days bike ride from Toronto, I can’t help you.

          • SpaceBeers

            Well it’s 3387.094 miles as the crow flies so you might have to take notes for me.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Richard-Hung/100002536908419 Richard Hung

    This isn’t that much different than our former vice-president who shot a man in the face while out hunting.  Then, his victim apologized.

    • bcsizemo

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBBni_-tMNs&feature=player_detailpage#t=45s

  • m0nkyman

    I’ll raise you one former Attorney General for Ontario who actually killed a cyclist:  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2009/09/01/toronto-cyclist-collision-death481.html

  • http://profiles.google.com/marc.k.mielke Marc Mielke

    Between the Health Secretary who doesn’t believe in medical science and the Transportation Secretary who can’t drive, there seems to be an active thrust to find the most comically incompetent people for the post. 

    What are some other suggestions in this vein? It sounds like something Mitchell and Webb might do. 

    • http://boingboing.net/ The Life Of Bryan

      Maybe they’re adopting the strategy of America’s so-called conservatives: “Government can’t do anything right; vote for me and I’ll prove it.”

    • ldobe

      A minister of Agriculture who insists on watering the crops with BRAWNDO?

      It’s got electrolytes…. They’re what plants crave

      EDIT

      Although I’m pretty sure I saw somewhere that Mon$anto is developing salinity tolerant corn and tomatoes

    • Oscar Portela

      How about appointing the former director of Lehman Brothers for Spain and Portugal (as in “at the time it went bankrupt”) as the current Spanish Minister of Economy? Wait, that hasn’t happened, has it?

      http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_de_Guindos

    • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

      To be fair to British politics absolutely nobody in charge of a department has any actual specialist knowledge or experience that would enable them to do the job effectively.

      Incidentally have you watched ‘The thick of it’? Although a fictitious comedy I have a feeling it’s far more close to political reality than anything else, documentaries included.

  • tw1515tw

    He probably cannot drive a train, drive a truck, fly a plane or pilot a hovercraft either.

    • ocker3

       I wouldn’t expect the Commerce Secretary to be able to balance the nation’s books single-handed, but I would expect them to be able to sum a basic list of figures.

    • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

      Would that be a crazy requirement for the person in charge of an entire nations transport needs?  I could tick off more than half that list already.

      What does this chap have to bring to the table? A likely out-of-touch perspective on the transport system, a degree in modern history and a proposal that would allow MP’s to jump queues. And of course a history of careless driving.

  • euansmith

     The Transport Minister took the very reasonable step of driving a large 4×4 off-roader through some of the most congested city streets in the world because it offered him greater all-round visibility…

  • knoxblox

    On the subject of homeopathy and a guy with a neck broken in two places…

    Perhaps (with the same idea in mind as successive dilution of solutions combined with the “like cures like” theory) one could strike the victim’s head against the car bonnet a few hundred times — making each blow successively lighter until he is healed.

    Your welcome.

  • http://www.drake.org.uk Martyn Drake

    Was damn nearly knocked off my own bike today by an impatient driver of a massive big car, and then by a monster US-style truck.  I don’t know what kind of mentality goes with owning  a bigger car (other than the obvious penis connection if the driver is male), but my goodness, are drivers getting more impatient these days.

    That said, I see a fair share of fellow cyclists jumping red lights and taking risks as equally as dumb as these car drivers. Horses for courses. When is Google working on automatically driven pushbikes, then? ;)

    Getting back to the cabinet reshuffle and the choices of MPs – the UK government have gone absolutely barking mad.  Jeremy Hunt (or the teflon MP as I call him) for health (or should that be “self”) secretary, and Sir Peter “Big Brother/Deal or No Deal/Ready Steady Cook/Changing Rooms” Bazalgette as chairman of the Arts Council? How anybody whose primary business concerns have been dabbling in non-stop “reality” TV shows can be (a) knighted and (b) made chairman of the Arts Council is mind-boggingly bizarre.

    I’m beginning to think Cameron is implementing a Scorched Britain campaign before he and his cronies leave power at the next general election.

    • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

      I live in a densely populated, small and completely flat city and it’s still full of nob heads in massive 4×4 monstrosities.  You can get from one end of the city to the other in 20 minutes on a bike.

      I don’t know if it’s so much a mentality as it is them being undereducated assholes.

      (There are a couple jeep drivers nearby who clearly use their vehicles for off-road shenanigans, I categorise these completely differently to shiny Range Rover types who wouldn’t even drive through a puddle – i.e. have absolutely no requirement for an off road vehicle aside from looking big and stupid).

  • http://twitter.com/drrobmcc Rob McCarrick

    Maybe the Health Secretary can just put some water on the cyclist’s neck.

  • Al_Packer

    Among conservatives it seems to be a requirement that you have no knowledge of the thing you are regulating or administering.