Another floundering politician tries a bit of bike-bashing? When will they learn it doesn’t work?
The original £1,000 cap was axed six years ago after complaints
But many retailers have realised that some higher earners were taking advantage of the perk and bought bikes costing more than £10,000.
One government figure told the newspaper: “Cycle to work should be about helping ordinary commuters switch to greener travel, not giving tax breaks to high earners buying £4,000 e-bikes for weekend rides in the Surrey Hills. Taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for luxury leisure.”
Sounds reasonable. I’m all for helping people buy bicycles. It’s a great idea. But taxpayers shouldn’t subsidize wealthy families purchasing super-expensive bikes.
But it does work.
The car industry and fossil fuel industry in general know they are heading into a dead end. All their money gets spend with a single goal: to delay, so they can squeeze out the maximum amount of money before it all breaks down.
They don’t care to actually win because they know that’s impossible. But every single guy dissuaded by the constant bashing to buy a bike now and waiting for another few years is a win for them.
Does it work for the politicians? Hidalgo re-elected, Kahn re-elected, to name two. I don’t remember all the bike-bashers who lost because history soon forgets most losers.
The current UK crypto-tory govt knew they were losers when they polled less in popular vote than the losing Corbyn previously. It’s just that the overt-tories had become entirely unelectable- even for the dumbfucks in the UK (mostly England) .
This lot know they’ve got to cash in (personally) whilst they’re in power because it won’t be for long.
Any backhanders they get from oil companies is a win for them.
That previous tory-pm, forget his name , lets call him “faceless tory cunt A”. Tried to demonise the ‘war on cars’ in the last election campaign, i suspect it got them some cash in pocket (most likely) or, to try to bail out their sinking ship (probably not that dumb). They get quite a lot of publicity out of it unsurprisingly, so probably a handful of votes.
It’s a good swing vote for the real-tories though , nothing to lose from the low turnout bus users, lefty bike users or environmentalists. but everything to gain from lower middle class carbrain Jeremy Cockson follower types and brexit/ukip bigots. That’s the real swing vote in the uk - if they come out and vote it can matter.
I’m actually surprised Tories haven’t managed to mandate 500 off-street parking place minimums for polling stations, or even drive-thru voting must be available in all constituencies.
It makes less electoral sense for the crypto-tories calling themselves “labour” so most likely it’s oil-lobby cash moving between some swiss banks or something.
Also london is not representative of UK, and is underrepresented in general elections. Generally sheep in the UK are much better represented in parliament than people in the urban centres. So you can’t extrapolate from Khan (or any other city/dense urban local authority) to UK.
Though I’m not sure how much of a loss this policy really is, i think it is mostly designed to subisidise MAMIL culture, which seems like a waste of money… Second hand is way better value if you ask me.
Of course it works for them. They get money and nice new jobs… thanks to the people they actually work for.
