As bad as I am at math, my freshman year of university showed me that I could actually be worse in another subject: economics. I took one course and have told people, only half-jokingly, that I passed it (with a “D”) only because I promised the professor I would never again disgrace his discipline by taking another course in it.
Although I understood nothing, I remember a couple of things about the class. One is that the professor would exclaim, “MR=MC Always,” while pounding the podium. And I recall something about “guns and butter.” I think it was about choosing between the two.
Well, years later I saw a poster that read, Bikes Not Bombs.” I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment, not only because I love cycling: I believe that the only htrue advance the human race can make is by ending war, now and forever. But I am enough of a realist to see that it probably won’t happen, especially in the current political climate.
It seems, however, that more than one politician has flipped the “Bikes Not Bombs” slogan.
Here in the US, we might expect a right-wing politician to make the argument that money spent on bike lanes and other cycling-related infrastructure and programs would come at the expense of the defense budget. (They have been making the same sort claim about arts and healthcare-for-all vs the military for decades.) But, interestingly, in the UK, Wes Streeting, a Labour politician who sought the party’s leadership made exactly that sort of false equivalence. What’s even more astonishing is that as a former Health Secretary, he should know about the health benefits of cycling.
What made the parliamentary debate even more bizarre was not that Andrew Murrison, a Member of Parliament and a Navy veteran agreed, more or less. It’s that another veteran and Member of Parliament, Al Pinkerton, shot down (no pun intended) their argument. “I am perfectly happy to spend money on both cycleways and defence,” he announced.
Hmm..bikes and bombs? I guess that isn’t so far-fetched when you consider that one of earliest British bicycle manufacturers—and, for a long time, the most respected maker of bicycle components—was Birmingham Small Arms Ltd.
