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news
Big Ben © Simon MacMichaelRivals raise money to buy bike for Tory MP hit with driving ban
The chairman of the Green Party in West Berkshire has launched a fundraising page to buy a bicycle for a Tory MP who has been banned from driving after he was caught texting at the wheel.
Richard Benyon, who is MP for Newbury, has even donated £10 to the Go Fund Me page himself, reports Newbury Today.
As an MP who has campaigned for road safety, highlighting a number of crashes on the busy A34 trunk route which runs through his constituency, he was accused of hypocrisy last month when he was banned from driving ifor six months under the totting-up procedure..
The fundraising page was set up by Steve Masters, who said: "It is vital that Richard Benyon is able to carry on working and like his constituents he will clearly struggle after the cuts imposed in West Berkshire.
To this end an eco-friendly bicycle seems to offer the best solution to this unfortunate situation."
He continued, " Losing one's license when it is central to your working life can be devastating for working people.
"Therefore any surplus monies raised above the cost of a secondhand bike from eBay will go to a local mental health charity here in Newbury.
"This will ensure people like Richard have the support they need when dealing with what must be a very stressful time."
To date, the campaign has raised £410 of its £1.000 target with any surplus going to local mental health charity Eight Bells.
Benyon, who lives in an Elizabethan country house on his family's Englefield Estate, described the fundraising campaign as "very funny" and that he had donated £10 given the charitable aspect.
The 67-year-old added that while he is serving his-month ban, he aims to use “a combination of public transport, my wife, friends, my new bicycle and my feet” to get around his constituency.
Eight Bells for Mental Health is a charitable organisation which supports people affected by mental health issues in Berkshire.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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21 comments
I don't know where I read it, but I seem to recall that this numpty is worth £110 million - at that rate he could afford someone to bus him into work and employ another to do is texting for him.
Post number 9 on this thread ...
Actually it was on the twitter this past weekend - Carlton Read mentioned him and that detail got posted.
Given the Tory party ethics, I would not be surprised if he got promotion in the cabinet reshuffle to a position that included a chauffeur.
He's an MP. I think the way it usually works is that someone else will buy the bike for him, give him the bike and receipt and then the MP will claim it all back through expenses, including any duck houses also recently purchased.
If he flips the stem, he can claim twice, something like that...
when he gets it, it should be stuck right up his Tory arse. Bloody incompetent scrounger. There are people really suffering in this country. This is not even news worthy.
Couldn't he buy one himself under the "bike to work scheme"?
I think it's between the buggery chamber and the morals anonymous drop off point...
Thanks. Nearly sprayed coffee all over my desk, during my 9am monday skive from doing real work. As it was I had an uncontrollable fit of sniggering.
Surely Lord Sugar has some old ones battering around the Houses of Parliament bike shed to give away.*
*There must be one for that many people, right?
I somehow don't see him suffering in the slightest...
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/revealed-britains-richest-tor...
Not all hypocrites are tories, but it would appear empirically, that all tories are hypocrites.
Campaigns for road safety, texts and drives and gets banned; you couldn't make it up. I sincerely hope at the next election his constituents rise up and demand somebody with at least a modicum of morals.
I'm sure the msm will be all over this, given the sheer level of hypocrisy and the fact that he was endangering vulnerable road users and they are having an inquiry into the law and cyclists. Only kidding! Of course they'll ignore it.
hmmm, Newbury I have a feeling I could put a blue rosette on my pug, Bertha and she’d elected. On the plus side she’s never txted whilst driving.
Serves him right if he got banned. He's an MP and has committed to uphold the law. If he can't add up to twelve it doesn't say much for the choices made by the residents of West Berkshire.
I'm sure the Greens started the fund as a bit of fun but it's a bit rich that someone on a £60,000+ salary per year plus all the expenses can't afford a bike!
I hope the money finds it way to someone who deserves a bicycle, to someone whose life it might make a difference to and improve their quality of life.
Even the irony and the satire of the gofundme campaign is more effort than it's worth...
Pretty sure he can buy his own bicycle with a salary of just shy of £75k. Heck, why not claim it on expenses....?!
http://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/members/pay-mps/
Several sources describe him as 'Britain's richest MP' (estimated wealth £110 million)!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2315211/Richard-Benyon-British-r...
Also, surely you can get a perfectly useable bike for the £410 they've already raised? Seems an unecessarily expensive political stunt.
I suspect they will buy a £50-100 BSO and give the rest to the mental health charity.
If that's so, it makes a bit more sense.
I was wondering what his 'road safety campainging' consists of. I hope it's not just demanding compulsory high-viz and helmets and similar restrictions on the more vulnerable travel modes.
Or maybe I hope that's exactly what it is, because that would make it neater, with everything I dislike wrapped up in one tidy package.
If it's so important the poor darling gets to work perhaps he shouldn't have accumulated 12 points in the first place
? I won't be contributing on this one...
Really, couldn’t he have just made up sob story about having to drive his old mum to the doctors once in blue moon, like the 12,000 plus drivers we have on the roads with more than 12 points on their license.