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news
Barbed wire on bike path KentCycling UK complains to Sunday Times over Rod Liddle’s “piano wire at neck height” column – published on weekend a cyclist was hospitalised by riding into such a trap
Cycling UK has complained to The Sunday Times over a column published in the latest edition of the newspaper in which Rod Liddle said it was “tempting” to stretch piano wire at neck height across roads used by cyclists – the article published on a weekend in which a bike rider in Wales was hospitalised after he rode into exactly that type of booby-trap on his mountain bike, leading the charity to point out that “Words have consequences.”
In the letter of complaint, the charity’s head of campaigns, Duncan Dollimore, said that the article was “inflammatory, in seriously poor taste, and implies that a seriously dangerous and criminal act is somehow an acceptable course of conduct.”
Liddle wrote in his column that it was “strictly speaking against the law to tie piano wire at neck height across the road. Oh, but it’s tempting.”
Dollimore wrote: “The reference to this being ‘strictly speaking; an offence minimises both the gravity of the offence and the severity of the potential consequences. This is not only a specific offence under section 162 of the Highways Act 1980, but potentially attempted grievous bodily harm with intent.”
He also made reference to an incident that road.cc highlighted on Sunday that is being investigated by police and in which a cyclist in West Yorkshire was injured due to wire was having been placed across a trail.
It is not the first time that the national cycling charity has lodged a complaint to the newspaper about Liddle, a former editor of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
In 2016, it complained about a column in which Liddle seemed to applaud former transport secretary Chris Grayling, who had doored a cyclist as he got out of his ministerial car outside Parliament.
> Sunday Times: Rod Liddle wasn’t condoning ‘dooring’ cyclists – he was just using “heavy irony”
The newspaper claimed that Liddle had written that column had been written with “heavy irony” – but the news today that a cyclist from Cardiff needed to attend A&E this weekend to have stitches inserted in a wound caused when he rode into a trap constructed through branches and wire casts a much more sinister light on the journalist’s comments.
Referring to that previous complaint in the light of Liddle’s latest column, Dollimore said: “It would be inappropriate to defend or justify Mr Liddle’s words with the easy excuse that they were not intended to be taken seriously, or that irony or sarcasm were being employed.
“Providing Mr Liddle with a platform to comment on people’s foibles comes with certain responsibilities which I would hope that the Sunday Times is willing to accept.
“One of those is to avoid inflammatory language which may encourage someone else, with all of their foibles, to commit a criminal offence.
“Not for the first time, Mr Liddle has referred to everyone who cycles as a collective group, who he defines by what they wear, their chosen mode of transport and his perception of their social class.
“His criticism and disdain is followed by an example of criminal behaviour which could harm anyone in that collective group, which he minimises and tacitly approves by stating that his wife has persuaded him that, strictly speaking, is against the law, but he is tempted to do it anyway.
In conclusion, he asked whether the newspaper’s editor was “comfortable supporting” the article.
In relation to the news of the injured cyclist in Cardiff, Dollimore underlined that “words have consequences.”
He told road.cc: “Many people reading the Wales Online article will wonder why anyone would want to stretch wire at head height across a path or trail.
“Perhaps the culprit thought it was a funny, amusing or a clever thing to do, which sounds utterly ridiculous until you stop and reflect that over the same weekend a columnist for a national broadsheet newspaper, the Sunday Times, wrote about his disdain for people who cycled and how tempting it was to tie piano wire across the road.
“Words have consequences, and the Sunday Times should be ashamed of what Rod Liddle wrote and it published on Sunday, because joking about a criminal act that endangers life can make that behaviour appear more acceptable to those more easily led.”
Liddle’s column echoes one written in The Times in 2007 by former MP Matthew Parris, who wrote: “A festive custom we could do worse than foster would be stringing piano wire across country lanes to decapitate cyclists.”
Published under the headline, ‘What’s smug and deserves to be decapitated?’, Parris insisted in response to complaints about the column that it “was meant humorously but so many cyclists have taken it seriously that I plainly misjudged. I am sorry.”
You can find the full text of Cycling UK’s letter here.
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.
Latest Comments
- Simon E 2 sec ago
Oh dear. A single bike in a single size in one shop is not indicative of the entire UK market for bicycles. And the slump isn't just bikes, it's...
- hawkinspeter 2 hours 52 min ago
Ridiculed or is it just jealousy?
- belugabob 3 hours 3 min ago
I had to double-take the headline... https://www.kentonline.co.uk/sandwich/news/takeaway-driver-19-who-left-e...
- Rendel Harris 3 hours 18 min ago
Thank goodness for that. I don't suppose anyone would want you to. You certainly behave like one though.
- Eton Rifle 3 hours 26 min ago
You do see some utterly ridiculous examples of car use....
- Eton Rifle 3 hours 48 min ago
Exactly. Every road death is a tragedy but this is at the "twat deserved it" end of the spectrum, looking at the state of that car.
- Rendel Harris 3 hours 55 min ago
I'm not the editor of this article, nor indeed of anything on this website. One would have thought that didn't require explaining.
- Eton Rifle 3 hours 56 min ago
I think the answer is in your question. I genuinely didn't know he was married to her. It does kinda explain it. Disappointing, nevertheless.
- Daclu Trelub 8 hours 41 min ago
In a perfect world, we'd have a measure of how easily distracted someone is, as part of their driving test....
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23 comments
It's well known that 'irony' is so often a cover for saying something offensive, or something which you really do think, then saying 'oh I was beign ironic', with the implication that the target is either too dim to see it or 'can't take a joke'. What Liddle said, whether 'ironic' or not, betrays a vicious, violent thought and fantasy, which he saw fit to make public. Who knows what some members of the public might then make of such a fantasy?
...and Sunday Times come back with a load of old b0ll0cks
People who are dumb enough to be deliberately violent to others in such a cowardly way, were probably always going to do it. You could say that what Rod Liddle wrote was incitement, and it probably is, but people who actually go through with it are dicks anyway and highly likely to maintain that status without any encouragement.
I suppose plenty of Times readers are cyclists. But pretty much all UK cyclists are in BBC license paying households, and the persistent, low grade, humourless anti-cycling bias is probably more damaging to the cause than some low rent article. And by "cause", I mean simply cycling safely down the road...
Whilst the kind of nutters that stretch wire across paths are rare it's more likely that he'd influence someone in a car to close pass a cyclist "to give them a scare".
The problem with that, apart from the vile sentiment, is they only have to make a tiny misjudgment and the cyclist will live with consequences.
Liddle won't carry any blame and probably neither will the driver if it goes to court.
I see your point.
Incidentally I am hoping that social distancing will extend to the road, but I feel I might be a bit naive.
It turns out the great British public have a remarkable judgement of Two Metres if you stray within the boundary when you are passing pedestrians on a bike.
So when they brush past in the car, its not that they don't know how far 1.5 metres is, its that they can't be arsed to move the steering wheel with their fat arms.
Whilst I totally agree with your comments about the BBC, I think that articles such as his do have an influence, and normalising violence against cyclists makes it all the more likely.
Worth noting but when a member of the public tweeted a photo of a press photographer trying to take foreshortened photographs of cyclists in a London park recently many of his fellow journalists jumped to his defence.
The argument being made was that a member of the public publishing a photo of a press photogapher ("he was a war photographer don't cha know") might encourage attacks on members of the press.
No one should be encouraging acts of violence (and the tweeter certainly wasn't) but the hiprocracy there is riduculous.
Would you employ that same argument if someone were to publish a comment suggesting that the standard of journalism (and British culture generally) would improve if a few members of the Murdoch family found themselves in receipt of a bullet to the head?
Is there a reason why you feel the need to minimise Liddle's thuggery? Are you a fan of his, or is it an odd psychological thing, because you don't want to feel threatened by his remarks, so have to convince yourself they will have no effect?
Can Rod Liddle account for his wherabouts this weekend? Did he visit the Cardiff area? The police should pay him a visit as his article showed clear intent.
Or can we say anything we like about anyone without fear of reprisal, if its just a joke?
I also complained to the ST. I also lodged a complaint with IPSO, suggest all your readers do so and get Mr Liddle on a park bench!
Why complain to ST or IPSO? Describing the construction of a booby trap targetted at a particular group of people should be a police matter - it would be if the targetted group were say gay people, or a racial or religious minority.
I suggest readers should be reporting this to their local Police & Crime Commissioner *, and referencing the real life similar incidents which have occurred, and are described on this website and elsewhere.
EDIT: *, or to Met Police
Words do have consequences. Yesterday as I cycled into central London (to work) I kept thinking about wire stretched across the road. There wasn't going to be any but I kept looking for it and it was on my mind.
Just read an interesting post on fb about this:
"UPDATE: I complained to the Sunday Times, and have received a dismissive email, which states that it's illegal to share the email from News Corp Ltd. So to paraphrase, Stephen Bleach the Letters Editor has said the comment was just a joke.
I'm not laughing, and that's unacceptable.
News Corp are: The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, & The TLS."
As predicted, the Parris defence "I'm really sorry you don't have a sense of humour."
They won't respond to complaints but they will respond to loss of advertising revenue. What needs to be done is apply pressure to advertisers to withdraw due to the unacceptable nature of the comments - columnists are only writing opinion pieces not factual journalism, and they will drop them like a hot coal if their views inhibit revenue. Advertisers do not want to look guilty by association. And now is the perfect time, newspapers are already hurting from revenue losses from lockdown conditions.
I don't read it, but does anyone have a list of their advertisers so that I can tell them I won't be buying their products?
My wife tells me it's probably ilegal to beat the crap out of hatred peddling journalists but I am very tempted.. (crosses fingers)
Rod Liddle......Twat
Another one in Yorkshire. https://extra.ie/2020/05/26/news/real-life/uk-booby-traps-local-park
Fantastic letter, very well made points. Thanks Duncan Dollimore.
The response from the editor will be worth reading, perhaps using the Parris defence?
they will probably just write it off again using some excuse about how criminal actions taken by another has no relation to their article despite the timeframe in which it occurred and the recurring language used by Liddle to in "jest".
the fact they published it at all means they see nothing wrong with his view and will not change their stance just because people are being attacked and they received a letter complaining.
it's just disgusting this person can get his writing published at all.
I thought the CUK letter was a bit of a scattergun - what actually does the author want to happen?
"Perhaps"?
Of course that's how they'll respond - it was just a laugh, satire, etc etc, a bit of light relief for these Dark Times...