Will Norman

LET Harrington preface the following by sharing the belief that the improvements to London’s cycling infrastructure in recent years have been important, and the promise of more should be something to welcome rather than hate.

This newspaper has reported on too many ghost bikes on the roadside where a confusing road layout has led to a needless tragedy.

As long as those who really rely on a car are not left struggling, then two wheels, health kicks and cleaner air are surely positives.

That all said, there is a way to win this argument for our roads, the one which takes people with you, and understands the inconvenience and frustration of others.

And then there is another course, the one let loose by Sadiq Khan’s cycling czar after the Mayor of London secured a third term in the hotseat at City Hall.

As if an angry vein had been throbbing all through Will Norman during the pre-election period when publicly-paid staff are prevented from tweeting their opinions, as soon as the result was known he rushed to the evil of X – it used to be called Twitter – to essentially shove Conservative Tony Devenish’s London Assembly election defeat in his face.

Here was an unelected aide acting like a football fan who had just won a derby to taunt the losing side, composing a sarcastic farewell thread worthy of a teenager who won’t log off until you accept Mo Salah is the greatest forward the world has ever seen.

The start of Mr Norman’s tweets for Tony Devenish

Either Mr Norman keeps a Martha file on Mr Devenish, or he must have spent a fair bit of the bank holiday weekend compiling screenshots of all the times the now former assembly member had complained about a cycle lane or some other measure.

This listicle began with the message: “Best of luck for the future Tony. So sad that you wasted so much time opposing vital cycle lanes that could help save lives… I look forward to working with your successor to make the streets in West London safer.”

Even actual Labour candidates hadn’t gone to such an effort to gloat. This unexpected spectacle of electoral “you’re not singing any more” was picked up by another ex-Tory member of the chamber, one Brian Coleman – to whom Mr Norman swiftly sent back a clipping of the time the former mayor of Barnet had been arrested for assaulting a cafe owner.
Maybe he does keep files.

Across London, safer neighbourhood schemes have made life better for so many people but they have been a source of obvious tension and bitterness which needs to be resolved through amicable debate.

By drawing a black and white, right and wrong aspect to it all, Mr Norman surely does himself a disservice. Certainly, he has so much more to offer than kicking sand in Mr Devenish’s face to score lols from the peleton.

This after all had been an election which had been strained by ugly, divisive squabbles.

Sure enough, Conservative mayoral candidate Susan Hall should accept a fair portion of responsibility for that.

No wonder almost two-thirds of the electorate could not be bothered to cast a vote.

But to get people engaged or even just to convince Mr Devenish not to be scared of cycle paths, we don’t just want fewer bad losers, we need fewer bad winners too.