Those who know me are aware I am essentially apolitical. I describe myself as an extreme centrist, and I have usually voted for the LibDems.

Now, though, I’n beginning to wonder. The LibDems in Haringey know I voted for them once or twice, and send me cheery notes telling me how well they’re doing and how essential they are to the very existence of life in Haringey.

Today they asked me my opinion on introducing a 20 mph limit throughout the borough.

It’s kind of them to ask, but they have no intention of paying any attention to what I say. I opened the questionnaire to be confronted with a row of homely middle-class faces brandishing 20 mph limit signs.

So they’ve already decided, then. They will be fighting for a 20 mph limit to be IMPOSED on poor suffering Haringey. I already pay them £220 a year for the privilege or parking outside my own house — cue for song:
I have always parked on my street before
Now I find to my amazement it’s against the law
and now they want to circumscribe my freedoms purely for idealogical reasons. Hardcore LibDems loathe and despise cars and car drivers. I didn’t realise quite how much until I worked with a LibDem councillor — from another city, not London — who confided in me that the local 5 year plan was to rid their city completely of private motor vehicles.

I’d switch to UKIP in a flash if they didn’t have that bloody silly policy about wanting to quit Europe. Dump the UK Independence schtick from the manifesto, and Farage is my man. Or that nice Tristan Hunt, him off the telly.

Islington has gone 20, and has built vertiginous sleeping policemen throughout the borough. There’s one every 20 metres along Liverpool Road, a main thoroughfare and bus route. I had to spend 6 weeks under the supervision of an osteopath after jarring my spine badly out of kilter while travelling in a bus bouncing along the Liverpool Road. I was in great pain and also seriously out of pocket as a result. It still hurts like hell if I happen to sit awkwardly.

I don’t even drive in London except to get out of it. I use public transport everywhere I go — except for getting to North-West Wales, Germany and Bishop’s Stortford. I can never risk travelling down Liverpool Road again, that’s for sure.

And a car travelling at 20 mph is more polluting and less efficient than one travelling at 30.

So all this is for what?

The giveaway was in the LibDem questionnaire — Do you have children (16 or under)?

As Mrs Lovejoy in The Simpsons constantly cries,  Will Somebody Please Think Of The Children?

Frankly if you drive a car over a child at 2 mph they’ll be just as deceased as if you were doing 20. So the only logical LibDem solution must be to ban cars completely.

And open water. And darkness. And dogs. And big bad men. And (insert pet bogeyman here, and here, and here …).

Now there’s extreme centrism for you.