The usual suspect newspaper is having a go at cyclists again this morning.

Never mind 10% inflation, energy bills no-one can afford, food banks running out of food, water companies drowning in debt so they can pay massive dividends while pumping shit into our seas and rivers, and people pulling their own teeth out ­– and that last one is reportedly true and not just a handy metaphor for watching the Tory leadership contest.

No, the most important story of the day is that the government is muttering about cyclists being forced to have registration numbers, insurance and stick to speed limits “under a radical shake-up of road laws”.

Such moves win the approval of the solicitor Nick Freeman, who is quoted as saying: “This is something that needs to happen for everyone’s safety…”

Ah, yes, Mr Loophole, the man who makes everyone safe by getting misbehaving stars off motoring offences. Yes, let’s persecute cyclists while ensuring people wealthy enough to pay Mr Loophole can keeping driving after being caught breaking the rules.

And never mind that it is actual government policy, if that means a thing anymore, to “make cycling and walking the natural choices for shorter journeys”, according to the Department for Transport.

Meanwhile, the Department for Policies To Deflect From More Important Matters has come up with this latest anti-cycling suggestion.

Now let’s just admit that cyclists are not perfect. And I say this as a bicycle-pedalling, pavement-walking, car-driving man.

Here is a story. It is hot and I am waiting with other pedestrians for the lights to change at a busy junction in York. A cyclist on what we used to call a racing bike sweeps up the hill from the station, sees the red light before him, swerves over the road and on to the pavement millimetres from my shoulder, wings round the blind pavement corner and goes on his reckless way without a wobble.

A dangerous idiot, although his cycling skills were excellent. He was also riding topless, perhaps because his tattoos needed an airing. It is fair to say my own unadorned torso is always covered up, cycling or not, as no-one needs to see that. And when cycling I stop at traffic lights; most of us do.

In a snap opinion poll carried out within the confines of my own skull, 100% of those asked believed that the proportion of stupid cyclists exactly matches general levels of stupidity in the population. It’s just that society is much more forgiving of stupid motorists than of cyclists who behave in a similar fashion.

Still, at least having a go at cyclists makes a change from having a go at immigrants and trying to deport them to Rwanda while, as the FT reports, asking the High Court to keep secret documents that list “torture and killings” in that country.

THERE was a good story in the Yorkshire Post the other day, and not just that feature by someone or other about bar billiards in York. Kudos to political editor Chris Burn for his splash about how officials in Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries’s department put pressure on Channel 4 bosses to delete references in its annual report to still having a sustainable future as a publicly owned broadcaster.

After a Freedom of Information request, the Post saw email exchanges between the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and Channel 4. These revealed that the government sought ten changes to parts of the report that did not fit with the chosen narrative of flogging off the station – something no-one other than Ms Dorries seems to want to happen.

Two references by Channel 4’s chairman, Sir Ian Cheshire, to the station’s long-term sustainability were originally queried, with the comments: “Suggest remove the highlighted sentence: the Government has made its position clear on C4’s long-term sustainability.”

The report was ultimately published without these and other demanded edits. What this  illustrates yet again is that we have a confederacy of bullies for a government. Leaving Channel 4 alone is clearly the best option.

The culture-warring Tories pretend to be looking to secure Channel 4’s future while really wishing to punish the station for not being in the past slavish enough to Boris Johnson. You may remember him, although mostly he seems to be on holiday nowadays.