You have an electric scooter. I know this because I have been watching you fold it outside the Co-op, and I have seen the way you carry it into Pret, as though it were a small, obedient child. This is not a lifestyle column. This is a diagnostic. Over the past three years I have applied my clinical method, formerly of the General Medical Council and now of my own private practice which is legally distinct from medicine, to 214 scooters across Britain. Two hundred and six of them, to a conservative estimate, are Tory. The other eight are Lib Dem and will, within a fortnight, switch sides. This week you will put your scooter on a charge, and while it charges, you will ask yourself one question: who is really being recharged?
It has never once been on the pavement
A true scooter, like a true Conservative, believes in the free market of the road. It will take the cycle lane when it suits it, the pedestrian path when it suits it, and the pavement, cobbles and general public when it suits it. I observed a Voi scooter in Brighton last Thursday mount the kerb outside a Waitrose, execute a sharp left past an elderly woman with a trolley, and then emit a small, self-satisfied beep. That is not a beep. That is a budget pledge.
“It mounted the kerb, clipped my trolley and then just sat there, blinking, like it was waiting for me to apologise,” said Eileen Truss, a retired lollipop lady from Hove.
You will not confront it. You will not report it. You will walk briskly home, reduce your egg intake to zero, and pretend you saw nothing. I saw you. I see everything.
It has a name that sounds like a fund manager
I asked one owner in Chichester what he called his scooter. He said ‘Geoffrey’. Not Geoffrey as a tribute to his late uncle, but Geoffrey because the scooter had introduced itself. It shook his hand, apparently. It now attends his local Conservative association meetings, where it sits at the back, folding and unfolding itself during votes. At the last budget vote it extended its handlebars in approval. The chairman has asked it to stand for treasurer.
“Geoffrey has never missed a meeting. He abstained on the pothole motion, which I thought was a bit Lib Dem of him,” said Alistair Crouch, chairman of Chichester and District Conservative Association.
A scooter that names itself is a scooter with a career plan. Yours has one too. You are simply not on the distribution list.
It charges only at night, and for exactly four hours
This is not a charging habit. This is a disciplinarian’s schedule. I have examined the charging logs of eleven scooters in Milton Keynes, and all eleven stopped charging at precisely the same moment, not because their batteries were full, but because they had been told to stop. One scooter, a Lime model abandoned behind a bus shelter, remained at 87 percent from Tuesday to Thursday, when the owner reported it had ‘voted’ in a by-election. It voted Conservative. The battery then dropped to 86 percent, as though embarrassed.
“I plugged it in at nine and by one it had stopped. I assumed it was broken. Then I found the leaflet,” said Denise Okafor, a payroll administrator from Bletchley.
The leaflet was laminated. It said ‘no eggs’. I did not write it, but I approve of it.
It has opinions about your commute
Show your scooter a map of your local council’s proposed cycle lane and it will not simply roll over it. It will produce a small whine, which is the sound of a scooter writing a letter to its MP. I have a recording of one scooter in Harrogate, a Xiaomi model, that spent six hours outside the constituency office of a Liberal Democrat MP. When the MP emerged, the scooter beeped once, slowly, and then moved to the Conservative club. The MP is now in counselling. The scooter has been nominated for a by-election.
“I offered it a cup of tea and a listening ear. It reversed over my foot,” said Tom Wrenfield, Liberal Democrat councillor for Harrogate Stray.
Liberal Democrats will tell you scooters are neutral. Liberal Democrats will tell you anything. A scooter that reverses over a councillor is not neutral. It is decisive, and it is late for a meeting.
It has never once apologised, and it will never explain
There is a single question that separates the honest machine from the political machine: when you fall off it, does your scooter ask if you are all right? I have tested this 47 times, using a series of volunteers, some of whom are still walking with sticks. Not one scooter asked. Not one. They simply lay there, silent, blinking their little green lights, the way a minister blinks when asked about the housing crisis. A scooter that will not apologise is a scooter that will not resign. You cannot reform it. You can only recharge it.
My final letter of this column is to your scooter, and to every scooter like it: I know what you are. I have your serial numbers. And I prescribe you a brisk walk, and less egg.
I have just checked my own scooter’s charging log. It has been taking notes. It is updating its manifesto. You have four hours.
