Hackney Cyclist

#Walking #cycling #Recycling #publictransport #Hackneyland since 1998 #notLCC #SENparent #VC #Solar #EV #catparent

[Hackney Cyclist @Hackney_dash]

@indieHackney @VincentStops @mayorofhackney @hackneygreens @HackneyIndSG @hackneycitizen @DaveHill I was there last week with my MiL in her wheelchair. It felt very unsafe and tense visit. Delivery bikes are the worst but other cyclists didn't appear to be mindful of the pedestrians either.

[Little Ninja UK @LittleNinjaUK]

@MaCgroupUK @VincentStops @QuinlanQuinlan @Chris_Boardman @activetraveleng @Meg_HillierMP @LilianGreenwood @LordPeterHendy @Heidi_Labour @simonlightwood @Keir_Starmer @GBNEWS @Daily_Express @DailyMail @Telegraph @TheSun @BBCNews "As the number of cyclists & pedestrians increases, the safer the experience of travelling is." Sadly, the current focus is on making cycling faster for 25-55yo non-disabled men, to the detriment of pedestrians and communities underrepresented in cycling. https://t.co/fkV4LN3jGv

[Edwin Hayward @edwinhayward]

If I were Labour, I'd use the cushion provided by having 400+ MPs to race to implement PR in time for the 2029 GE.

It could literally be the party's last ever chance to participate meaningfully in UK politics if they don't shake the electoral system up.

[Edwin Hayward @edwinhayward]

Blue Labour as a concept needs to go in the bin, alongside the idea of Lexit. Cut those twin cancers out.

Brexit should go on the scrap heap of history.

FPTP has had its day too.

Roll on PR, and a full-throated and unashamed campaign to negotiate with the EU to rejoin ASAP.

[SaveRidleyRoad @SaveRidleyRoad]

More about an offshore landlord's attempt to summarily evict local businesses here:

https://t.co/Xv9XJDTX6Z

[SaveRidleyRoad @SaveRidleyRoad]

@mayorofhackney street markets are under threat all over London. We know that with the right approach they can grow and change in the interests of the people who work in them. The 2022 plan was a major step forwards. Please do what you can to save the Shopping Village!

[Hackney Cyclist @Hackney_dash]

It's omitting that China is central because it is expecting a similar situation when it invades Taiwan later this year or next. And of course there's Orange Man baby and his power phantasies. I fear for our future.

[Pete @splendid_pete]

And another great documentary by ARTE.

This two-part ARTE investigation is a brutal reality check for anyone still clinging to the fantasy that Russia is somehow “isolated” or “running out of steam.” What the films show, methodically and with receipts, is that Russia’s war against Ukraine is not being sustained despite sanctions, but through a deliberately constructed global system designed to bypass them. This is not improvisation. It is industrialized, coordinated, and openly contemptuous of Western enforcement.

The first part dismantles the myth of Russian military self-sufficiency. Yes, the Kremlin is still drawing heavily on vast Soviet-era stockpiles, tens of thousands of tanks, missiles, and artillery shells inherited from the USSR. But that is only the foundation. On top of it, Russia has layered a modern weapons program that depends almost entirely on foreign technology. Hypersonic missiles like Kinzhal are paraded as symbols of invincibility, yet their real story is failure, interception, and paranoia. When these “wonder weapons” underperform against Western air defense, Putin does not adapt policy, he purges people. Scientists and engineers are arrested, publicly humiliated, or die in custody, not because they betrayed secrets, but because the regime cannot tolerate reality contradicting propaganda. Fear is not a side effect of the system, it is the system.

At the same time, the documentary exposes how sanctions are systematically hollowed out. Investigators trace Western-made microelectronics inside Russian missiles and drones, parts manufactured in the EU, the US, and Japan. These components do not magically appear. They travel through shell companies, fake transit routes, and permissive jurisdictions, especially via Central Asia and Turkey. Thousands of front companies exist for one purpose only: to keep Russian weapons flying. Sanctions increase cost and friction, but they do not stop the flow, because enforcement is fragmented, slow, and politically timid. The result is grotesque: European technology embedded in weapons that are leveling Ukrainian cities.

The second part widens the scope and shows that Russia is no longer acting alone at all. Iran is not just supplying drones, it has effectively exported a full weapons industry into Russia. The documentary reveals a secret drone factory on Russian soil, built with Iranian expertise, producing hundreds of Shahed-type drones per day. Even more damning is how this factory is staffed. Young women from Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Mali are recruited under false pretenses, trafficked into a militarized industrial zone, forced to work in toxic conditions without protection, and kept silent through confiscated passports and constant surveillance. This is not just a war crime supply chain, it is human exploitation at scale, baked directly into Russia’s military production.

North Korea completes another piece of the puzzle. The film documents, using satellite imagery and weapons forensics, how Pyongyang has supplied Russia with millions of artillery shells, ballistic missiles like the KN-23, and eventually troops. Tens of thousands of North Korean soldiers are effectively being used as disposable manpower to spare Russian urban elites from mobilization. In exchange, Moscow transfers military know-how and strategic technology. This is not desperation, it is strategic outsourcing of death.

Then there is China, the quiet enabler holding the entire structure together. The documentary is careful and devastating here. China does not send soldiers. It does not openly ship weapons. Instead, it allows Russia to survive. Roughly 60 percent of components found in Russian weapons now transit through China or Hong Kong. Chinese companies, often newly created or repurposed, move massive volumes of dual-use goods that keep Russian factories running. Without this permissive Chinese role, the film makes clear, the Russian war machine would stall. Beijing does not need to fire a shot to reshape the battlefield. It simply keeps the taps open.

Overlay all of this with Western political drift and internal division, and the warning becomes impossible to ignore. The documentary shows how Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China are not united by ideology so much as by shared hostility toward democratic constraint. They cooperate because none of them are accountable to voters, courts, or parliaments. The goal goes far beyond Ukraine. It is about forcefully rewriting the international order, proving that borders can be changed by violence, that sanctions can be mocked, and that democratic hesitation is a strategic weakness to be exploited.

Taken together, these films do something most coverage still fails to do. They stop pretending this is a regional conflict or a temporary crisis. They show it for what it is: a coordinated authoritarian war economy facing a fragmented democratic response. The conclusion is uncomfortable but unavoidable. If Europe and its allies do not close loopholes, enforce their own rules, and act like this is a systemic threat, not a talking point, then this axis will keep pushing until something breaks.

[Hackney Cyclist @Hackney_dash]

The sad fact is that passengers can't rely on buses any more. The reasons are manifold as you suggest in your response. In the past I was regular bus user but I haven't been on one in ages.

[Vincent Stops @VincentStops]

We do need to save route 38. But that means changing the policies and practices that have led to Londoners abandoning their bus services. That is something the Mayor seems neither to understand nor be prepared to do. @EllyBakerAM

[Hackney Cyclist @Hackney_dash]

Absolutely. Done!

[Marina Purkiss @MarinaPurkiss]

This makes no sense…

An MP can wake up one morning, ditch the party you elected them for, & sign up to a completely different manifesto…

And we’re supposed to be ok with that?

Nah

If they defect to a different party, we should get a vote

Sign the petition & help make that law.

https://t.co/XGPCALPvgn

[Social Environmental Justice @SocEnvJustice]

More great investigative journalism from @andrewellson reveals Labour Lambeth, Hackney & Islington and Lib Dem Oxfordshire are allowing their own vehicles free access into their LTNs while charging other commercial vehicles. Today's Times.

[Alex P @AlexProEU #PR #RejoinEU @AlexProEU]

Thank you so much, everyone! Fantastic job in only 12 days. Just another 10K to go for a shot at that debate!
https://t.co/wu6PNrKhAB

[Vincent Stops @VincentStops]

This should infuriate all blind people’s organisations that have spent the last decade telling highways authorise they can’t see nor hear cycles. @RNIB_campaigns @guidedogs @NFBUK

[Vincent Stops @VincentStops]

Well who would have believed it? Those politicians besotted by cycling and cycles need to get real.

[Liberal Democrats @LibDems]

Sick of the BBC acting as a mouthpiece for Farage and Reform? Us too.

Our national broadcaster should reflect the whole country, not just one man’s ego.

[Vincent Stops @VincentStops]

Today the SoS Transport @Heidi_Labour will pass legislation she knows will mean blind people across the UK, who cannot drive or cycle, will no longer be able to catch their bus. She will choose bike tracks over accessible bus stops. @Meg_HillierMP @MarshadeCordova

[Hackney Council @hackneycouncil]

Did you know...wood burning comes with a dangerous hidden cost?

🔥 Domestic wood burning is responsible for 15% of London’s harmful air pollution

💔 It increases the risk of asthma, heart disease, stroke & cancer

Learn how to keep Hackney’s air clean

https://t.co/NUxJNfkyRK

[Hackney Cyclist @Hackney_dash]

@VincentStops @MayorofLondon @LonTravelWatch Very true. I was a regular bus user in the past, nowadays I just don't bother due to the low reliability and slowness. The quality of service has visibly declined.

[Hackney Cyclist @Hackney_dash]

@VincentStops @JulesPipe @susorunge @MayorofLondon It's ironic, isn't it? When decisions are made driven by pure ideology people tend not to back down and someone suffers as as a result.

[NFBUK @NFBUK]

.@Keir_Starmer your Government is leaving blind people behind and it is really disgraceful. @UN_Enable