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JamesBlurbs

@jamesblurbs.bsky.social
357 followers 1.1K following 172 posts

I'm interested in active travel, town planning, and wider politics.

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Reposted by JamesBlurbs
Will Norman @willnorman.co.uk · 09/06/2026
Sad to see anti-cycling campaigners Vincent Stops & John Stewart accusing us of some sort of cover up. We've been clear. Falling cycle deaths is good news, but rising numbers of serious injuries shows we've much more to do. Hence our new Vision Zero plan - inc more bike lanes.
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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 13/01/2026
Minister of State Alex Norris tells the BBC he won't personally come off X because it's important for communicating with voters. None of his tweets for the last month has more than 1000 views.
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JamesBlurbs @jamesblurbs.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
The comments here show the most incredible disconnect between the opinions of boomers who post on Facebook and the opinions of literally every other Londoner I’ve met in real life, who all think Oxford Street should’ve been pedestrianised decades ago.
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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 04/11/2025
This, in bronze:
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JamesBlurbs @jamesblurbs.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
Rather less surprisingly than I’d have liked, it turned out that the Green Party voter spouted the anti-cycling views and the guy who says he’s going to vote Reform next election supported cycling.
theguardian.com
Dining across the divide: ‘He looked like a typical Green voter – long hair, laid-back, that sort of thing’
They locked horns on people crossing the Channel in small boats and cyclists using roads – did they find anything to agree on?
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JamesBlurbs @jamesblurbs.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
Rather less surprisingly than I’d have liked, it turned out that the Green Party voter spouted the anti-cycling views and the guy who says he’s going to vote Reform next election supported cycling.
theguardian.com
Dining across the divide: ‘He looked like a typical Green voter – long hair, laid-back, that sort of thing’
They locked horns on people crossing the Channel in small boats and cyclists using roads – did they find anything to agree on?
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JamesBlurbs @jamesblurbs.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
Why has @kiranstacey.bsky.social of the Guardian highlighted an outlier (and badly wrong) view that making electricity cheaper compared to gas is a bad thing, and left the much more mainstream (and correct) views from climate change experts right to the end?
theguardian.com
Rachel Reeves’s 5% VAT cut on electricity bills will backfire, experts say
Critics believe cut would mostly benefit better-off people with larger homes and increase carbon emissions
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Parody Nigel Farage @parodypm.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
I assume all the 'hurty word' free speech warriors that were crying their eyes out over Lucy Connolly will be absolutely furious about the guy who has just been sent to prison for his social media posts about Nigel Farage.
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JamesBlurbs @jamesblurbs.bsky.social · 21/09/2025
My family and I just cycled over to visit the Tate Modern but have been refused entry because we had our cargo bike’s battery with us. As most children-carrying bikes have electric assist these days and it’s not safe to leave batteries on them, this essentially bans families from visiting by bike.
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Will Norman @willnorman.co.uk · 01/08/2025
TfL Cycle Sundays is back, offering unlimited free Santander Cycle rides every Sunday in August 🚲😎 tfl-newsroom.prgloo.com/news/tfl-cyc...
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JamesBlurbs @jamesblurbs.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
Not content with his role campaigning against LTNs, John Stewart is now giving quotes to the right-wing press campaigning against heat pumps (on spurious noise grounds).
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JamesBlurbs @jamesblurbs.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
“It’s nice here, but have you ever been to Baden-Württemberg?” Anyone know what’s behind these flyposted German tourism marketing stickers? And wouldn’t they be more successful in Britain if they were in English?
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Will Norman @willnorman.co.uk · 07/07/2025
New research shows LTNs are making our streets safer. 10yrs of data in & around 113 London LTNs shows: 💚37% less deaths & serious injuries 💚No negative safety impact on surrounding roads 📉that's 600 fewer injuries (100 fewer deaths & serious injury) www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
theguardian.com
London’s low-traffic zones ‘cut deaths and injuries by more than a third’
Exclusive: Study also finds no change in number of casualties on roads just outside low-traffic neighbourhoods
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Jim Waterson @jim.londoncentric.media · 06/07/2025
I passed 11 stolen Lime bikes beeping and clicking away on a six mile cycle to central London yesterday. You’ve got to salute Lime’s enormous financial subsidy to teenagers who want to get into cycling and active travel.
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JamesBlurbs @jamesblurbs.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
Can anyone explain the public policy imperative behind giving staff/volunteers at Tower Lifeboat Station free parking so they can drive their sports cars right into the centre of London? I get that it’s a socially useful job, but most other people doing socially useful jobs can cope with the tube….
Parking restriction sign reading “RNLI permit holders only”. Sports car with RNLI permit parked in the RNLI-only bays.
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Jon Owen @anotherjon.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
There's a climate aspect to this too: In 2023, @carbonbrief.org crunched the numbers on the impact of the fuel duty cuts and freezes on the UK's carbon emissions. Their analysis found that UK road transport emissions are as much as 24% higher than they would have been without fuel duty cuts.
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
It’s really time in British politics we had a discussion about how political elites remaining on X are being exposed to increasingly extreme/fringe views but are completely unaware of it.
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Ray Delahanty | CityNerd @nerd4cities.bsky.social · 31/05/2025
Fortune cookie writers, welcome to the war on cars
A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works.
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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 30/05/2025
As a heads up for the political left, people can probably be persuaded by some (many, even) left-coded answers to reducing crime. But if you make it a choice between "crime is fine, actually, get over it" and right-wing solutions, well, even Duterte would win.
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Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan @london.gov.uk · 30/05/2025
1.33 million journeys daily and growing 📈
Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, standing next to a rental bike. In the foreground, a headline from The Economist is overlaid, reading: “London has become a cycling city”.
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Chris Grey @chrisgrey.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
But this manifestly isn't a way to "counter" Reform. It's just an endorsement of Reform. If it's what Glasman believes, then he should simply join Reform. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
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road.cc @roadcc.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
We're devastated to announce that our former colleague John Stevenson died on 4th May 2025. Everyone at road.cc would like to pass on their deepest condolences to John's family and friends. road.cc/content/news...
road.cc
John Stevenson
Legendary bike journalist, shouty northern bloke, dog whisperer, all round good egg and a massive part of road.cc and the wider cycling community has died
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Luke Tryl @luketryl.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
Entirely this: I’d add that being serious about climate change is a hygiene factor for many voters. In not a single UK constituency does concern about climate drop below 50% - hitting 68% in Clacton. There’s a debate on the ‘how’ and particularly how to do it fairly but much less on the principle.
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Twlldun @twlldun.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Would depositing the world’s largest straw man in the middle of the discourse count as fly-tipping? Asking for a friend.
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Pippa Crerar @pippacrerar.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
Many politicians - Tony Blair just the latest - appear more sceptical about public support for net zero agenda than evidence suggests is warranted. Most recent YouGov poll found 61% of UK voters support govt plans on this, with just 24% opposed… www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Climate plan based on phasing out fossil fuels doomed to fail, says Tony Blair
Former PM claims net zero policies losing public support and says there should be greater focus on carbon capture
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Jim Waterson @jim.londoncentric.media · 29/04/2025
While carefully avoiding commenting on an ongoing criminal trial... can I suggest you read the BBC liveblog of the Sycamore Gap tree trial. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cv...
bbc.co.uk
Sycamore Gap tree destroyed in 'moronic mission', court told
Two men are on trial accused of causing damage to the Sycamore Gap tree and Hadrian's Wall.
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Shona Murray @shonamurray.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 23/04/2025
Quite frankly cannot form the words to convey my contempt for this amoral streak of a man and those who enable and support him.
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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Reactionary Great British Public undefeated
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JamesBlurbs @jamesblurbs.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Lots of people (including me) are critical of this poll having been undertaken, but I do think the fact that drivers are much more in favour helps demonstrate that people subconsciously see the proposition as being about punishing an outgroup rather than improving road safety.
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Rich @hoxtonrich.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
This got little attention. Even the Green party voting in the Lords with Tories for more dead cyclists, @greenjennyjones.bsky.social saying: “You cannot justify limiting one group’s opportunities by giving another group more opportunities” This could be straight from the car lobby. 😔
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
The President of the United States of America posted this 15 minutes before the announcement of the tariff pause. This would be a straightforwardly criminal message, were the rule of law currently operational in the usual way, for those with insider knowledge of major market shifting policy news
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JamesBlurbs @jamesblurbs.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
This risks disproving Betteridge’s law of headlines.
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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
For Americans who didn’t get the joy of living through the Truss/Kwarteng budget, this is the point where the government starts to call the stock market left-wing and/or woke.
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JamesBlurbs @jamesblurbs.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
I do worry that the anti-Trump protests in the USA yesterday had a similar vibe to the anti-Brexit marches in the UK, and will ultimately be as successful. (Not a criticism per se of either, by the way, but more an expression of regret about majoritarianism prevailing over consensus politics.)
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JamesBlurbs @jamesblurbs.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
Traditionally the seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter) are spelt with lower-case initial letters. However, I’m increasingly seeing them spelt with capital letters (including occasionally in proper print publications). Is this a shift in usage? And a rare shift in favour of greater fussiness?
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JamesBlurbs @jamesblurbs.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
The fact that some people feel so personally attacked by even the softest articulation of a “towns would be a bit nicer with fewer cars”-type view is a fascinating insight into the role of the car in personal identity.
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JamesBlurbs @jamesblurbs.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
As well as being the right thing to do per se, this is also politically astute. All opinion polling shows that the public are in favour of net zero, including Tory-leaning voters. Even Reform-leaning voters support net zero in greater numbers than you'd imagine. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Government ‘absolutely up for the fight’ over net zero, Ed Miliband says
Exclusive: energy secretary says 2050 target is imperative, and accuses opposition of betraying of future generations
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Angry People in Local Newspapers @apiln.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
We’ve featured some stupid and awful poetry on here in our time, but this is by far the stupidest and most awful. Sweet baby Jebus, it’s shameful.
Poem in the Derby Telegraph 

Mission Kiev by Graham Tully 

We trust in Trump
Each smart move of his Let there be peace.
Only he the rift can heal
Victory neither side can reach Each new day more bombs fall.
And innocent people
Pay the price
In ivory towers their leaders sleep
Lo, Vance and Trump will save the day
Nobel Prizes await these men.
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Ed Davey @eddavey.libdems.org.uk · 18/03/2025
But did Putin say “thank you”? Asking for JD Vance
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JamesBlurbs @jamesblurbs.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
Minor linguistic shift query: why is there increasingly a tendency to use “UK” as an adjective in preference to the prima facie more suitable “British”?
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
I wish Mark Carney well as he becomes Prime Minister of Canada. He has an important opportunity to prove North American countries are capable of retaining stable liberal democracies. No inherent cultural inevitability that they would drift into kleptocratic authoritarian rule by billionaire elites.
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Anon Opin @anonopin.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
We know that adding car lanes to roads just attracts more cars. We should now try the opposite: take away car lanes, widen pavements, add segregated cycle lanes. We'll find that bigger cars become less attractive and more people walk and cycle. Win for everyone.
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Danny Williams @mrdannyw.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Active Travel England joins Bluesky...
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JamesBlurbs @jamesblurbs.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
@profanity.accountant 😀
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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 01/03/2025
Projection is often so revealing - since all of Trumps acolytes are amoral, corrupt grifters who would sell their granny out for a dollar, they struggle to believe anyone else wouldn't.
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Luke Tryl @luketryl.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
This & YouGov's poll showing Brits give Zelenskyy +48 & Trump a -51 approval shows dangers to the right in UK of listening to the v. online/US coded in their approach to Ukraine. Brits really support Ukraine & aren't polarised on it. 52% of Reform voters entirely blame Russia
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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
blimey she said the correct thing for once
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