The Wardman Wire

The roundup is over at PhiloBiblon.

Highlights this week:

Ministry of Truth has begun a serious, detailed investigation of how Britain’s libel laws might be rewritten in the light of the Usmanov case. The Daily EM has drawn a series of less on Cyberactivism 101 from the case.

And finally in this section, Sasha Khan of Croydon Greens was at London Freewheel and produced a short video, complete with jazzy soundtrack. Imagine, that’s what the streets of London could be like one day… (as I wrote on Comment is Free.)

There’s lots more over at the link above.

That Dodgy Croydon Greens Video

I’ve posted the Croydon Greens video below:

An interesting video, with a couple of problems:

1 – The sound track is “Bicycle Race ” by Queen, and I wonder whether they have permission to use it. I’ve asked for confirmation – if Queen have released their songs for political campaigning on Youtube, that would be excellent.

However, if it is not the case, then parties allegedly aspiring to government (even local government) should not be driving 38,000 bicycles through Copyright Law.

Yes, I know it is an “unofficial” blog, but one of the authors (Sasha Khan) is the Local party “spokesperson” (their term, not mine – yech!), who was also a GLA Candidate in 2004 and Parliamentary Candidate for Croydon North in 2005.

Anyway, the “official” website says website not configured. (click image for screenshot)

2 – At the end of the video there is a cheap and nasty political swipe at Boris Johnson , who was attending the event.

They could have mentioned that Boris Johnson has been cycling round London in the course of his daily business since around 1999.

They could have mentioned that Boris has been speaking out for cycling for a number of years .

They could have mentioned that Boris has kept cycling despite 3 falls.

They could have mentioned that on occasion Boris has publicly questioned his own party’s policy to speak in favour of cyclists.

They could even have mentioned that Boris is looking to replace Ken’s Bendy-buses (1 pedestrian fatality per 200 buses so far this year) with the new “Routemasters”. The old Routemasters had already been upgraded to meet modern standards and last until 2016, when “cut carbon emissions” Ken “Only some ghastly dehumanised moron would want to get rid of the Routemaster” (2001) Livingstone got rid of the Routemaster for “Bendy Buses“ which emit 50% more Carbon Dioxide (1.4 mb pdf – “Replacing the Routemaster Report).

Oh, and the new ones cost Londoners £390 unnecessary millions for buses that will last for less than 10 years.

Instead they chose to end their video with a silly caption.

That’ll help encourage cycling.

Tags: britblog roundup, britblog, philobiblon, croydon green party, sutton and croydon greens, shasha khan, ken livingstone, routemaster buses

[tags]britblog roundup, britblog, philobiblon, croydon green party, sutton and croydon greens, shasha khan, ken livingstone, routemaster buses[/tags]