Breaking: on two counts, the High Court has ruled that the Labour government's proscription of the campaign group Palestine Action was unlawful – a win for its co-founder Huda Ammori, who sought a judicial review of the ban

We need a TV series called "Adulthood" that's like "Adolescence" but about car culture.

A quick Bluesky survey for UK folk. Is your local authority still creating Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs)?

To what shall we compare AVs? How about CCS? An expensive, distant future, unproven (esp at scale) way to preserve the status quo of the industry doing immense harm. But a shiny thing to get govt backing for to help delay other regulation of their profits. www.monbiot.com/2024/10/14/m...

WE DO NOT COMPLY Veteran anti-war and human rights activist, Angie Zelter, was removed from Westminster Magistrates Court after attempting to read a statement to the judge instead of pleading to a charge under s.13 of the UK Terrorism Act 2000.

“What if they do work?… That means more journeys, more traffic, more competition for scarce urban space. If you want a picture of the future, imagine an empty car driving aimlessly around looking for somewhere to park, forever.”

Not terrorists. Not criminals. Not doing anything illegal. Just brilliant people damaging weapons to stop them damaging people. And acquitted by a jury of the people.

And if you are worried about powerful organisations controlling your movement, watching everywhere you go, and charging you to get around, you’re going to love AVs.

10/10 ICE protest sign

mailchi.mp/tutu/the-fut... Wisdom from the life of Desmond Tutu.

Hell of a thread here. All I’d add is that this isn’t an honest mistake. It’s driven (ahem) by profit-hungry car/fuel/road businesses desperate for the state to keep subsidising their parasitic extraction of everyone’s wealth. Keep asking “just who benefits from this?”

Labelling matters. If you want junction design to reduce crossing widths, reduce speeds, and improve visibility at potential conflict points… Calling it simply “daylighting” is great. ✨ Lots to learn from this.

The UK version of “Project 2025” by the Reform party includes a British ICE, a concentration camp for 24,000 people, mass surveillance and withdrawing from refugee, anti-torture and anti-trafficking conventions. It’s on their website. That’s how comfortable fascists are in the UK today.

I wrote in detail about Reform’s plans for a fascist takeover of the UK using “uncontrolled illegal immigration” as their way in. Around 3,500 words. Reading time 15-20 minutes (I think). I’m gonna read it out for Shado’s podcast “Shado in focus” soon as well shado-mag.com/articles/opi...

Child of safe streets advocate just wants a fun parent and to go sledding.

I love doing some errands. Sheffield FTW

Thank you for not smoking. #CleanAirNight

Awful to hear this. Condolences to their family. Our roads are lethal, especially high-speed main roads like this. These tragedies will keep on happening until they get changed. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

“we think nothing less complex and showy than a computer or a jet bomber deserves to be called “technology” at all. As if linen were the same thing as flax — as if paper, ink, wheels, knives, clocks, chairs, aspirin pills, were natural objects, born with us like our teeth and fingers”

1/ Every 14 days the subscribers of my weekly newsletter have the pleasure to listen to inspiring voices of change. Tomorrow it will be my talk with Melissa and Chris from @modacitylife.com about their newest research and book "women changing cities". steady.page/de/shedrives... 🧵 What I learned.

We saw it early in the pandemic, in every climate shock & now in Minneapolis. The impulse of most people in a crisis is to share, connect & protect, often at risk to the self. Capitalism and existing power structures have trouble comprehending it and then often try to undermine it

I was familiar with South Africa's nuclear program but somehow had never heard of Renfrew Christie. True dedication to a good cause. Years of prison incl. solitary confinement. He even got an Oxford PhD so that he could learn more about the country's power system to help sabotage it.

“Look for the helpers” is so often a good move when the worst things happen. And what I’m seeing in MN is a whole load of helpers. It’s hard for ice to last beyond winter. 🔥

Shout out to the man in such a rush he close passed me only to have to wait to turn right just ahead. I tapped on his roof as I passed and he suddenly had time to follow me beeping and yelling for five minutes. Hope you got where you needed to safely and in time.

“We have never trusted the government with our lives, and we will not start now. We will be the ones to decide how we give our lives to justice and liberation.” Inspiring courage and apparently influencing not granting Elbit a £2bn military contact. 🔥 www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

🚸 School Streets give children space to stay active and healthy, while reducing air and noise pollution, and improving safety. They activate our streets for joy. In this report, we lay out ways the City can make the program more effective and ambitious. www.openplans.org/school-stree...

Globally, no single day in 2025 was cooler than its 1991-2020 average. climate.copernicus.eu/global-clima...

I found this really clarifying. It is common to be stuck in any of these three camps. So we need to find ways to make the change that is clearly necessary both possible to deliver and safe enough to embrace. indyjohar.substack.com/p/the-collis...

Phone Shop, and look up. Sheffield city centre. So often worth enjoying what is above the most ordinary of shop fronts. It’s neither grim up north, or grim upstairs.

What if being reliant on driving, whether for your work, or caring responsibilities, where you live, or anything else, means you need safe roads more not less? Road safety, not in spite of people’s need to drive, but because of it?

Instead of hoping that more police enforcement would reduce danger on our roads, what if we asked the opposite question: What needs to be done in order to reduce the need for police enforcement on our roads? I’d start with things like mandatory speed limiters and safe street design.

Love that this paper documents how: "Parents’ and children’s enjoyment, curiosity, and sense of adventure encouraged additional travel, transforming routine journeys into playful and memorable family experiences" Thinking about bike journeys as playful and connecting seems pretty powerful to me.

The human cost of prioritising motor traffic for gritting over pavements is easy to see if you are looking. How about local media do a Live reporting page telling the human stories of some of those needing hospital treatment on an icy day? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Just in case you think I am somehow exaggerating, this was their framing at the top of the hour, all morning.

Forensic analysis of objective video evidence. This is how you serve readers searching for clarity.

This is excellent at illustrating the problem. But then the solution can’t be “look harder”. We’ve just seen that we will continue to miss things. So instead it shows the need to design out conflict (eg cycle tracks, LTNs) so we aren’t relying for safety on what we know isn’t reliable.

“Overnight the pavements were emptied of cars”. Scotland shows how this can be done. And the life-changing effect it has had. It has already been done in other places. The world didn’t stop turning. It works. People in England and Wales are left far behind by this weak shrug from Westminster.

“These new powers do not go far enough to protect pedestrians. It’s disappointing not to see a nationwide prohibition.” Our @charitycat.bsky.social responds to the news that local authorities will receive legal powers to restrict pavement parking. https://www.livingstreets.org.uk/pavement-parking

“It is everyone’s responsibility to be law-abiding and safe” Says the govt road safety strategy description of a Safe System. It’s a worrying sign. I believe the better you are applying the Safe System the less you rely on everyone following the rules.

The only target for the number of people killed on the road should be zero. With its Road Safety Strategy, the Government has massively overlooked key actions to cut traffic and achieve safer and slower vehicle speeds, which are truly effective at saving lives and essential to reaching this goal.

Taking a rough straight line from current levels of road deaths and serious injuries down to the target 65% reduction by 2035… Between now and then around: 10,000 people killed 180,000 people seriously injured. This is what we are told is ambitious.

Today’s press release for govt road safety strategy mentions higher casualties my rates for “children from the most deprived neighbourhoods”. It doesn’t say what will be done to address this. I would love to see measures to help level down both of these slopes:

“This is something we can do immediately. So that’s what we have done.” ☑️

Manifesting my hopes for a road safety strategy… - 20mph UK default limit - 40mph national speed limit (trunk and motorways, with mandatory max speed limiters) - unlimited funding for LTNs for any authority willing to do them - nationalise auto companies and wind down production

“We need to actually keep people safe and that infrastructure does so.” Humanity in the face of tragedy. Understanding the solutions. Strategic about change at scale. Things are looking good for NYC. And I hope we can all benefit from the example.

This. Is. What. It. Looks. Like. ❤️‍🔥

The energy for 2026.

Happy New Year! My favourite photo from NYE in London 15 years ago. May we be open to the joy before us.

It is important to work out how people experience and can connect with the reality of the road danger all around us. The erosion of community is a powerful example of what happens when streets are made unsafe (eg parents preventing children from making friends on the other side of a busy road!).

Yes. This is magnificent. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...