We need a UK Digital Sovereignty Strategy! Our over-reliance on foreign tech giants is a huge risk to our security and resilience when faced with Donald Trump’s ever increasing belligerence. Companies like Palantir have no place in our critical digital infrastructure.

✍ Sunday, Feb 1, marks 5 years since the military staged a coup in Myanmar, plunging the country back into authoritarian rule & pushing a lively, hard‑won media ecosystem underground. Independent journalism is still standing, but only just. 👉 news.thin-ink.net/p/five-years...

At its headquarters in Geneva, signs warning of the situation have been put up everywhere. In an almost desperate attempt to save cash, the escalators are regularly turned off and the heating turned down. www.bbc.com/news/article...

A manual for ICE's immigrant-targeting computer system, Palantir ELITE, was leaked today. Let's look at it, then step back to evaluate how far we've come along a dangerous road and where that road might take us. 🧵

Latest evidence that UK Treasury has one rule for roads, another for public transport 🛣️⚖️🚋 Leeds tram delayed for a business case, meanwhile business case delayed to get building Lower Thames Crossing. Ministers betting £billions on wrong horse 💸🎠

Privatising Dartford tunnel is a hidden £120m annual cut to transport budget.✂️📉 It means less money for cycling, buses, trams, trains, road safety every year for ever 🚴🚌🚋🚅🚑 Talk about a bad deal!👎

Has @london.gov.uk quietly given up cutting car use in most of the UK's capital? In 2022, the Mayor's Transport Strategy was amended to commit to "reduce car vehicle kilometres travelled on London’s roads by 27 per cent by 2030". Today's London on the move plan appears incompatible with that aim.

30,000+ killed in 48 hours, many more since. What's still happening in #Iran is beyond horrific, no less so with minimal news coming out.

In the early 1930s the SA was roughing people up, creating chaos in neighborhoods, seeking to terrorize with the occasional killing. By the late 1930s it had been supplanted by the SS, which was much better trained.

While everyone is distracted by Circus Trump, European countries let his far-right sponsor and mentor of JD Vance in via the backdoor. No European government should work with Palantir. None.

The events of the last 24 hours show why it's important to build functional verification structures in public and counterpublic spaces to resist the authoritarian erosion of our democratic systems, as described in this thread.

This

America sneezes. We catch a cold. And the UK is overexposed. As long as foreign tech runs our digital infrastructure, our systems can be used as leverage or disrupted on Trump's say so. Tell your MP to support the motion for #DigitalSovereignty ⬇️ action.openrightsgroup.org/tell-governm...

Incredible focussed campaigning by @saveoursaferstreets.org made this win happen. 👏 But why has a community had to go through the stress of two court cases, when the Mayor of London could have used his powers to prevent the Mayor of Tower Hamlets making these unlawful changes in the first place?

There's a lot of talk about rearmament and breaking US dependence. I understand the logic completely. But I wonder if people have fully absorbed the economic/consumption implications of serious rearmament, especially when we also consider the state of public opinion and the information environment.

Reminder that in the UK an incoming radical, populist government would have immediate access to immense, unchecked executive power. And the current government is doing nothing to protect us from that.

I think the White House badly underestimates the strength of the pan-European folk memory of 1930s appeasement, and how deep it still cuts. I suppose this is what happens when you learn in school that WW2 started in 1941 in Hawaii.

Written on the street wall: Our blood will not be the red carpet for any tyrant. #Iran #IranProtests No to Shah No to Mullah

After a five year wait, ministers finally respond to 2020 pavement (footway) parking consultation. So did they promise swift action? Err no: "we will enable local transport authorities to prohibit pavement parking in their areas at the next legislative opportunity"🙄 www.gov.uk/government/n...

Includes vital global science bodies like IPCC, IPBES

Btw, the big story overhanging all of this is that US government is deadly serious in its stated plans to dominate and control the western hemisphere. Take the threats against Greenland very seriously indeed.

Trump isn’t predictable or consistent, but this particular action *would* be consistent with the emergence of a G2+1 order where Washington and Beijing, with Moscow as a junior partner, give each other free rein in their purported spheres of influence.

NEW: 50+ transport and health groups have written to the Government calling for clear targets in the upcoming Cycling & Walking Investment Strategy 3, as well as a comprehensive plan for a national active travel network, matching the long-term strategic focus given to roads.

Zipcar's UK closure is devastating loss to shared economy, and to those of us who used it to avoid ever owning a car. UK's low VED (annual car tax), hidden subsidies for residential parking and TfL's ambivalence to car sharing all take share of blame. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Our information space is dominated by a system that demands and rewards continous and immediate emotional gratification, so you can't even begin to have a discussion about complex issues. It's a bright cancer that spreads and multiplies with every interaction.

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

We're only just learning that Ultra Processed Foods harm all human organs: how long to work out full costs of AI? "AI could be for human relationships what junk food is to nourishment" observer.co.uk/news/opinion...

The deeper problem isn’t just misinformation, its the collapse of shared verification environments and the rise of influencer-led moral-epistemic systems that feel more authentic than institutions.

Here is Trump's full 28 point plan for Ukraine. It would destroy Ukraine as a sovereign state and leave it helpless to face a Russian attack in the future. It would also give Putin full vindication and immunity from prosecution. www.axios.com/2025/11/20/t...

Was Indonesia moving its capital the first climate migration at the state level? Pretty wild that we’re already at the point of multiple governments moving due to climate conditions making their capitals unlivable. #COP30

Is Oxford Street pedestrianisation a missed opportunity to cut car use and improve cycling in surrounding streets? Despite Mayor Khan's rhetoric for a greener and cleaner London, the proposals have "no material effect on air quality" and cut CO2 by just 2%. haveyoursay.tfl.gov.uk/oxford-stree...

I've tried to argue why I think the cut to affordable housing targets in London is a really terrible idea in a considered, rather than shouty, way here. A clumsy patching up of a broken status quo: open.substack.com/pub/peteapps...

Residential cycle parking standards in London are being slashed, as Labour's war on blockers to new housing takes an unexpected turn. This deregulation was justified by the rise in e-scooters & dockless bikes. But planning rules don't yet require making space for them. www.gov.uk/government/n...

First offsetting was found wanting, now CCS. What will they come up with next to avoid cleaning up emissions? Carbon Capture & Storage has less than 4% of the potential previously assumed says new study. on.ft.com/4nigq4Z

This is a real photograph of Washington, DC this week, where the United States president has ordered military occupation in peacetime, and ordered the display of colossal portraits of himself. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Insightful & important reporting by @carltonreid.com Surely begs another question: whether sharing footage of what are now decriminalised traffic & parking contraventions is lawful? These are now enforced by councils rathern than the police.

A number of politicians, "news" outlets and social media influencers have been actively trying to promote violent protest and an assault on law and order. We shouldn't be complacent - they'll keep pouring petrol & lighting matches - but so far they have singularly failed. That's a good news story.

It is very hard to see how the UK government can sign this statement, which makes it absolutely clear that it recognises that Israel is committing - as a matter of state policy - deliberate and systematic war crimes, without at a minimum cutting all military cooperation with Israel.

Good statement that makes clear Israel is deliberately massacring starving civilians. "We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food. " www.gov.uk/government/n...

“If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear.” RIP, Joanna R. Macy (May 2, 1929 – July 19, 2025)

Another 1990s revival! In the depths of today's Devolution Bill, Mayors in England are to be given a duty to consider setting traffic reduction targets for key routes. This is resuscitates the Road Traffic Reduction Act 1997: its congestion & climate aims are surely more relevant than ever.

Well you can't say England won't fund rail electrification. Today's DfT announcement lists the "electrification of the Midland Main Line between Kettering and Wigston". Except that went live a year ago ⚡🚄😳 www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/power-l... As bad as Tory Network North debacle?

With obesity now costing the UK £126bn a year, how ambitious is the new 10 year health plan on physical activity? - an annual city of physical activity competition, modelled on UK city of culture - "identify simple changes" to boost active travel that can be shared as best practice And that's it?

Coming same day as figures showing obesity now has £126 billion annual cost to UK economy, this statement by mayors (inc one from Reform) on physically active travel is hugely positive. www.gov.uk/government/p... Hope to see more details and funding soon.

"Opposition leader Keir Starmer" Freudian slip in today's Standard, as time runs out for PM after welfare vote debacle?

While a great idea in theory, let's not lose sight of fact that the mayor still has no credible plan on how to deliver this in practice. Westminster council has elections in May 2026, so relying on its consent (rather than GLA Act 1999 powers) is at best a risky move.

The £15.6bn announced today to fund urban transport in England for five years is significant, even if more detail needed. In particular, will the government follow its infrastructure advisors' recommendation to make funding conditional on demand management schemes? www.gov.uk/government/n...

Campaign group Transport Action Network is appealing against the government’s decision to cut funding for cycling and walking schemes in England. Leigh Day's Rowan Smith will argue at the Court of Appeal that the decision 'could set a dangerous precedent'. leighdaylaw.info/436KHw6

Court of Appeal is hearing @transportaction.bsky.social legal challenge against Department for Transport cuts to funding for walking and cycling. And you can watch it live or on catch up! www.youtube.com/channel/UCsh...

It's off to court we go for biggest challenge to road-building in English legal history 🚙🛣️ ⚖️🚴🚌👨‍🦽‍➡️ Depending on connectivity in court, will try posting some updates!