this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
793 points (98.4% liked)

Not The Onion

12313 readers
346 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

  1. Links to news stories from...
  2. ...credible sources, with...
  3. ...their original headlines, that...
  4. ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Comments must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] thehatfox@lemmy.world 20 points 6 months ago (2 children)

That’s a big part of the Boris Johnson myth. The “Boris bike” system in London was actually created by his Labour predecessor Ken Livingstone. The system officially opened shortly after Boris became mayor, who then took the credit for it.

The guy does ride a bike, but not as much as other’s coattails.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I've seen Boris "expansion of the london cycling network" up close and personal the few times I've decided to go for really long cycles away from London zones 1, 2 and 3 - the cycling "network" out there is basically made up of tiny blue signs with a white stylized cyclist symbol every half a mile or so along the side of the road and nothing else (not even paint on the road, just near invisible signs), but that was enough for him to claim he had added a huge number of miles to the London cycling network.

Boris "achivements" are invariably just traditional posh-boy lying: in a very strict sense not a lie, but using words ("cycling network") that leads others to understand one thing (actually usuable, properly marked "cycling lanes" that make it safer to cycle) which is completelly different from the reality (little signs on the side of the road that do not add up to a cycling lane or are even easilly spotted by drivers).

[–] vividspecter@lemm.ee 4 points 6 months ago

For sure, but even that is above the extremely low bar that the current conservatives (both the party and conservatives in general) have set.