I know it’s not exactly fashionable nowadays for a Labour member like myself to welcome with open arms a policy of a Conservative Mayor of London. But I’m going to go ahead and do it anyway. The Barclays Cycle Hire scheme, launching next Friday (July 30th) has the potential to revolutionise the way we get around this great metropolis. How long have we looked on to cities like Copenhagen, Amsterdam & Zurich with their fancy bicycles and cycle-friendly policies, while we put up with uncivilised busses & tubes?

That it took Boris Johnson, London’s somewhat entertaining, but according to some a serious thinking, Mayor to bring a London-wide cycle scheme which will be accessible to millions of people, is a shame. That doesn’t mean we should look down our noses on it though.

From next Friday, people all over London will have access to bicycles in many local neighbourhoods across town. I’ve already spotted two of them very close to where I live. For an annual membership of £45, users can take a bicycle from their local “docking station”, cycle to their place of work, a restaurant, the shops or a meeting with friends for up-to half an hour completely free. When you consider the amount of London that can be covered in 30 minutes by bicycle, it’s clear that this scheme has the potential to replace thousands of bus & tube journeys per year, and simultaneously improving the health and well-being of Londoners.

As the London Cycling Campaign points out here:

…cycling reduces the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke and promotes good mental health.

Everybody recognises that London is oftentimes a grumpy, frosty city, home to millions of people in too much of a rush to smile, take a deep breath and enjoy the wonders that wandering through this amazing city can bring. If cycling improves the general demeanour of even a small percentage of our commuting population, it will be a great benefit to us all.

Ken Livingstone and Oona King, who are both running for Labour’s endorsement for 2012’s mayoral election should recognise the benefits that this cycle scheme should bring, regardless of the fact that Boris Johnson brought it into being.

This Londoner for one, can’t wait to give the new scheme a spin.

Throughout the World Cup, how many times has Twitter failed? I’m getting to a really intimate level of friendship with the “Fail Whale” (see pic) right now… So Brazil was knocked out of the cup, what happens? Twitter fails. It’s not that hard to build an automatically scaleable, reliable web hosting architecture. Facebook manages, Google manages, Apple managed. Twitter has the money to do this.

It feels like they’re taking us users for granted, no? Can anybody challenge their ubiquity? I think these regular hours of downtime might help…

Last year, by a huge stroke of luck, I was offered a press pass for the Labour Party conference, on the grounds that I would cover the conference online in various places, with particular attention to Labour’s e-campaign efforts. I was over the moon that I would get behind-the-scenes access to the goings on at conference, and also access to Labour politicians and party staff, and that I could transmit what was happening online to people who weren’t able to make it to the conference.

Happily entering Labour’s online process to sign up for my press pass, it immediately became clear on me that I would have to pay nearly £1,000 for the privilege. Needless to say, I never got my press pass.

Speak with a number of fellow political bloggers – Labour members and non-members, I’ve come up with an innovative solution to getting more online activists and would-be journalists to attend and cover conference. I think Labour should create a ‘Blogger Pass’ for known bloggers, and bloggers accredited by major blogs like LeftFoodForward and LabourList (similar to the way media organisations accredit their staff). We live in an age where the print press readership is dying and blog readership is rising. Labour should embrace bloggers, young and old, who between get hundreds of thousands of hits a week.

It wouldn’t have to cost much. The party could set a nominal fee, not an exorbitant bounty, for an access-all-areas pass for the entire length of the conference. 2010 could be the experimental year and going forward the lessons learned this year would shape the policy in the future. Labour has been saying for years how much they appreciate and value their online activists (I’m sceptical just how much they want to embrace some of them though), and now is a good time to demonstrate that Labour is the party of the internet by making it possible for political bloggers to attend conference and feel valued.

Sure, Labour has its favoured online activist(s) but they should move to a system where more than a tiny chosen few can get the access needed to provide the best online coverage.