ON YER BIKE

London’s new two-wheeled green dream bike hire scheme was launched last week (31st) with a great Boris fanfare. But before a crank had been rotated the ‘Barclays Bikes’ were rebranded with stickers highlighting the bank’s investment in the arms trade.

Activists had worked through the night, placing stickers on the “Borisbikes” with messages such as: “£20M INVESTMENT IN BIKES. £7300M INVESTMENT IN BOMBS” and “FUNDING DEPLETED URANIUM BIRTH DEFECTS IN IRAQ”.

Transport for London said that only a small number of bikes were affected but activists claim they stuck messages on around 4000 of them.

“I have nothing to say,” was the reply given by Barclays chairman, Magnus Agius, when asked about the stickers at the press launch.

Barclays paid £25 million to sponsor the bikes and a “Barclays Super Highway” cycle lane network.

Their branding is prominent on the bikes and the cycle lanes themselves are painted Barclays’ blue. Whilst the push for pedal power is obviously a good thing, hijacking the vibe to promote a key financier of global death and destruction is an idea clearly in need of a supersize D-lock.