Ukraine conducted a major special operation near occupied Yevpatoria in Crimea last night. This is different from the attack on the ships in Sevastopol. Ukraine's security service SBU says its drones first struck Russian air defense radars and antennas. 1/
...After disabling their radar capabilities, Ukraine's navy fired two Neptune cruise missiles at the Russian S-300/400 Triumph air defense systems worth $1.2 billion. Russian sources confirm the strikes rendered the systems inoperable... https://twitter.com/Mylovanov/status/1702239957908082756
Last Winter every day Russia was sending missiles against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Now it seems that it is Ukraine that are sending missiles against Russian military targets every day. Without this defence system it becomes even harder for Russia to defend Crimea and their Navy is even more vulnerable.
Who could have foreseen that Ukraine's tactic of sending your missiles against enemy military targets, such as missile warehouses, radar, air defences etc night be a more fruitful decision than Russia's tactic of sending missiles against random apartment blocks attempting to terrorise the inhabitants?
What’s the difference between the Russians and both sides in WWII? I seem to recall residential areas being bombed when I was young. And celebrated by those doing the bombing!
You have a point.
Putin is no worse than Hitler.
Major difference between WW2 and now is effective targeting. At the start of WW2, most bombing campaigns were lucky to hit the correct city, never mind a particular target. This steadily improved over the course of the war as effective radio navigation aids and airborne radar was developed, but it took a while for either side to realise that it was now possible to target military/industrial assets reasonably reliably, as opposed to just carpet bombing industrial cities and hoping thereby to hinder military production.
These days there are plenty of guided munitions around which will fairly reliably hit things like selected moving vehicles, never mind merely targeting an installation at a known location - therefore picking and prioitising targets becomes much more of an issue - and one which it seems the Russians often do badly.
The TLDR is that men can't or shouldn't be expected to change so women just have to avoid all those careers where this happens. Back to home and hearth, girls!
I have a tiny scintilla of sympathy for the officers who were trying to square two impossible things that day. On the one hand the lockdown mania and dire threat to public health (no drinking coffee on that bench, don't you dare drive 10 minutes for a walk or you will die) and the justifiable rage at what happened to Sarah Everard, and the desire to commemorate and protest. That they handled it badly is true. But what else could they have done, if the lockdown rules needed to be obeyed?
Nah the story is bollocks. The school skirt is black and Asda's is grey.
They are using misleading pictures in the BBC news story.
Yebbut the school’s own pdf (available in that Twitter thread) says the skirt ‘must’ be purchased from Rawcliffes, their official supplier.
For sure I get that. But the Asda skirt is a different colour. The BBC didn't have to gild the lilly.
Edit: or for emphasis indulge in fake news as I believe it's called now.
One is dark grey, the other is a darker grey. So what. They aren't different colours. That's gilding the lily. Deflection. Fake news.
Grey vs black. Why not pastel pink, it's still a skirt.
Asda:
Rawcliffe:
Different. I mean if you are going to have a school uniform then have a school uniform or don't bother. What about all the children who abided by the rule and then see someone else come in and pay half what they had to pay.
Your last sentence!
This is deflection from the two main issues
1) sweetheart deals between schools and authorised suppliers
2) punishing the child for a decision by their parents
As I understand it, school uniforms are a way of preventing an escalation of expensive fashion competition between kids at the expense of poorer parents. The "authorised supplier" scam is the opposite of this.
That’s a statement of someone’s opinion not fact. There’s decent evidence that uniforms - done right - can be helpful as part of fostering discipline, a sense of community and equality
These officers should be forced to attend these disciplinary hearings naked. What’s sauce for the goose etc.
Four Metropolitan police officers are to face disciplinary proceedings over the strip-search of a 15-year-old schoolgirl known as Child Q.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said three of the officers faced accusations of gross misconduct over the search, carried out at a school in Hackney, east London, in December 2020. It is alleged that the decision to carry out the search, while the girl was on her period, was inappropriate; Child Q was discriminated against because of her race and sex; there was no appropriate adult present; and the officers did not get authorisation from a supervisor.
The fourth officer will have a lesser disciplinary meeting over the absence of an appropriate adult.
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
Another Russian S-400 system taken out with Ukrainian Neptune missiles. Also 42 Russian artillery pieces claimed today.
It's becoming increasingly clear that Ukraine is developing an advantage over Russia in terms of long range missiles, drones and artillery. Russia is not able to protect its most important military assets.
Another Russian S-400 system taken out with Ukrainian Neptune missiles. Also 42 Russian artillery pieces claimed today.
It's becoming increasingly clear that Ukraine is developing an advantage over Russia in terms of long range missiles, drones and artillery. Russia is not able to protect its most important military assets.
Less reported is that Ukraine targeted another Russian warship with naval drones. It appears that that modern ship has suffered at least some damage.
Another night, another Ukrainian strike on Crimea. Either an S-400 or S-300 battery hit by 🇺🇦 Neptune missiles after a drone barrage near Yevpatoria. Russian propagandists also acknowledge that Russian patrol ship Vasily Bykov sustained “non-critical” damage from a 🇺🇦 naval drone https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1702268592161738801?s=20
Nah the story is bollocks. The school skirt is black and Asda's is grey.
They are using misleading pictures in the BBC news story.
Yebbut the school’s own pdf (available in that Twitter thread) says the skirt ‘must’ be purchased from Rawcliffes, their official supplier.
For sure I get that. But the Asda skirt is a different colour. The BBC didn't have to gild the lilly.
Edit: or for emphasis indulge in fake news as I believe it's called now.
One is dark grey, the other is a darker grey. So what. They aren't different colours. That's gilding the lily. Deflection. Fake news.
Grey vs black. Why not pastel pink, it's still a skirt.
Asda:
Rawcliffe:
Different. I mean if you are going to have a school uniform then have a school uniform or don't bother. What about all the children who abided by the rule and then see someone else come in and pay half what they had to pay.
Your last sentence!
This is deflection from the two main issues
1) sweetheart deals between schools and authorised suppliers
2) punishing the child for a decision by their parents
As I understand it, school uniforms are a way of preventing an escalation of expensive fashion competition between kids at the expense of poorer parents. The "authorised supplier" scam is the opposite of this.
That’s a statement of someone’s opinion not fact. There’s decent evidence that uniforms - done right - can be helpful as part of fostering discipline, a sense of community and equality
There's decent evidence that a no uniform policy, done right, can have positive effects too.
The 'done right' bit, of course, being vastly more important than any magical effect of having school uniforms (or not having them).
Another Russian S-400 system taken out with Ukrainian Neptune missiles. Also 42 Russian artillery pieces claimed today.
It's becoming increasingly clear that Ukraine is developing an advantage over Russia in terms of long range missiles, drones and artillery. Russia is not able to protect its most important military assets.
It's not entirely clear, Russian missile production is reportedly now greater than it was before sanctions were imposed.
But it's undeniably good news when their high end kit gets blown up.
Another Russian S-400 system taken out with Ukrainian Neptune missiles. Also 42 Russian artillery pieces claimed today.
It's becoming increasingly clear that Ukraine is developing an advantage over Russia in terms of long range missiles, drones and artillery. Russia is not able to protect its most important military assets.
Another Russian S-400 system taken out with Ukrainian Neptune missiles. Also 42 Russian artillery pieces claimed today.
It's becoming increasingly clear that Ukraine is developing an advantage over Russia in terms of long range missiles, drones and artillery. Russia is not able to protect its most important military assets.
Less reported is that Ukraine targeted another Russian warship with naval drones. It appears that that modern ship has suffered at least some damage.
Another night, another Ukrainian strike on Crimea. Either an S-400 or S-300 battery hit by 🇺🇦 Neptune missiles after a drone barrage near Yevpatoria. Russian propagandists also acknowledge that Russian patrol ship Vasily Bykov sustained “non-critical” damage from a 🇺🇦 naval drone https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1702268592161738801?s=20
Yes. Ukrainian drone capabilities keep on increasing. Antonov are working on them now too. It looks increasingly likely that the last Russian soldiers will be chased out of Ukraine by a swarm of Ukrainian drones.
Ukraine conducted a major special operation near occupied Yevpatoria in Crimea last night. This is different from the attack on the ships in Sevastopol. Ukraine's security service SBU says its drones first struck Russian air defense radars and antennas. 1/
...After disabling their radar capabilities, Ukraine's navy fired two Neptune cruise missiles at the Russian S-300/400 Triumph air defense systems worth $1.2 billion. Russian sources confirm the strikes rendered the systems inoperable... https://twitter.com/Mylovanov/status/1702239957908082756
Last Winter every day Russia was sending missiles against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Now it seems that it is Ukraine that are sending missiles against Russian military targets every day. Without this defence system it becomes even harder for Russia to defend Crimea and their Navy is even more vulnerable.
Who could have foreseen that Ukraine's tactic of sending your missiles against enemy military targets, such as missile warehouses, radar, air defences etc night be a more fruitful decision than Russia's tactic of sending missiles against random apartment blocks attempting to terrorise the inhabitants?
What’s the difference between the Russians and both sides in WWII? I seem to recall residential areas being bombed when I was young. And celebrated by those doing the bombing!
You have a point.
Putin is no worse than Hitler.
Didn't London bomb Berlin before Berlin bombed London?
So no worse than Churchill (on the bombing civilians metric)?
If the version of history that says that Churchill ordered this to make Hitler retaliate against London rather than bombing the RAF is true, does it make Winston an expert strategist, or an evil man who sacrificed his own civilians?
If you asked people in England then, or Ukraine now, would you prefer the Nazis to bomb you or your defences, the "Blitz Spirit" would apply
Another Russian S-400 system taken out with Ukrainian Neptune missiles. Also 42 Russian artillery pieces claimed today.
It's becoming increasingly clear that Ukraine is developing an advantage over Russia in terms of long range missiles, drones and artillery. Russia is not able to protect its most important military assets.
It's not entirely clear, Russian missile production is reportedly now greater than it was before sanctions were imposed.
But it's undeniably good news when their high end kit gets blown up.
Ukrainian missiles tend to hit their targets a lot more often than Russian ones, which are being plucked out of the air by improved air defence coverage.
The Russians seem to be sending more Shahed-style drones, too, after starting domestic production of them, but Ukraine's air defences are better at defending against them than Russia's are against Ukrainian drones.
The advantage is seen in outcomes, not in the number of munitions that can be fired.
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
I think dashcams, cycle cams and body cams are bringing categories of crime into view that existed but were not previously exposed.
Another one is (particularly) white van men or other types of road rage driver who hunt people down who they think did something wrong, knock them over with their vehicles, then get out and beat them unconscious. Think about the one where the dog was run over if the road rage reversing driver had followed through. Plenty of those are around on video, too.
Police forces are still learning how to deal with it, and we don't have national guidelines yet. Some forces are good, some are lazy, and some just try to pretend that it does not exist and refuse to address anything.
Another Russian S-400 system taken out with Ukrainian Neptune missiles. Also 42 Russian artillery pieces claimed today.
It's becoming increasingly clear that Ukraine is developing an advantage over Russia in terms of long range missiles, drones and artillery. Russia is not able to protect its most important military assets.
Less reported is that Ukraine targeted another Russian warship with naval drones. It appears that that modern ship has suffered at least some damage.
Another night, another Ukrainian strike on Crimea. Either an S-400 or S-300 battery hit by 🇺🇦 Neptune missiles after a drone barrage near Yevpatoria. Russian propagandists also acknowledge that Russian patrol ship Vasily Bykov sustained “non-critical” damage from a 🇺🇦 naval drone https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1702268592161738801?s=20
If Ukraine is ever gonna win , this is the way they might do it. Taking the war INTO Russia, not on the stagnant battlefield
Another Russian S-400 system taken out with Ukrainian Neptune missiles. Also 42 Russian artillery pieces claimed today.
It's becoming increasingly clear that Ukraine is developing an advantage over Russia in terms of long range missiles, drones and artillery. Russia is not able to protect its most important military assets.
Russia seems to be wasting its missiles on civilian targets. Perhaps they are just unable to hit the military ones.
I suspect the NATO satellite and aircraft data is more valuable than anyone is admitting, although it has obviously been discussed.
Edit: Though it is likely that only the civilian hits are reported, of course...
Another Russian S-400 system taken out with Ukrainian Neptune missiles. Also 42 Russian artillery pieces claimed today.
It's becoming increasingly clear that Ukraine is developing an advantage over Russia in terms of long range missiles, drones and artillery. Russia is not able to protect its most important military assets.
Less reported is that Ukraine targeted another Russian warship with naval drones. It appears that that modern ship has suffered at least some damage.
Another night, another Ukrainian strike on Crimea. Either an S-400 or S-300 battery hit by 🇺🇦 Neptune missiles after a drone barrage near Yevpatoria. Russian propagandists also acknowledge that Russian patrol ship Vasily Bykov sustained “non-critical” damage from a 🇺🇦 naval drone https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1702268592161738801?s=20
If Ukraine is ever gonna win , this is the way they might do it. Taking the war INTO Russia, not on the stagnant battlefield
Ukraine conducted a major special operation near occupied Yevpatoria in Crimea last night. This is different from the attack on the ships in Sevastopol. Ukraine's security service SBU says its drones first struck Russian air defense radars and antennas. 1/
...After disabling their radar capabilities, Ukraine's navy fired two Neptune cruise missiles at the Russian S-300/400 Triumph air defense systems worth $1.2 billion. Russian sources confirm the strikes rendered the systems inoperable... https://twitter.com/Mylovanov/status/1702239957908082756
Last Winter every day Russia was sending missiles against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Now it seems that it is Ukraine that are sending missiles against Russian military targets every day. Without this defence system it becomes even harder for Russia to defend Crimea and their Navy is even more vulnerable.
Who could have foreseen that Ukraine's tactic of sending your missiles against enemy military targets, such as missile warehouses, radar, air defences etc night be a more fruitful decision than Russia's tactic of sending missiles against random apartment blocks attempting to terrorise the inhabitants?
What’s the difference between the Russians and both sides in WWII? I seem to recall residential areas being bombed when I was young. And celebrated by those doing the bombing!
You have a point.
Putin is no worse than Hitler.
Didn't London bomb Berlin before Berlin bombed London?
So no worse than Churchill (on the bombing civilians metric)?
If the version of history that says that Churchill ordered this to make Hitler retaliate against London rather than bombing the RAF is true, does it make Winston an expert strategist, or an evil man who sacrificed his own civilians?
If you asked people in England then, or Ukraine now, would you prefer the Nazis to bomb you or your defences, the "Blitz Spirit" would apply
Warsaw and Rotterdam might beg to differ on "London started the bombing."
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
I think dashcams, cycle cams and body cams are bringing categories of crime into view that existed but were not previously exposed.
Another one is (particularly) white van men or other types of road rage driver who hunt people down who they think did something wrong, knock them over with their vehicles, then get out and beat them unconscious. Think about the one where the dog was run over if the road rage reversing driver had followed through. Plenty of those are around on video, too.
Police forces are still learning how to deal with it, and we don't have national guidelines yet. Some forces are good, some are lazy, and some just try to pretend that it does not exist and refuse to address anything.
This is somewhere we can agree.
The Police, the CPS and the Courts can all be not fit for purpose.
And anyone who commits assault with a vehicle (or otherwise) absolutely should be held to account for their actions. No excuses.
Changing the law to re-criminalise that which is already illegal won't do anything. We need root and branch reform of the criminal justice system and for existing laws to be enforced.
Ukraine conducted a major special operation near occupied Yevpatoria in Crimea last night. This is different from the attack on the ships in Sevastopol. Ukraine's security service SBU says its drones first struck Russian air defense radars and antennas. 1/
...After disabling their radar capabilities, Ukraine's navy fired two Neptune cruise missiles at the Russian S-300/400 Triumph air defense systems worth $1.2 billion. Russian sources confirm the strikes rendered the systems inoperable... https://twitter.com/Mylovanov/status/1702239957908082756
Last Winter every day Russia was sending missiles against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Now it seems that it is Ukraine that are sending missiles against Russian military targets every day. Without this defence system it becomes even harder for Russia to defend Crimea and their Navy is even more vulnerable.
Who could have foreseen that Ukraine's tactic of sending your missiles against enemy military targets, such as missile warehouses, radar, air defences etc night be a more fruitful decision than Russia's tactic of sending missiles against random apartment blocks attempting to terrorise the inhabitants?
What’s the difference between the Russians and both sides in WWII? I seem to recall residential areas being bombed when I was young. And celebrated by those doing the bombing!
Precision bombing is much more of a possibility now than it was 70 years ago.
In order to hit a military target from the air, you had little option but to use incendiaries, in WWII.
Ukraine conducted a major special operation near occupied Yevpatoria in Crimea last night. This is different from the attack on the ships in Sevastopol. Ukraine's security service SBU says its drones first struck Russian air defense radars and antennas. 1/
...After disabling their radar capabilities, Ukraine's navy fired two Neptune cruise missiles at the Russian S-300/400 Triumph air defense systems worth $1.2 billion. Russian sources confirm the strikes rendered the systems inoperable... https://twitter.com/Mylovanov/status/1702239957908082756
Last Winter every day Russia was sending missiles against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Now it seems that it is Ukraine that are sending missiles against Russian military targets every day. Without this defence system it becomes even harder for Russia to defend Crimea and their Navy is even more vulnerable.
Who could have foreseen that Ukraine's tactic of sending your missiles against enemy military targets, such as missile warehouses, radar, air defences etc night be a more fruitful decision than Russia's tactic of sending missiles against random apartment blocks attempting to terrorise the inhabitants?
What’s the difference between the Russians and both sides in WWII? I seem to recall residential areas being bombed when I was young. And celebrated by those doing the bombing!
You have a point.
Putin is no worse than Hitler.
Didn't London bomb Berlin before Berlin bombed London?
So no worse than Churchill (on the bombing civilians metric)?
If the version of history that says that Churchill ordered this to make Hitler retaliate against London rather than bombing the RAF is true, does it make Winston an expert strategist, or an evil man who sacrificed his own civilians?
If you asked people in England then, or Ukraine now, would you prefer the Nazis to bomb you or your defences, the "Blitz Spirit" would apply
Warsaw and Rotterdam might beg to differ on "London started the bombing."
I'm sure they would
But did the Luftwaffe target civilians in the UK before the RAF bombed Berlin?
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
Still disagree on that.
Where existing laws are not logical or fit for purpose (Dangerous Driving) they need to be reframed. Where existing laws are difficult or impossible to enforce (eg antisocial parking) they need to be streamlined.
The latter not being addressed has created a culture of this form of antisocial behaviour being regarded as acceptable, and it will now require quite harsh measures to being under control.
A good example of where reframing has had a positive effect was Mobile Phone Driving laws being tightened up to remove loopholes a couple of years ago; they are now having more of an impact on the problem.
One which may be going to have a useful impact is possession of Nitrous Oxide being outlawed, which is being categorised as a class C drug aiui. Use of the drug whilst driving is an issue, but it is very difficult to detect by urine or blood samples.
Ukraine conducted a major special operation near occupied Yevpatoria in Crimea last night. This is different from the attack on the ships in Sevastopol. Ukraine's security service SBU says its drones first struck Russian air defense radars and antennas. 1/
...After disabling their radar capabilities, Ukraine's navy fired two Neptune cruise missiles at the Russian S-300/400 Triumph air defense systems worth $1.2 billion. Russian sources confirm the strikes rendered the systems inoperable... https://twitter.com/Mylovanov/status/1702239957908082756
Last Winter every day Russia was sending missiles against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Now it seems that it is Ukraine that are sending missiles against Russian military targets every day. Without this defence system it becomes even harder for Russia to defend Crimea and their Navy is even more vulnerable.
Who could have foreseen that Ukraine's tactic of sending your missiles against enemy military targets, such as missile warehouses, radar, air defences etc night be a more fruitful decision than Russia's tactic of sending missiles against random apartment blocks attempting to terrorise the inhabitants?
What’s the difference between the Russians and both sides in WWII? I seem to recall residential areas being bombed when I was young. And celebrated by those doing the bombing!
You have a point.
Putin is no worse than Hitler.
Didn't London bomb Berlin before Berlin bombed London?
So no worse than Churchill (on the bombing civilians metric)?
If the version of history that says that Churchill ordered this to make Hitler retaliate against London rather than bombing the RAF is true, does it make Winston an expert strategist, or an evil man who sacrificed his own civilians?
If you asked people in England then, or Ukraine now, would you prefer the Nazis to bomb you or your defences, the "Blitz Spirit" would apply
Warsaw and Rotterdam might beg to differ on "London started the bombing."
I'm sure they would
But did the Luftwaffe target civilians in the UK before the RAF bombed Berlin?
We were fighting along with and on the side of our allies, not as the UK alone.
So rephrase the question properly, "did the Luftwffe target allied civilians before the RAF bombed Berlin" and the answer is yes.
Indeed, I know all about this as Husband has been involved in the discussions. The idea is great but there are some concerns about some of the building materials being used and the design of the annex at the side which will detract from what is a fine building. For the money being spent the quality of materials should be much greater and - what you don't see in this report - is that this is located opposite the main square, for which there are some cock-eyed plans which will ruin the square. Local feedback was very negative
So a good start but the quality and design needs to be improved and the locals need to be listened to. There is a strong Civic Society here which has been involved but a lot of deadbeat councillors who are not helping.
Another Russian S-400 system taken out with Ukrainian Neptune missiles. Also 42 Russian artillery pieces claimed today.
It's becoming increasingly clear that Ukraine is developing an advantage over Russia in terms of long range missiles, drones and artillery. Russia is not able to protect its most important military assets.
Less reported is that Ukraine targeted another Russian warship with naval drones. It appears that that modern ship has suffered at least some damage.
Another night, another Ukrainian strike on Crimea. Either an S-400 or S-300 battery hit by 🇺🇦 Neptune missiles after a drone barrage near Yevpatoria. Russian propagandists also acknowledge that Russian patrol ship Vasily Bykov sustained “non-critical” damage from a 🇺🇦 naval drone https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1702268592161738801?s=20
If Ukraine is ever gonna win , this is the way they might do it. Taking the war INTO Russia, not on the stagnant battlefield
Crimea isn't Russia
Don’t forget Leon is an appeaser.
A FUCKING appeaser, no less
However the salient point is wrong: Ukraine IS attacking Russia Proper as well as Putin’s Greater Russia (ie Crimea)
Drones on Moscow, missiles hitting Russian airfields, explosions in Russian army camps, bombs under cars of Russian bigwigs in Russia (like Miss Dugin). It is a proper destroy and disrupt campaign inside Russia, and it could be more effective than the desperate trudge through the mines of the Dnieper mud
Nah the story is bollocks. The school skirt is black and Asda's is grey.
They are using misleading pictures in the BBC news story.
Yebbut the school’s own pdf (available in that Twitter thread) says the skirt ‘must’ be purchased from Rawcliffes, their official supplier.
For sure I get that. But the Asda skirt is a different colour. The BBC didn't have to gild the lilly.
Edit: or for emphasis indulge in fake news as I believe it's called now.
One is dark grey, the other is a darker grey. So what. They aren't different colours. That's gilding the lily. Deflection. Fake news.
Grey vs black. Why not pastel pink, it's still a skirt.
Asda:
Rawcliffe:
Different. I mean if you are going to have a school uniform then have a school uniform or don't bother. What about all the children who abided by the rule and then see someone else come in and pay half what they had to pay.
Your last sentence!
This is deflection from the two main issues
1) sweetheart deals between schools and authorised suppliers
2) punishing the child for a decision by their parents
As I understand it, school uniforms are a way of preventing an escalation of expensive fashion competition between kids at the expense of poorer parents. The "authorised supplier" scam is the opposite of this.
That’s a statement of someone’s opinion not fact. There’s decent evidence that uniforms - done right - can be helpful as part of fostering discipline, a sense of community and equality
There's decent evidence that a no uniform policy, done right, can have positive effects too.
The 'done right' bit, of course, being vastly more important than any magical effect of having school uniforms (or not having them).
I've been to schools with and without uniforms and my kids have too, and in all honesty I don't think it makes much difference either way, certainly compared to many other factors within the school's control. I'm probably marginally pro-uniform but certainly against it being imposed in a hysterical over the top way and even more so against schools and favoured suppliers profiteering at the expense of parents.
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
Still disagree on that.
Where existing laws are not logical or fit for purpose (Dangerous Driving) they need to be reframed. Where existing laws are difficult or impossible to enforce (eg antisocial parking) they need to be streamlined.
A good example of where reframing has had a positive effect was Mobile Phone Driving laws being tightened up to remove loopholes a couple of years ago; they are now having more of an impact on the problem.
One which may be going to have a useful impact is possession of Nitrous Oxide being outlawed, which is being categorised as a class C drug aiui. Use of the drug whilst driving is an issue, but it is very difficult to detect by urine or blood samples.
But dangerous driving is both logical and fit for purpose.
If someone is driving dangerously, such as overtaking on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend, then is that operating "far below" the expected standards? Yes, it is. So its already unlawful.
If the law isn't being applied, because of plea bargains, then changing the law won't change that as the CPS will still plea down to the lesser offence anyway as that's what they do all the frigging time.
Yes if there's loopholes or new issues then fixing them may be appropriate, mobile phones being a new technology is an excellent case in point, but there's no loophole that makes dangerous driving lawful, its just the criminal justice system isn't doing its job properly.
Ukraine conducted a major special operation near occupied Yevpatoria in Crimea last night. This is different from the attack on the ships in Sevastopol. Ukraine's security service SBU says its drones first struck Russian air defense radars and antennas. 1/
...After disabling their radar capabilities, Ukraine's navy fired two Neptune cruise missiles at the Russian S-300/400 Triumph air defense systems worth $1.2 billion. Russian sources confirm the strikes rendered the systems inoperable... https://twitter.com/Mylovanov/status/1702239957908082756
Last Winter every day Russia was sending missiles against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Now it seems that it is Ukraine that are sending missiles against Russian military targets every day. Without this defence system it becomes even harder for Russia to defend Crimea and their Navy is even more vulnerable.
Who could have foreseen that Ukraine's tactic of sending your missiles against enemy military targets, such as missile warehouses, radar, air defences etc night be a more fruitful decision than Russia's tactic of sending missiles against random apartment blocks attempting to terrorise the inhabitants?
What’s the difference between the Russians and both sides in WWII? I seem to recall residential areas being bombed when I was young. And celebrated by those doing the bombing!
You have a point.
Putin is no worse than Hitler.
Didn't London bomb Berlin before Berlin bombed London?
So no worse than Churchill (on the bombing civilians metric)?
If the version of history that says that Churchill ordered this to make Hitler retaliate against London rather than bombing the RAF is true, does it make Winston an expert strategist, or an evil man who sacrificed his own civilians?
If you asked people in England then, or Ukraine now, would you prefer the Nazis to bomb you or your defences, the "Blitz Spirit" would apply
Warsaw and Rotterdam might beg to differ on "London started the bombing."
The Zeppelin raids on Hull and elsewhere in, I think, 1917 killed civilians.
Ukraine conducted a major special operation near occupied Yevpatoria in Crimea last night. This is different from the attack on the ships in Sevastopol. Ukraine's security service SBU says its drones first struck Russian air defense radars and antennas. 1/
...After disabling their radar capabilities, Ukraine's navy fired two Neptune cruise missiles at the Russian S-300/400 Triumph air defense systems worth $1.2 billion. Russian sources confirm the strikes rendered the systems inoperable... https://twitter.com/Mylovanov/status/1702239957908082756
Last Winter every day Russia was sending missiles against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Now it seems that it is Ukraine that are sending missiles against Russian military targets every day. Without this defence system it becomes even harder for Russia to defend Crimea and their Navy is even more vulnerable.
Who could have foreseen that Ukraine's tactic of sending your missiles against enemy military targets, such as missile warehouses, radar, air defences etc night be a more fruitful decision than Russia's tactic of sending missiles against random apartment blocks attempting to terrorise the inhabitants?
What’s the difference between the Russians and both sides in WWII? I seem to recall residential areas being bombed when I was young. And celebrated by those doing the bombing!
You have a point.
Putin is no worse than Hitler.
Didn't London bomb Berlin before Berlin bombed London?
So no worse than Churchill (on the bombing civilians metric)?
If the version of history that says that Churchill ordered this to make Hitler retaliate against London rather than bombing the RAF is true, does it make Winston an expert strategist, or an evil man who sacrificed his own civilians?
If you asked people in England then, or Ukraine now, would you prefer the Nazis to bomb you or your defences, the "Blitz Spirit" would apply
Warsaw and Rotterdam might beg to differ on "London started the bombing."
I'm sure they would
But did the Luftwaffe target civilians in the UK before the RAF bombed Berlin?
They did not target civilians deliberately, but the nature of bombing meant that civilians were killed from July 1940 onwards, as they tried to destroy factories that produced aircraft.
The Battle of Britain was effectively over by the time the Blitz proper began.
Sir Keir Starmer has said that Labour will treat people-smugglers like terrorists if he wins the next election by freezing their assets and placing restrictions on their movement.
In an interview with The Times the Labour leader pledged that he would “smash the gangs” by expanding the use of civil orders that are used to target serious criminals, terrorists and drug traffickers.
The Labour leader says he will ultimately seek an EU-wide returns agreement for asylum seekers who come to Britain. He says that the “quid pro quo” of any deal, such as accepting quotas of migrants from the EU, would be for future negotiations with Brussels.
In a clear dividing line with the Tories, Starmer confirmed that he would drop Conservative plans to ban cross-Channel migrants from claiming asylum in Britain. He described the government approach as unsustainable and said: “We have to process the claims. Those who aren’t entitled to be here should be returned and returned quickly.”
He said that the government’s policy of sending migrants to Rwanda was inhumane, ineffective and represented poor value for money.
His comments represent his first significant intervention in the small boats crisis, an issue that will form a key part of next year’s general election campaign. The Labour leader said he wanted to take the same approach to people-smugglers as is used for terrorists and serious criminals.
“The features are the same,” he said. “Very few terrorist operations are within one nation, one border. They are nearly all cross-border. They are highly organised and involve the movement of people and apparatus across borders. There’s usually a lot of finance involved.”
Starmer wants to expand the use of serious crime prevention orders, which are used to restrict individuals’ movements and freeze their assets. They can be applied to suspects before they have been convicted. Starmer said he was prepared to change the law so they can be used against people-traffickers.
“They’ve been used, these powers, for terrorism, for drug trafficking, but they’ve never been used for serious, organised immigration crime,” he says. “My own view is that they should be used for that.”
After moaning about France for two days, I am happy to report that France finally showed up after her ticking off. Perfect weather - clear skies and 25C. The Cevennes are steeply green and verdant after refreshing rain. Butterflies dance over the dappled Tarn, lazy late summer tourists devour smoked mountain trout under Carolingian monasteries, I just had a fine pissaladiere with toasted Lozerien goat’s cheese
Ukraine conducted a major special operation near occupied Yevpatoria in Crimea last night. This is different from the attack on the ships in Sevastopol. Ukraine's security service SBU says its drones first struck Russian air defense radars and antennas. 1/
...After disabling their radar capabilities, Ukraine's navy fired two Neptune cruise missiles at the Russian S-300/400 Triumph air defense systems worth $1.2 billion. Russian sources confirm the strikes rendered the systems inoperable... https://twitter.com/Mylovanov/status/1702239957908082756
Last Winter every day Russia was sending missiles against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Now it seems that it is Ukraine that are sending missiles against Russian military targets every day. Without this defence system it becomes even harder for Russia to defend Crimea and their Navy is even more vulnerable.
Who could have foreseen that Ukraine's tactic of sending your missiles against enemy military targets, such as missile warehouses, radar, air defences etc night be a more fruitful decision than Russia's tactic of sending missiles against random apartment blocks attempting to terrorise the inhabitants?
What’s the difference between the Russians and both sides in WWII? I seem to recall residential areas being bombed when I was young. And celebrated by those doing the bombing!
You have a point.
Putin is no worse than Hitler.
Didn't London bomb Berlin before Berlin bombed London?
So no worse than Churchill (on the bombing civilians metric)?
If the version of history that says that Churchill ordered this to make Hitler retaliate against London rather than bombing the RAF is true, does it make Winston an expert strategist, or an evil man who sacrificed his own civilians?
If you asked people in England then, or Ukraine now, would you prefer the Nazis to bomb you or your defences, the "Blitz Spirit" would apply
Warsaw and Rotterdam might beg to differ on "London started the bombing."
The Zeppelin raids on Hull and elsewhere in, I think, 1917 killed civilians.
There is a plaque to a Zeppelin raid on a wall in Clerkenwell, London.
In WW2 German manpower was chewed up on the Eastern Front. But the Germans allocated the bulk of their resources to defending their homeland from Allied bombing. Can't remember the exact figs but I think it was something like 2/3 of their economic output went on countering the Allied strategic bomber offensive once that really got going from '43 onwards. So that's steel and munitions output that was used for AA guns around cities not for U-boats or tanks, fighter planes denuded in the East to attack the bombers, scarce fuel used to power those fighters, etc, etc. Vast resources used to protect cities all across the country could not be used in the East where the land fighting was taking place. Don't forget the logistical challenges of moving all that material around the country, taking up rail capacity, burning fuel.
The killing of workers, the weakening of morale through bombing happened to an extent, but it wasn't enough to stop the Germans fighting - it perhaps even stiffened the resolve of the Wehrmacht to keep fighting in some ways. But defending against the bombing used up massive resources that couldn't be used elsewhere, reducing pressure on the Soviets in the East and allowing them to tear the Wehrmacht to pieces more easily.
So, if the Russians now have to divert resources to protect their assets that the Ukrainians could conceivably attack, that means there are fewer resources that can be used on the battlefield.
Ukraine conducted a major special operation near occupied Yevpatoria in Crimea last night. This is different from the attack on the ships in Sevastopol. Ukraine's security service SBU says its drones first struck Russian air defense radars and antennas. 1/
...After disabling their radar capabilities, Ukraine's navy fired two Neptune cruise missiles at the Russian S-300/400 Triumph air defense systems worth $1.2 billion. Russian sources confirm the strikes rendered the systems inoperable... https://twitter.com/Mylovanov/status/1702239957908082756
Last Winter every day Russia was sending missiles against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Now it seems that it is Ukraine that are sending missiles against Russian military targets every day. Without this defence system it becomes even harder for Russia to defend Crimea and their Navy is even more vulnerable.
Who could have foreseen that Ukraine's tactic of sending your missiles against enemy military targets, such as missile warehouses, radar, air defences etc night be a more fruitful decision than Russia's tactic of sending missiles against random apartment blocks attempting to terrorise the inhabitants?
What’s the difference between the Russians and both sides in WWII? I seem to recall residential areas being bombed when I was young. And celebrated by those doing the bombing!
You have a point.
Putin is no worse than Hitler.
Didn't London bomb Berlin before Berlin bombed London?
So no worse than Churchill (on the bombing civilians metric)?
If the version of history that says that Churchill ordered this to make Hitler retaliate against London rather than bombing the RAF is true, does it make Winston an expert strategist, or an evil man who sacrificed his own civilians?
If you asked people in England then, or Ukraine now, would you prefer the Nazis to bomb you or your defences, the "Blitz Spirit" would apply
Warsaw and Rotterdam might beg to differ on "London started the bombing."
The Zeppelin raids on Hull and elsewhere in, I think, 1917 killed civilians.
There is a plaque to a Zeppelin raid on a wall in Clerkenwell, London.
Also one by Cleopatra’s Needle on the Embankment. Think it killed people
Ukraine conducted a major special operation near occupied Yevpatoria in Crimea last night. This is different from the attack on the ships in Sevastopol. Ukraine's security service SBU says its drones first struck Russian air defense radars and antennas. 1/
...After disabling their radar capabilities, Ukraine's navy fired two Neptune cruise missiles at the Russian S-300/400 Triumph air defense systems worth $1.2 billion. Russian sources confirm the strikes rendered the systems inoperable... https://twitter.com/Mylovanov/status/1702239957908082756
Last Winter every day Russia was sending missiles against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Now it seems that it is Ukraine that are sending missiles against Russian military targets every day. Without this defence system it becomes even harder for Russia to defend Crimea and their Navy is even more vulnerable.
Who could have foreseen that Ukraine's tactic of sending your missiles against enemy military targets, such as missile warehouses, radar, air defences etc night be a more fruitful decision than Russia's tactic of sending missiles against random apartment blocks attempting to terrorise the inhabitants?
What’s the difference between the Russians and both sides in WWII? I seem to recall residential areas being bombed when I was young. And celebrated by those doing the bombing!
You have a point.
Putin is no worse than Hitler.
Didn't London bomb Berlin before Berlin bombed London?
So no worse than Churchill (on the bombing civilians metric)?
If the version of history that says that Churchill ordered this to make Hitler retaliate against London rather than bombing the RAF is true, does it make Winston an expert strategist, or an evil man who sacrificed his own civilians?
If you asked people in England then, or Ukraine now, would you prefer the Nazis to bomb you or your defences, the "Blitz Spirit" would apply
Warsaw and Rotterdam might beg to differ on "London started the bombing."
I'm sure they would
But did the Luftwaffe target civilians in the UK before the RAF bombed Berlin?
They did not target civilians deliberately, but the nature of bombing meant that civilians were killed from July 1940 onwards, as they tried to destroy factories that produced aircraft.
The Battle of Britain was effectively over by the time the Blitz proper began.
PB pedantry: first civilian air raid death was [edit] in Orkney in March 1940 (presumably targeting naval stuff in Scapa Flow).
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
Still disagree on that.
Where existing laws are not logical or fit for purpose (Dangerous Driving) they need to be reframed. Where existing laws are difficult or impossible to enforce (eg antisocial parking) they need to be streamlined.
A good example of where reframing has had a positive effect was Mobile Phone Driving laws being tightened up to remove loopholes a couple of years ago; they are now having more of an impact on the problem.
One which may be going to have a useful impact is possession of Nitrous Oxide being outlawed, which is being categorised as a class C drug aiui. Use of the drug whilst driving is an issue, but it is very difficult to detect by urine or blood samples.
But dangerous driving is both logical and fit for purpose.
If someone is driving dangerously, such as overtaking on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend, then is that operating "far below" the expected standards? Yes, it is. So its already unlawful.
If the law isn't being applied, because of plea bargains, then changing the law won't change that as the CPS will still plea down to the lesser offence anyway as that's what they do all the frigging time.
Yes if there's loopholes or new issues then fixing them may be appropriate, mobile phones being a new technology is an excellent case in point, but there's no loophole that makes dangerous driving lawful, its just the criminal justice system isn't doing its job properly.
Sir Keir Starmer has said that Labour will treat people-smugglers like terrorists if he wins the next election by freezing their assets and placing restrictions on their movement.
In an interview with The Times the Labour leader pledged that he would “smash the gangs” by expanding the use of civil orders that are used to target serious criminals, terrorists and drug traffickers.
The Labour leader says he will ultimately seek an EU-wide returns agreement for asylum seekers who come to Britain. He says that the “quid pro quo” of any deal, such as accepting quotas of migrants from the EU, would be for future negotiations with Brussels.
In a clear dividing line with the Tories, Starmer confirmed that he would drop Conservative plans to ban cross-Channel migrants from claiming asylum in Britain. He described the government approach as unsustainable and said: “We have to process the claims. Those who aren’t entitled to be here should be returned and returned quickly.”
He said that the government’s policy of sending migrants to Rwanda was inhumane, ineffective and represented poor value for money.
His comments represent his first significant intervention in the small boats crisis, an issue that will form a key part of next year’s general election campaign. The Labour leader said he wanted to take the same approach to people-smugglers as is used for terrorists and serious criminals.
“The features are the same,” he said. “Very few terrorist operations are within one nation, one border. They are nearly all cross-border. They are highly organised and involve the movement of people and apparatus across borders. There’s usually a lot of finance involved.”
Starmer wants to expand the use of serious crime prevention orders, which are used to restrict individuals’ movements and freeze their assets. They can be applied to suspects before they have been convicted. Starmer said he was prepared to change the law so they can be used against people-traffickers.
“They’ve been used, these powers, for terrorism, for drug trafficking, but they’ve never been used for serious, organised immigration crime,” he says. “My own view is that they should be used for that.”
One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter/provider of routes to freedom.
The use of ‘terrorist’ as a catch all term for the bogeyman de jour is pretty wanky at the best of times.
He doesn’t call them terrorists. He says he’ll use a similar approach to that used for terrorists.
Lock them up without trial? Exile them to Slough town centre? Confiscate assets without trial? Deny them ever getting British citizenship at the stroke of the Home Secs pen?
The TLDR is that men can't or shouldn't be expected to change so women just have to avoid all those careers where this happens. Back to home and hearth, girls!
I have a tiny scintilla of sympathy for the officers who were trying to square two impossible things that day. On the one hand the lockdown mania and dire threat to public health (no drinking coffee on that bench, don't you dare drive 10 minutes for a walk or you will die) and the justifiable rage at what happened to Sarah Everard, and the desire to commemorate and protest. That they handled it badly is true. But what else could they have done, if the lockdown rules needed to be obeyed?
They and the Government could have listened to the advice from SAGE to stop over-policing lockdown rules?
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
Still disagree on that.
Where existing laws are not logical or fit for purpose (Dangerous Driving) they need to be reframed. Where existing laws are difficult or impossible to enforce (eg antisocial parking) they need to be streamlined.
A good example of where reframing has had a positive effect was Mobile Phone Driving laws being tightened up to remove loopholes a couple of years ago; they are now having more of an impact on the problem.
One which may be going to have a useful impact is possession of Nitrous Oxide being outlawed, which is being categorised as a class C drug aiui. Use of the drug whilst driving is an issue, but it is very difficult to detect by urine or blood samples.
But dangerous driving is both logical and fit for purpose.
If someone is driving dangerously, such as overtaking on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend, then is that operating "far below" the expected standards? Yes, it is. So its already unlawful.
If the law isn't being applied, because of plea bargains, then changing the law won't change that as the CPS will still plea down to the lesser offence anyway as that's what they do all the frigging time.
Yes if there's loopholes or new issues then fixing them may be appropriate, mobile phones being a new technology is an excellent case in point, but there's no loophole that makes dangerous driving lawful, its just the criminal justice system isn't doing its job properly.
Let's leave this for today.
I can take over?
The only reason we even have a "death by dangerous driving" law is because society thinks killing someone with a car is a less serious crime than by other methods.
That's not to say I want more drivers in prison. I think much longer driving bans are the solution, and fines linked to income (or value if the car). A permanent ban should be the default sentence for any death by careless/dangerous.
In WW2 German manpower was chewed up on the Eastern Front. But the Germans allocated the bulk of their resources to defending their homeland from Allied bombing. Can't remember the exact figs but I think it was something like 2/3 of their economic output went on countering the Allied strategic bomber offensive once that really got going from '43 onwards. So that's steel and munitions output that was used for AA guns around cities not for U-boats or tanks, fighter planes denuded in the East to attack the bombers, scarce fuel used to power those fighters, etc, etc. Vast resources used to protect cities all across the country could not be used in the East where the land fighting was taking place. Don't forget the logistical challenges of moving all that material around the country, taking up rail capacity, burning fuel.
The killing of workers, the weakening of morale through bombing happened to an extent, but it wasn't enough to stop the Germans fighting - it perhaps even stiffened the resolve of the Wehrmacht to keep fighting in some ways. But defending against the bombing used up massive resources that couldn't be used elsewhere, reducing pressure on the Soviets in the East and allowing them to tear the Wehrmacht to pieces more easily.
So, if the Russians now have to divert resources to protect their assets that the Ukrainians could conceivably attack, that means there are fewer resources that can be used on the battlefield.
I agree. it’s become some pious delusion in certain quarters - that massive bombing of cities and civilians “doesn’t work”
It is nonsense. As we have debated before, the ultimate test - and answer - is the two A bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, alongside the conventional firestorm bombing of Tokyo. It wasn’t the military damage wrought by these bombs that brought Japan to heel, it was the tragic, overwhelming loss of life, and cities, and the certain knowledge that America could do the same to every single Japanese city, killing tens of millions
Japan surrendered a dew days later, unconditionally
Bomber Harris’ devastation of Germany (with the great help of the Americans) may not have entirely won the war by itself, but by God it fucked up German cities, led to intense chaos, fear, panic, and - as you say - forced the Germans to defend the Home Front when the Soviets were racing across Belarussia towards Berlin
Ukraine conducted a major special operation near occupied Yevpatoria in Crimea last night. This is different from the attack on the ships in Sevastopol. Ukraine's security service SBU says its drones first struck Russian air defense radars and antennas. 1/
...After disabling their radar capabilities, Ukraine's navy fired two Neptune cruise missiles at the Russian S-300/400 Triumph air defense systems worth $1.2 billion. Russian sources confirm the strikes rendered the systems inoperable... https://twitter.com/Mylovanov/status/1702239957908082756
Last Winter every day Russia was sending missiles against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Now it seems that it is Ukraine that are sending missiles against Russian military targets every day. Without this defence system it becomes even harder for Russia to defend Crimea and their Navy is even more vulnerable.
Who could have foreseen that Ukraine's tactic of sending your missiles against enemy military targets, such as missile warehouses, radar, air defences etc night be a more fruitful decision than Russia's tactic of sending missiles against random apartment blocks attempting to terrorise the inhabitants?
What’s the difference between the Russians and both sides in WWII? I seem to recall residential areas being bombed when I was young. And celebrated by those doing the bombing!
Precision bombing is much more of a possibility now than it was 70 years ago.
In order to hit a military target from the air, you had little option but to use incendiaries, in WWII.
Actually, by late 1944, an Oboe equipped Mosquito could achieve an accuracy of a few yards. There were some raids in a “playing card” formation (hated by the crews who didn’t like flying in formation at night) where up to a dozen aircraft dropped together - the combination of the accuracy of Oboe and the spread of bombs pretty much guaranteed a hit on a pinpoint target.
The results were not disseminated well - many in the RAF had no idea what was being achieved . There was an element of disbelief - from having problems hitting the right half of Germany in 1942 , to hitting individual blast furnaces seemed incredible.
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
Still disagree on that.
Where existing laws are not logical or fit for purpose (Dangerous Driving) they need to be reframed. Where existing laws are difficult or impossible to enforce (eg antisocial parking) they need to be streamlined.
A good example of where reframing has had a positive effect was Mobile Phone Driving laws being tightened up to remove loopholes a couple of years ago; they are now having more of an impact on the problem.
One which may be going to have a useful impact is possession of Nitrous Oxide being outlawed, which is being categorised as a class C drug aiui. Use of the drug whilst driving is an issue, but it is very difficult to detect by urine or blood samples.
But dangerous driving is both logical and fit for purpose.
If someone is driving dangerously, such as overtaking on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend, then is that operating "far below" the expected standards? Yes, it is. So its already unlawful.
If the law isn't being applied, because of plea bargains, then changing the law won't change that as the CPS will still plea down to the lesser offence anyway as that's what they do all the frigging time.
Yes if there's loopholes or new issues then fixing them may be appropriate, mobile phones being a new technology is an excellent case in point, but there's no loophole that makes dangerous driving lawful, its just the criminal justice system isn't doing its job properly.
Let's leave this for today.
I can take over?
The only reason we even have a "death by dangerous driving" law is because society thinks killing someone with a car is a less serious crime than by other methods.
That's not to say I want more drivers in prison. I think much longer driving bans are the solution, and fines linked to income (or value if the car). A permanent ban should be the default sentence for any death by careless/dangerous.
Well of course it does, because it is a less serious crime.
Just as a train driver who kills someone who is standing on the tracks has committed a less serious crime, if a crime at all.
And just as a cyclist killing someone has committed a less serious crime too, which is why its own crime has existed for centuries too. Its entirely consistent.
In the extremely unlikely event it was deliberate murder, then the charge of murder should be used and can be.
In WW2 German manpower was chewed up on the Eastern Front. But the Germans allocated the bulk of their resources to defending their homeland from Allied bombing. Can't remember the exact figs but I think it was something like 2/3 of their economic output went on countering the Allied strategic bomber offensive once that really got going from '43 onwards. So that's steel and munitions output that was used for AA guns around cities not for U-boats or tanks, fighter planes denuded in the East to attack the bombers, scarce fuel used to power those fighters, etc, etc. Vast resources used to protect cities all across the country could not be used in the East where the land fighting was taking place. Don't forget the logistical challenges of moving all that material around the country, taking up rail capacity, burning fuel.
The killing of workers, the weakening of morale through bombing happened to an extent, but it wasn't enough to stop the Germans fighting - it perhaps even stiffened the resolve of the Wehrmacht to keep fighting in some ways. But defending against the bombing used up massive resources that couldn't be used elsewhere, reducing pressure on the Soviets in the East and allowing them to tear the Wehrmacht to pieces more easily.
So, if the Russians now have to divert resources to protect their assets that the Ukrainians could conceivably attack, that means there are fewer resources that can be used on the battlefield.
I don't think it was anything like 2/3 of economic output.
But, yes, the Strategic Bombing Campaign did force the Germans to divert resources to counter it, and it did increasing harm to their manufacturing capacity and transport links as the war went on.
After August 1944, the bombing was heavily degrading Germany's ability to produce munitions.
Ukraine conducted a major special operation near occupied Yevpatoria in Crimea last night. This is different from the attack on the ships in Sevastopol. Ukraine's security service SBU says its drones first struck Russian air defense radars and antennas. 1/
...After disabling their radar capabilities, Ukraine's navy fired two Neptune cruise missiles at the Russian S-300/400 Triumph air defense systems worth $1.2 billion. Russian sources confirm the strikes rendered the systems inoperable... https://twitter.com/Mylovanov/status/1702239957908082756
Last Winter every day Russia was sending missiles against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Now it seems that it is Ukraine that are sending missiles against Russian military targets every day. Without this defence system it becomes even harder for Russia to defend Crimea and their Navy is even more vulnerable.
Who could have foreseen that Ukraine's tactic of sending your missiles against enemy military targets, such as missile warehouses, radar, air defences etc night be a more fruitful decision than Russia's tactic of sending missiles against random apartment blocks attempting to terrorise the inhabitants?
What’s the difference between the Russians and both sides in WWII? I seem to recall residential areas being bombed when I was young. And celebrated by those doing the bombing!
You have a point.
Putin is no worse than Hitler.
Didn't London bomb Berlin before Berlin bombed London?
So no worse than Churchill (on the bombing civilians metric)?
If the version of history that says that Churchill ordered this to make Hitler retaliate against London rather than bombing the RAF is true, does it make Winston an expert strategist, or an evil man who sacrificed his own civilians?
If you asked people in England then, or Ukraine now, would you prefer the Nazis to bomb you or your defences, the "Blitz Spirit" would apply
Warsaw and Rotterdam might beg to differ on "London started the bombing."
I'm sure they would
But did the Luftwaffe target civilians in the UK before the RAF bombed Berlin?
The Luftwaffe targeted civilians in Allied countries before the Allies targeted civilians in Germany, but the RAF bombed civilian infrastructure before the Luftwaffe targeted the same in the UK.
In WW2 German manpower was chewed up on the Eastern Front. But the Germans allocated the bulk of their resources to defending their homeland from Allied bombing. Can't remember the exact figs but I think it was something like 2/3 of their economic output went on countering the Allied strategic bomber offensive once that really got going from '43 onwards. So that's steel and munitions output that was used for AA guns around cities not for U-boats or tanks, fighter planes denuded in the East to attack the bombers, scarce fuel used to power those fighters, etc, etc. Vast resources used to protect cities all across the country could not be used in the East where the land fighting was taking place. Don't forget the logistical challenges of moving all that material around the country, taking up rail capacity, burning fuel.
The killing of workers, the weakening of morale through bombing happened to an extent, but it wasn't enough to stop the Germans fighting - it perhaps even stiffened the resolve of the Wehrmacht to keep fighting in some ways. But defending against the bombing used up massive resources that couldn't be used elsewhere, reducing pressure on the Soviets in the East and allowing them to tear the Wehrmacht to pieces more easily.
So, if the Russians now have to divert resources to protect their assets that the Ukrainians could conceivably attack, that means there are fewer resources that can be used on the battlefield.
I don't think it was anything like 2/3 of economic output.
But, yes, the Strategic Bombing Campaign did force the Germans to divert resources to counter it, and it did increasing harm to their manufacturing capacity and transport links as the war went on.
After August 1944, the bombing was heavily degrading Germany's ability to produce munitions.
It was also causing mass dislocations of German people - refugees fleeing cities, trains full of homeless families, the injured clogging up hospitals, denial of workers for German factories
Of COURSE it had a major impact
I suspect that if the RAF hadn’t brilliantly fought off the Luftwaffe in 1940, then Germany could have eventually bombed us into surrender, without ever needing to invade. There’s only so much Blitz Spirit you can distill for the suffering natives
These days there are plenty of guided munitions around which will fairly reliably hit things like selected moving vehicles, never mind merely targeting an installation at a known location - therefore picking and prioitising targets becomes much more of an issue - and one which it seems the Russians often do badly.
These go wrong all the time due to human error, technical failure and countermeasures.
They are very accurate when they work. JDAM CEP = 5m.
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
Still disagree on that.
Where existing laws are not logical or fit for purpose (Dangerous Driving) they need to be reframed. Where existing laws are difficult or impossible to enforce (eg antisocial parking) they need to be streamlined.
A good example of where reframing has had a positive effect was Mobile Phone Driving laws being tightened up to remove loopholes a couple of years ago; they are now having more of an impact on the problem.
One which may be going to have a useful impact is possession of Nitrous Oxide being outlawed, which is being categorised as a class C drug aiui. Use of the drug whilst driving is an issue, but it is very difficult to detect by urine or blood samples.
But dangerous driving is both logical and fit for purpose.
If someone is driving dangerously, such as overtaking on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend, then is that operating "far below" the expected standards? Yes, it is. So its already unlawful.
If the law isn't being applied, because of plea bargains, then changing the law won't change that as the CPS will still plea down to the lesser offence anyway as that's what they do all the frigging time.
Yes if there's loopholes or new issues then fixing them may be appropriate, mobile phones being a new technology is an excellent case in point, but there's no loophole that makes dangerous driving lawful, its just the criminal justice system isn't doing its job properly.
Let's leave this for today.
I can take over?
The only reason we even have a "death by dangerous driving" law is because society thinks killing someone with a car is a less serious crime than by other methods.
That's not to say I want more drivers in prison. I think much longer driving bans are the solution, and fines linked to income (or value if the car). A permanent ban should be the default sentence for any death by careless/dangerous.
Well of course it does, because it is a less serious crime.
Just as a train driver who kills someone who is standing on the tracks has committed a less serious crime, if a crime at all.
And just as a cyclist killing someone has committed a less serious crime too, which is why its own crime has existed for centuries too. Its entirely consistent.
In the extremely unlikely event it was deliberate murder, then the charge of murder should be used and can be.
If you drive dangerously and kill someone, why is the maximum sentence for that less severe than that which you could get for manslaughter? Why isn't it manslaughter?
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
Still disagree on that.
Where existing laws are not logical or fit for purpose (Dangerous Driving) they need to be reframed. Where existing laws are difficult or impossible to enforce (eg antisocial parking) they need to be streamlined.
A good example of where reframing has had a positive effect was Mobile Phone Driving laws being tightened up to remove loopholes a couple of years ago; they are now having more of an impact on the problem.
One which may be going to have a useful impact is possession of Nitrous Oxide being outlawed, which is being categorised as a class C drug aiui. Use of the drug whilst driving is an issue, but it is very difficult to detect by urine or blood samples.
But dangerous driving is both logical and fit for purpose.
If someone is driving dangerously, such as overtaking on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend, then is that operating "far below" the expected standards? Yes, it is. So its already unlawful.
If the law isn't being applied, because of plea bargains, then changing the law won't change that as the CPS will still plea down to the lesser offence anyway as that's what they do all the frigging time.
Yes if there's loopholes or new issues then fixing them may be appropriate, mobile phones being a new technology is an excellent case in point, but there's no loophole that makes dangerous driving lawful, its just the criminal justice system isn't doing its job properly.
Let's leave this for today.
I can take over?
The only reason we even have a "death by dangerous driving" law is because society thinks killing someone with a car is a less serious crime than by other methods.
That's not to say I want more drivers in prison. I think much longer driving bans are the solution, and fines linked to income (or value if the car). A permanent ban should be the default sentence for any death by careless/dangerous.
Well of course it does, because it is a less serious crime.
Just as a train driver who kills someone who is standing on the tracks has committed a less serious crime, if a crime at all.
And just as a cyclist killing someone has committed a less serious crime too, which is why its own crime has existed for centuries too. Its entirely consistent.
In the extremely unlikely event it was deliberate murder, then the charge of murder should be used and can be.
If you drive dangerously and kill someone, why is the maximum sentence for that less severe than that which you could get for manslaughter? Why isn't it manslaughter?
Because juries previously typically wouldn't convict for manslaughter, so the then-new law was introduced in order to get more convictions not fewer.
In WW2 German manpower was chewed up on the Eastern Front. But the Germans allocated the bulk of their resources to defending their homeland from Allied bombing. Can't remember the exact figs but I think it was something like 2/3 of their economic output went on countering the Allied strategic bomber offensive once that really got going from '43 onwards. So that's steel and munitions output that was used for AA guns around cities not for U-boats or tanks, fighter planes denuded in the East to attack the bombers, scarce fuel used to power those fighters, etc, etc. Vast resources used to protect cities all across the country could not be used in the East where the land fighting was taking place. Don't forget the logistical challenges of moving all that material around the country, taking up rail capacity, burning fuel.
The killing of workers, the weakening of morale through bombing happened to an extent, but it wasn't enough to stop the Germans fighting - it perhaps even stiffened the resolve of the Wehrmacht to keep fighting in some ways. But defending against the bombing used up massive resources that couldn't be used elsewhere, reducing pressure on the Soviets in the East and allowing them to tear the Wehrmacht to pieces more easily.
So, if the Russians now have to divert resources to protect their assets that the Ukrainians could conceivably attack, that means there are fewer resources that can be used on the battlefield.
I don't think it was anything like 2/3 of economic output.
But, yes, the Strategic Bombing Campaign did force the Germans to divert resources to counter it, and it did increasing harm to their manufacturing capacity and transport links as the war went on.
After August 1944, the bombing was heavily degrading Germany's ability to produce munitions.
It was also causing mass dislocations of German people - refugees fleeing cities, trains full of homeless families, the injured clogging up hospitals, denial of workers for German factories
Of COURSE it had a major impact
I suspect that if the RAF hadn’t brilliantly fought off the Luftwaffe in 1940, then Germany could have eventually bombed us into surrender, without ever needing to invade. There’s only so much Blitz Spirit you can distill for the suffering natives
I don't think it was ever possible for the Germans to establish air supremacy over the UK, or over the Channel.
In 1940, the UK produced 10,000 aircraft, to 8,600 for Germany.
In WW2 German manpower was chewed up on the Eastern Front. But the Germans allocated the bulk of their resources to defending their homeland from Allied bombing. Can't remember the exact figs but I think it was something like 2/3 of their economic output went on countering the Allied strategic bomber offensive once that really got going from '43 onwards. So that's steel and munitions output that was used for AA guns around cities not for U-boats or tanks, fighter planes denuded in the East to attack the bombers, scarce fuel used to power those fighters, etc, etc. Vast resources used to protect cities all across the country could not be used in the East where the land fighting was taking place. Don't forget the logistical challenges of moving all that material around the country, taking up rail capacity, burning fuel.
The killing of workers, the weakening of morale through bombing happened to an extent, but it wasn't enough to stop the Germans fighting - it perhaps even stiffened the resolve of the Wehrmacht to keep fighting in some ways. But defending against the bombing used up massive resources that couldn't be used elsewhere, reducing pressure on the Soviets in the East and allowing them to tear the Wehrmacht to pieces more easily.
So, if the Russians now have to divert resources to protect their assets that the Ukrainians could conceivably attack, that means there are fewer resources that can be used on the battlefield.
I don't think it was anything like 2/3 of economic output.
But, yes, the Strategic Bombing Campaign did force the Germans to divert resources to counter it, and it did increasing harm to their manufacturing capacity and transport links as the war went on.
After August 1944, the bombing was heavily degrading Germany's ability to produce munitions.
It was also causing mass dislocations of German people - refugees fleeing cities, trains full of homeless families, the injured clogging up hospitals, denial of workers for German factories
Of COURSE it had a major impact
I suspect that if the RAF hadn’t brilliantly fought off the Luftwaffe in 1940, then Germany could have eventually bombed us into surrender, without ever needing to invade. There’s only so much Blitz Spirit you can distill for the suffering natives
I don't think it was ever possible for the Germans to establish air supremacy over the UK, or over the Channel.
In 1940, the UK produced 10,000 aircraft, to 8,600 for Germany.
Is your point about how the apparent contradiction in the judge's comment that, "Only a custodial sentence can be justified but I won't send you to prison"?
I think the reason for that is, technically, a suspended prison sentence is classified as a custodial sentence. So the guy has been given a sentence of ten months in prison but there will be an order behind that saying it will not be enforced if he complies with certain conditions. If he committed another offence within a specified period, he'd get whatever the punishment was for that, plus the ten months would be unsuspended and he'd go to prison. Similarly, if he broke other conditions on community service, staying away from a particular location or whatever.
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
Still disagree on that.
Where existing laws are not logical or fit for purpose (Dangerous Driving) they need to be reframed. Where existing laws are difficult or impossible to enforce (eg antisocial parking) they need to be streamlined.
A good example of where reframing has had a positive effect was Mobile Phone Driving laws being tightened up to remove loopholes a couple of years ago; they are now having more of an impact on the problem.
One which may be going to have a useful impact is possession of Nitrous Oxide being outlawed, which is being categorised as a class C drug aiui. Use of the drug whilst driving is an issue, but it is very difficult to detect by urine or blood samples.
But dangerous driving is both logical and fit for purpose.
If someone is driving dangerously, such as overtaking on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend, then is that operating "far below" the expected standards? Yes, it is. So its already unlawful.
If the law isn't being applied, because of plea bargains, then changing the law won't change that as the CPS will still plea down to the lesser offence anyway as that's what they do all the frigging time.
Yes if there's loopholes or new issues then fixing them may be appropriate, mobile phones being a new technology is an excellent case in point, but there's no loophole that makes dangerous driving lawful, its just the criminal justice system isn't doing its job properly.
Let's leave this for today.
I can take over?
The only reason we even have a "death by dangerous driving" law is because society thinks killing someone with a car is a less serious crime than by other methods.
That's not to say I want more drivers in prison. I think much longer driving bans are the solution, and fines linked to income (or value if the car). A permanent ban should be the default sentence for any death by careless/dangerous.
Well of course it does, because it is a less serious crime.
Just as a train driver who kills someone who is standing on the tracks has committed a less serious crime, if a crime at all.
And just as a cyclist killing someone has committed a less serious crime too, which is why its own crime has existed for centuries too. Its entirely consistent.
In the extremely unlikely event it was deliberate murder, then the charge of murder should be used and can be.
If you drive dangerously and kill someone, why is the maximum sentence for that less severe than that which you could get for manslaughter? Why isn't it manslaughter?
Because juries previously typically wouldn't convict for manslaughter, so the then-new law was introduced in order to get more convictions not fewer.
Which proves the point. A life taken by a driver is seen as less valuable than one taken by anyone else. We need a cultural shift.
The TLDR is that men can't or shouldn't be expected to change so women just have to avoid all those careers where this happens. Back to home and hearth, girls!
I have a tiny scintilla of sympathy for the officers who were trying to square two impossible things that day. On the one hand the lockdown mania and dire threat to public health (no drinking coffee on that bench, don't you dare drive 10 minutes for a walk or you will die) and the justifiable rage at what happened to Sarah Everard, and the desire to commemorate and protest. That they handled it badly is true. But what else could they have done, if the lockdown rules needed to be obeyed?
They and the Government could have listened to the advice from SAGE to stop over-policing lockdown rules?
Absolutely - but that was not a decision for the policeman/woman on the front line that night.
Ukraine conducted a major special operation near occupied Yevpatoria in Crimea last night. This is different from the attack on the ships in Sevastopol. Ukraine's security service SBU says its drones first struck Russian air defense radars and antennas. 1/
...After disabling their radar capabilities, Ukraine's navy fired two Neptune cruise missiles at the Russian S-300/400 Triumph air defense systems worth $1.2 billion. Russian sources confirm the strikes rendered the systems inoperable... https://twitter.com/Mylovanov/status/1702239957908082756
Last Winter every day Russia was sending missiles against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Now it seems that it is Ukraine that are sending missiles against Russian military targets every day. Without this defence system it becomes even harder for Russia to defend Crimea and their Navy is even more vulnerable.
Who could have foreseen that Ukraine's tactic of sending your missiles against enemy military targets, such as missile warehouses, radar, air defences etc night be a more fruitful decision than Russia's tactic of sending missiles against random apartment blocks attempting to terrorise the inhabitants?
What’s the difference between the Russians and both sides in WWII? I seem to recall residential areas being bombed when I was young. And celebrated by those doing the bombing!
You have a point.
Putin is no worse than Hitler.
Didn't London bomb Berlin before Berlin bombed London?
So no worse than Churchill (on the bombing civilians metric)?
If the version of history that says that Churchill ordered this to make Hitler retaliate against London rather than bombing the RAF is true, does it make Winston an expert strategist, or an evil man who sacrificed his own civilians?
If you asked people in England then, or Ukraine now, would you prefer the Nazis to bomb you or your defences, the "Blitz Spirit" would apply
Warsaw and Rotterdam might beg to differ on "London started the bombing."
I'm sure they would
But did the Luftwaffe target civilians in the UK before the RAF bombed Berlin?
The Luftwaffe targeted civilians in Allied countries before the Allies targeted civilians in Germany, but the RAF bombed civilian infrastructure before the Luftwaffe targeted the same in the UK.
The RAF were still trying precision bombing in 1940, so any civilian infrastructure hit was incidental.
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
Still disagree on that.
Where existing laws are not logical or fit for purpose (Dangerous Driving) they need to be reframed. Where existing laws are difficult or impossible to enforce (eg antisocial parking) they need to be streamlined.
A good example of where reframing has had a positive effect was Mobile Phone Driving laws being tightened up to remove loopholes a couple of years ago; they are now having more of an impact on the problem.
One which may be going to have a useful impact is possession of Nitrous Oxide being outlawed, which is being categorised as a class C drug aiui. Use of the drug whilst driving is an issue, but it is very difficult to detect by urine or blood samples.
But dangerous driving is both logical and fit for purpose.
If someone is driving dangerously, such as overtaking on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend, then is that operating "far below" the expected standards? Yes, it is. So its already unlawful.
If the law isn't being applied, because of plea bargains, then changing the law won't change that as the CPS will still plea down to the lesser offence anyway as that's what they do all the frigging time.
Yes if there's loopholes or new issues then fixing them may be appropriate, mobile phones being a new technology is an excellent case in point, but there's no loophole that makes dangerous driving lawful, its just the criminal justice system isn't doing its job properly.
Let's leave this for today.
I can take over?
The only reason we even have a "death by dangerous driving" law is because society thinks killing someone with a car is a less serious crime than by other methods.
That's not to say I want more drivers in prison. I think much longer driving bans are the solution, and fines linked to income (or value if the car). A permanent ban should be the default sentence for any death by careless/dangerous.
Well of course it does, because it is a less serious crime.
Just as a train driver who kills someone who is standing on the tracks has committed a less serious crime, if a crime at all.
And just as a cyclist killing someone has committed a less serious crime too, which is why its own crime has existed for centuries too. Its entirely consistent.
In the extremely unlikely event it was deliberate murder, then the charge of murder should be used and can be.
If you drive dangerously and kill someone, why is the maximum sentence for that less severe than that which you could get for manslaughter? Why isn't it manslaughter?
Because juries previously typically wouldn't convict for manslaughter, so the then-new law was introduced in order to get more convictions not fewer.
Which proves the point. A life taken by a driver is seen as less valuable than one taken by anyone else. We need a cultural shift.
Isn't the problem that - particularly for careless driving - most juries will think 'there but for the grace of God'?
The difficulty is distinguishing between momentary lapse and deliberately reckless.
This is why the police need to take obviously reckless driving that has no immediate consequences more seriously. If you are found driving recklessly then subsequently have an accident, you should lose the benefit of the doubt.
In WW2 German manpower was chewed up on the Eastern Front. But the Germans allocated the bulk of their resources to defending their homeland from Allied bombing. Can't remember the exact figs but I think it was something like 2/3 of their economic output went on countering the Allied strategic bomber offensive once that really got going from '43 onwards. So that's steel and munitions output that was used for AA guns around cities not for U-boats or tanks, fighter planes denuded in the East to attack the bombers, scarce fuel used to power those fighters, etc, etc. Vast resources used to protect cities all across the country could not be used in the East where the land fighting was taking place. Don't forget the logistical challenges of moving all that material around the country, taking up rail capacity, burning fuel.
The killing of workers, the weakening of morale through bombing happened to an extent, but it wasn't enough to stop the Germans fighting - it perhaps even stiffened the resolve of the Wehrmacht to keep fighting in some ways. But defending against the bombing used up massive resources that couldn't be used elsewhere, reducing pressure on the Soviets in the East and allowing them to tear the Wehrmacht to pieces more easily.
So, if the Russians now have to divert resources to protect their assets that the Ukrainians could conceivably attack, that means there are fewer resources that can be used on the battlefield.
I don't think it was anything like 2/3 of economic output.
But, yes, the Strategic Bombing Campaign did force the Germans to divert resources to counter it, and it did increasing harm to their manufacturing capacity and transport links as the war went on.
After August 1944, the bombing was heavily degrading Germany's ability to produce munitions.
It was also causing mass dislocations of German people - refugees fleeing cities, trains full of homeless families, the injured clogging up hospitals, denial of workers for German factories
Of COURSE it had a major impact
I suspect that if the RAF hadn’t brilliantly fought off the Luftwaffe in 1940, then Germany could have eventually bombed us into surrender, without ever needing to invade. There’s only so much Blitz Spirit you can distill for the suffering natives
I don't think it was ever possible for the Germans to establish air supremacy over the UK, or over the Channel.
In 1940, the UK produced 10,000 aircraft, to 8,600 for Germany.
I believe they could have done. But only if Hitler had held off invading the USSR
If he’d done that he would have had the entire industrial productive capacity and manpower of Nazi Europe - from Brest to Budapest, Denmark to Dalmatia - dedicated and available to provide and speed his war machine. He could have outproduced us in every way - eventually overwhelming the RAF - however brave - and after 6 months of limitless carpet bombing we would have surrendered. Is my guess
Luckily for us he was so intent on destroying communism and killing all the Jews in Russia he went east
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
Still disagree on that.
Where existing laws are not logical or fit for purpose (Dangerous Driving) they need to be reframed. Where existing laws are difficult or impossible to enforce (eg antisocial parking) they need to be streamlined.
A good example of where reframing has had a positive effect was Mobile Phone Driving laws being tightened up to remove loopholes a couple of years ago; they are now having more of an impact on the problem.
One which may be going to have a useful impact is possession of Nitrous Oxide being outlawed, which is being categorised as a class C drug aiui. Use of the drug whilst driving is an issue, but it is very difficult to detect by urine or blood samples.
But dangerous driving is both logical and fit for purpose.
If someone is driving dangerously, such as overtaking on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend, then is that operating "far below" the expected standards? Yes, it is. So its already unlawful.
If the law isn't being applied, because of plea bargains, then changing the law won't change that as the CPS will still plea down to the lesser offence anyway as that's what they do all the frigging time.
Yes if there's loopholes or new issues then fixing them may be appropriate, mobile phones being a new technology is an excellent case in point, but there's no loophole that makes dangerous driving lawful, its just the criminal justice system isn't doing its job properly.
Let's leave this for today.
I can take over?
The only reason we even have a "death by dangerous driving" law is because society thinks killing someone with a car is a less serious crime than by other methods.
That's not to say I want more drivers in prison. I think much longer driving bans are the solution, and fines linked to income (or value if the car). A permanent ban should be the default sentence for any death by careless/dangerous.
Well of course it does, because it is a less serious crime.
Just as a train driver who kills someone who is standing on the tracks has committed a less serious crime, if a crime at all.
And just as a cyclist killing someone has committed a less serious crime too, which is why its own crime has existed for centuries too. Its entirely consistent.
In the extremely unlikely event it was deliberate murder, then the charge of murder should be used and can be.
If you drive dangerously and kill someone, why is the maximum sentence for that less severe than that which you could get for manslaughter? Why isn't it manslaughter?
Because juries previously typically wouldn't convict for manslaughter, so the then-new law was introduced in order to get more convictions not fewer.
Which proves the point. A life taken by a driver is seen as less valuable than one taken by anyone else. We need a cultural shift.
Isn't the problem that - particularly for careless driving - most juries will think 'there but for the grace of God'?
The difficulty is distinguishing between momentary lapse and deliberately reckless.
This is why the police need to take obviously reckless driving that has no immediate consequences more seriously. If you are found driving recklessly then subsequently have an accident, you should lose the benefit of the doubt.
Yep, I think MattW makes a good point about the pleading down to careless. The PF/CPS should stick to their guns and go for Dangerous for all cases like that.
Skirtgate. If it's just one girl then someone can send her the money to buy the right sodding skirt rather than spend the rest of the morning arguing about the definition of grey.
The school specifies black skirts from a particular supplier. It also specifies black trousers but does not specify the supplier. By insisting on a particular supplier, the school is in breach of statutory guidance which is clear that parents should be able to purchase generic items such as this from a range of suppliers.
And it affects just one girl. It's very bad and very sad. Let's move on.
No, it doesn't. We only know about one girl who has been put in isolation. There may be others. And, of course, it affects every girl at the school. They are all forced to buy skirts from the official supplier at an inflated price.
Skirtgate. If it's just one girl then someone can send her the money to buy the right sodding skirt rather than spend the rest of the morning arguing about the definition of grey.
The school specifies black skirts from a particular supplier. It also specifies black trousers but does not specify the supplier. By insisting on a particular supplier, the school is in breach of statutory guidance which is clear that parents should be able to purchase generic items such as this from a range of suppliers.
And it affects just one girl. It's very bad and very sad. Let's move on.
No, it doesn't. We only know about one girl who has been put in isolation. There may be others. And, of course, it affects every girl at the school. They are all forced to buy skirts from the official supplier at an inflated price.
Correction, it affects every pupil at the school who chooses to wear a skirt…
Police officers' personal details have been hacked after a third-party supplier was targeted in a cyber attack.
The company in Stockport, which makes warrant cards, holds information on various UK organisations including some of the staff employed by Greater Manchester Police.
The force has confirmed it is aware of the ransomware attack.
A balanced series of local by-elections today. There are 3 Labour defences in Barking and Dagenham, Lincolnshire, and Liverpool; 3 Con defences in Chorley, Lancashire, and Swale.
In WW2 German manpower was chewed up on the Eastern Front. But the Germans allocated the bulk of their resources to defending their homeland from Allied bombing. Can't remember the exact figs but I think it was something like 2/3 of their economic output went on countering the Allied strategic bomber offensive once that really got going from '43 onwards. So that's steel and munitions output that was used for AA guns around cities not for U-boats or tanks, fighter planes denuded in the East to attack the bombers, scarce fuel used to power those fighters, etc, etc. Vast resources used to protect cities all across the country could not be used in the East where the land fighting was taking place. Don't forget the logistical challenges of moving all that material around the country, taking up rail capacity, burning fuel.
The killing of workers, the weakening of morale through bombing happened to an extent, but it wasn't enough to stop the Germans fighting - it perhaps even stiffened the resolve of the Wehrmacht to keep fighting in some ways. But defending against the bombing used up massive resources that couldn't be used elsewhere, reducing pressure on the Soviets in the East and allowing them to tear the Wehrmacht to pieces more easily.
So, if the Russians now have to divert resources to protect their assets that the Ukrainians could conceivably attack, that means there are fewer resources that can be used on the battlefield.
I agree. it’s become some pious delusion in certain quarters - that massive bombing of cities and civilians “doesn’t work”
It doesn't even have to be massive. The Ukrainians aren't droning random office blocks in Moscow for a laugh.
Well, the weather forecast didn't lead me to think I might get the lawn mowed today (it wasn't mowed in the sun last week, as it was hosting a paddling pool).
But you have to provide personal documents - and they get sent to the people making the company application.
Sounds like a fantastic way to get ID for future scams. Genius, the homeowner is obliged to hand over all the documents they are told to protect to a scammer with the government acting as middleman.
In WW2 German manpower was chewed up on the Eastern Front. But the Germans allocated the bulk of their resources to defending their homeland from Allied bombing. Can't remember the exact figs but I think it was something like 2/3 of their economic output went on countering the Allied strategic bomber offensive once that really got going from '43 onwards. So that's steel and munitions output that was used for AA guns around cities not for U-boats or tanks, fighter planes denuded in the East to attack the bombers, scarce fuel used to power those fighters, etc, etc. Vast resources used to protect cities all across the country could not be used in the East where the land fighting was taking place. Don't forget the logistical challenges of moving all that material around the country, taking up rail capacity, burning fuel.
The killing of workers, the weakening of morale through bombing happened to an extent, but it wasn't enough to stop the Germans fighting - it perhaps even stiffened the resolve of the Wehrmacht to keep fighting in some ways. But defending against the bombing used up massive resources that couldn't be used elsewhere, reducing pressure on the Soviets in the East and allowing them to tear the Wehrmacht to pieces more easily.
So, if the Russians now have to divert resources to protect their assets that the Ukrainians could conceivably attack, that means there are fewer resources that can be used on the battlefield.
I don't think it was anything like 2/3 of economic output.
But, yes, the Strategic Bombing Campaign did force the Germans to divert resources to counter it, and it did increasing harm to their manufacturing capacity and transport links as the war went on.
After August 1944, the bombing was heavily degrading Germany's ability to produce munitions.
Maybe not quite, but it was a surprisingly big chunk. The We Have Ways podcast has been looking at this stuff recently - I'm sure they said 2/3 but I could well remembering the wrong figure. But it is certainly surprisingly large. They've cited a book that's on my list to read called 'How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II' by Phillips Payson O'Brien, which uses all the economic data to argue that the strategic bombing campaign played a much bigger role than generally accepted, due to the German resources it sucked up. I think the book's quite controversial in certain quarters.
The podcast throws up really interesting stuff - the amount of minesweepers the Germans had to build to counter the thousand of mines the RAF dropped in coastal waters, for example. Steel that couldn't be used in U-boats. All good stuff.
I had a leg in a cast at two different schools; one state, one private. We had some difficulty getting trousers that met the uniform policy (from their supplier...) and that I could pull over the cast without them being so baggy they fell down all the time and/or looked ridiculous.
The state school insisted. The private school went "Meh, you can't help it," and allowed me to wear something *approximating* the uniform trousers. Or shorts.
OGH's anger worries me, considering this little bit of history: "The Straw Hat Riot of 1922 was a riot that occurred in New York City at the end of the summer as a result of unwritten rules in men's fashions at the time, and a tradition of taunting people who had failed to stop wearing straw hats after autumn began. Originating as a series of minor riots, it spread due to men wearing straw hats past the unofficial date that was deemed socially acceptable, September 15. It lasted eight days, leading to many arrests and some injuries." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_Hat_Riot
Hope reactions don't go that far against those skirts. Especially since removing skirts would cause more problems than removing hats.
In WW2 German manpower was chewed up on the Eastern Front. But the Germans allocated the bulk of their resources to defending their homeland from Allied bombing. Can't remember the exact figs but I think it was something like 2/3 of their economic output went on countering the Allied strategic bomber offensive once that really got going from '43 onwards. So that's steel and munitions output that was used for AA guns around cities not for U-boats or tanks, fighter planes denuded in the East to attack the bombers, scarce fuel used to power those fighters, etc, etc. Vast resources used to protect cities all across the country could not be used in the East where the land fighting was taking place. Don't forget the logistical challenges of moving all that material around the country, taking up rail capacity, burning fuel.
The killing of workers, the weakening of morale through bombing happened to an extent, but it wasn't enough to stop the Germans fighting - it perhaps even stiffened the resolve of the Wehrmacht to keep fighting in some ways. But defending against the bombing used up massive resources that couldn't be used elsewhere, reducing pressure on the Soviets in the East and allowing them to tear the Wehrmacht to pieces more easily.
So, if the Russians now have to divert resources to protect their assets that the Ukrainians could conceivably attack, that means there are fewer resources that can be used on the battlefield.
I agree. it’s become some pious delusion in certain quarters - that massive bombing of cities and civilians “doesn’t work”
It doesn't even have to be massive. The Ukrainians aren't droning random office blocks in Moscow for a laugh.
They won't be droning those blocks *just* for a laugh. It is funny, though.
For some reason, Mathias Rust landing near Red Square was seen as an exception, that due to a really odd sequence of events the air defence systems did not work. Although modern Russia is not the old USSR, I'm starting to think their much-vaunted air defence network has always been a bit cr@p.
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
Still disagree on that.
Where existing laws are not logical or fit for purpose (Dangerous Driving) they need to be reframed. Where existing laws are difficult or impossible to enforce (eg antisocial parking) they need to be streamlined.
A good example of where reframing has had a positive effect was Mobile Phone Driving laws being tightened up to remove loopholes a couple of years ago; they are now having more of an impact on the problem.
One which may be going to have a useful impact is possession of Nitrous Oxide being outlawed, which is being categorised as a class C drug aiui. Use of the drug whilst driving is an issue, but it is very difficult to detect by urine or blood samples.
But dangerous driving is both logical and fit for purpose.
If someone is driving dangerously, such as overtaking on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend, then is that operating "far below" the expected standards? Yes, it is. So its already unlawful.
If the law isn't being applied, because of plea bargains, then changing the law won't change that as the CPS will still plea down to the lesser offence anyway as that's what they do all the frigging time.
Yes if there's loopholes or new issues then fixing them may be appropriate, mobile phones being a new technology is an excellent case in point, but there's no loophole that makes dangerous driving lawful, its just the criminal justice system isn't doing its job properly.
Let's leave this for today.
I can take over?
The only reason we even have a "death by dangerous driving" law is because society thinks killing someone with a car is a less serious crime than by other methods.
That's not to say I want more drivers in prison. I think much longer driving bans are the solution, and fines linked to income (or value if the car). A permanent ban should be the default sentence for any death by careless/dangerous.
Well of course it does, because it is a less serious crime.
Just as a train driver who kills someone who is standing on the tracks has committed a less serious crime, if a crime at all.
And just as a cyclist killing someone has committed a less serious crime too, which is why its own crime has existed for centuries too. Its entirely consistent.
In the extremely unlikely event it was deliberate murder, then the charge of murder should be used and can be.
If you drive dangerously and kill someone, why is the maximum sentence for that less severe than that which you could get for manslaughter? Why isn't it manslaughter?
Because juries previously typically wouldn't convict for manslaughter, so the then-new law was introduced in order to get more convictions not fewer.
Which proves the point. A life taken by a driver is seen as less valuable than one taken by anyone else. We need a cultural shift.
Is it that the life is less valued, or is it because in examining the cases jurymen often thought "but for the grace of God...".
Driving is inherently somewhat dangerous. Almost all drivers have done something stupid and got away with it. Viciously penalising those whose moments of stupidity coincided with a dose of bad luck and as a result somebody died seems quite unfair, so I'm not supprised juries wouldn't convict for manslaughter in many of them.
I had a bad smash a few years ago, a woman woeful misjudged pulling out of a sideroad and turning right, and I pretty much cut her car in half with a Landrover travelling at 60mph. She was lucky not to kill both of us. I explicitly told the plod I didn't want her to be prosecuted. What was the point - she'd just discovered how cutting things too fine (she freely admitted she'd seen me coming, and had just misjudged the availabile gap) can result in your car being converted into scrap metal in short order, she was going to have a fairly sore neck for a week or so and doubtless an expensive insurance renewal. I'd be surprised if she wasn't pretty careful at junctions for a good while afterwards too. Why prosecute (careless driving would have been a shoe in) and just add more misery to that already caused by her mistake?
Another Russian S-400 system taken out with Ukrainian Neptune missiles. Also 42 Russian artillery pieces claimed today.
It's becoming increasingly clear that Ukraine is developing an advantage over Russia in terms of long range missiles, drones and artillery. Russia is not able to protect its most important military assets.
The Ukranians have had a good week this week.
The air defence systems in particular, are difficult, costly, and time-consuming to repair or replace in the field. Expect a few more Storm Shadows heading for Crimea tonight, again aimed at critical naval infrastructure, while the air defences are weakened.
In WW2 German manpower was chewed up on the Eastern Front. But the Germans allocated the bulk of their resources to defending their homeland from Allied bombing. Can't remember the exact figs but I think it was something like 2/3 of their economic output went on countering the Allied strategic bomber offensive once that really got going from '43 onwards. So that's steel and munitions output that was used for AA guns around cities not for U-boats or tanks, fighter planes denuded in the East to attack the bombers, scarce fuel used to power those fighters, etc, etc. Vast resources used to protect cities all across the country could not be used in the East where the land fighting was taking place. Don't forget the logistical challenges of moving all that material around the country, taking up rail capacity, burning fuel.
The killing of workers, the weakening of morale through bombing happened to an extent, but it wasn't enough to stop the Germans fighting - it perhaps even stiffened the resolve of the Wehrmacht to keep fighting in some ways. But defending against the bombing used up massive resources that couldn't be used elsewhere, reducing pressure on the Soviets in the East and allowing them to tear the Wehrmacht to pieces more easily.
So, if the Russians now have to divert resources to protect their assets that the Ukrainians could conceivably attack, that means there are fewer resources that can be used on the battlefield.
I agree. it’s become some pious delusion in certain quarters - that massive bombing of cities and civilians “doesn’t work”
It doesn't even have to be massive. The Ukrainians aren't droning random office blocks in Moscow for a laugh.
Fuck knows whether you're getting any shillings for your shilling, but you are just a Putin shill
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
Still disagree on that.
Where existing laws are not logical or fit for purpose (Dangerous Driving) they need to be reframed. Where existing laws are difficult or impossible to enforce (eg antisocial parking) they need to be streamlined.
A good example of where reframing has had a positive effect was Mobile Phone Driving laws being tightened up to remove loopholes a couple of years ago; they are now having more of an impact on the problem.
One which may be going to have a useful impact is possession of Nitrous Oxide being outlawed, which is being categorised as a class C drug aiui. Use of the drug whilst driving is an issue, but it is very difficult to detect by urine or blood samples.
But dangerous driving is both logical and fit for purpose.
If someone is driving dangerously, such as overtaking on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend, then is that operating "far below" the expected standards? Yes, it is. So its already unlawful.
If the law isn't being applied, because of plea bargains, then changing the law won't change that as the CPS will still plea down to the lesser offence anyway as that's what they do all the frigging time.
Yes if there's loopholes or new issues then fixing them may be appropriate, mobile phones being a new technology is an excellent case in point, but there's no loophole that makes dangerous driving lawful, its just the criminal justice system isn't doing its job properly.
Let's leave this for today.
I can take over?
The only reason we even have a "death by dangerous driving" law is because society thinks killing someone with a car is a less serious crime than by other methods.
That's not to say I want more drivers in prison. I think much longer driving bans are the solution, and fines linked to income (or value if the car). A permanent ban should be the default sentence for any death by careless/dangerous.
Well of course it does, because it is a less serious crime.
Just as a train driver who kills someone who is standing on the tracks has committed a less serious crime, if a crime at all.
And just as a cyclist killing someone has committed a less serious crime too, which is why its own crime has existed for centuries too. Its entirely consistent.
In the extremely unlikely event it was deliberate murder, then the charge of murder should be used and can be.
If you drive dangerously and kill someone, why is the maximum sentence for that less severe than that which you could get for manslaughter? Why isn't it manslaughter?
Because juries previously typically wouldn't convict for manslaughter, so the then-new law was introduced in order to get more convictions not fewer.
Which proves the point. A life taken by a driver is seen as less valuable than one taken by anyone else. We need a cultural shift.
Is it that the life is less valued, or is it because in examining the cases jurymen often thought "but for the grace of God...".
Driving is inherently somewhat dangerous. Almost all drivers have done something stupid and got away with it. Viciously penalising those whose moments of stupidity coincided with a dose of bad luck and as a result somebody died seems quite unfair, so I'm not supprised juries wouldn't convict for manslaughter in many of them.
I had a bad smash a few years ago, a woman woeful misjudged pulling out of a sideroad and turning right, and I pretty much cut her car in half with a Landrover travelling at 60mph. She was lucky not to kill both of us. I explicitly told the plod I didn't want her to be prosecuted. What was the point - she'd just discovered how cutting things too fine (she freely admitted she'd seen me coming, and had just misjudged the availabile gap) can result in your car being converted into scrap metal in short order, she was going to have a fairly sore neck for a week or so and doubtless an expensive insurance renewal. I'd be surprised if she wasn't pretty careful at junctions for a good while afterwards too. Why prosecute (careless driving would have been a shoe in) and just add more misery to that already caused by her mistake?
It should be made clear to jurors that they shouldn't make a distinction.
In WW2 German manpower was chewed up on the Eastern Front. But the Germans allocated the bulk of their resources to defending their homeland from Allied bombing. Can't remember the exact figs but I think it was something like 2/3 of their economic output went on countering the Allied strategic bomber offensive once that really got going from '43 onwards. So that's steel and munitions output that was used for AA guns around cities not for U-boats or tanks, fighter planes denuded in the East to attack the bombers, scarce fuel used to power those fighters, etc, etc. Vast resources used to protect cities all across the country could not be used in the East where the land fighting was taking place. Don't forget the logistical challenges of moving all that material around the country, taking up rail capacity, burning fuel.
The killing of workers, the weakening of morale through bombing happened to an extent, but it wasn't enough to stop the Germans fighting - it perhaps even stiffened the resolve of the Wehrmacht to keep fighting in some ways. But defending against the bombing used up massive resources that couldn't be used elsewhere, reducing pressure on the Soviets in the East and allowing them to tear the Wehrmacht to pieces more easily.
So, if the Russians now have to divert resources to protect their assets that the Ukrainians could conceivably attack, that means there are fewer resources that can be used on the battlefield.
I don't think it was anything like 2/3 of economic output.
But, yes, the Strategic Bombing Campaign did force the Germans to divert resources to counter it, and it did increasing harm to their manufacturing capacity and transport links as the war went on.
After August 1944, the bombing was heavily degrading Germany's ability to produce munitions.
Maybe not quite, but it was a surprisingly big chunk. The We Have Ways podcast has been looking at this stuff recently - I'm sure they said 2/3 but I could well remembering the wrong figure. But it is certainly surprisingly large. They've cited a book that's on my list to read called 'How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II' by Phillips Payson O'Brien, which uses all the economic data to argue that the strategic bombing campaign played a much bigger role than generally accepted, due to the German resources it sucked up. I think the book's quite controversial in certain quarters.
The podcast throws up really interesting stuff - the amount of minesweepers the Germans had to build to counter the thousand of mines the RAF dropped in coastal waters, for example. Steel that couldn't be used in U-boats. All good stuff.
Plus Gardening (slang/code for aerial minelaying) was also excellent for providing cribs for Ultra.
The RAF knew where they were dropping the mines. The German reports on aerial mislaying by the enemy were a standard format, with most of the test, apart from the location, identical. So they knew the exact contents of the messages the Germans were sending out.
If you have the plaintext and cipher text of multiple messages, that is the classic way into an encryption system. Better yet, the Germans broadcast the same messages in multiple encryption systems.
OGH's anger worries me, considering this little bit of history: "The Straw Hat Riot of 1922 was a riot that occurred in New York City at the end of the summer as a result of unwritten rules in men's fashions at the time, and a tradition of taunting people who had failed to stop wearing straw hats after autumn began. Originating as a series of minor riots, it spread due to men wearing straw hats past the unofficial date that was deemed socially acceptable, September 15. It lasted eight days, leading to many arrests and some injuries." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_Hat_Riot
Hope reactions don't go that far against those skirts. Especially since removing skirts would cause more problems than removing hats.
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
Still disagree on that.
Where existing laws are not logical or fit for purpose (Dangerous Driving) they need to be reframed. Where existing laws are difficult or impossible to enforce (eg antisocial parking) they need to be streamlined.
A good example of where reframing has had a positive effect was Mobile Phone Driving laws being tightened up to remove loopholes a couple of years ago; they are now having more of an impact on the problem.
One which may be going to have a useful impact is possession of Nitrous Oxide being outlawed, which is being categorised as a class C drug aiui. Use of the drug whilst driving is an issue, but it is very difficult to detect by urine or blood samples.
But dangerous driving is both logical and fit for purpose.
If someone is driving dangerously, such as overtaking on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend, then is that operating "far below" the expected standards? Yes, it is. So its already unlawful.
If the law isn't being applied, because of plea bargains, then changing the law won't change that as the CPS will still plea down to the lesser offence anyway as that's what they do all the frigging time.
Yes if there's loopholes or new issues then fixing them may be appropriate, mobile phones being a new technology is an excellent case in point, but there's no loophole that makes dangerous driving lawful, its just the criminal justice system isn't doing its job properly.
Let's leave this for today.
I can take over?
The only reason we even have a "death by dangerous driving" law is because society thinks killing someone with a car is a less serious crime than by other methods.
That's not to say I want more drivers in prison. I think much longer driving bans are the solution, and fines linked to income (or value if the car). A permanent ban should be the default sentence for any death by careless/dangerous.
A cultural shift is certainly in order. The freedom to pilot a couple of tons of metal at high speed around people should be seen as the privilege and great responsibility that it is, not as a God-given right. If that privilege is abused, it should be taken away. As I give driving lessons to my own lad, I'm always trying to instil an appreciation of this responsibility, to make him aware that he has a duty of care towards all other road users while driving.
OGH's anger worries me, considering this little bit of history: "The Straw Hat Riot of 1922 was a riot that occurred in New York City at the end of the summer as a result of unwritten rules in men's fashions at the time, and a tradition of taunting people who had failed to stop wearing straw hats after autumn began. Originating as a series of minor riots, it spread due to men wearing straw hats past the unofficial date that was deemed socially acceptable, September 15. It lasted eight days, leading to many arrests and some injuries." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_Hat_Riot
Hope reactions don't go that far against those skirts. Especially since removing skirts would cause more problems than removing hats.
That's nothing. The Highlanders had their kilt (both the small and great feile) banned after 1746, on the mainland anyway. The inn just opposite the mainland on the Isle of Seil is still called House of Trousers because everyone had to change there ...
In WW2 German manpower was chewed up on the Eastern Front. But the Germans allocated the bulk of their resources to defending their homeland from Allied bombing. Can't remember the exact figs but I think it was something like 2/3 of their economic output went on countering the Allied strategic bomber offensive once that really got going from '43 onwards. So that's steel and munitions output that was used for AA guns around cities not for U-boats or tanks, fighter planes denuded in the East to attack the bombers, scarce fuel used to power those fighters, etc, etc. Vast resources used to protect cities all across the country could not be used in the East where the land fighting was taking place. Don't forget the logistical challenges of moving all that material around the country, taking up rail capacity, burning fuel.
The killing of workers, the weakening of morale through bombing happened to an extent, but it wasn't enough to stop the Germans fighting - it perhaps even stiffened the resolve of the Wehrmacht to keep fighting in some ways. But defending against the bombing used up massive resources that couldn't be used elsewhere, reducing pressure on the Soviets in the East and allowing them to tear the Wehrmacht to pieces more easily.
So, if the Russians now have to divert resources to protect their assets that the Ukrainians could conceivably attack, that means there are fewer resources that can be used on the battlefield.
I don't think it was anything like 2/3 of economic output.
But, yes, the Strategic Bombing Campaign did force the Germans to divert resources to counter it, and it did increasing harm to their manufacturing capacity and transport links as the war went on.
After August 1944, the bombing was heavily degrading Germany's ability to produce munitions.
It was also causing mass dislocations of German people - refugees fleeing cities, trains full of homeless families, the injured clogging up hospitals, denial of workers for German factories
Of COURSE it had a major impact
I suspect that if the RAF hadn’t brilliantly fought off the Luftwaffe in 1940, then Germany could have eventually bombed us into surrender, without ever needing to invade. There’s only so much Blitz Spirit you can distill for the suffering natives
I don't think it was ever possible for the Germans to establish air supremacy over the UK, or over the Channel.
In 1940, the UK produced 10,000 aircraft, to 8,600 for Germany.
I believe they could have done. But only if Hitler had held off invading the USSR
If he’d done that he would have had the entire industrial productive capacity and manpower of Nazi Europe - from Brest to Budapest, Denmark to Dalmatia - dedicated and available to provide and speed his war machine. He could have outproduced us in every way - eventually overwhelming the RAF - however brave - and after 6 months of limitless carpet bombing we would have surrendered. Is my guess
Luckily for us he was so intent on destroying communism and killing all the Jews in Russia he went east
This runs counter to any accepted view of Nazi Germany and how it operated. Germany only really tried to mobilize for total war when the war was already lost. The idea that Hitler would actually plan an economy is for the birds - the Germans spent years making over complicated, beautiful weapons of war (the Tigers I and II, the Me109 and Focke Wolfe) but simply never grasped the idea of mass production. Hence the UK, USA and USSR were able to overwhelm them with often technically less able, but vastly more numerous weapons. The ability for replace lost tanks, for instance, was hugely significant in Normandy. The allies could sustain huge losses or armour, often with the bulk of the men surviving, and overnight bring forward the replacement tanks. Once German tanks were gone, that was it, most often.
Its a bit like Stephen Fry's counterfactual where Hitler is killed but a more ruthless leader emerges who uses the Jews and then sterilizes them. Or like the wargamers who show how Germany could have won in Russia if everything went right for the Germans and wrong for the Russians.
What would we have done if they had shot it down? 30 crew.
I do wonder about the missile missing though. You don't have planes packed with electronics without budgeting for some interesting countermeasures.
If it had actually been shot down, could have been the ‘oh sh!t’ moment that saw a massive escalation in direct NATO involvement in this war, at least from the air.
One has to LOL at them being unable to hit such a large and slow-moving target. It was nearly as big as that Malaysian plane they took out at 37,000’ from the ground a few years ago. Yes, the Rivet Joint does have a slew of countermeasures, sadly somewhat more than a civvy 777.
In WW2 German manpower was chewed up on the Eastern Front. But the Germans allocated the bulk of their resources to defending their homeland from Allied bombing. Can't remember the exact figs but I think it was something like 2/3 of their economic output went on countering the Allied strategic bomber offensive once that really got going from '43 onwards. So that's steel and munitions output that was used for AA guns around cities not for U-boats or tanks, fighter planes denuded in the East to attack the bombers, scarce fuel used to power those fighters, etc, etc. Vast resources used to protect cities all across the country could not be used in the East where the land fighting was taking place. Don't forget the logistical challenges of moving all that material around the country, taking up rail capacity, burning fuel.
The killing of workers, the weakening of morale through bombing happened to an extent, but it wasn't enough to stop the Germans fighting - it perhaps even stiffened the resolve of the Wehrmacht to keep fighting in some ways. But defending against the bombing used up massive resources that couldn't be used elsewhere, reducing pressure on the Soviets in the East and allowing them to tear the Wehrmacht to pieces more easily.
So, if the Russians now have to divert resources to protect their assets that the Ukrainians could conceivably attack, that means there are fewer resources that can be used on the battlefield.
I don't think it was anything like 2/3 of economic output.
But, yes, the Strategic Bombing Campaign did force the Germans to divert resources to counter it, and it did increasing harm to their manufacturing capacity and transport links as the war went on.
After August 1944, the bombing was heavily degrading Germany's ability to produce munitions.
Maybe not quite, but it was a surprisingly big chunk. The We Have Ways podcast has been looking at this stuff recently - I'm sure they said 2/3 but I could well remembering the wrong figure. But it is certainly surprisingly large. They've cited a book that's on my list to read called 'How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II' by Phillips Payson O'Brien, which uses all the economic data to argue that the strategic bombing campaign played a much bigger role than generally accepted, due to the German resources it sucked up. I think the book's quite controversial in certain quarters.
The podcast throws up really interesting stuff - the amount of minesweepers the Germans had to build to counter the thousand of mines the RAF dropped in coastal waters, for example. Steel that couldn't be used in U-boats. All good stuff.
John Keegan's view of the bombing war (specifically the resources allocated to Bomber Command) was that it didn't achieve enough for the price paid. He's the expert so I defer to him, but I wonder how much of the economic factors he considered, and the the impacts of Pointblank etc on Normandy. It seems to me that while the cost was huge, the effects on Germany were vast and while bombing didn't win the war on its own, it almost certainly made victory in the West possible. After all, image Normandy with a decent German air force presence...
Just catching up with Rishi Sunak General Election Hail Mary Pass number 56.
We've had "I'll stop funding LTNs" from numpty Mark Harper, before he even knew what one was. We've had "Govt will cancel the ULEZ under the GLA Act 1999", before they discovered it would not be a suitable use of the power. We've had ambitions for Active Travel essentially abolished to shave about 1p off the price of petrol for a few months. We've had "Number Plates for Cyclists" by numpty Grant Shapps, whilst he was in possession of a report from his own department explaining why the proposal was BS.
Now we have legislative time to create Death / Serious Injury by Dangerous Cycling.
A comprehensive review of road legislation was promised in 2018 or so, and everyone in the field has been asking for it to happen since, which would give a chance for thought not PR stunts, incorporate the above and many other things which are needed, including putting rational definitions in place for "Dangerous" and "Careless".
Govt Response: Crickets and Arse Sitting.
Of the 8 or 9 occurrences of pedestrian death caused by collision with a cyclist over the last decade, I can only think of *one* where the cyclist did not receive a prison sentence - that was Robert Mobey.
Meanwhile it is unusual for a motor vehicle driver where a pedestrian is killed in a collision to get a prison sentence. The last number I saw was one in ten.
What a shitshow this Govt has become.
Add suspended and it would be much more. However it is obviously less likely a cyclist would kill a pedestrian than a driver even if both were just careless, however it can still happen.
There is therefore no reason you cannot have death by dangerous and careless driving for cyclists as we already have for motor vehicle drivers
We already do. It's death by wantonly and furiously cycling which is a law for centuries already so what is the reason for a new law?
Tragic accidents happen and that simply is part of life, if there's been a tragic accident then there's no reason for anyone to be imprisoned. If it's negligence though, then there would be.
If a pedestrian without looking steps onto a road and is hit by a cyclist/driver and dies then that's tragic and the cyclist/driver has to live with that for the rest of their life despite doing perhaps nothing wrong. Prison isn't appropriate there.
If on the other hand a pedestrian is killed by someone illegally driving or cycling on a pavement, then that's a different matter.
Each case needs to be looked at its own merits, but there's no need for new laws as we already have existing ones.
Most of your comment is fair - however the last paragraph ignores that where existing law is an illogical mess, it desperately needs to be redrawn.
Take careless driving, which is defined as a less serious version of dangerous driving - "below" and "far below" 'standards expected of a careful and competent driver'.
The upshot of that is that inherently dangerous behaviour, such as overtaking round a blind bend or over a blind brow on the wrong side of the road, or driving for a distance at high speed (say 50mph) into a blinding sunset, is often charged as "careless", or a charge of dangerous driving plea bargained with the CPS down to a guilty plea for careless.
Careless is to do with inattention; dangerous is a different category of behaviour, not a difference of degree.
Which is why a comprehensive review is required.
Plea bargains are a part of the legal system, I don't like them though at least we're not as bad as America with them.
But the language as used seems reasonable to me, given it needs to be phrased in language 'a reasonable person' can understand if it ends up before a jury.
If someone is acting dangerously, as you say, then absolutely that is far below the standards expected, so the existing law already applies.
I think you're wrong on that, and a greater familiarity with how actual cases are actually charged might change your view.
But I'm not about to begin peppering PB with scores of dangerous drivers running down pedestrians and cyclists videos, or vids where deliberate assaults by driving at people on cycles were charged as careless, PBers will be glad to hear.
I'm glad you're not going to, because that's no different to almost any walk of life. The problem is not the law, the problem is the criminal justice system and the law does not get applied.
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
Still disagree on that.
Where existing laws are not logical or fit for purpose (Dangerous Driving) they need to be reframed. Where existing laws are difficult or impossible to enforce (eg antisocial parking) they need to be streamlined.
A good example of where reframing has had a positive effect was Mobile Phone Driving laws being tightened up to remove loopholes a couple of years ago; they are now having more of an impact on the problem.
One which may be going to have a useful impact is possession of Nitrous Oxide being outlawed, which is being categorised as a class C drug aiui. Use of the drug whilst driving is an issue, but it is very difficult to detect by urine or blood samples.
But dangerous driving is both logical and fit for purpose.
If someone is driving dangerously, such as overtaking on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend, then is that operating "far below" the expected standards? Yes, it is. So its already unlawful.
If the law isn't being applied, because of plea bargains, then changing the law won't change that as the CPS will still plea down to the lesser offence anyway as that's what they do all the frigging time.
Yes if there's loopholes or new issues then fixing them may be appropriate, mobile phones being a new technology is an excellent case in point, but there's no loophole that makes dangerous driving lawful, its just the criminal justice system isn't doing its job properly.
Let's leave this for today.
I can take over?
The only reason we even have a "death by dangerous driving" law is because society thinks killing someone with a car is a less serious crime than by other methods.
That's not to say I want more drivers in prison. I think much longer driving bans are the solution, and fines linked to income (or value if the car). A permanent ban should be the default sentence for any death by careless/dangerous.
Well of course it does, because it is a less serious crime.
Just as a train driver who kills someone who is standing on the tracks has committed a less serious crime, if a crime at all.
And just as a cyclist killing someone has committed a less serious crime too, which is why its own crime has existed for centuries too. Its entirely consistent.
In the extremely unlikely event it was deliberate murder, then the charge of murder should be used and can be.
If you drive dangerously and kill someone, why is the maximum sentence for that less severe than that which you could get for manslaughter? Why isn't it manslaughter?
Because juries previously typically wouldn't convict for manslaughter, so the then-new law was introduced in order to get more convictions not fewer.
Which proves the point. A life taken by a driver is seen as less valuable than one taken by anyone else. We need a cultural shift.
Why?
It's not the value of the life, it's the person on trial.
If a cyclist accidentally killed someone, and it happens, should it be manslaughter?
There's been other charges that exist for centuries because quite rightly tragic accidents aren't considered manslaughter, which has a higher bar, but there's still a way to hold the perpetrator to account.
And in the unlikely event it does amount to murder or manslaughter to those are still options too.
On topic... We moved around a lot when I was growing up (Dad was in the oil industry) so uniforms changed frequently. My older brothers both had uniforms in primary (late 70s) and secondary (80s) school.
My primary school didn't have a uniform. It used some common sense and trusted parents to dress their children suitably. Trousers were always dark (except in the summer when you could wear lighter colours or shorts); a shirt or polo/t-shirt and a jumper/sweater. There were no restrictions on colour or pattern - my school photos show me a in Lego jumper from M&S. Footwear again had to be sensible (no basketball boots) and usually from Clarks in the village.
Of course, the school was stupid. They realised that children looked after their own clothes better than a school uniform. Go home at the end of the second week of term in torn trousers or a ripped jumper and you'd be in for a hiding from your parents!
When it came to high school, it was simple uniform. White shirt/blouse, black trousers/skirt, black blazer. You could buy them from any shop. The only restriction was the red school tie had to bought from a clothes shop in the village and you (Mum) had to sew the school logo patch onto the blazer. It was pragmatic.
As an aside, when we moved to Sussex in the early 90s, I was just going to secondary school. The school shop in the well-heeled town sold us everything - blazer, knitwear, trousers, white shirts, blue shirts, socks. When I turned up fully-kitted out, neither the head of year nor the headmaster were amused with the shop. It wasn't necessary. All that was needed was a school jumper and a tie. No blazers. No shirts. No socks. No trousers. They made the shop refund everything. Trousers, shirts and socks inevitably came from M&S.
I really don't know what schools are playing at with the uniform issue. Instead of worrying about what a child is dressed in, worry about whether they can read and bloody write.
Comments
These days there are plenty of guided munitions around which will fairly reliably hit things like selected moving vehicles, never mind merely targeting an installation at a known location - therefore picking and prioitising targets becomes much more of an issue - and one which it seems the Russians often do badly.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/14/four-met-officers-face-disciplinary-hearings-over-schoolgirl-strip-search
Four Metropolitan police officers are to face disciplinary proceedings over the strip-search of a 15-year-old schoolgirl known as Child Q.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said three of the officers faced accusations of gross misconduct over the search, carried out at a school in Hackney, east London, in December 2020. It is alleged that the decision to carry out the search, while the girl was on her period, was inappropriate; Child Q was discriminated against because of her race and sex; there was no appropriate adult present; and the officers did not get authorisation from a supervisor.
The fourth officer will have a lesser disciplinary meeting over the absence of an appropriate adult.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/14/four-met-officers-face-disciplinary-hearings-over-schoolgirl-strip-search?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I was a witness to people breaking into a premises and robbing it. A passing Police officer also heard the alarm going off and arrested them red handed loading stolen TVs into their boot. I gave a witness statement and was called as a prosecution witness. 4 times I had to go to court, 3 times the case got postponed. I was told the perps weren't pleading guilty in advance as they were hoping I wouldn't turn up as a witness so my testimony would be inadmissible, which apparently happens a lot. 4th time as soon as I arrived I was told by the prosecutor "since you're here, they've decided to plead guilty to handling stolen goods" as a lesser offence than the breaking and entering and the prosecutor accepted the plea.
The criminal justice system is broken. We don't need new laws, we need to apply the laws we already have. That's true with dangerous driving, but its true with a plethora of other crimes too.
https://x.com/sajidjavid/status/1702260760825520606?s=20
Another Russian S-400 system taken out with Ukrainian Neptune missiles. Also 42 Russian artillery pieces claimed today.
It's becoming increasingly clear that Ukraine is developing an advantage over Russia in terms of long range missiles, drones and artillery. Russia is not able to protect its most important military assets.
Another night, another Ukrainian strike on Crimea. Either an S-400 or S-300 battery hit by 🇺🇦 Neptune missiles after a drone barrage near Yevpatoria. Russian propagandists also acknowledge that Russian patrol ship Vasily Bykov sustained “non-critical” damage from a 🇺🇦 naval drone
https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1702268592161738801?s=20
The 'done right' bit, of course, being vastly more important than any magical effect of having school uniforms (or not having them).
Russian missile production is reportedly now greater than it was before sanctions were imposed.
But it's undeniably good news when their high end kit gets blown up.
The system is gone, radar and control center. Also the crew.😈
https://x.com/PStyle0ne1/status/1702270441430118579?s=20
So no worse than Churchill (on the bombing civilians metric)?
If the version of history that says that Churchill ordered this to make Hitler retaliate against London rather than bombing the RAF is true, does it make Winston an expert strategist, or an evil man who sacrificed his own civilians?
If you asked people in England then, or Ukraine now, would you prefer the Nazis to bomb you or your defences, the "Blitz Spirit" would apply
The Russians seem to be sending more Shahed-style drones, too, after starting domestic production of them, but Ukraine's air defences are better at defending against them than Russia's are against Ukrainian drones.
The advantage is seen in outcomes, not in the number of munitions that can be fired.
Another one is (particularly) white van men or other types of road rage driver who hunt people down who they think did something wrong, knock them over with their vehicles, then get out and beat them unconscious. Think about the one where the dog was run over if the road rage reversing driver had followed through. Plenty of those are around on video, too.
Police forces are still learning how to deal with it, and we don't have national guidelines yet. Some forces are good, some are lazy, and some just try to pretend that it does not exist and refuse to address anything.
I suspect the NATO satellite and aircraft data is more valuable than anyone is admitting, although it has obviously been discussed.
Edit: Though it is likely that only the civilian hits are reported, of course...
Is that a good sign?
The Police, the CPS and the Courts can all be not fit for purpose.
And anyone who commits assault with a vehicle (or otherwise) absolutely should be held to account for their actions. No excuses.
Changing the law to re-criminalise that which is already illegal won't do anything. We need root and branch reform of the criminal justice system and for existing laws to be enforced.
In order to hit a military target from the air, you had little option but to use incendiaries, in WWII.
But did the Luftwaffe target civilians in the UK before the RAF bombed Berlin?
Where existing laws are not logical or fit for purpose (Dangerous Driving) they need to be reframed. Where existing laws are difficult or impossible to enforce (eg antisocial parking) they need to be streamlined.
The latter not being addressed has created a culture of this form of antisocial behaviour being regarded as acceptable, and it will now require quite harsh measures to being under control.
A good example of where reframing has had a positive effect was Mobile Phone Driving laws being tightened up to remove loopholes a couple of years ago; they are now having more of an impact on the problem.
One which may be going to have a useful impact is possession of Nitrous Oxide being outlawed, which is being categorised as a class C drug aiui. Use of the drug whilst driving is an issue, but it is very difficult to detect by urine or blood samples.
So rephrase the question properly, "did the Luftwffe target allied civilians before the RAF bombed Berlin" and the answer is yes.
So a good start but the quality and design needs to be improved and the locals need to be listened to. There is a strong Civic Society here which has been involved but a lot of deadbeat councillors who are not helping.
However the salient point is wrong: Ukraine IS attacking Russia Proper as well as Putin’s Greater Russia (ie Crimea)
Drones on Moscow, missiles hitting Russian airfields, explosions in Russian army camps, bombs under cars of Russian bigwigs in Russia (like Miss Dugin). It is a proper destroy and disrupt campaign inside Russia, and it could be more effective than the desperate trudge through the mines of the Dnieper mud
If someone is driving dangerously, such as overtaking on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend, then is that operating "far below" the expected standards? Yes, it is. So its already unlawful.
If the law isn't being applied, because of plea bargains, then changing the law won't change that as the CPS will still plea down to the lesser offence anyway as that's what they do all the frigging time.
Yes if there's loopholes or new issues then fixing them may be appropriate, mobile phones being a new technology is an excellent case in point, but there's no loophole that makes dangerous driving lawful, its just the criminal justice system isn't doing its job properly.
The Battle of Britain was effectively over by the time the Blitz proper began.
PARFAIT
The sweetness of living, indeed
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001qg95/a-very-singular-man-a-film-portrait-of-edward-heath
In WW2 German manpower was chewed up on the Eastern Front. But the Germans allocated the bulk of their resources to defending their homeland from Allied bombing. Can't remember the exact figs but I think it was something like 2/3 of their economic output went on countering the Allied strategic bomber offensive once that really got going from '43 onwards. So that's steel and munitions output that was used for AA guns around cities not for U-boats or tanks, fighter planes denuded in the East to attack the bombers, scarce fuel used to power those fighters, etc, etc. Vast resources used to protect cities all across the country could not be used in the East where the land fighting was taking place. Don't forget the logistical challenges of moving all that material around the country, taking up rail capacity, burning fuel.
The killing of workers, the weakening of morale through bombing happened to an extent, but it wasn't enough to stop the Germans fighting - it perhaps even stiffened the resolve of the Wehrmacht to keep fighting in some ways. But defending against the bombing used up massive resources that couldn't be used elsewhere, reducing pressure on the Soviets in the East and allowing them to tear the Wehrmacht to pieces more easily.
So, if the Russians now have to divert resources to protect their assets that the Ukrainians could conceivably attack, that means there are fewer resources that can be used on the battlefield.
You can see the shrapnel scars on the monument
https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/76280
The death was here -
https://www.google.com/maps/@58.9823783,-3.2520991,3a,75y,44.42h,89.54t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1siKHUGUJB8FAK70Lznvliwg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66798508
What would we have done if they had shot it down? 30 crew.
I do wonder about the missile missing though. You don't have planes packed with electronics without budgeting for some interesting countermeasures.
The only reason we even have a "death by dangerous driving" law is because society thinks killing someone with a car is a less serious crime than by other methods.
That's not to say I want more drivers in prison. I think much longer driving bans are the solution, and fines linked to income (or value if the car). A permanent ban should be the default sentence for any death by careless/dangerous.
"You armed yourself with a kitchen knife and threatened to stab one of the police officers, which caused untold fear. Only a custodial sentence can be justified but I won't send you to prison."
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/drunk-man-pulled-out-carving-27708882
It is nonsense. As we have debated before, the ultimate test - and answer - is the two A bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, alongside the conventional firestorm bombing of Tokyo. It wasn’t the military damage wrought by these bombs that brought Japan to heel, it was the tragic, overwhelming loss of life, and cities, and the certain knowledge that America could do the same to every single Japanese city, killing tens of millions
Japan surrendered a dew days later, unconditionally
Bomber Harris’ devastation of Germany (with the great help of the Americans) may not have entirely won the war by itself, but by God it fucked up German cities, led to intense chaos, fear, panic, and - as you say - forced the Germans to defend the Home Front when the Soviets were racing across Belarussia towards Berlin
The results were not disseminated well - many in the RAF had no idea what was being achieved . There was an element of disbelief - from having problems hitting the right half of Germany in 1942 , to hitting individual blast furnaces seemed incredible.
Just as a train driver who kills someone who is standing on the tracks has committed a less serious crime, if a crime at all.
And just as a cyclist killing someone has committed a less serious crime too, which is why its own crime has existed for centuries too. Its entirely consistent.
In the extremely unlikely event it was deliberate murder, then the charge of murder should be used and can be.
RC-135 has RWR and AN/ALE-47 CDMS. Might work. Might not.
But, yes, the Strategic Bombing Campaign did force the Germans to divert resources to counter it, and it did increasing harm to their manufacturing capacity and transport links as the war went on.
After August 1944, the bombing was heavily degrading Germany's ability to produce munitions.
This is the 70 fake companies in one street twitter thread I mentioned recently:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-66773673
Of COURSE it had a major impact
I suspect that if the RAF hadn’t brilliantly fought off the Luftwaffe in 1940, then Germany could have eventually bombed us into surrender, without ever needing to invade. There’s only so much Blitz Spirit you can distill for the suffering natives
They are very accurate when they work. JDAM CEP = 5m.
In 1940, the UK produced 10,000 aircraft, to 8,600 for Germany.
I think the reason for that is, technically, a suspended prison sentence is classified as a custodial sentence. So the guy has been given a sentence of ten months in prison but there will be an order behind that saying it will not be enforced if he complies with certain conditions. If he committed another offence within a specified period, he'd get whatever the punishment was for that, plus the ten months would be unsuspended and he'd go to prison. Similarly, if he broke other conditions on community service, staying away from a particular location or whatever.
The difficulty is distinguishing between momentary lapse and deliberately reckless.
This is why the police need to take obviously reckless driving that has no immediate consequences more seriously. If you are found driving recklessly then subsequently have an accident, you should lose the benefit of the doubt.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1179713/RP07_V2.0.pdf
But you have to provide personal documents - and they get sent to the people making the company application.
If he’d done that he would have had the entire industrial productive capacity and manpower of Nazi Europe - from Brest to Budapest, Denmark to Dalmatia - dedicated and available to provide and speed his war machine. He could have outproduced us in every way - eventually overwhelming the RAF - however brave - and after 6 months of limitless carpet bombing we would have surrendered. Is my guess
Luckily for us he was so intent on destroying communism and killing all the Jews in Russia he went east
Police officers' personal details have been hacked after a third-party supplier was targeted in a cyber attack.
The company in Stockport, which makes warrant cards, holds information on various UK organisations including some of the staff employed by Greater Manchester Police.
The force has confirmed it is aware of the ransomware attack.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-66810756
The west is basically Wales - stunning to look at, between the downpours.
Well, the weather forecast didn't lead me to think I might get the lawn mowed today (it wasn't mowed in the sun last week, as it was hosting a paddling pool).
The podcast throws up really interesting stuff - the amount of minesweepers the Germans had to build to counter the thousand of mines the RAF dropped in coastal waters, for example. Steel that couldn't be used in U-boats. All good stuff.
I had a leg in a cast at two different schools; one state, one private. We had some difficulty getting trousers that met the uniform policy (from their supplier...) and that I could pull over the cast without them being so baggy they fell down all the time and/or looked ridiculous.
The state school insisted. The private school went "Meh, you can't help it," and allowed me to wear something *approximating* the uniform trousers. Or shorts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_Hat_Riot
Hope reactions don't go that far against those skirts. Especially since removing skirts would cause more problems than removing hats.
For some reason, Mathias Rust landing near Red Square was seen as an exception, that due to a really odd sequence of events the air defence systems did not work. Although modern Russia is not the old USSR, I'm starting to think their much-vaunted air defence network has always been a bit cr@p.
Driving is inherently somewhat dangerous. Almost all drivers have done something stupid and got away with it. Viciously penalising those whose moments of stupidity coincided with a dose of bad luck and as a result somebody died seems quite unfair, so I'm not supprised juries wouldn't convict for manslaughter in many of them.
I had a bad smash a few years ago, a woman woeful misjudged pulling out of a sideroad and turning right, and I pretty much cut her car in half with a Landrover travelling at 60mph. She was lucky not to kill both of us. I explicitly told the plod I didn't want her to be prosecuted. What was the point - she'd just discovered how cutting things too fine (she freely admitted she'd seen me coming, and had just misjudged the availabile gap) can result in your car being converted into scrap metal in short order, she was going to have a fairly sore neck for a week or so and doubtless an expensive insurance renewal. I'd be surprised if she wasn't pretty careful at junctions for a good while afterwards too. Why prosecute (careless driving would have been a shoe in) and just add more misery to that already caused by her mistake?
The air defence systems in particular, are difficult, costly, and time-consuming to repair or replace in the field. Expect a few more Storm Shadows heading for Crimea tonight, again aimed at critical naval infrastructure, while the air defences are weakened.
The RAF knew where they were dropping the mines. The German reports on aerial mislaying by the enemy were a standard format, with most of the test, apart from the location, identical. So they knew the exact contents of the messages the Germans were sending out.
If you have the plaintext and cipher text of multiple messages, that is the classic way into an encryption system. Better yet, the Germans broadcast the same messages in multiple encryption systems.
Its a bit like Stephen Fry's counterfactual where Hitler is killed but a more ruthless leader emerges who uses the Jews and then sterilizes them. Or like the wargamers who show how Germany could have won in Russia if everything went right for the Germans and wrong for the Russians.
One has to LOL at them being unable to hit such a large and slow-moving target. It was nearly as big as that Malaysian plane they took out at 37,000’ from the ground a few years ago. Yes, the Rivet Joint does have a slew of countermeasures, sadly somewhat more than a civvy 777.
It's not the value of the life, it's the person on trial.
If a cyclist accidentally killed someone, and it happens, should it be manslaughter?
There's been other charges that exist for centuries because quite rightly tragic accidents aren't considered manslaughter, which has a higher bar, but there's still a way to hold the perpetrator to account.
And in the unlikely event it does amount to murder or manslaughter to those are still options too.
My primary school didn't have a uniform. It used some common sense and trusted parents to dress their children suitably. Trousers were always dark (except in the summer when you could wear lighter colours or shorts); a shirt or polo/t-shirt and a jumper/sweater. There were no restrictions on colour or pattern - my school photos show me a in Lego jumper from M&S. Footwear again had to be sensible (no basketball boots) and usually from Clarks in the village.
Of course, the school was stupid. They realised that children looked after their own clothes better than a school uniform. Go home at the end of the second week of term in torn trousers or a ripped jumper and you'd be in for a hiding from your parents!
When it came to high school, it was simple uniform. White shirt/blouse, black trousers/skirt, black blazer. You could buy them from any shop. The only restriction was the red school tie had to bought from a clothes shop in the village and you (Mum) had to sew the school logo patch onto the blazer. It was pragmatic.
As an aside, when we moved to Sussex in the early 90s, I was just going to secondary school. The school shop in the well-heeled town sold us everything - blazer, knitwear, trousers, white shirts, blue shirts, socks. When I turned up fully-kitted out, neither the head of year nor the headmaster were amused with the shop. It wasn't necessary. All that was needed was a school jumper and a tie. No blazers. No shirts. No socks. No trousers. They made the shop refund everything. Trousers, shirts and socks inevitably came from M&S.
I really don't know what schools are playing at with the uniform issue. Instead of worrying about what a child is dressed in, worry about whether they can read and bloody write.