Why isn't anyone suggesting a crackdown on speeding ?
Or is it some unalienable right to do 85mph on motorways ?
Personally I'd increase the limit to 80mph and enforce it.
Speeding is one thing we seem to be very effective at cracking down on, as my two penalties in the last 2 years for going at 26 and 24 in a new 20 zone attest.
Different places, different effects possibly.
I've never had any which, even though I try not to break the limit, is surprising on a bad luck / accidental basis.
20mph throughout my locality but zero enforcement Only place you'll find a traffic cop with radar gun is at the bottom of a long hill in a park trying to catch cyclists. If you want to drive a massive construction lorry at 40 on a 20 past a school they don't mind.
We had police with radar guns down the road to the fish and chip shop last week, which is pointlessly limited to 20mph. I say pointlessly because it is mostly impossible to drive faster than that anyway. The police would have had a higher strike rate if they had walked round the corner onto the dual carriageway.
There seem to be more and more pot-heads and coke-heads behind the wheel.
Not requiring a blood test to nail these feckers is a good step.
and mobile phone users.
The thing has always bugged me is that we (rightly) condemn people who use mobile phones whilst driving but we're okay with people holding a cigarette whilst driving.
Ban them both.
More importantly IMO: adults smoking in cars with kids in. Though I'm unsure how concerned to be about vapes and second-hand smoke?
Edit: before the smoking ban, I was in a local pub with my gf one afternoon. A couple of ladies were at a table next to us, and one was holding her cigarette out over the pram. Where the ash was falling into the pram and onto the baby...
Be very concerned about passive vaping.
The people in the flat above me have always smoked (I've been here 20 years and they were here when I came). The smoke leaking down never bothered me at all. Around the time of Covid they switched to vaping. The fumes from that seem never to disperse fully, and it has destroyed both my sense of taste and smell. It's also gradually working its way deeper down into my lungs.
Disclaimer: I have never ever taken even so much as one puff of a cigarette.
Going OT. Have you identified the vectors by which it gets through?
There are several routes to sealing your ceiling (Puff the Magic Dragon and his ceiling was excluded, as is Little Jackie Paper) and/or walls. One cheap one might be a crack filling paint, or to do it with a product such as "damp seal" designed to keep moisture out for the undercoat, which may reduce vape emissions.
There are also "air purifying paints", about which I know little but they may help.
Thank you; no, I haven't. It's a very old house divided into flats so I've never thought it worth while to look into it. Never heard of air purifying paint, though - I'll take a look.
There are also spray or paint on products which can be used for putting on stone or brick interior walls for reducing dust, which may help, and Saab type filters on your air ventilation - but that would require mechanical ventilation, and to be sure that alternative routes were sealed off.
On topic, speaking to a copper on this topic and they took the view that we should introduce a zero drink drive limit as the issue is people who go out for one round and without malicious intent end up having a bit more and end up over the limit.
Then again she did say that drink driving is a minor issue and we should be focussing on drug driving which is the elephant in the room.
Also tired driving. There aren't many good studies on this but I'd imagine a large proportion of avoidable sober deaths on the road are due to tiredness, especially given that nighttime crashes are much more likely to be fatal.
The one crash I almost caused when I was young and stupid was because I was tired. And I've never driven while exhausted since.
This is in the same bracket as old people driving. If people aren't allowed to drive tired, then a lot of driving doesn't happen.
I've cut down my driving to away games. Driven back from the North West after midweek games in the past. But age has caught up with me and I can't do it any more.
There was a stat, not sure if it is still the case, that more soldiers died on the road than on active service.
Opposite the RMAS main entrance is a clump of trees and once, famously if perhaps apocryphally, one cadet, having come off a particularly gruelling exercise, jumped into his car, drove out of the main gates and fell asleep, thereby hitting the trees opposite the entrance.
More Americans died in RTA's in the USA than died in the War in Vietnam. During the same period.
Why isn't anyone suggesting a crackdown on speeding ?
Or is it some unalienable right to do 85mph on motorways ?
Personally I'd increase the limit to 80mph and enforce it.
Speeding is one thing we seem to be very effective at cracking down on, as my two penalties in the last 2 years for going at 26 and 24 in a new 20 zone attest.
There was a piece in The Times a few years ago which showed how attitudes to drink driving has changed.
Just see how people laughed/joked at Jim Hacker being caught drink driving in the mid 1980s, a decade later, no show would have used that plot as he would have been condemned rather than seen as a joke.
I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do anything that's bad for me
There was a piece in The Times a few years ago which showed how attitudes to drink driving has changed.
Just see how people laughed/joked at Jim Hacker being caught drink driving in the mid 1980s, a decade later, no show would have used that plot as he would have been condemned rather than seen as a joke.
I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do anything that's bad for me
Someone once told me that I never do anything worth giving up for Lent.
Trump's nominee for BLS commissioner, EJ Antoni, is disastrously terrible. He's a 1200%, 1300% maybe 1400% in-the-tank Trumper, with few credentials beyond a long history of misrepresenting or misunderstanding basic economic statistics. He has demonstrated no commitment to truth. https://washingtonpost.com/business/2025/08/11/trump-bls-nomination-antoni/
Quite a lot of LD council areas, like Oxfordshire, have implemented 20 mph speed limits in built-up areas. It isn't just Wales.
We have a 20mph zone. Most of it makes sense - residential roads with double parking, you shouldn't go down it at more than 20 mph. But one runs parallel with the high street, and is only semi-residential with a lot less parking. I felt this one should have been left at 30mph as it would encourage people to use it as an alternive to the high street and would be safer that way
The right-wing lovers of the US right to bear arms often cite the need to be able to protect yourself from a rogue government that turns against the people.
There was a piece in The Times a few years ago which showed how attitudes to drink driving has changed.
Just see how people laughed/joked at Jim Hacker being caught drink driving in the mid 1980s, a decade later, no show would have used that plot as he would have been condemned rather than seen as a joke.
That's an interesting point. Attitudes do change - they've changed in respect of a range of social issues and the latest is gambling.
Whether this is due to changing attitudes to "class" I don't know - James Bond could gamble thousands on roulette or baccarat in a posh West End Club (a woman could gamble as well then, which was interesting in the context of the times) and look suave and sophisticated in so doing but on-street betting shops had to look as uninviting as possible.
"Liberalisation" (it wasn't really) changed that in the 80s as did technological advances. You could watch the racing on a screen, you paid no tax and the betting shop became a friendlier, more inviting place where you could have a coffee or soft drink.
Unfortunately, the bookies, as they always do, got greedy. More shops led to a backlash, the coming of FOBTs changed the clientele and atmosphere of the shops as did longer hours evening and with online accounts and digital access to specialist horseracing channels, the punter could watch Ayr, Leicester or Newton Abbot from his or her armchair and bet online.
Public attitudes to gambling have changed again with the availability of online gaming and the visability of FOBTs and slot machines in many High Streets. We have three of these mini-casinos and seven or eight bookies in East Ham High Street. I've no evidence but suspect the casinos are fronts for money laundering (as on-course bookies once were) while I also suspect some of our shoplifters will have addiction problems including gambling.
Even with all that, the local Roma often set up a "find the lady" game outside the tube station (with easily identifiable lookouts) and try to lure in the mugs to part with their cash (a few blokes used to do that at Sandown after racing until they were chased out of the car park by the staff). It's strange because where they stand in the evening is populated in the morning by the Jehovah's Witnesses so God and Mammon in close proximity.
A huge % of the adult UK population gamble, mostly in small ways. Lottery + online has absolutely normalised it. Online has anonymised it. Few are addicts. What people don't like is the universal adverts, sponsorship and high street presence of the industry. Which is a bit like going yourself to a nice beach but finding it's a crowded space, or the distressing fact of other people's cars on the road.
Nice to see that 'find the lady' is still around, attended by the ageless game of 'find the mug'. A relic of post war London. Even as a London child I knew the moment you see it to keep your distance and guard your pocket.
Quite a lot of LD council areas, like Oxfordshire, have implemented 20 mph speed limits in built-up areas. It isn't just Wales.
We have a 20mph zone. Most of it makes sense - residential roads with double parking, you shouldn't go down it at more than 20 mph. But one runs parallel with the high street, and is only semi-residential with a lot less parking. I felt this one should have been left at 30mph as it would encourage people to use it as an alternive to the high street and would be safer that way
Yep. My residential dead end road is technically a 30 limit. But, most sane people won't do 30 on it. There are some roads that are a little bit more major than that where a 20 limit and traffic calming measures make sense.
But, when they stick 20 limits on quite main roads, it does annoy people. Of course, those 20 limits may indeed save lives, but, it's starts to get into the realm of why bother letting anyone drive faster than that anywhere. Perhaps most of the single lane stretches of the A303 ought to be 20.
Trump's nominee for BLS commissioner, EJ Antoni, is disastrously terrible. He's a 1200%, 1300% maybe 1400% in-the-tank Trumper, with few credentials beyond a long history of misrepresenting or misunderstanding basic economic statistics. He has demonstrated no commitment to truth. https://washingtonpost.com/business/2025/08/11/trump-bls-nomination-antoni/
There was a piece in The Times a few years ago which showed how attitudes to drink driving has changed.
Just see how people laughed/joked at Jim Hacker being caught drink driving in the mid 1980s, a decade later, no show would have used that plot as he would have been condemned rather than seen as a joke.
That's an interesting point. Attitudes do change - they've changed in respect of a range of social issues and the latest is gambling.
Whether this is due to changing attitudes to "class" I don't know - James Bond could gamble thousands on roulette or baccarat in a posh West End Club (a woman could gamble as well then, which was interesting in the context of the times) and look suave and sophisticated in so doing but on-street betting shops had to look as uninviting as possible.
"Liberalisation" (it wasn't really) changed that in the 80s as did technological advances. You could watch the racing on a screen, you paid no tax and the betting shop became a friendlier, more inviting place where you could have a coffee or soft drink.
Unfortunately, the bookies, as they always do, got greedy. More shops led to a backlash, the coming of FOBTs changed the clientele and atmosphere of the shops as did longer hours evening and with online accounts and digital access to specialist horseracing channels, the punter could watch Ayr, Leicester or Newton Abbot from his or her armchair and bet online.
Public attitudes to gambling have changed again with the availability of online gaming and the visability of FOBTs and slot machines in many High Streets. We have three of these mini-casinos and seven or eight bookies in East Ham High Street. I've no evidence but suspect the casinos are fronts for money laundering (as on-course bookies once were) while I also suspect some of our shoplifters will have addiction problems including gambling.
Even with all that, the local Roma often set up a "find the lady" game outside the tube station (with easily identifiable lookouts) and try to lure in the mugs to part with their cash (a few blokes used to do that at Sandown after racing until they were chased out of the car park by the staff). It's strange because where they stand in the evening is populated in the morning by the Jehovah's Witnesses so God and Mammon in close proximity.
A huge % of the adult UK population gamble, mostly in small ways. Lottery + online has absolutely normalised it. Online has anonymised it. Few are addicts. What people don't like is the universal adverts, sponsorship and high street presence of the industry. Which is a bit like going yourself to a nice beach but finding it's a crowded space, or the distressing fact of other people's cars on the road.
Nice to see that 'find the lady' is still around, attended by the ageless game of 'find the mug'. A relic of post war London. Even as a London child I knew the moment you see it to keep your distance and guard your pocket.
Sadly, a big chunk of turnover is degenerate gamblers, ruining their families lives.
What sticks in the craw was watching bookies banning people for winning, instantly. And slow walking banning problem losers.
I worked for an alt-bank (for a while) which specialised in the gambling space - Revolut for gamblers.
There was a piece in The Times a few years ago which showed how attitudes to drink driving has changed.
Just see how people laughed/joked at Jim Hacker being caught drink driving in the mid 1980s, a decade later, no show would have used that plot as he would have been condemned rather than seen as a joke.
And of course smoking. I watched Netflix documentary on Apollo 13 last night (very good) and in mission control they are all smoking their faces off all the time. I'm surprised they could see the display monitors!
We all used to smoke at work. Winston Churchill and Harold Wilson used their cigars and pipe as props.
A young Dimbleby, a young Brian Walden MP, posh lefty (and alleged alcoholic) Judith Hart, and a journalist smoking a pipe.
Fascinating clip. Walden was right about the result but very wrong about Jenkins. He notes that there is a continuing driving will by party to elect someone who can pull all factions together.
Trump's nominee for BLS commissioner, EJ Antoni, is disastrously terrible. He's a 1200%, 1300% maybe 1400% in-the-tank Trumper, with few credentials beyond a long history of misrepresenting or misunderstanding basic economic statistics. He has demonstrated no commitment to truth. https://washingtonpost.com/business/2025/08/11/trump-bls-nomination-antoni/
Anecdata: my mid-70s chauffeur yesterday could read a number plate more than the statutory 20m away. He was wearing anti-glare glasses as recommended by this very pb iirc, and glare might be another problem now with brighter and higher LED lights.
Glare from modern LED lights is a serious problem the government doesn't see to have any wish to tackle. A good chunk of the population have light sensitivity (which can get worse with age) or astigmatism, meaning LEDs can be dazzling to the point of making it impossible to see ahead for seconds at a time.
I mostly stay off the road at night now because of this.
There was a piece in The Times a few years ago which showed how attitudes to drink driving has changed.
Just see how people laughed/joked at Jim Hacker being caught drink driving in the mid 1980s, a decade later, no show would have used that plot as he would have been condemned rather than seen as a joke.
That's an interesting point. Attitudes do change - they've changed in respect of a range of social issues and the latest is gambling.
Whether this is due to changing attitudes to "class" I don't know - James Bond could gamble thousands on roulette or baccarat in a posh West End Club (a woman could gamble as well then, which was interesting in the context of the times) and look suave and sophisticated in so doing but on-street betting shops had to look as uninviting as possible.
"Liberalisation" (it wasn't really) changed that in the 80s as did technological advances. You could watch the racing on a screen, you paid no tax and the betting shop became a friendlier, more inviting place where you could have a coffee or soft drink.
Unfortunately, the bookies, as they always do, got greedy. More shops led to a backlash, the coming of FOBTs changed the clientele and atmosphere of the shops as did longer hours evening and with online accounts and digital access to specialist horseracing channels, the punter could watch Ayr, Leicester or Newton Abbot from his or her armchair and bet online.
Public attitudes to gambling have changed again with the availability of online gaming and the visability of FOBTs and slot machines in many High Streets. We have three of these mini-casinos and seven or eight bookies in East Ham High Street. I've no evidence but suspect the casinos are fronts for money laundering (as on-course bookies once were) while I also suspect some of our shoplifters will have addiction problems including gambling.
Even with all that, the local Roma often set up a "find the lady" game outside the tube station (with easily identifiable lookouts) and try to lure in the mugs to part with their cash (a few blokes used to do that at Sandown after racing until they were chased out of the car park by the staff). It's strange because where they stand in the evening is populated in the morning by the Jehovah's Witnesses so God and Mammon in close proximity.
A huge % of the adult UK population gamble, mostly in small ways. Lottery + online has absolutely normalised it. Online has anonymised it. Few are addicts. What people don't like is the universal adverts, sponsorship and high street presence of the industry. Which is a bit like going yourself to a nice beach but finding it's a crowded space, or the distressing fact of other people's cars on the road.
Nice to see that 'find the lady' is still around, attended by the ageless game of 'find the mug'. A relic of post war London. Even as a London child I knew the moment you see it to keep your distance and guard your pocket.
Combining this with the star of yesterday's thread, here is Cycling Mikey finding the lady on Westminster Bridge. If police can't keep scammers off a tourist hot spot within sight of the Houses of Parliament, what is the point of them? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd3SNmrXDIU
Victoria Derbyshire, "Do you think Yvette Cooper is lying?"
Sir Jonathan Porritt, former long term advisor to King Charles, who was one of 500 people arrested on Saturday,
"The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre which is the government's own advisory body advised Yvette Cooper that there is no evidence whatsoever that Palestine Action has advocated violence against people"
"It has used violence against property"
"So when Yvette Cooper implies that Palestine Action has done violence to people, we know the Home Secretary is not revealing the whole truth"
Apart from the above and similar events which may not be public yet - sub judice, charges not brought etc - there could be a dual headed nature to this.
That is, some sort of basically violence-willing inner (or entryist) group, with a penumbra of 'peaceful activists', who may be perhaps be also termed "useful idiots". It's quite possible that public figures could form part of such a penumbra, or otherwise prioritising the cause so much that they are willing to turn a blind eye to the activities of their fellow campaigners. That could be explicit or varied version of vanguardism.
That's consistently been an SWP pattern, for example - where one orientation is to use a fluffy cause to attack the way society is organised. That's one reason I never trust Unite Against Fascism, Stop the War, or Stand Up to Racism without a careful look - they all have such a history.
Another contemporary example is our various (choose your word) "right", where the aim is to present "local families concerned about protecting our girls", but there's a hard line core of Tommy Robinson and similars willing to attack police, counter demonstrators etc, with an overlap formed by eg Homeland Party councillors. We have seen the same "concerned locals" in different places claiming the same thing.
Not commenting on causes there, but on organisation.
I think that this may in part be another Government Comms cockup.
Reflecting a little further, the double headed approach could be deliberate strategy.
And one previous "peaceful" protest group which tipped over into terrorism was SHAC - Stop Huntingdon Life Science, and that was because (imo) at core the philosophy of animal equality to human beings, and the willingness to use violence to campaign for is deeply flawed. The centrist dad approach of being pragmatic in permitting but seeking to minimise animal experimentation is far more rational.
It seems plain enough to me that Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation.
It’s proscription is justified.
It's CND: The Next Generation
Which led to this interesting letter in the Times from the retired base commander at Greenham Common back then.
On the letter itself. It is interesting that it portrays a robust but layered attitude to security. Along other things, the protestors were aware that the actual aircraft and weapons at Greenham would have been defended with deadly force.
What we are seeing is an intersection of legalism and accession to the words of “Human Rights” with a very authoritarian attitude.
To such people the idea of threatening deadly force to protect a military installation would be a “Human Rights” violation. But proscribing an organisation as terrorist is to say that The Forms Must Be Obeyed*. And therefore isn’t a “Human Rights” violation.
At the very beginning of New Labour, they used obscure Royal Parks laws from medieval times to arrest people politely holding up signs saying “Remember Tibet”, on the occasion of the Chinese President visiting.
Later, people wearing T-Shirts saying “Bollocks to Blair” were threatened with arrest.
A range of utterly peaceful protest organisation were heavily infiltrated by the police. At the same time the Death To The West crowd were escalating toward 7/7 unhindered. These infiltrations were carried out illegally and resulted in the police themselves committing various offences. The subsequent court cases are still working through the courts.
An example - Fathers For Justice. Due to the pendulum in family courts swing too far, courts were refusing to enforce judgements on the mothers in such cases, but were enforcing them on the men. The theory being that the women were now Single Mothers and deserved protection. So divorced men saw a situation where they were paying child support etc to the point of literally having no money left - and then being denied the court proscribed visitation to their children.
FFJ was about demanding that court orders be enforced. Their protests consisted of people dressing up in silly costumes and climbing up on things. Not even damage. In the end, a police infiltrator tried to turn the organisation violent - the actual protestors disbanded in horror at the idea.
I think we have a confluence of a kind of morally bankrupt legalism and an ingrained belief that all protest against a “left wing” government is illegitimate.
At the time of the Tibet/Royal Parks thing I coined the term The Lawyers Syllogism
1) the laws says that something is legal 2) therefore it must be done 3) any opposition to doing it is an attack on the law and immoral.
(Apologies to the writers of Yes Minister)
I came up with that, after speaking to some lawyers on the edges of that decision. They offered a justification for the governments actions that was nearly exactly the above.
*in the series Dune, the phrase The Forms Must Be Obeyed is placed at the front of each law. Which laws are a system of deliberate feudalism - the people are literally serfs. For their own good, apparently
If you are looking for consistency or logic in any of this don't waste your time, my time or anyone else's.
The response fits the mood and the mood is often set by the whims of the incumbent of 10 Downing Street or the Home Office which change with time and circumstances.
We can see anomalies and discrepencies all through the last 60-70 years of protest - Red Lion Square anyone? I have to agree with those who think arresting people for simply supporting Palestine Action is silly and time wasting. Being a member of versus expressing support for can be a fine line - if Reform were banned tomorrow, they'd need to sequester most of the country's remaining hotels to hold those who claimed support for Farage let alone membership.
Attitudes to peaceful protest are strange - the Anti-Iraq War march and the Countryside Alliance March (both under Blair) were fine examples of what peaceful protest should be but we also know violent elemetns can attach themselves to nominally peaceful protests and cause problems.
Trump's nominee for BLS commissioner, EJ Antoni, is disastrously terrible. He's a 1200%, 1300% maybe 1400% in-the-tank Trumper, with few credentials beyond a long history of misrepresenting or misunderstanding basic economic statistics. He has demonstrated no commitment to truth. https://washingtonpost.com/business/2025/08/11/trump-bls-nomination-antoni/
Quite a lot of LD council areas, like Oxfordshire, have implemented 20 mph speed limits in built-up areas. It isn't just Wales.
We have a 20mph zone. Most of it makes sense - residential roads with double parking, you shouldn't go down it at more than 20 mph. But one runs parallel with the high street, and is only semi-residential with a lot less parking. I felt this one should have been left at 30mph as it would encourage people to use it as an alternive to the high street and would be safer that way
Yep. My residential dead end road is technically a 30 limit. But, most sane people won't do 30 on it. There are some roads that are a little bit more major than that where a 20 limit and traffic calming measures make sense.
But, when they stick 20 limits on quite main roads, it does annoy people. Of course, those 20 limits may indeed save lives, but, it's starts to get into the realm of why bother letting anyone drive faster than that anywhere. Perhaps most of the single lane stretches of the A303 ought to be 20.
Bizarrely, my little residential cul-de-sac has a 40mph limit, as it is off a 40mph road and someone has removed the 30mph sign. I was going to ask the council to reinstate it, but my sat nav gives the limit as 40 so, equally bizarrely, it seems to be intended.
There is another road near me that goes round a housing estate, with no properties fronting in it and an office development the other side (a couple of which have been repurposed as flats). It is a big wide road and few people use the pavement, as there is nowhere to go and it's mostly runners and dog walkers. Yet the Lib Dem want to reduce it to 30. But not the 40mph road that goes past mine and actually has houses fronting onto it. I think both should stay at 40, but I suspect there will be a reduction as they are building a nursing home along "my" road and I suspect they will do it to protect traffic pulling in and out.
On topic, speaking to a copper on this topic and they took the view that we should introduce a zero drink drive limit as the issue is people who go out for one round and without malicious intent end up having a bit more and end up over the limit.
Then again she did say that drink driving is a minor issue and we should be focussing on drug driving which is the elephant in the room.
Also tired driving. There aren't many good studies on this but I'd imagine a large proportion of avoidable sober deaths on the road are due to tiredness, especially given that nighttime crashes are much more likely to be fatal.
The one crash I almost caused when I was young and stupid was because I was tired. And I've never driven while exhausted since.
This is in the same bracket as old people driving. If people aren't allowed to drive tired, then a lot of driving doesn't happen.
I've cut down my driving to away games. Driven back from the North West after midweek games in the past. But age has caught up with me and I can't do it any more.
There was a stat, not sure if it is still the case, that more soldiers died on the road than on active service.
Opposite the RMAS main entrance is a clump of trees and once, famously if perhaps apocryphally, one cadet, having come off a particularly gruelling exercise, jumped into his car, drove out of the main gates and fell asleep, thereby hitting the trees opposite the entrance.
More Americans died in RTA's in the USA than died in the War in Vietnam. During the same period.
Its possible that more Britons died in RTAs during the Vietnam war period than US war deaths:
Anecdata: my mid-70s chauffeur yesterday could read a number plate more than the statutory 20m away. He was wearing anti-glare glasses as recommended by this very pb iirc, and glare might be another problem now with brighter and higher LED lights.
Glare from modern LED lights is a serious problem the government doesn't see to have any wish to tackle. A good chunk of the population have light sensitivity (which can get worse with age) or astigmatism, meaning LEDs can be dazzling to the point of making it impossible to see ahead for seconds at a time.
I mostly stay off the road at night now because of this.
I'm quite short, and for a long time have found glare from LED brake lights on SUVs to be a problem.
On topic, speaking to a copper on this topic and they took the view that we should introduce a zero drink drive limit as the issue is people who go out for one round and without malicious intent end up having a bit more and end up over the limit.
Then again she did say that drink driving is a minor issue and we should be focussing on drug driving which is the elephant in the room.
Also tired driving. There aren't many good studies on this but I'd imagine a large proportion of avoidable sober deaths on the road are due to tiredness, especially given that nighttime crashes are much more likely to be fatal.
The one crash I almost caused when I was young and stupid was because I was tired. And I've never driven while exhausted since.
This is in the same bracket as old people driving. If people aren't allowed to drive tired, then a lot of driving doesn't happen.
I've cut down my driving to away games. Driven back from the North West after midweek games in the past. But age has caught up with me and I can't do it any more.
There was a stat, not sure if it is still the case, that more soldiers died on the road than on active service.
Opposite the RMAS main entrance is a clump of trees and once, famously if perhaps apocryphally, one cadet, having come off a particularly gruelling exercise, jumped into his car, drove out of the main gates and fell asleep, thereby hitting the trees opposite the entrance.
You'll know more about this than me, but I think it's the case that a Challenger 2 tank has better forward visibility than some modern SUVs and pick up trucks. The specification for military vehicles is quite stringent in regard to pedestrians because otherwise drivers end up injuring more soldiers than the enemy does.
Very good header. There is something to be said for having a zero limit for DD. It would enshrine in the law what is increasingly accepted - that drinking alcohol and driving a car are activities to be kept apart. I don't like the sound of random testing though. Or even increased testing. I think the change would of itself be sufficient.
Surely a zero limit is ridiculous, someone stopped in the morning on charge for using a bit of mouthwash.
1. There'll be a margin for error in the testing. 2. That's what the confirmatory blood testing is for.
OK, but that's not a zero limit.
There’s also the interesting phenomenon of people who have a small amount of alcohol in their blood, naturally. IIRC, a small number of people in Sweden ended up carrying a document that explains this - they fail tests.
Anecdata: my mid-70s chauffeur yesterday could read a number plate more than the statutory 20m away. He was wearing anti-glare glasses as recommended by this very pb iirc, and glare might be another problem now with brighter and higher LED lights.
Glare from modern LED lights is a serious problem the government doesn't see to have any wish to tackle. A good chunk of the population have light sensitivity (which can get worse with age) or astigmatism, meaning LEDs can be dazzling to the point of making it impossible to see ahead for seconds at a time.
I mostly stay off the road at night now because of this.
My new car has LED "matrix" headlights that are very strange
They illuminate the road in a series on boxes (the matrix!) and if it thinks there is a car in any box it turns that one off, so if you pass a car you see a box of dark moving along
On 20mph zones, the road between Guildford and Shalford now has one, which feels unnecessary.
One thing self-driving cars will do is remove the need for speed limits at all. If we set the value of a fatality at £10 million, with a strict liability fine for any self-driving car involved, plus some bits around noise pollution etc, then vehicles will move around at the socially optimal pace.
That might 100mph at 3am on a motorway; 10mph through central Edinburgh in August.
Victoria Derbyshire, "Do you think Yvette Cooper is lying?"
Sir Jonathan Porritt, former long term advisor to King Charles, who was one of 500 people arrested on Saturday,
"The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre which is the government's own advisory body advised Yvette Cooper that there is no evidence whatsoever that Palestine Action has advocated violence against people"
"It has used violence against property"
"So when Yvette Cooper implies that Palestine Action has done violence to people, we know the Home Secretary is not revealing the whole truth"
Apart from the above and similar events which may not be public yet - sub judice, charges not brought etc - there could be a dual headed nature to this.
That is, some sort of basically violence-willing inner (or entryist) group, with a penumbra of 'peaceful activists', who may be perhaps be also termed "useful idiots". It's quite possible that public figures could form part of such a penumbra, or otherwise prioritising the cause so much that they are willing to turn a blind eye to the activities of their fellow campaigners. That could be explicit or varied version of vanguardism.
That's consistently been an SWP pattern, for example - where one orientation is to use a fluffy cause to attack the way society is organised. That's one reason I never trust Unite Against Fascism, Stop the War, or Stand Up to Racism without a careful look - they all have such a history.
Another contemporary example is our various (choose your word) "right", where the aim is to present "local families concerned about protecting our girls", but there's a hard line core of Tommy Robinson and similars willing to attack police, counter demonstrators etc, with an overlap formed by eg Homeland Party councillors. We have seen the same "concerned locals" in different places claiming the same thing.
Not commenting on causes there, but on organisation.
I think that this may in part be another Government Comms cockup.
Reflecting a little further, the double headed approach could be deliberate strategy.
And one previous "peaceful" protest group which tipped over into terrorism was SHAC - Stop Huntingdon Life Science, and that was because (imo) at core the philosophy of animal equality to human beings, and the willingness to use violence to campaign for is deeply flawed. The centrist dad approach of being pragmatic in permitting but seeking to minimise animal experimentation is far more rational.
It seems plain enough to me that Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation.
It’s proscription is justified.
It's CND: The Next Generation
Which led to this interesting letter in the Times from the retired base commander at Greenham Common back then.
On the letter itself. It is interesting that it portrays a robust but layered attitude to security. Along other things, the protestors were aware that the actual aircraft and weapons at Greenham would have been defended with deadly force.
What we are seeing is an intersection of legalism and accession to the words of “Human Rights” with a very authoritarian attitude...
Nether side come out the saga particularly well.
Layered security costs, of course. But as the old Wing Commander notes, it provides a good compromise between security and freedom of protest etc.
The obvious way to have dealt with PA would be to make sure those fools committing criminal damage get long prison sentences - as they deserve - while preserving the right for plainly peaceful voters to protest. Making the carrying of a placard, in this context, a terrorist offence is ridiculous overkill.
And it’s somewhat hilarious to note that deliberately damaging military assets has been considered an extreme crime pretty much since laws were written down.
I recall a judge’s memoir in which he describe a young offender who wasn’t phased by being prosecuted for arson. So, in his summing up, the judge made reference to the ancient law about the Queens Dockyards (it was a dockyard building that had been attacked), which was still on the books. Apparently the young man nearly collapsed at that point.
“Modernisation” of the law has apparently made treason unprosecutable.
It’s rather weird that these guys didn’t think that planning a campaign of tens millions of pounds worth of damage to military facilities and equipment would be considered terrorism. They do know how much it costs to refurbish engines on aircraft, don’t they?
Do we know how many of the hundreds arrested over the weekend have been charged with anything? They were clearly supporting said proscribed terrorist group.
I broadly agree with Matt (as I usually do, to my continuing surprise as he is on paper a mile to my right), despite being 75 and not quite sure I'd pass the test. My only qualifier would be that really tests shouldn't be only triggered by a randomish thing like the 70th birthday - a test every 10 years up to 70 and then every 5 years, maybe?
Trump's nominee for BLS commissioner, EJ Antoni, is disastrously terrible. He's a 1200%, 1300% maybe 1400% in-the-tank Trumper, with few credentials beyond a long history of misrepresenting or misunderstanding basic economic statistics. He has demonstrated no commitment to truth. https://washingtonpost.com/business/2025/08/11/trump-bls-nomination-antoni/
So the figures for labour force going forward are going to be bullshit.
Will the private sector banks and funds find another way to get real data?
There are some independent sources like ADP for employment . The BLS commissioner has little input into the data collection and it’s likely someone would leak attempts to fix the data . Of course the stain on humanity would call the leaker a Dem plant !
Victoria Derbyshire, "Do you think Yvette Cooper is lying?"
Sir Jonathan Porritt, former long term advisor to King Charles, who was one of 500 people arrested on Saturday,
"The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre which is the government's own advisory body advised Yvette Cooper that there is no evidence whatsoever that Palestine Action has advocated violence against people"
"It has used violence against property"
"So when Yvette Cooper implies that Palestine Action has done violence to people, we know the Home Secretary is not revealing the whole truth"
Apart from the above and similar events which may not be public yet - sub judice, charges not brought etc - there could be a dual headed nature to this.
That is, some sort of basically violence-willing inner (or entryist) group, with a penumbra of 'peaceful activists', who may be perhaps be also termed "useful idiots". It's quite possible that public figures could form part of such a penumbra, or otherwise prioritising the cause so much that they are willing to turn a blind eye to the activities of their fellow campaigners. That could be explicit or varied version of vanguardism.
That's consistently been an SWP pattern, for example - where one orientation is to use a fluffy cause to attack the way society is organised. That's one reason I never trust Unite Against Fascism, Stop the War, or Stand Up to Racism without a careful look - they all have such a history.
Another contemporary example is our various (choose your word) "right", where the aim is to present "local families concerned about protecting our girls", but there's a hard line core of Tommy Robinson and similars willing to attack police, counter demonstrators etc, with an overlap formed by eg Homeland Party councillors. We have seen the same "concerned locals" in different places claiming the same thing.
Not commenting on causes there, but on organisation.
I think that this may in part be another Government Comms cockup.
Reflecting a little further, the double headed approach could be deliberate strategy.
And one previous "peaceful" protest group which tipped over into terrorism was SHAC - Stop Huntingdon Life Science, and that was because (imo) at core the philosophy of animal equality to human beings, and the willingness to use violence to campaign for is deeply flawed. The centrist dad approach of being pragmatic in permitting but seeking to minimise animal experimentation is far more rational.
It seems plain enough to me that Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation.
It’s proscription is justified.
It's CND: The Next Generation
Which led to this interesting letter in the Times from the retired base commander at Greenham Common back then.
On the letter itself. It is interesting that it portrays a robust but layered attitude to security. Along other things, the protestors were aware that the actual aircraft and weapons at Greenham would have been defended with deadly force.
What we are seeing is an intersection of legalism and accession to the words of “Human Rights” with a very authoritarian attitude.
To such people the idea of threatening deadly force to protect a military installation would be a “Human Rights” violation. But proscribing an organisation as terrorist is to say that The Forms Must Be Obeyed*. And therefore isn’t a “Human Rights” violation.
At the very beginning of New Labour, they used obscure Royal Parks laws from medieval times to arrest people politely holding up signs saying “Remember Tibet”, on the occasion of the Chinese President visiting.
Later, people wearing T-Shirts saying “Bollocks to Blair” were threatened with arrest.
A range of utterly peaceful protest organisation were heavily infiltrated by the police. At the same time the Death To The West crowd were escalating toward 7/7 unhindered. These infiltrations were carried out illegally and resulted in the police themselves committing various offences. The subsequent court cases are still working through the courts.
An example - Fathers For Justice. Due to the pendulum in family courts swing too far, courts were refusing to enforce judgements on the mothers in such cases, but were enforcing them on the men. The theory being that the women were now Single Mothers and deserved protection. So divorced men saw a situation where they were paying child support etc to the point of literally having no money left - and then being denied the court proscribed visitation to their children.
FFJ was about demanding that court orders be enforced. Their protests consisted of people dressing up in silly costumes and climbing up on things. Not even damage. In the end, a police infiltrator tried to turn the organisation violent - the actual protestors disbanded in horror at the idea.
I think we have a confluence of a kind of morally bankrupt legalism and an ingrained belief that all protest against a “left wing” government is illegitimate.
At the time of the Tibet/Royal Parks thing I coined the term The Lawyers Syllogism
1) the laws says that something is legal 2) therefore it must be done 3) any opposition to doing it is an attack on the law and immoral.
(Apologies to the writers of Yes Minister)
I came up with that, after speaking to some lawyers on the edges of that decision. They offered a justification for the governments actions that was nearly exactly the above.
*in the series Dune, the phrase The Forms Must Be Obeyed is placed at the front of each law. Which laws are a system of deliberate feudalism - the people are literally serfs. For their own good, apparently
If you are looking for consistency or logic in any of this don't waste your time, my time or anyone else's.
The response fits the mood and the mood is often set by the whims of the incumbent of 10 Downing Street or the Home Office which change with time and circumstances.
We can see anomalies and discrepencies all through the last 60-70 years of protest - Red Lion Square anyone? I have to agree with those who think arresting people for simply supporting Palestine Action is silly and time wasting. Being a member of versus expressing support for can be a fine line - if Reform were banned tomorrow, they'd need to sequester most of the country's remaining hotels to hold those who claimed support for Farage let alone membership.
Attitudes to peaceful protest are strange - the Anti-Iraq War march and the Countryside Alliance March (both under Blair) were fine examples of what peaceful protest should be but we also know violent elemetns can attach themselves to nominally peaceful protests and cause problems.
I attended three of the four big anti-Iraq War rallies in London during 2003. Heady days indeed!
If someone is a centre-right-wing libertarian these days, which party should they support?
There is a Libertarian Party active in England, Wales and NI, and a separate Scottish Libertarian Party in Scotland. Neither has had much electoral success. The non-Scottish party's best result was getting 0.9% in Stroud in the 2019 general election.
In terms of major parties, I would think the Conservatives are your best bet. Badenoch is more libertarian than some Tory leaders have been. The party is broadly centre-right.
Three facts combined by the tech numpty who wrote the OSA, by the look of it, to reach a silly conclusion.
As an aside, the computing power needed for AI is worrying some green campaigners. Some (even on pb) have suggested that devolved governments in colder and wetter parts of the country should look at building data centres there to take advantage of natural cooling.
On 20mph zones, the road between Guildford and Shalford now has one, which feels unnecessary.
One thing self-driving cars will do is remove the need for speed limits at all. If we set the value of a fatality at £10 million, with a strict liability fine for any self-driving car involved, plus some bits around noise pollution etc, then vehicles will move around at the socially optimal pace.
That might 100mph at 3am on a motorway; 10mph through central Edinburgh in August.
High fines don't stop bad behaviour. People or companies think they can get away with it, and when they don't, they just get bankrupted and start again.
Trump's nominee for BLS commissioner, EJ Antoni, is disastrously terrible. He's a 1200%, 1300% maybe 1400% in-the-tank Trumper, with few credentials beyond a long history of misrepresenting or misunderstanding basic economic statistics. He has demonstrated no commitment to truth. https://washingtonpost.com/business/2025/08/11/trump-bls-nomination-antoni/
So the figures for labour force going forward are going to be bullshit.
Will the private sector banks and funds find another way to get real data?
Of course they will. Nobody investing real money is going to believe "TrumpFacts" over objective data. It will simply mean that in future with inflation, GDP, labour numbers and so on, there will be a official made-up numbers followed by unofficial measured numbers that will contradict Trump's claims. Only MAGA nuts will still believe the official data.
Would it be safer to close the House of Commons bars or its car park?
Does anyone drive to work there? London abounds in public transport, and the important people have drivers.
Is a backbench MP an "important person"?
There’s only a handful of MPs who have an official driver, usually from the police as part of a wider security detail.
I can imagine that almost every MP has an assistant, one of whose tasks is MP transport. Whenever I’ve met an MP (in constituency rather than Westminster), they’ve turned up as a passenger in a car.
In London one would suspect that they generally live pretty close to the ‘office’, and either walk or take the Tube to Westminster.
After Lockdown 3 when I became suicidal, I continued to behave weirdly for a few months (ed driving at 140mph in Dorset on an A road at noon). There was suicidality lurking
In May I got a commission from the Gazette to eat at great places in Eastern England. I persuaded a friend to join me for a seafood feast on the north Norfolk coast. The next day I had to be at a vineyard in Essex for an afternoon tasting
I couldn’t get to sleep after so much seafood and booze so I took about five Xanax. And slept. I woke up feeling fine but then as I drove across Norfolk the Xanax really kicked in and I was basically hallucinating. Double vision. Weird reveries. I tried to fix the double vision by tying a silk scarf over half my face so only one eye was being used
As I was doing this I was weaving in and out of oncoming traffic. I was literally on the wrong side of the road crossing east Anglia. For hours. No idea where I was going. I kind of accepted a very selfish death
Eventually three police cars swept in and pulled me over (I must have been reported by dozens of witnesses). They were quite fierce (don’t blame them) and they breathalysed me of course. But I wasn’t drunk. It was Xanax. I kept saying to them “look it’s a fair cop but it’s not booze it’s Xanax”
They had no idea what Xanax might be. I kept coming up blank on the breathalyser. They breathalysed me FIVE TIMES and in the end gave up and just said “sleep it off in the car, Sir” and they departed
I slept it off in the car and eventually arrived about four hours late for my wine tasting at the vineyard. They were so surprised and pleased to see me even show up they fed me royally and got me drunk all over again. Excellent Pinot noir
Then I had to drive to the barn conversion where they had their accommodation. Again I was very drunk. They told me of a short cut but I didn’t understand it and I ended up driving directly through their vineyard - literally through the vines - and then I drove over a small wall and I found my accommodation and I slept it off. Again
Next morning I woke up up to find my car covered with red grapes and magenta juice. I fled
I spent the next few days in dread of an email saying “you destroyed our entire crop” but instead I got a very polite message saying “we really enjoyed your visit”
And that was it. Nothing ever happened. No punishment no karma no courtroom
But I’ll probably be reincarnated as a whelk, as divine retribution
Quite a lot of LD council areas, like Oxfordshire, have implemented 20 mph speed limits in built-up areas. It isn't just Wales.
We have a 20mph zone. Most of it makes sense - residential roads with double parking, you shouldn't go down it at more than 20 mph. But one runs parallel with the high street, and is only semi-residential with a lot less parking. I felt this one should have been left at 30mph as it would encourage people to use it as an alternive to the high street and would be safer that way
Yep. My residential dead end road is technically a 30 limit. But, most sane people won't do 30 on it. There are some roads that are a little bit more major than that where a 20 limit and traffic calming measures make sense.
But, when they stick 20 limits on quite main roads, it does annoy people. Of course, those 20 limits may indeed save lives, but, it's starts to get into the realm of why bother letting anyone drive faster than that anywhere. Perhaps most of the single lane stretches of the A303 ought to be 20.
As many of you are aware, in Spring 2024, Sadiq introduced the so-called Superloop express buses running in a ring around the outer London 'burbs. Unfortunately, our local Superloop, the SL2, runs through neighbouring Walthamstow, where the A503 Forest Road, a reasonably good single carriageway road, has a 20mph limit, kind of defeating the purpose of an "express" bus!
Victoria Derbyshire, "Do you think Yvette Cooper is lying?"
Sir Jonathan Porritt, former long term advisor to King Charles, who was one of 500 people arrested on Saturday,
"The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre which is the government's own advisory body advised Yvette Cooper that there is no evidence whatsoever that Palestine Action has advocated violence against people"
"It has used violence against property"
"So when Yvette Cooper implies that Palestine Action has done violence to people, we know the Home Secretary is not revealing the whole truth"
Apart from the above and similar events which may not be public yet - sub judice, charges not brought etc - there could be a dual headed nature to this.
That is, some sort of basically violence-willing inner (or entryist) group, with a penumbra of 'peaceful activists', who may be perhaps be also termed "useful idiots". It's quite possible that public figures could form part of such a penumbra, or otherwise prioritising the cause so much that they are willing to turn a blind eye to the activities of their fellow campaigners. That could be explicit or varied version of vanguardism.
That's consistently been an SWP pattern, for example - where one orientation is to use a fluffy cause to attack the way society is organised. That's one reason I never trust Unite Against Fascism, Stop the War, or Stand Up to Racism without a careful look - they all have such a history.
Another contemporary example is our various (choose your word) "right", where the aim is to present "local families concerned about protecting our girls", but there's a hard line core of Tommy Robinson and similars willing to attack police, counter demonstrators etc, with an overlap formed by eg Homeland Party councillors. We have seen the same "concerned locals" in different places claiming the same thing.
Not commenting on causes there, but on organisation.
I think that this may in part be another Government Comms cockup.
Reflecting a little further, the double headed approach could be deliberate strategy.
And one previous "peaceful" protest group which tipped over into terrorism was SHAC - Stop Huntingdon Life Science, and that was because (imo) at core the philosophy of animal equality to human beings, and the willingness to use violence to campaign for is deeply flawed. The centrist dad approach of being pragmatic in permitting but seeking to minimise animal experimentation is far more rational.
It seems plain enough to me that Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation.
It’s proscription is justified.
It's CND: The Next Generation
Which led to this interesting letter in the Times from the retired base commander at Greenham Common back then.
On the letter itself. It is interesting that it portrays a robust but layered attitude to security. Along other things, the protestors were aware that the actual aircraft and weapons at Greenham would have been defended with deadly force.
What we are seeing is an intersection of legalism and accession to the words of “Human Rights” with a very authoritarian attitude...
Nether side come out the saga particularly well.
Layered security costs, of course. But as the old Wing Commander notes, it provides a good compromise between security and freedom of protest etc.
The obvious way to have dealt with PA would be to make sure those fools committing criminal damage get long prison sentences - as they deserve - while preserving the right for plainly peaceful voters to protest. Making the carrying of a placard, in this context, a terrorist offence is ridiculous overkill.
And it’s somewhat hilarious to note that deliberately damaging military assets has been considered an extreme crime pretty much since laws were written down.
I recall a judge’s memoir in which he describe a young offender who wasn’t phased by being prosecuted for arson. So, in his summing up, the judge made reference to the ancient law about the Queens Dockyards (it was a dockyard building that had been attacked), which was still on the books. Apparently the young man nearly collapsed at that point.
“Modernisation” of the law has apparently made treason unprosecutable.
It’s rather weird that these guys didn’t think that planning a campaign of tens millions of pounds worth of damage to military facilities and equipment would be considered terrorism. They do know how much it costs to refurbish engines on aircraft, don’t they?
Do we know how many of the hundreds arrested over the weekend have been charged with anything? They were clearly supporting said proscribed terrorist group.
Terrorism is generally interpreted as actions designed to cause terror in the general public - it's a stretch to include support for an organisation, even if some of their members may do things that are indefensible and expensive. I don't think it's a good idea to water down the meaning - taking actions that cause general terror should indeed generate long gaol sentences, whereas supporting something with a poster or email really shouldn't. I'd apply the same distinction to someone who expressed approval of the IRA or some violent far-right group - quite wrong, but not terrorism.
On topic, speaking to a copper on this topic and they took the view that we should introduce a zero drink drive limit as the issue is people who go out for one round and without malicious intent end up having a bit more and end up over the limit.
Then again she did say that drink driving is a minor issue and we should be focussing on drug driving which is the elephant in the room.
Also tired driving. There aren't many good studies on this but I'd imagine a large proportion of avoidable sober deaths on the road are due to tiredness, especially given that nighttime crashes are much more likely to be fatal.
The one crash I almost caused when I was young and stupid was because I was tired. And I've never driven while exhausted since.
This is in the same bracket as old people driving. If people aren't allowed to drive tired, then a lot of driving doesn't happen.
I've cut down my driving to away games. Driven back from the North West after midweek games in the past. But age has caught up with me and I can't do it any more.
There was a stat, not sure if it is still the case, that more soldiers died on the road than on active service.
Opposite the RMAS main entrance is a clump of trees and once, famously if perhaps apocryphally, one cadet, having come off a particularly gruelling exercise, jumped into his car, drove out of the main gates and fell asleep, thereby hitting the trees opposite the entrance.
More Americans died in RTA's in the USA than died in the War in Vietnam. During the same period.
In contrast to the UK, the attitude to drinking and driving in the US really hasn’t changed much in the last few decades, getting a “DUI” is almost seen as a rite of passage in many rural areas.
A combination of little public transport outside of New York and a couple of other large cities, and driver licences at 16 with minimal testing.
Although we can always do better, the UK is one of the safest countries in the world for road traffic fatalities.
Victoria Derbyshire, "Do you think Yvette Cooper is lying?"
Sir Jonathan Porritt, former long term advisor to King Charles, who was one of 500 people arrested on Saturday,
"The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre which is the government's own advisory body advised Yvette Cooper that there is no evidence whatsoever that Palestine Action has advocated violence against people"
"It has used violence against property"
"So when Yvette Cooper implies that Palestine Action has done violence to people, we know the Home Secretary is not revealing the whole truth"
Apart from the above and similar events which may not be public yet - sub judice, charges not brought etc - there could be a dual headed nature to this.
That is, some sort of basically violence-willing inner (or entryist) group, with a penumbra of 'peaceful activists', who may be perhaps be also termed "useful idiots". It's quite possible that public figures could form part of such a penumbra, or otherwise prioritising the cause so much that they are willing to turn a blind eye to the activities of their fellow campaigners. That could be explicit or varied version of vanguardism.
That's consistently been an SWP pattern, for example - where one orientation is to use a fluffy cause to attack the way society is organised. That's one reason I never trust Unite Against Fascism, Stop the War, or Stand Up to Racism without a careful look - they all have such a history.
Another contemporary example is our various (choose your word) "right", where the aim is to present "local families concerned about protecting our girls", but there's a hard line core of Tommy Robinson and similars willing to attack police, counter demonstrators etc, with an overlap formed by eg Homeland Party councillors. We have seen the same "concerned locals" in different places claiming the same thing.
Not commenting on causes there, but on organisation.
I think that this may in part be another Government Comms cockup.
Reflecting a little further, the double headed approach could be deliberate strategy.
And one previous "peaceful" protest group which tipped over into terrorism was SHAC - Stop Huntingdon Life Science, and that was because (imo) at core the philosophy of animal equality to human beings, and the willingness to use violence to campaign for is deeply flawed. The centrist dad approach of being pragmatic in permitting but seeking to minimise animal experimentation is far more rational.
It seems plain enough to me that Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation.
It’s proscription is justified.
It's CND: The Next Generation
Which led to this interesting letter in the Times from the retired base commander at Greenham Common back then.
On the letter itself. It is interesting that it portrays a robust but layered attitude to security. Along other things, the protestors were aware that the actual aircraft and weapons at Greenham would have been defended with deadly force.
What we are seeing is an intersection of legalism and accession to the words of “Human Rights” with a very authoritarian attitude...
Nether side come out the saga particularly well.
Layered security costs, of course. But as the old Wing Commander notes, it provides a good compromise between security and freedom of protest etc.
The obvious way to have dealt with PA would be to make sure those fools committing criminal damage get long prison sentences - as they deserve - while preserving the right for plainly peaceful voters to protest. Making the carrying of a placard, in this context, a terrorist offence is ridiculous overkill.
And it’s somewhat hilarious to note that deliberately damaging military assets has been considered an extreme crime pretty much since laws were written down.
I recall a judge’s memoir in which he describe a young offender who wasn’t phased by being prosecuted for arson. So, in his summing up, the judge made reference to the ancient law about the Queens Dockyards (it was a dockyard building that had been attacked), which was still on the books. Apparently the young man nearly collapsed at that point.
“Modernisation” of the law has apparently made treason unprosecutable.
It’s rather weird that these guys didn’t think that planning a campaign of tens millions of pounds worth of damage to military facilities and equipment would be considered terrorism. They do know how much it costs to refurbish engines on aircraft, don’t they?
Do we know how many of the hundreds arrested over the weekend have been charged with anything? They were clearly supporting said proscribed terrorist group.
Terrorism is generally interpreted as actions designed to cause terror in the general public - it's a stretch to include support for an organisation, even if some of their members may do things that are indefensible and expensive. I don't think it's a good idea to water down the meaning - taking actions that cause general terror should indeed generate long gaol sentences, whereas supporting something with a poster or email really shouldn't. I'd apply the same distinction to someone who expressed approval of the IRA or some violent far-right group - quite wrong, but not terrorism.
The problem for the government is the disconnect between Blair (and later UK government) Terrorism laws & public perception of which actions justify proscribing an organisation with all the restraints on free speech & action that follows from that.
The laws are drawn up very widely & up until now governments have been relatively restrained in their use. But they’ve always been there, in all their authoritarian glory, ready to be picked up by whichever government decided to use them.
Victoria Derbyshire, "Do you think Yvette Cooper is lying?"
Sir Jonathan Porritt, former long term advisor to King Charles, who was one of 500 people arrested on Saturday,
"The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre which is the government's own advisory body advised Yvette Cooper that there is no evidence whatsoever that Palestine Action has advocated violence against people"
"It has used violence against property"
"So when Yvette Cooper implies that Palestine Action has done violence to people, we know the Home Secretary is not revealing the whole truth"
Apart from the above and similar events which may not be public yet - sub judice, charges not brought etc - there could be a dual headed nature to this.
That is, some sort of basically violence-willing inner (or entryist) group, with a penumbra of 'peaceful activists', who may be perhaps be also termed "useful idiots". It's quite possible that public figures could form part of such a penumbra, or otherwise prioritising the cause so much that they are willing to turn a blind eye to the activities of their fellow campaigners. That could be explicit or varied version of vanguardism.
That's consistently been an SWP pattern, for example - where one orientation is to use a fluffy cause to attack the way society is organised. That's one reason I never trust Unite Against Fascism, Stop the War, or Stand Up to Racism without a careful look - they all have such a history.
Another contemporary example is our various (choose your word) "right", where the aim is to present "local families concerned about protecting our girls", but there's a hard line core of Tommy Robinson and similars willing to attack police, counter demonstrators etc, with an overlap formed by eg Homeland Party councillors. We have seen the same "concerned locals" in different places claiming the same thing.
Not commenting on causes there, but on organisation.
I think that this may in part be another Government Comms cockup.
Reflecting a little further, the double headed approach could be deliberate strategy.
And one previous "peaceful" protest group which tipped over into terrorism was SHAC - Stop Huntingdon Life Science, and that was because (imo) at core the philosophy of animal equality to human beings, and the willingness to use violence to campaign for is deeply flawed. The centrist dad approach of being pragmatic in permitting but seeking to minimise animal experimentation is far more rational.
It seems plain enough to me that Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation.
It’s proscription is justified.
It's CND: The Next Generation
Which led to this interesting letter in the Times from the retired base commander at Greenham Common back then.
On the letter itself. It is interesting that it portrays a robust but layered attitude to security. Along other things, the protestors were aware that the actual aircraft and weapons at Greenham would have been defended with deadly force.
What we are seeing is an intersection of legalism and accession to the words of “Human Rights” with a very authoritarian attitude.
To such people the idea of threatening deadly force to protect a military installation would be a “Human Rights” violation. But proscribing an organisation as terrorist is to say that The Forms Must Be Obeyed*. And therefore isn’t a “Human Rights” violation.
At the very beginning of New Labour, they used obscure Royal Parks laws from medieval times to arrest people politely holding up signs saying “Remember Tibet”, on the occasion of the Chinese President visiting.
Later, people wearing T-Shirts saying “Bollocks to Blair” were threatened with arrest.
A range of utterly peaceful protest organisation were heavily infiltrated by the police. At the same time the Death To The West crowd were escalating toward 7/7 unhindered. These infiltrations were carried out illegally and resulted in the police themselves committing various offences. The subsequent court cases are still working through the courts.
An example - Fathers For Justice. Due to the pendulum in family courts swing too far, courts were refusing to enforce judgements on the mothers in such cases, but were enforcing them on the men. The theory being that the women were now Single Mothers and deserved protection. So divorced men saw a situation where they were paying child support etc to the point of literally having no money left - and then being denied the court proscribed visitation to their children.
FFJ was about demanding that court orders be enforced. Their protests consisted of people dressing up in silly costumes and climbing up on things. Not even damage. In the end, a police infiltrator tried to turn the organisation violent - the actual protestors disbanded in horror at the idea.
I think we have a confluence of a kind of morally bankrupt legalism and an ingrained belief that all protest against a “left wing” government is illegitimate.
At the time of the Tibet/Royal Parks thing I coined the term The Lawyers Syllogism
1) the laws says that something is legal 2) therefore it must be done 3) any opposition to doing it is an attack on the law and immoral.
(Apologies to the writers of Yes Minister)
I came up with that, after speaking to some lawyers on the edges of that decision. They offered a justification for the governments actions that was nearly exactly the above.
*in the series Dune, the phrase The Forms Must Be Obeyed is placed at the front of each law. Which laws are a system of deliberate feudalism - the people are literally serfs. For their own good, apparently
Would American servicemen on British soil really have been permitted to shoot dead CND protestors? The political implications of that would have been massive.
Three facts combined by the tech numpty who wrote the OSA, by the look of it, to reach a silly conclusion.
As an aside, the computing power needed for AI is worrying some green campaigners. Some (even on pb) have suggested that devolved governments in colder and wetter parts of the country should look at building data centres there to take advantage of natural cooling.
On topic, speaking to a copper on this topic and they took the view that we should introduce a zero drink drive limit as the issue is people who go out for one round and without malicious intent end up having a bit more and end up over the limit.
Then again she did say that drink driving is a minor issue and we should be focussing on drug driving which is the elephant in the room.
Also tired driving. There aren't many good studies on this but I'd imagine a large proportion of avoidable sober deaths on the road are due to tiredness, especially given that nighttime crashes are much more likely to be fatal.
The one crash I almost caused when I was young and stupid was because I was tired. And I've never driven while exhausted since.
This is in the same bracket as old people driving. If people aren't allowed to drive tired, then a lot of driving doesn't happen.
I've cut down my driving to away games. Driven back from the North West after midweek games in the past. But age has caught up with me and I can't do it any more.
There was a stat, not sure if it is still the case, that more soldiers died on the road than on active service.
Opposite the RMAS main entrance is a clump of trees and once, famously if perhaps apocryphally, one cadet, having come off a particularly gruelling exercise, jumped into his car, drove out of the main gates and fell asleep, thereby hitting the trees opposite the entrance.
More Americans died in RTA's in the USA than died in the War in Vietnam. During the same period.
In contrast to the UK, the attitude to drinking and driving in the US really hasn’t changed much in the last few decades, getting a “DUI” is almost seen as a rite of passage in many rural areas.
A combination of little public transport outside of New York and a couple of other large cities, and driver licences at 16 with minimal testing.
Although we can always do better, the UK is one of the safest countries in the world for road traffic fatalities.
I think Vision Zero is beginning to bring to the fore what we could achieve.
Helsinki - city of 1.4m (metro area) - had zero road deaths for the last 12 months July 24 to July 25.
We can do that in Birmingham or Glasgow, or even Nottingham-Derby-Leicester.
After Lockdown 3 when I became suicidal, I continued to behave weirdly for a few months (ed driving at 140mph in Dorset on an A road at noon). There was suicidality lurking
In May I got a commission from the Gazette to eat at great places in Eastern England. I persuaded a friend to join me for a seafood feast on the north Norfolk coast. The next day I had to be at a vineyard in Essex for an afternoon tasting
I couldn’t get to sleep after so much seafood and booze so I took about five Xanax. And slept. I woke up feeling fine but then as I drove across Norfolk the Xanax really kicked in and I was basically hallucinating. Double vision. Weird reveries. I tried to fix the double vision by tying a silk scarf over half my face so only one eye was being used
As I was doing this I was weaving in and out of oncoming traffic. I was literally on the wrong side of the road crossing east Anglia. For hours. No idea where I was going. I kind of accepted a very selfish death
Eventually three police cars swept in and pulled me over (I must have been reported by dozens of witnesses). They were quite fierce (don’t blame them) and they breathalysed me of course. But I wasn’t drunk. It was Xanax. I kept saying to them “look it’s a fair cop but it’s not booze it’s Xanax”
They had no idea what Xanax might be. I kept coming up blank on the breathalyser. They breathalysed me FIVE TIMES and in the end gave up and just said “sleep it off in the car, Sir” and they departed
I slept it off in the car and eventually arrived about four hours late for my wine tasting at the vineyard. They were so surprised and pleased to see me even show up they fed me royally and got me drunk all over again. Excellent Pinot noir
Then I had to drive to the barn conversion where they had their accommodation. Again I was very drunk. They told me of a short cut but I didn’t understand it and I ended up driving directly through their vineyard - literally through the vines - and then I drove over a small wall and I found my accommodation and I slept it off. Again
Next morning I woke up up to find my car covered with red grapes and magenta juice. I fled
I spent the next few days in dread of an email saying “you destroyed our entire crop” but instead I got a very polite message saying “we really enjoyed your visit”
And that was it. Nothing ever happened. No punishment no karma no courtroom
But I’ll probably be reincarnated as a whelk, as divine retribution
Good morning
You need to hope you will be reincarnated as a Lord, and not as a skunk!
Victoria Derbyshire, "Do you think Yvette Cooper is lying?"
Sir Jonathan Porritt, former long term advisor to King Charles, who was one of 500 people arrested on Saturday,
"The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre which is the government's own advisory body advised Yvette Cooper that there is no evidence whatsoever that Palestine Action has advocated violence against people"
"It has used violence against property"
"So when Yvette Cooper implies that Palestine Action has done violence to people, we know the Home Secretary is not revealing the whole truth"
Apart from the above and similar events which may not be public yet - sub judice, charges not brought etc - there could be a dual headed nature to this.
That is, some sort of basically violence-willing inner (or entryist) group, with a penumbra of 'peaceful activists', who may be perhaps be also termed "useful idiots". It's quite possible that public figures could form part of such a penumbra, or otherwise prioritising the cause so much that they are willing to turn a blind eye to the activities of their fellow campaigners. That could be explicit or varied version of vanguardism.
That's consistently been an SWP pattern, for example - where one orientation is to use a fluffy cause to attack the way society is organised. That's one reason I never trust Unite Against Fascism, Stop the War, or Stand Up to Racism without a careful look - they all have such a history.
Another contemporary example is our various (choose your word) "right", where the aim is to present "local families concerned about protecting our girls", but there's a hard line core of Tommy Robinson and similars willing to attack police, counter demonstrators etc, with an overlap formed by eg Homeland Party councillors. We have seen the same "concerned locals" in different places claiming the same thing.
Not commenting on causes there, but on organisation.
I think that this may in part be another Government Comms cockup.
Reflecting a little further, the double headed approach could be deliberate strategy.
And one previous "peaceful" protest group which tipped over into terrorism was SHAC - Stop Huntingdon Life Science, and that was because (imo) at core the philosophy of animal equality to human beings, and the willingness to use violence to campaign for is deeply flawed. The centrist dad approach of being pragmatic in permitting but seeking to minimise animal experimentation is far more rational.
It seems plain enough to me that Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation.
It’s proscription is justified.
It's CND: The Next Generation
Which led to this interesting letter in the Times from the retired base commander at Greenham Common back then.
On the letter itself. It is interesting that it portrays a robust but layered attitude to security. Along other things, the protestors were aware that the actual aircraft and weapons at Greenham would have been defended with deadly force.
What we are seeing is an intersection of legalism and accession to the words of “Human Rights” with a very authoritarian attitude...
Nether side come out the saga particularly well.
Layered security costs, of course. But as the old Wing Commander notes, it provides a good compromise between security and freedom of protest etc.
The obvious way to have dealt with PA would be to make sure those fools committing criminal damage get long prison sentences - as they deserve - while preserving the right for plainly peaceful voters to protest. Making the carrying of a placard, in this context, a terrorist offence is ridiculous overkill.
And it’s somewhat hilarious to note that deliberately damaging military assets has been considered an extreme crime pretty much since laws were written down.
I recall a judge’s memoir in which he describe a young offender who wasn’t phased by being prosecuted for arson. So, in his summing up, the judge made reference to the ancient law about the Queens Dockyards (it was a dockyard building that had been attacked), which was still on the books. Apparently the young man nearly collapsed at that point.
“Modernisation” of the law has apparently made treason unprosecutable.
It’s rather weird that these guys didn’t think that planning a campaign of tens millions of pounds worth of damage to military facilities and equipment would be considered terrorism. They do know how much it costs to refurbish engines on aircraft, don’t they?
Do we know how many of the hundreds arrested over the weekend have been charged with anything? They were clearly supporting said proscribed terrorist group.
Terrorism is generally interpreted as actions designed to cause terror in the general public - it's a stretch to include support for an organisation, even if some of their members may do things that are indefensible and expensive. I don't think it's a good idea to water down the meaning - taking actions that cause general terror should indeed generate long gaol sentences, whereas supporting something with a poster or email really shouldn't. I'd apply the same distinction to someone who expressed approval of the IRA or some violent far-right group - quite wrong, but not terrorism.
The problem for the government is the disconnect between Blair (and later UK government) Terrorism laws & public perception of which actions justify proscribing an organisation with all the restraints on free speech & action that follows from that.
The laws are drawn up very widely & up until now governments have been relatively restrained in their use. But they’ve always been there, in all their authoritarian glory, ready to be picked up by whichever government decided to use them.
Which is where a lot of the “two tier” stuff originates. It may or may not be correct, but it’s a problem for the government if the perception of many is that authorities react differently depending on which cause is being protested or which group is being supported.
Personally I’d take a more libertarian, freedom of speech view of these things, but the same rules need to apply both to the “Free Palestine” marches and the “Tommy Robinson Fan Club” marches, with acts of violence being prosecuted but words said and placards waved being seen as fair in most cases.
This is quite possibly the dumbest thing I’ve heard so far today. I appreciate that this is a low bar, but there it is.
It's the Telegraph, so presumably they're misrepresenting something.
It is perfectly believable that the Environment Agency officials are working from a list - AI is Good at the moment, so ignore the vast loads.
Stored email takes little power - data centres are quite good at load managing, and archived email is categorised as low access (where they can) and put on drives that are put in standby.
Three facts combined by the tech numpty who wrote the OSA, by the look of it, to reach a silly conclusion.
As an aside, the computing power needed for AI is worrying some green campaigners. Some (even on pb) have suggested that devolved governments in colder and wetter parts of the country should look at building data centres there to take advantage of natural cooling.
There was a forecast I saw the other day, from Bank of America or someone like that, that by 2030 AI investment (in data centres, servers, networking, storage, power) will account for 80%+ of all data centre spending, and be about 5 times what is currently spent on all non-AI data centres in 2025. It is a bonkers amount of capital investment, and the only thing certain about the outcome is the adage that in a gold rush, sell shovels.
After Lockdown 3 when I became suicidal, I continued to behave weirdly for a few months (ed driving at 140mph in Dorset on an A road at noon). There was suicidality lurking
In May I got a commission from the Gazette to eat at great places in Eastern England. I persuaded a friend to join me for a seafood feast on the north Norfolk coast. The next day I had to be at a vineyard in Essex for an afternoon tasting
I couldn’t get to sleep after so much seafood and booze so I took about five Xanax. And slept. I woke up feeling fine but then as I drove across Norfolk the Xanax really kicked in and I was basically hallucinating. Double vision. Weird reveries. I tried to fix the double vision by tying a silk scarf over half my face so only one eye was being used
As I was doing this I was weaving in and out of oncoming traffic. I was literally on the wrong side of the road crossing east Anglia. For hours. No idea where I was going. I kind of accepted a very selfish death
Eventually three police cars swept in and pulled me over (I must have been reported by dozens of witnesses). They were quite fierce (don’t blame them) and they breathalysed me of course. But I wasn’t drunk. It was Xanax. I kept saying to them “look it’s a fair cop but it’s not booze it’s Xanax”
They had no idea what Xanax might be. I kept coming up blank on the breathalyser. They breathalysed me FIVE TIMES and in the end gave up and just said “sleep it off in the car, Sir” and they departed
I slept it off in the car and eventually arrived about four hours late for my wine tasting at the vineyard. They were so surprised and pleased to see me even show up they fed me royally and got me drunk all over again. Excellent Pinot noir
Then I had to drive to the barn conversion where they had their accommodation. Again I was very drunk. They told me of a short cut but I didn’t understand it and I ended up driving directly through their vineyard - literally through the vines - and then I drove over a small wall and I found my accommodation and I slept it off. Again
Next morning I woke up up to find my car covered with red grapes and magenta juice. I fled
I spent the next few days in dread of an email saying “you destroyed our entire crop” but instead I got a very polite message saying “we really enjoyed your visit”
And that was it. Nothing ever happened. No punishment no karma no courtroom
But I’ll probably be reincarnated as a whelk, as divine retribution
Three facts combined by the tech numpty who wrote the OSA, by the look of it, to reach a silly conclusion.
As an aside, the computing power needed for AI is worrying some green campaigners. Some (even on pb) have suggested that devolved governments in colder and wetter parts of the country should look at building data centres there to take advantage of natural cooling.
There was a forecast I saw the other day, from Bank of America or someone like that, that by 2030 AI investment (in data centres, servers, networking, storage, power) will account for 80%+ of all data centre spending, and be about 5 times what is currently spent on all non-AI data centres in 2025. It is a bonkers amount of capital investment, and the only thing certain about the outcome is the adage that in a gold rush, sell shovels.
Which is why Nvidia is now a $4trn company. They’re the ones selling shovels to the AI companies.
The DWP began inviting households who were claiming IS to move to UC at scale from April 2024, and HB only from July 2024. The DWP also started inviting a small number of households receiving only income-related ESA or income-related ESA with HB in June 2024, in preparation for future transitions. The second phase of this research focuses on these specific legacy benefit cohorts who were moved onto UC from April 2024 onwards.
The DWP began inviting households who were claiming IS to move to UC at scale from April 2024, and HB only from July 2024. The DWP also started inviting a small number of households receiving only income-related ESA or income-related ESA with HB in June 2024, in preparation for future transitions. The second phase of this research focuses on these specific legacy benefit cohorts who were moved onto UC from April 2024 onwards.
After Lockdown 3 when I became suicidal, I continued to behave weirdly for a few months (ed driving at 140mph in Dorset on an A road at noon). There was suicidality lurking
In May I got a commission from the Gazette to eat at great places in Eastern England. I persuaded a friend to join me for a seafood feast on the north Norfolk coast. The next day I had to be at a vineyard in Essex for an afternoon tasting
I couldn’t get to sleep after so much seafood and booze so I took about five Xanax. And slept. I woke up feeling fine but then as I drove across Norfolk the Xanax really kicked in and I was basically hallucinating. Double vision. Weird reveries. I tried to fix the double vision by tying a silk scarf over half my face so only one eye was being used
As I was doing this I was weaving in and out of oncoming traffic. I was literally on the wrong side of the road crossing east Anglia. For hours. No idea where I was going. I kind of accepted a very selfish death
Eventually three police cars swept in and pulled me over (I must have been reported by dozens of witnesses). They were quite fierce (don’t blame them) and they breathalysed me of course. But I wasn’t drunk. It was Xanax. I kept saying to them “look it’s a fair cop but it’s not booze it’s Xanax”
They had no idea what Xanax might be. I kept coming up blank on the breathalyser. They breathalysed me FIVE TIMES and in the end gave up and just said “sleep it off in the car, Sir” and they departed
I slept it off in the car and eventually arrived about four hours late for my wine tasting at the vineyard. They were so surprised and pleased to see me even show up they fed me royally and got me drunk all over again. Excellent Pinot noir
Then I had to drive to the barn conversion where they had their accommodation. Again I was very drunk. They told me of a short cut but I didn’t understand it and I ended up driving directly through their vineyard - literally through the vines - and then I drove over a small wall and I found my accommodation and I slept it off. Again
Next morning I woke up up to find my car covered with red grapes and magenta juice. I fled
I spent the next few days in dread of an email saying “you destroyed our entire crop” but instead I got a very polite message saying “we really enjoyed your visit”
And that was it. Nothing ever happened. No punishment no karma no courtroom
But I’ll probably be reincarnated as a whelk, as divine retribution
Good morning
I did once come close to crashing, when driving while far too tired. But, I can't claim an experience like that.
My weirdest hallucinatory experience was when taking both anti-depressants and sleeping pills, and I had a lot to drink at a formal dinner. I had a very strange waking dream, where I was sentenced to death by a court-martial, and then put before a firing squad.
Anecdata: my mid-70s chauffeur yesterday could read a number plate more than the statutory 20m away. He was wearing anti-glare glasses as recommended by this very pb iirc, and glare might be another problem now with brighter and higher LED lights.
Glare from modern LED lights is a serious problem the government doesn't see to have any wish to tackle. A good chunk of the population have light sensitivity (which can get worse with age) or astigmatism, meaning LEDs can be dazzling to the point of making it impossible to see ahead for seconds at a time.
I mostly stay off the road at night now because of this.
I hate and avoid driving at night because of LED headlights, and also because there seem to be more selfish arseholes who refuse to dip their lights.
Eye tests also need to account for people awaiting optical treatment, such as cataract operations. Mrs. F has been waiting for over a year. It seems unreasonable that she should be prevented from driving for longer than necessary because of NHS delays.
If we are unable to drive we will be housebound unless we pay for taxis. I don’t suppose there will be any help or compensation for those of us who don’t live in cities.
On topic, speaking to a copper on this topic and they took the view that a zero drink drive limit as the issue is people who go out for one round and without malicious intent end up having a bit more and end up over the limit.
Then again she did say that drink driving is a minor issue and we should be focussing on drug driving which is the elephant in the room.
And will all plods be offering to take a daily breathalyser test to make sure that there is always zero alcohol in their blood before they drive ?
Yes, she doesn't drink 36 hours before she's due to start a shift.
Our conversation was sparked by this from last year.
South Yorkshire Police sack officer following drink driving conviction
A serving South Yorkshire Police constable who received a conviction for drink drinking has now been sacked by the force.
Police Constable Abbie Plummer was dismissed from the force without notice at the conclusion of her accelerated misconduct hearing on November 29, 2024.
Documents published by South Yorkshire Police state Plummer’s conduct amounts to a breach of the Standards of Professional Behaviour in respect of discreditable conduct.
If I couldn't drink any alcohol for 36 hours before I drive then I would be effectively stopped either from consuming any alcohol or driving ever again.
So a rather bizarre socioeconomic structure would develop with the country divided into those who drink alcohol and those who drive.
We can discuss whether that would be a good thing but it would certainly be disruptive in implementing it.
I think the current limits are fine.
The trouble with "zero tolerance" is that it's zero tolerance, and the impacts are not thought through.
A friend's son has just been on a Scouts trip trekking across part of Poland, where they were treated delightfully by the locals. (They do have proper posh south-west London accents.)
On topic, speaking to a copper on this topic and they took the view that we should introduce a zero drink drive limit as the issue is people who go out for one round and without malicious intent end up having a bit more and end up over the limit.
Then again she did say that drink driving is a minor issue and we should be focussing on drug driving which is the elephant in the room.
Also tired driving. There aren't many good studies on this but I'd imagine a large proportion of avoidable sober deaths on the road are due to tiredness, especially given that nighttime crashes are much more likely to be fatal.
The one crash I almost caused when I was young and stupid was because I was tired. And I've never driven while exhausted since.
This is in the same bracket as old people driving. If people aren't allowed to drive tired, then a lot of driving doesn't happen.
I've cut down my driving to away games. Driven back from the North West after midweek games in the past. But age has caught up with me and I can't do it any more.
There was a stat, not sure if it is still the case, that more soldiers died on the road than on active service.
Opposite the RMAS main entrance is a clump of trees and once, famously if perhaps apocryphally, one cadet, having come off a particularly gruelling exercise, jumped into his car, drove out of the main gates and fell asleep, thereby hitting the trees opposite the entrance.
More Americans died in RTA's in the USA than died in the War in Vietnam. During the same period.
In contrast to the UK, the attitude to drinking and driving in the US really hasn’t changed much in the last few decades, getting a “DUI” is almost seen as a rite of passage in many rural areas.
A combination of little public transport outside of New York and a couple of other large cities, and driver licences at 16 with minimal testing.
Although we can always do better, the UK is one of the safest countries in the world for road traffic fatalities.
I think Vision Zero is beginning to bring to the fore what we could achieve.
Helsinki - city of 1.4m (metro area) - had zero road deaths for the last 12 months July 24 to July 25.
We can do that in Birmingham or Glasgow, or even Nottingham-Derby-Leicester.
Three facts combined by the tech numpty who wrote the OSA, by the look of it, to reach a silly conclusion.
As an aside, the computing power needed for AI is worrying some green campaigners. Some (even on pb) have suggested that devolved governments in colder and wetter parts of the country should look at building data centres there to take advantage of natural cooling.
We can’t do that. It would mean moving jobs and investment from the south to the north, which is not on.
Of course the Telegraph is wrong. Datacentres being used for file storage and email do not consume particularly large amounts of energy, it's AI and other compute-centric workloads doing that.
Victoria Derbyshire, "Do you think Yvette Cooper is lying?"
Sir Jonathan Porritt, former long term advisor to King Charles, who was one of 500 people arrested on Saturday,
"The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre which is the government's own advisory body advised Yvette Cooper that there is no evidence whatsoever that Palestine Action has advocated violence against people"
"It has used violence against property"
"So when Yvette Cooper implies that Palestine Action has done violence to people, we know the Home Secretary is not revealing the whole truth"
Apart from the above and similar events which may not be public yet - sub judice, charges not brought etc - there could be a dual headed nature to this.
That is, some sort of basically violence-willing inner (or entryist) group, with a penumbra of 'peaceful activists', who may be perhaps be also termed "useful idiots". It's quite possible that public figures could form part of such a penumbra, or otherwise prioritising the cause so much that they are willing to turn a blind eye to the activities of their fellow campaigners. That could be explicit or varied version of vanguardism.
That's consistently been an SWP pattern, for example - where one orientation is to use a fluffy cause to attack the way society is organised. That's one reason I never trust Unite Against Fascism, Stop the War, or Stand Up to Racism without a careful look - they all have such a history.
Another contemporary example is our various (choose your word) "right", where the aim is to present "local families concerned about protecting our girls", but there's a hard line core of Tommy Robinson and similars willing to attack police, counter demonstrators etc, with an overlap formed by eg Homeland Party councillors. We have seen the same "concerned locals" in different places claiming the same thing.
Not commenting on causes there, but on organisation.
I think that this may in part be another Government Comms cockup.
Reflecting a little further, the double headed approach could be deliberate strategy.
And one previous "peaceful" protest group which tipped over into terrorism was SHAC - Stop Huntingdon Life Science, and that was because (imo) at core the philosophy of animal equality to human beings, and the willingness to use violence to campaign for is deeply flawed. The centrist dad approach of being pragmatic in permitting but seeking to minimise animal experimentation is far more rational.
It seems plain enough to me that Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation.
It’s proscription is justified.
It's CND: The Next Generation
Which led to this interesting letter in the Times from the retired base commander at Greenham Common back then.
On the letter itself. It is interesting that it portrays a robust but layered attitude to security. Along other things, the protestors were aware that the actual aircraft and weapons at Greenham would have been defended with deadly force.
What we are seeing is an intersection of legalism and accession to the words of “Human Rights” with a very authoritarian attitude.
To such people the idea of threatening deadly force to protect a military installation would be a “Human Rights” violation. But proscribing an organisation as terrorist is to say that The Forms Must Be Obeyed*. And therefore isn’t a “Human Rights” violation.
At the very beginning of New Labour, they used obscure Royal Parks laws from medieval times to arrest people politely holding up signs saying “Remember Tibet”, on the occasion of the Chinese President visiting.
Later, people wearing T-Shirts saying “Bollocks to Blair” were threatened with arrest.
A range of utterly peaceful protest organisation were heavily infiltrated by the police. At the same time the Death To The West crowd were escalating toward 7/7 unhindered. These infiltrations were carried out illegally and resulted in the police themselves committing various offences. The subsequent court cases are still working through the courts.
An example - Fathers For Justice. Due to the pendulum in family courts swing too far, courts were refusing to enforce judgements on the mothers in such cases, but were enforcing them on the men. The theory being that the women were now Single Mothers and deserved protection. So divorced men saw a situation where they were paying child support etc to the point of literally having no money left - and then being denied the court proscribed visitation to their children.
FFJ was about demanding that court orders be enforced. Their protests consisted of people dressing up in silly costumes and climbing up on things. Not even damage. In the end, a police infiltrator tried to turn the organisation violent - the actual protestors disbanded in horror at the idea.
I think we have a confluence of a kind of morally bankrupt legalism and an ingrained belief that all protest against a “left wing” government is illegitimate.
At the time of the Tibet/Royal Parks thing I coined the term The Lawyers Syllogism
1) the laws says that something is legal 2) therefore it must be done 3) any opposition to doing it is an attack on the law and immoral.
(Apologies to the writers of Yes Minister)
I came up with that, after speaking to some lawyers on the edges of that decision. They offered a justification for the governments actions that was nearly exactly the above.
*in the series Dune, the phrase The Forms Must Be Obeyed is placed at the front of each law. Which laws are a system of deliberate feudalism - the people are literally serfs. For their own good, apparently
Would American servicemen on British soil really have been permitted to shoot dead CND protestors? The political implications of that would have been massive.
But so would they in the USA: the UK being seen to prosecute patriotic US guards.
Churchill abdicated all prosecution of US services' crimes in the UK, even for civil crimes, to the US military system in [edit] WW2.
ISTR that the US forces sometimes chose not to enforce their rights, especially for cases involving UK civilians, but am a bit hazy about this. Certainly didn't happen in a case where the race of the accused did not, erm, help the situation.
'Henry was free to return to duty. The British press had done good work, but the Americans resented it profoundly. They demanded press censorship in rape cases.
The British refused, but the Americans found a solution. From November 1944, the crime statistics they shared with British officials ceased to distinguish between white and black soldiers. Colonel Jock Lawrence, the public relations officer for the ETO, was determined that the British press must be denied further opportunity to depict the USA as “some uncivilised nation”.'
Edit: the relevance is not so much the specific issues of rape or race, but the sort of thing that could happen given the different attitudes and clashes of legal culture.
Anecdata: my mid-70s chauffeur yesterday could read a number plate more than the statutory 20m away. He was wearing anti-glare glasses as recommended by this very pb iirc, and glare might be another problem now with brighter and higher LED lights.
Glare from modern LED lights is a serious problem the government doesn't see to have any wish to tackle. A good chunk of the population have light sensitivity (which can get worse with age) or astigmatism, meaning LEDs can be dazzling to the point of making it impossible to see ahead for seconds at a time.
I mostly stay off the road at night now because of this.
I hate and avoid driving at night because of LED headlights, and also because there seem to be more selfish arseholes who refuse to dip their lights.
Eye tests also need to account for people awaiting optical treatment, such as cataract operations. Mrs. F has been waiting for over a year. It seems unreasonable that she should be prevented from driving for longer than necessary because of NHS delays.
If we are unable to drive we will be housebound unless we pay for taxis. I don’t suppose there will be any help or compensation for those of us who don’t live in cities.
It may not be (entirely) selfishness. These days, a lot of cars have self-dipping headlights which are supposed to respond to oncoming lights and dip themselves. It may be that these systems aren't terribly reliable, or perhaps fail to register oncoming lights if they aren't bright enough. I know that my car sometimes fails in this regard and I have to dip the lights manually, but some people may be unaware that their self-dipping lights don't always work.
Three facts combined by the tech numpty who wrote the OSA, by the look of it, to reach a silly conclusion.
As an aside, the computing power needed for AI is worrying some green campaigners. Some (even on pb) have suggested that devolved governments in colder and wetter parts of the country should look at building data centres there to take advantage of natural cooling.
We can’t do that. It would mean moving jobs and investment from the south to the north, which is not on.
And imagine the political pressure and lobbying for charging electricity according to the distance from the generator. Wouldn't just be the SNP etc.
After Lockdown 3 when I became suicidal, I continued to behave weirdly for a few months (ed driving at 140mph in Dorset on an A road at noon). There was suicidality lurking
In May I got a commission from the Gazette to eat at great places in Eastern England. I persuaded a friend to join me for a seafood feast on the north Norfolk coast. The next day I had to be at a vineyard in Essex for an afternoon tasting
I couldn’t get to sleep after so much seafood and booze so I took about five Xanax. And slept. I woke up feeling fine but then as I drove across Norfolk the Xanax really kicked in and I was basically hallucinating. Double vision. Weird reveries. I tried to fix the double vision by tying a silk scarf over half my face so only one eye was being used
As I was doing this I was weaving in and out of oncoming traffic. I was literally on the wrong side of the road crossing east Anglia. For hours. No idea where I was going. I kind of accepted a very selfish death
Eventually three police cars swept in and pulled me over (I must have been reported by dozens of witnesses). They were quite fierce (don’t blame them) and they breathalysed me of course. But I wasn’t drunk. It was Xanax. I kept saying to them “look it’s a fair cop but it’s not booze it’s Xanax”
They had no idea what Xanax might be. I kept coming up blank on the breathalyser. They breathalysed me FIVE TIMES and in the end gave up and just said “sleep it off in the car, Sir” and they departed
I slept it off in the car and eventually arrived about four hours late for my wine tasting at the vineyard. They were so surprised and pleased to see me even show up they fed me royally and got me drunk all over again. Excellent Pinot noir
Then I had to drive to the barn conversion where they had their accommodation. Again I was very drunk. They told me of a short cut but I didn’t understand it and I ended up driving directly through their vineyard - literally through the vines - and then I drove over a small wall and I found my accommodation and I slept it off. Again
Next morning I woke up up to find my car covered with red grapes and magenta juice. I fled
I spent the next few days in dread of an email saying “you destroyed our entire crop” but instead I got a very polite message saying “we really enjoyed your visit”
And that was it. Nothing ever happened. No punishment no karma no courtroom
But I’ll probably be reincarnated as a whelk, as divine retribution
Good morning
I did once come close to crashing, when driving while far too tired. But, I can't claim an experience like that.
My weirdest hallucinatory experience was when taking both anti-depressants and sleeping pills, and I had a lot to drink at a formal dinner. I had a very strange waking dream, where I was sentenced to death by a court-martial, and then put before a firing squad.
Of course the court martial and firing squad may be real while all else is a dream, pace Occurrence at Owl Creek.
Of course the Telegraph is wrong. Datacentres being used for file storage and email do not consume particularly large amounts of energy, it's AI and other compute-centric workloads doing that.
“There are also small steps the general public can take. These include:
Shortening showers Turning off taps when brushing teeth Using full loads for washing machines and dishwashers Collecting rainwater for garden use Deleting old emails to reduce pressure on data centre servers ”
Note they don’t say use LLMs less
So the Telegraph is literally correct to say that this is the advice if the Environment Agency.
Three facts combined by the tech numpty who wrote the OSA, by the look of it, to reach a silly conclusion.
As an aside, the computing power needed for AI is worrying some green campaigners. Some (even on pb) have suggested that devolved governments in colder and wetter parts of the country should look at building data centres there to take advantage of natural cooling.
We can’t do that. It would mean moving jobs and investment from the south to the north, which is not on.
And imagine the political pressure and lobbying for charging electricity according to the distance from the generator. Wouldn't just be the SNP etc.
Has anyone ever provided a rational explanation of why electricity should be cheaper the further away from the source of generation?
Three facts combined by the tech numpty who wrote the OSA, by the look of it, to reach a silly conclusion.
As an aside, the computing power needed for AI is worrying some green campaigners. Some (even on pb) have suggested that devolved governments in colder and wetter parts of the country should look at building data centres there to take advantage of natural cooling.
We can’t do that. It would mean moving jobs and investment from the south to the north, which is not on.
And imagine the political pressure and lobbying for charging electricity according to the distance from the generator. Wouldn't just be the SNP etc.
Has anyone ever provided a rational explanation of why electricity should be cheaper the further away from the source of generation?
Anecdata: my mid-70s chauffeur yesterday could read a number plate more than the statutory 20m away. He was wearing anti-glare glasses as recommended by this very pb iirc, and glare might be another problem now with brighter and higher LED lights.
Glare from modern LED lights is a serious problem the government doesn't see to have any wish to tackle. A good chunk of the population have light sensitivity (which can get worse with age) or astigmatism, meaning LEDs can be dazzling to the point of making it impossible to see ahead for seconds at a time.
I mostly stay off the road at night now because of this.
I hate and avoid driving at night because of LED headlights, and also because there seem to be more selfish arseholes who refuse to dip their lights.
Eye tests also need to account for people awaiting optical treatment, such as cataract operations. Mrs. F has been waiting for over a year. It seems unreasonable that she should be prevented from driving for longer than necessary because of NHS delays.
If we are unable to drive we will be housebound unless we pay for taxis. I don’t suppose there will be any help or compensation for those of us who don’t live in cities.
It may not be (entirely) selfishness. These days, a lot of cars have self-dipping headlights which are supposed to respond to oncoming lights and dip themselves. It may be that these systems aren't terribly reliable, or perhaps fail to register oncoming lights if they aren't bright enough. I know that my car sometimes fails in this regard and I have to dip the lights manually, but some people may be unaware that their self-dipping lights don't always work.
Do the headlights "dip" ? My car has two different sets of lights, one 'full beam', the other regular headlights. Regular headlights failed on the way up to the northeast (Was fine whilst there as was near the solstice) so had to go up the A1 on main beam...
Of course the Telegraph is wrong. Datacentres being used for file storage and email do not consume particularly large amounts of energy, it's AI and other compute-centric workloads doing that.
“There are also small steps the general public can take. These include:
Shortening showers Turning off taps when brushing teeth Using full loads for washing machines and dishwashers Collecting rainwater for garden use Deleting old emails to reduce pressure on data centre servers ”
Note they don’t say use LLMs less
So the Telegraph is literally correct to say that this is the advice if the Environment Agency.
Here’s another they could add. Drink alcohol instead of water. Except when driving.
Comments
For a better answer, pop over to buildhub.org.uk.
https://x.com/mikeysmith/status/1955189959926673555
all the guys in my old military group chat were TERRIFIED Kamala would do this. that Hilary would do this.
so they elected the *only* candidate who actually *would*
https://x.com/aspiringpeasant/status/1954931288445726787
Justin Wolfers
@JustinWolfers
Trump's nominee for BLS commissioner, EJ Antoni, is disastrously terrible. He's a 1200%, 1300% maybe 1400% in-the-tank Trumper, with few credentials beyond a long history of misrepresenting or misunderstanding basic economic statistics. He has demonstrated no commitment to truth.
https://washingtonpost.com/business/2025/08/11/trump-bls-nomination-antoni/
Justin Wolfers
@JustinWolfers
Imagine if Steve Bannon and Stephen Moore had a little econo-baby, and they taught it how to misrepresent economic statistics.
That's our new nominee for BLS commissioner.
https://x.com/JustinWolfers/status/1955046310098153808
LOL.
So that's OK.
Nice to see that 'find the lady' is still around, attended by the ageless game of 'find the mug'. A relic of post war London. Even as a London child I knew the moment you see it to keep your distance and guard your pocket.
Ken Livingstone used Black taxis to go everywhere. Even after it was pointed out that a car and driver would be cheaper.
But, when they stick 20 limits on quite main roads, it does annoy people. Of course, those 20 limits may indeed save lives, but, it's starts to get into the realm of why bother letting anyone drive faster than that anywhere. Perhaps most of the single lane stretches of the A303 ought to be 20.
https://x.com/JosephPolitano/status/1955041060197114136
What sticks in the craw was watching bookies banning people for winning, instantly. And slow walking banning problem losers.
I worked for an alt-bank (for a while) which specialised in the gambling space - Revolut for gamblers.
V different to these days!
Will the private sector banks and funds find another way to get real data?
Everyday he'll be getting a no bullshit twenty minute answer from the cabbie to 'How are things mate?'
I mostly stay off the road at night now because of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd3SNmrXDIU
The response fits the mood and the mood is often set by the whims of the incumbent of 10 Downing Street or the Home Office which change with time and circumstances.
We can see anomalies and discrepencies all through the last 60-70 years of protest - Red Lion Square anyone? I have to agree with those who think arresting people for simply supporting Palestine Action is silly and time wasting. Being a member of versus expressing support for can be a fine line - if Reform were banned tomorrow, they'd need to sequester most of the country's remaining hotels to hold those who claimed support for Farage let alone membership.
Attitudes to peaceful protest are strange - the Anti-Iraq War march and the Countryside Alliance March (both under Blair) were fine examples of what peaceful protest should be but we also know violent elemetns can attach themselves to nominally peaceful protests and cause problems.
There is another road near me that goes round a housing estate, with no properties fronting in it and an office development the other side (a couple of which have been repurposed as flats). It is a big wide road and few people use the pavement, as there is nowhere to go and it's mostly runners and dog walkers. Yet the Lib Dem want to reduce it to 30. But not the 40mph road that goes past mine and actually has houses fronting onto it. I think both should stay at 40, but I suspect there will be a reduction as they are building a nursing home along "my" road and I suspect they will do it to protect traffic pulling in and out.
1966 - 7,985
1970 - 7,499
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reported_Road_Casualties_Great_Britain
Back in the day, Airey Neave was murdered by a bomb with a mercury switch when he started up the ramp from the underground car park iirc.
I have no idea why you have to "support" a party just vote either for the least unacceptable, or tactically against the most unacceptable
Environment Agency releases new guidance to reduce water usage as five areas of UK are in drought" (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/11/southern-england-heatwave-amber-alert/
They illuminate the road in a series on boxes (the matrix!) and if it thinks there is a car in any box it turns that one off, so if you pass a car you see a box of dark moving along
It is quite disconcerting
That might 100mph at 3am on a motorway; 10mph through central Edinburgh in August.
https://bsky.app/profile/sifill.bsky.social/post/3lw65wbrt7c2r
Do we know how many of the hundreds arrested over the weekend have been charged with anything? They were clearly supporting said proscribed terrorist group.
In terms of major parties, I would think the Conservatives are your best bet. Badenoch is more libertarian than some Tory leaders have been. The party is broadly centre-right.
Emails and photos stored in the cloud are maintained by vast data centres, which consume so much energy that they require large amounts of water to keep cool.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/11/southern-england-heatwave-amber-alert/ (£££)
Three facts combined by the tech numpty who wrote the OSA, by the look of it, to reach a silly conclusion.
As an aside, the computing power needed for AI is worrying some green campaigners. Some (even on pb) have suggested that devolved governments in colder and wetter parts of the country should look at building data centres there to take advantage of natural cooling.
I can imagine that almost every MP has an assistant, one of whose tasks is MP transport. Whenever I’ve met an MP (in constituency rather than Westminster), they’ve turned up as a passenger in a car.
In London one would suspect that they generally live pretty close to the ‘office’, and either walk or take the Tube to Westminster.
In May I got a commission from the Gazette to eat at great places in Eastern England. I persuaded a friend to join me for a seafood feast on the north Norfolk coast. The next day I had to be at a vineyard in Essex for an afternoon tasting
I couldn’t get to sleep after so much seafood and booze so I took about five Xanax. And slept. I woke up feeling fine but then as I drove across Norfolk the Xanax really kicked in and I was basically hallucinating. Double vision. Weird reveries. I tried to fix the double vision by tying a silk scarf over half my face so only one eye was being used
As I was doing this I was weaving in and out of oncoming traffic. I was literally on the wrong side of the road crossing east Anglia. For hours. No idea where I was going. I kind of accepted a very selfish death
Eventually three police cars swept in and pulled me over (I must have been reported by dozens of witnesses). They were quite fierce (don’t blame them) and they breathalysed me of course. But I wasn’t drunk. It was Xanax. I kept saying to them “look it’s a fair cop but it’s not booze it’s Xanax”
They had no idea what Xanax might be. I kept coming up blank on the breathalyser. They breathalysed me FIVE TIMES and in the end gave up and just said “sleep it off in the car, Sir” and they departed
I slept it off in the car and eventually arrived about four hours late for my wine tasting at the vineyard. They were so surprised and pleased to see me even show up they fed me royally and got me drunk all over again. Excellent Pinot noir
Then I had to drive to the barn conversion where they had their accommodation. Again I was very drunk. They told me of a short cut but I didn’t understand it and I ended up driving directly through their vineyard - literally through the vines - and then I drove over a small wall and I found my accommodation and I slept it off. Again
Next morning I woke up up to find my car covered with red grapes and magenta juice. I fled
I spent the next few days in dread of an email saying “you destroyed our entire crop” but instead I got a very polite message saying “we really enjoyed your visit”
And that was it. Nothing ever happened. No punishment no karma no courtroom
But I’ll probably be reincarnated as a whelk, as divine retribution
Good morning
A combination of little public transport outside of New York and a couple of other large cities, and driver licences at 16 with minimal testing.
Although we can always do better, the UK is one of the safest countries in the world for road traffic fatalities.
The laws are drawn up very widely & up until now governments have been relatively restrained in their use. But they’ve always been there, in all their authoritarian glory, ready to be picked up by whichever government decided to use them.
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/mexican-volunteers-train-with-ukrainian-military-1753835362.html
Mexican volunteers train with Ukrainian military to operate drones for drug cartels
Helsinki - city of 1.4m (metro area) - had zero road deaths for the last 12 months July 24 to July 25.
We can do that in Birmingham or Glasgow, or even Nottingham-Derby-Leicester.
https://www.roadsafetytrust.org.uk/news/helsinki-sees-zero-road-fatalities-across-whole-year
Personally I’d take a more libertarian, freedom of speech view of these things, but the same rules need to apply both to the “Free Palestine” marches and the “Tommy Robinson Fan Club” marches, with acts of violence being prosecuted but words said and placards waved being seen as fair in most cases.
ETA: looks as though already answered upthread!
Stored email takes little power - data centres are quite good at load managing, and archived email is categorised as low access (where they can) and put on drives that are put in standby.
But stored email isn’t in the Good category, so….
UNIVERSAL CREDIT CLAIMANTS SOAR BY MORE THAN ONE MILLION UNDER LABOUR
https://order-order.com/2025/08/12/universal-credit-claimants-soar-by-more-than-one-million-under-labour/
...
The Newbridge residents confused the Scouts’ Scottish accents for asylum seekers after the party of more than 30 teenagers travelled to Wales for a summer camping trip.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/11/villagers-verbally-abuse-scouts-mistook-for-migrants/ (£££)
Elocution is so important.
The DWP began inviting households who were claiming IS to move to UC at scale from April 2024, and HB only from July 2024. The DWP also started inviting a small number of households receiving only income-related ESA or income-related ESA with HB in June 2024, in preparation for future transitions. The second phase of this research focuses on these specific legacy benefit cohorts who were moved onto UC from April 2024 onwards.
My weirdest hallucinatory experience was when taking both anti-depressants and sleeping pills, and I had a lot to drink at a formal dinner. I had a very strange waking dream, where I was sentenced to death by a court-martial, and then put before a firing squad.
1 - UC continues to be rolled out as existing claimants are transferred from legacy benefits.
2 - There are extra claimants after the WFP changes.
Eye tests also need to account for people awaiting optical treatment, such as cataract operations. Mrs. F has been waiting for over a year. It seems unreasonable that she should be prevented from driving for longer than necessary because of NHS delays.
If we are unable to drive we will be housebound unless we pay for taxis. I don’t suppose there will be any help or compensation for those of us who don’t live in cities.
The trouble with "zero tolerance" is that it's zero tolerance, and the impacts are not thought through.
Sadly what passes for journalism these days, and the dead-tree press are no better when writing on certain subjects. Another unwanted American import.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/finnish-businessman-hit-with-121000-speeding-fine
https://www.drinkdriving.org/worldwide_drink_driving_limits.php
Churchill abdicated all prosecution of US services' crimes in the UK, even for civil crimes, to the US military system in [edit] WW2.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1942/31/pdfs/ukpga_19420031_en.pdf
ISTR that the US forces sometimes chose not to enforce their rights, especially for cases involving UK civilians, but am a bit hazy about this. Certainly didn't happen in a case where the race of the accused did not, erm, help the situation.
https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/current/thought-leadership/how-a-british-sense-of-justice-saved-black-american-gi-wrongly-sentenced-to-death-in-wwii/
'Henry was free to return to duty. The British press had done good work, but the Americans resented it profoundly. They demanded press censorship in rape cases.
The British refused, but the Americans found a solution. From November 1944, the crime statistics they shared with British officials ceased to distinguish between white and black soldiers. Colonel Jock Lawrence, the public relations officer for the ETO, was determined that the British press must be denied further opportunity to depict the USA as “some uncivilised nation”.'
Edit: the relevance is not so much the specific issues of rape or race, but the sort of thing that could happen given the different attitudes and clashes of legal culture.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/england-faces-5-billion-litre-public-water-shortage-by-2055-without-urgent-action
Their actual advice
“There are also small steps the general public can take. These include:
Shortening showers
Turning off taps when brushing teeth
Using full loads for washing machines and dishwashers
Collecting rainwater for garden use
Deleting old emails to reduce pressure on data centre servers ”
Note they don’t say use LLMs less
So the Telegraph is literally correct to say that this is the advice if the Environment Agency.
https://bsky.app/profile/theabigailthorn.bsky.social/post/3lw6rojdeoc24
Drink alcohol instead of water. Except when driving.