YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
Don't know, tbh, but they certainly tend to be cautious about alienating their core supporters. Hence their opposition to the banning of fox-hunting when it was introduced by Blair - didn't want to antagonise the sheep farmers.
Do we know where they stand over the latest development, banning drag-hunting?
The trigger for Starmers IHT amendment was almost certainly his appearance at the EFRA committee last week when Alistair Carmichael skewered him that concerned farmers would be better off dying before April 2026 to avoid the IHT rule change.
I wonder how long it will be before Mr Campbell-Savours has the whip restored
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
British farmers do appear to be cretinous, as a class. Brexit is exhibit 1.
However, if you care about land use and food quality, then you need to care about farmers.
Reeves’s problem is she actively hates much of the country, including farmers.
The amount of political capital burnt in this thing is incredible. Ultimately, the correct decision, tax should be targeted at investors and companies buying land. The vast majority of farm estates will now be exempt, providing they make use of the £5m spouse allowance
Maybe you’re a farmer, or live rurally. I’m not, I live in Manhattan FFS.
But the solution here is obvious to both of us.
How the hell does Reeves and Treasury get it so wrong?
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
British farmers do appear to be cretinous, as a class. Brexit is exhibit 1.
However, if you care about land use and food quality, then you need to care about farmers.
Reeves’s problem is she actively hates much of the country, including farmers.
The amount of political capital burnt in this thing is incredible. Ultimately, the correct decision, tax should be targeted at investors and companies buying land. The vast majority of farm estates will now be exempt, providing they make use of the £5m spouse allowance
The people benefiting from this change are those sitting on a highly tax efficient asset worth many millions who quite sincerely and genuinely want to keep it that way and don't see why they should pay the same tax as say someone running a productive business.
We have to concede an extremely effective lobbying exercise by wealthy landowners but we don't really need to agree with the principle of it. It's far more egregious than WFA for example.
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
Don't know, tbh, but they certainly tend to be cautious about alienating their core supporters. Hence their opposition to the banning of fox-hunting when it was introduced by Blair - didn't want to antagonise the sheep farmers.
Do we know where they stand over the latest development, banning drag-hunting?
Not devolved, is it? In which case it's academic. But no, I dunno, nor can I find anything new.
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
British farmers do appear to be cretinous, as a class. Brexit is exhibit 1.
However, if you care about land use and food quality, then you need to care about farmers.
Reeves’s problem is she actively hates much of the country, including farmers.
The amount of political capital burnt in this thing is incredible. Ultimately, the correct decision, tax should be targeted at investors and companies buying land. The vast majority of farm estates will now be exempt, providing they make use of the £5m spouse allowance
Maybe you’re a farmer, or live rurally. I’m not, I live in Manhattan FFS.
But the solution here is obvious to both of us.
How the hell does Reeves and Treasury get it so wrong?
I live rurally yeah. I dont think it should be nothing, particularly given the amount of investment companies etc hoovering up land like Mr Dyson (pardon the pun). But equally the level previously set at £1m was way too low. Saying that, land values have disparity all over the country, you get more out of your cash in Scotland, as some English farmers moving north are finding
There will be big relief in farming circles, maybe 2026 will see a change in the tin eared attitude to many problems from the Treasury
Overjoyed to report the seizure of a tonne of speed in Wigan. Delightfully named Operation Barmcake.
Close to a tribute to Brass Eye....
Noel Edmonds: What is Cake? Well, it has an active ingredient which is a dangerous psychoactive compound known as dimesmeric andersonphosphate. It stimulates the part of the brain called Shatner's Bassoon...
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
British farmers do appear to be cretinous, as a class. Brexit is exhibit 1.
However, if you care about land use and food quality, then you need to care about farmers.
Reeves’s problem is she actively hates much of the country, including farmers.
The amount of political capital burnt in this thing is incredible. Ultimately, the correct decision, tax should be targeted at investors and companies buying land. The vast majority of farm estates will now be exempt, providing they make use of the £5m spouse allowance
The people benefiting from this change are those sitting on a highly tax efficient asset worth many millions who quite sincerely and genuinely want to keep it that way and don't see why they should pay the same tax as say someone running a productive business.
We have to concede an extremely effective lobbying exercise by wealthy landowners but we don't really need to agree with the principle of it. It's far more egregious than WFA for example.
Those who are genuinely worried about family farming would be far better off looking at *incomes* - for instance, supermarket buying practices - and food security.
But this lobbying has been all about protecting capital investment.
It's like houses - those who have houses are treated far better than those without when it comes to IHT. No wonder the values are distorted.
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
British farmers do appear to be cretinous, as a class. Brexit is exhibit 1.
However, if you care about land use and food quality, then you need to care about farmers.
Reeves’s problem is she actively hates much of the country, including farmers.
The amount of political capital burnt in this thing is incredible. Ultimately, the correct decision, tax should be targeted at investors and companies buying land. The vast majority of farm estates will now be exempt, providing they make use of the £5m spouse allowance
Maybe you’re a farmer, or live rurally. I’m not, I live in Manhattan FFS.
But the solution here is obvious to both of us.
How the hell does Reeves and Treasury get it so wrong?
The Labour party are no longer the party of postmen, coal miners, unionised workers and the working man (and woman) they are stuffed full of policy nerds, think tank advisers and Politics grads with less business experience than your average 5 year old
I know a few people involved with animal welfare who are quite pleased by Labour ambition in this area. Nick Palmer probably knows a lot more.
I have a feeling I belong to a niche minority here. I am deeply uncomfortable about lobster boiling and have no problem with fox hunting.
On which subject, the plan to ban trail hounds.
In Cumberland and Westmorland there is a long tradition of trail hound racing which has never had any connection with hunting animals, has always used scent trails and doesn't do red jackets and stirrup cups and lives in a world closer to whippets than Anthony Trollope novels. This should not be banned.
Never quite understood our hierarchy of which animals we can torture and to what extent myself! Seems 90% custom and 10% logic.
Unfortunately for the lobster, and it probably says more about my human morality, but I can't get worked up about it either.
The one that gets me morally confused is the question of deaths per meal.
Is a juicy steak (let’s say 1% of a cow), or better still a chunk of braised whale (0.001%?), more ethical than a prawn cocktail (15 whole beings) or plate of whitebait (30 lives, ended right there)?
If we accept the fact of eating living creatures they should be killed humanely. Unconscious when killed, I suppose that means.
Good morning, everybody. How are turkeys slaughtered?
I don’t really understand why orthodox halal/kosher doesn’t even allow animals to be stunned before slaughter.
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
British farmers do appear to be cretinous, as a class. Brexit is exhibit 1.
However, if you care about land use and food quality, then you need to care about farmers.
Reeves’s problem is she actively hates much of the country, including farmers.
The amount of political capital burnt in this thing is incredible. Ultimately, the correct decision, tax should be targeted at investors and companies buying land. The vast majority of farm estates will now be exempt, providing they make use of the £5m spouse allowance
The people benefiting from this change are those sitting on a highly tax efficient asset worth many millions who quite sincerely and genuinely want to keep it that way and don't see why they should pay the same tax as say someone running a productive business.
We have to concede an extremely effective lobbying exercise by wealthy landowners but we don't really need to agree with the principle of it. It's far more egregious than WFA for example.
Those who are genuinely worried about family farming would be far better off looking at *incomes* - for instance, supermarket buying practices - and food security.
But this lobbying has been all about protecting capital investment.
It's like houses - those who have houses are treated far better than those without when it comes to IHT. No wonder the values are distorted.
Sure it is about protecting capital values. If I had the capital I would want to protect it too. Land values are artificially boosted because of their usefulness in tax avoidance. One of the consequences of this is to make farming unaffordable unless you own the land already.
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
British farmers do appear to be cretinous, as a class. Brexit is exhibit 1.
However, if you care about land use and food quality, then you need to care about farmers.
Reeves’s problem is she actively hates much of the country, including farmers.
The amount of political capital burnt in this thing is incredible. Ultimately, the correct decision, tax should be targeted at investors and companies buying land. The vast majority of farm estates will now be exempt, providing they make use of the £5m spouse allowance
The people benefiting from this change are those sitting on a highly tax efficient asset worth many millions who quite sincerely and genuinely want to keep it that way and don't see why they should pay the same tax as say someone running a productive business.
We have to concede an extremely effective lobbying exercise by wealthy landowners but we don't really need to agree with the principle of it. It's far more egregious than WFA for example.
Those who are genuinely worried about family farming would be far better off looking at *incomes* - for instance, supermarket buying practices - and food security.
But this lobbying has been all about protecting capital investment.
It's like houses - those who have houses are treated far better than those without when it comes to IHT. No wonder the values are distorted.
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
British farmers do appear to be cretinous, as a class. Brexit is exhibit 1.
However, if you care about land use and food quality, then you need to care about farmers.
Reeves’s problem is she actively hates much of the country, including farmers.
The amount of political capital burnt in this thing is incredible. Ultimately, the correct decision, tax should be targeted at investors and companies buying land. The vast majority of farm estates will now be exempt, providing they make use of the £5m spouse allowance
The people benefiting from this change are those sitting on a highly tax efficient asset worth many millions who quite sincerely and genuinely want to keep it that way and don't see why they should pay the same tax as say someone running a productive business.
We have to concede an extremely effective lobbying exercise by wealthy landowners but we don't really need to agree with the principle of it. It's far more egregious than WFA for example.
The people benefiting from any IHT change (ie the one in April 2026) are corporate businesses who have been buying up vast tracts of land, particularly in the south of the UK. IHT is levied on individuals, not businesses. We are a long way from the days when only farmers bought land
As for lobbying, not many farmers are in the Labour party. Meanwhile Nicholas Joicey, the Group Chief Operating Officer at DEFRA, is married to the Chancellor of the Exchequer
This has a distinct echo of the topic that cannot be mentioned.
It only took 20 years. The FBI labeling the case as a “child prostitution” case back in 2005 — and the Palm Beach state attorney telling these victims they could be arrested themselves (for prostitution) was/is unforgivable. Congress must investigate who benefited (besides Epstein) from the whitewashing of this crime. https://x.com/jkbjournalist/status/2003162097710952507
What's the betting angle? It won't bring down Trump and most (all?) of his likely successors are too young to have been involved with Epstein.
There’s a fracturing of the MAGA alliance.
See the Israeli/Jews are responsible for child abuse/framing some of the GOP.
My brain is in holiday mode so I don’t have the energy to write a thread on it this side of the new year.
There’s an awful lot of antisemitism that’s appeared seemingly out of nowhere among the conservative commentator class in the US.
One theory is that the person holding everything together in a relatively moderate fashion was Charlie Kirk.
To quote Wikipedia:
In October 2023, Kirk said on The Charlie Kirk Show that "Jewish donors have been the Number 1 funding mechanism of radical, open border, neoliberal, quasi‑Marxist policies ... This is a beast created by secular Jews, and now it's coming for Jews", and also suggested that these Jews control "not just the colleges; it's the nonprofits, it's the movies, it's Hollywood, it's all of it". Soon after, he said that "Jews have been some of the largest funders of cultural Marxist ideas and supporters of those ideas over the last 30 or 40 years."
Some people might think that a little bit anti-Semitic, Sandpit.
The first sentence (“Jewish donors”) is probably ok - assuming it is factually accurate - because he’s aggregating the actions of individuals. It’s when he moves onto the concept of a collective that it becomes more problematic
I see the government is continuing with it's Grand Old Duke of York approach to policy announcements.
Remind me of winter fuel allowance. A defendable policy that pissed a lot of people off and then a partial U-turn a lot later that won't win back any of the alienated voters.
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
"France and Britain have nuclear weapons. If they allow themselves to be overwhelmed with destructive moral ideas, then you allow nuclear weapons to fall in the hands of people who can actually cause very, very serious harm to the US."
The new National Security strategy published recently can be seen as US and Russia forming plans to gang up on Europe. We need to achieve military independence from both...which will be difficult.
The latest ISW piece on Ukraine suggests that Putin's generals are somewhat less than honest when they talk about progress on the various fronts. This is perhaps because of defenestraphobia or perhaps Putin is a batshit crazy as Trump. Best to keep heads down until 2026 mid-terms and then recalibrate. MAGA can only keep the plates spinning for so long (See Kemi)
There is no doubt Kemi has improved, her performances in the Commons are sharper, she gave a good Conference speech and had a popular announcement on scrapping Stamp Duty. However she still only has a net positive rating amongst 2024 Conservative voters.
Kemi therefore needs a strong local and devolved elections next year, ideally beating Labour for second on NEV, gaining Westminster and Barnet flagship councils from Labour and minimising Tory losses at Holyrood and in the Senedd. Otherwise she risks a VONC by Tory MPs. Jenrick from the populist right or Cleverly from the moderate centre of the Conservative party would then be her likely successor
Nice framing and expectations management. Objectively I wouldn’t describe that result as “strong”…
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
Don't know, tbh, but they certainly tend to be cautious about alienating their core supporters. Hence their opposition to the banning of fox-hunting when it was introduced by Blair - didn't want to antagonise the sheep farmers.
Do we know where they stand over the latest development, banning drag-hunting?
Not devolved, is it? In which case it's academic. But no, I dunno, nor can I find anything new.
Well, yes and no.
Technically academic in that Labour can push the ban through the Commons regardless of the potential opposition of a handful of PC MPs.
But this is politics: who do you stand with, and what are your values? What's most important: animal welfare or trad country pursuits?
In the case of Plaid, do they back their rural core-voters as they did in the late 90s which would give Welsh Labour a line of attack, or close that off and risk the ire of the farmers of Caernarfon and Ceredigion?
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
British farmers do appear to be cretinous, as a class. Brexit is exhibit 1.
However, if you care about land use and food quality, then you need to care about farmers.
Reeves’s problem is she actively hates much of the country, including farmers.
Brexit has been undeniably excellent for British Farming even in the watered down way it has been delivered. The mess with Northern Ireland has been a pain. The change to subsidies in England but not Scotland and Wales has been a problem but the uplift in UELS HLS seems to have gone totally unreported outside the farming industry.
The rise in auction sale prices over the last three years is perhaps difficult to understand but there is no doubt the inconvenience of shipping commodity food into the UK has more than ofset the difficulties with exporting.
The danger for the left with a further hunting ban will be that it will be easier to sweep the whole thing away.
Very few farmers voted against Brexit and I known of none who regrets the way they voted.
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
Don't know, tbh, but they certainly tend to be cautious about alienating their core supporters. Hence their opposition to the banning of fox-hunting when it was introduced by Blair - didn't want to antagonise the sheep farmers.
Do we know where they stand over the latest development, banning drag-hunting?
Not devolved, is it? In which case it's academic. But no, I dunno, nor can I find anything new.
Well, yes and no.
Technically academic in that Labour can push the ban through the Commons regardless of the potential opposition of a handful of PC MPs.
But this is politics: who do you stand with, and what are your values? What's most important: animal welfare or trad country pursuits?
In the case of Plaid, do they back their rural core-voters as they did in the late 90s which would give Welsh Labour a line of attack, or close that off and risk the ire of the farmers of Caernarfon and Ceredigion?
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
British farmers do appear to be cretinous, as a class. Brexit is exhibit 1.
However, if you care about land use and food quality, then you need to care about farmers.
Reeves’s problem is she actively hates much of the country, including farmers.
The amount of political capital burnt in this thing is incredible. Ultimately, the correct decision, tax should be targeted at investors and companies buying land. The vast majority of farm estates will now be exempt, providing they make use of the £5m spouse allowance
The people benefiting from this change are those sitting on a highly tax efficient asset worth many millions who quite sincerely and genuinely want to keep it that way and don't see why they should pay the same tax as say someone running a productive business.
We have to concede an extremely effective lobbying exercise by wealthy landowners but we don't really need to agree with the principle of it. It's far more egregious than WFA for example.
Those who are genuinely worried about family farming would be far better off looking at *incomes* - for instance, supermarket buying practices - and food security.
But this lobbying has been all about protecting capital investment.
It's like houses - those who have houses are treated far better than those without when it comes to IHT. No wonder the values are distorted.
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
British farmers do appear to be cretinous, as a class. Brexit is exhibit 1.
However, if you care about land use and food quality, then you need to care about farmers.
Reeves’s problem is she actively hates much of the country, including farmers.
The amount of political capital burnt in this thing is incredible. Ultimately, the correct decision, tax should be targeted at investors and companies buying land. The vast majority of farm estates will now be exempt, providing they make use of the £5m spouse allowance
The people benefiting from this change are those sitting on a highly tax efficient asset worth many millions who quite sincerely and genuinely want to keep it that way and don't see why they should pay the same tax as say someone running a productive business.
We have to concede an extremely effective lobbying exercise by wealthy landowners but we don't really need to agree with the principle of it. It's far more egregious than WFA for example.
Those who are genuinely worried about family farming would be far better off looking at *incomes* - for instance, supermarket buying practices - and food security.
But this lobbying has been all about protecting capital investment.
It's like houses - those who have houses are treated far better than those without when it comes to IHT. No wonder the values are distorted.
IHT is theft!
Property is theft comrade.
Your family member dies, you're bereaved, and you're left with a massive bill to Haitch-MRC - how does that work?
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
British farmers do appear to be cretinous, as a class. Brexit is exhibit 1.
However, if you care about land use and food quality, then you need to care about farmers.
Reeves’s problem is she actively hates much of the country, including farmers.
The amount of political capital burnt in this thing is incredible. Ultimately, the correct decision, tax should be targeted at investors and companies buying land. The vast majority of farm estates will now be exempt, providing they make use of the £5m spouse allowance
Maybe you’re a farmer, or live rurally. I’m not, I live in Manhattan FFS.
But the solution here is obvious to both of us.
How the hell does Reeves and Treasury get it so wrong?
The Labour party are no longer the party of postmen, coal miners, unionised workers and the working man (and woman) they are stuffed full of policy nerds, think tank advisers and Politics grads with less business experience than your average 5 year old
Thus is the politics of our times.
Working men, and their families, who leave home for work each morning in their uniform or their hi-viz no longer vote Labour. And the working middle-aged with white collar jobs living in the Home Counties, looking toward owning their own home and providing for their retirement, no longer vote Tory.
Both major parties have turned their back on their core constituencies - in the Tories’ case, by focusing looking after economically-inactive pensioners and with their irrational anti-European ideological obsessions, and in Labour’s case by putting metropolitan issues of cultural change ahead of the economic interests of their own voters.
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
British farmers do appear to be cretinous, as a class. Brexit is exhibit 1.
However, if you care about land use and food quality, then you need to care about farmers.
Reeves’s problem is she actively hates much of the country, including farmers.
The amount of political capital burnt in this thing is incredible. Ultimately, the correct decision, tax should be targeted at investors and companies buying land. The vast majority of farm estates will now be exempt, providing they make use of the £5m spouse allowance
The people benefiting from this change are those sitting on a highly tax efficient asset worth many millions who quite sincerely and genuinely want to keep it that way and don't see why they should pay the same tax as say someone running a productive business.
We have to concede an extremely effective lobbying exercise by wealthy landowners but we don't really need to agree with the principle of it. It's far more egregious than WFA for example.
Those who are genuinely worried about family farming would be far better off looking at *incomes* - for instance, supermarket buying practices - and food security.
But this lobbying has been all about protecting capital investment.
It's like houses - those who have houses are treated far better than those without when it comes to IHT. No wonder the values are distorted.
IHT is theft!
(I didn't press the troll button by accident did I when quoting you?)
What I cannot get my head around is the principle of IHT allowances which penalise people according to what assets they own. The most obvious is the RNRB - a couple with an estate worth £1m and children etc., their estate pays 140K tax or not at all depending on whether they rent or own their house.
Kirk was in a long tradition on the US radical right of "Jews over there good, Jews here bad". The nationalist right in Israel loves the former part and is happy to gloss over the latter. That article repeatedly says Kirk supported Israel, which he did, but it notes, "Kirk’s devotion to Israel was rooted in his Christianity." Kirk's support for Israel never stopped him repeating anti-Semitic tropes about Jews in the US.
The author of the Times of Israel piece writes, "And while he was sometimes critical of certain American donors or liberal Jewish groups, he consistently rejected the claim that such criticism equated to hostility toward Israel itself." That's true, but euphemistic at best. Kirk, indeed, supported Israel while saying deeply racist things about Jews in the West. The Times of Israel piece link for that sentence is https://www.factcheck.org/2025/09/viral-claims-about-charlie-kirks-words/?utm_source=chatgpt.com (which, by the way, shows the author was using ChatGPT - sheesh!). That Fact Check link is worth a read: it goes into detail about exactly what Kirk did and did not say, but it certainly does not conclude Kirk was innocent of anti-Semitism.
Anwyay, now I've given you multiple clips of Kirk saying anti-Semitic things, I presume you will now admit that he did say anti-Semitic things.
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
British farmers do appear to be cretinous, as a class. Brexit is exhibit 1.
However, if you care about land use and food quality, then you need to care about farmers.
Reeves’s problem is she actively hates much of the country, including farmers.
The amount of political capital burnt in this thing is incredible. Ultimately, the correct decision, tax should be targeted at investors and companies buying land. The vast majority of farm estates will now be exempt, providing they make use of the £5m spouse allowance
The people benefiting from this change are those sitting on a highly tax efficient asset worth many millions who quite sincerely and genuinely want to keep it that way and don't see why they should pay the same tax as say someone running a productive business.
We have to concede an extremely effective lobbying exercise by wealthy landowners but we don't really need to agree with the principle of it. It's far more egregious than WFA for example.
Those who are genuinely worried about family farming would be far better off looking at *incomes* - for instance, supermarket buying practices - and food security.
But this lobbying has been all about protecting capital investment.
It's like houses - those who have houses are treated far better than those without when it comes to IHT. No wonder the values are distorted.
IHT is theft!
(I didn't press the troll button by accident did I when quoting you?)
What I cannot get my head around is the principle of IHT allowances which penalise people according to what assets they own. The most obvious is the RNRB - a couple with an estate worth £1m and children etc., their estate pays 140K tax or not at all depending on whether they rent or own their house.
Hey that's how the Tory party wanted things to work - and remember for some strange reason UK Governments want houses to be expensive and restricted...
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
You own article confirms the 10% plus 4 remains the trigger ie 26mph with no plans to change
I am content with the reviews and changes and it shouldn't be an issue going forward
You said it was enforced at 27 though !
It is commonly expected 20 - 26 is the margin
For clarification I drive to town on former 30mph roads and certainly a speed between 24 and 26 seems quite the norm
I do believe many roads at 20mph are correct, especially round schools and hospitals where 26mph is too high
Hang on, you've just said that it's correct to drive at 25/6mph in 20 mph limits. But the next moment you say that it's Ok to have 20mph limits around schools etc, where of course people will drive at 25/6 ... that's an argument for having 15mph limits instead [edit] around the schools..
Based on this polling I wouldn’t be surprised the Tories ahead of Reform at some point in quarter one of 2026, if present trends hold, not consistently but on an outlier basis.
Word missing there?
On the substantive point, am I right in thinking as well that Farage is at the same time the oldest and the least experienced of the four major party leaders? He's not likely to be improving now as he ages and he's never been in cabinet.
No, Starmer is about 18 months older than Farage.
Blair and Cameron had never been in government before they became PM.
Fair enough on the first point.
Cameron and Blair had both been Leaders of the Opposition. Farage hasn't even done that.
Indeed he quite often skives off Parliament. I think he finds it boring because its not all about him.
This has recently set me wondering if Nigel Farage might bail soon. He is rarely in the Commons or in Clacton, and does not even seem to have much to say about Streeting or Lammy advocating customs unions with the EU, an issue you'd think would be mother's milk to him. Is he still interested in politics? (That said, maybe he is just under the weather as there are some nasty bugs doing the rounds.)
I wonder if the 'I can't really remember what happened 50 years ago but I definitely did not say those racist and antisemitic things' row has put his gas at a peep. The one time I saw Farage address the issue directly he seemed uncharacteristically shifty and evasive.
28 witnesses, including Jewish students, and written communications amongst teachers, is quite a lot to dismiss as "lies, all lies". Tice is that crass imo; Farage is not.
It's also quite awkward with respect to Farage's position on Israel, and the portrayal of Muslims as The Mortal Enemy of Western Civilisation.
Witnesses at the time (as in recording in diaries, letters etc) or witnesses ‘recalling’ events of 50 years ago. Very big difference, as all good historians know.
28 witnesses seems pretty corroborative to me. The man’s a bully, and a spiv, and has been so since his earliest years.
I haven’t cared enough to look at what he did at school in detail, but isn’t prancing around with your arm in the air attention seeking rather than bullying?
Based on this polling I wouldn’t be surprised the Tories ahead of Reform at some point in quarter one of 2026, if present trends hold, not consistently but on an outlier basis.
Word missing there?
On the substantive point, am I right in thinking as well that Farage is at the same time the oldest and the least experienced of the four major party leaders? He's not likely to be improving now as he ages and he's never been in cabinet.
No, Starmer is about 18 months older than Farage.
Blair and Cameron had never been in government before they became PM.
Fair enough on the first point.
Cameron and Blair had both been Leaders of the Opposition. Farage hasn't even done that.
Indeed he quite often skives off Parliament. I think he finds it boring because its not all about him.
This has recently set me wondering if Nigel Farage might bail soon. He is rarely in the Commons or in Clacton, and does not even seem to have much to say about Streeting or Lammy advocating customs unions with the EU, an issue you'd think would be mother's milk to him. Is he still interested in politics? (That said, maybe he is just under the weather as there are some nasty bugs doing the rounds.)
I wonder if the 'I can't really remember what happened 50 years ago but I definitely did not say those racist and antisemitic things' row has put his gas at a peep. The one time I saw Farage address the issue directly he seemed uncharacteristically shifty and evasive.
28 witnesses, including Jewish students, and written communications amongst teachers, is quite a lot to dismiss as "lies, all lies". Tice is that crass imo; Farage is not.
It's also quite awkward with respect to Farage's position on Israel, and the portrayal of Muslims as The Mortal Enemy of Western Civilisation.
Witnesses at the time (as in recording in diaries, letters etc) or witnesses ‘recalling’ events of 50 years ago. Very big difference, as all good historians know.
28 witnesses seems pretty corroborative to me. The man’s a bully, and a spiv, and has been so since his earliest years.
I haven’t cared enough to look at what he did at school in detail, but isn’t prancing around with your arm in the air attention seeking rather than bullying?
I know a few people involved with animal welfare who are quite pleased by Labour ambition in this area. Nick Palmer probably knows a lot more.
I have a feeling I belong to a niche minority here. I am deeply uncomfortable about lobster boiling and have no problem with fox hunting.
On which subject, the plan to ban trail hounds.
In Cumberland and Westmorland there is a long tradition of trail hound racing which has never had any connection with hunting animals, has always used scent trails and doesn't do red jackets and stirrup cups and lives in a world closer to whippets than Anthony Trollope novels. This should not be banned.
Never quite understood our hierarchy of which animals we can torture and to what extent myself! Seems 90% custom and 10% logic.
Unfortunately for the lobster, and it probably says more about my human morality, but I can't get worked up about it either.
The one that gets me morally confused is the question of deaths per meal.
Is a juicy steak (let’s say 1% of a cow), or better still a chunk of braised whale (0.001%?), more ethical than a prawn cocktail (15 whole beings) or plate of whitebait (30 lives, ended right there)?
If we accept the fact of eating living creatures they should be killed humanely. Unconscious when killed, I suppose that means.
Good morning, everybody. How are turkeys slaughtered?
I don’t really understand why orthodox halal/kosher doesn’t even allow animals to be stunned before slaughter.
Based on this polling I wouldn’t be surprised the Tories ahead of Reform at some point in quarter one of 2026, if present trends hold, not consistently but on an outlier basis.
Word missing there?
On the substantive point, am I right in thinking as well that Farage is at the same time the oldest and the least experienced of the four major party leaders? He's not likely to be improving now as he ages and he's never been in cabinet.
No, Starmer is about 18 months older than Farage.
Blair and Cameron had never been in government before they became PM.
Fair enough on the first point.
Cameron and Blair had both been Leaders of the Opposition. Farage hasn't even done that.
Indeed he quite often skives off Parliament. I think he finds it boring because its not all about him.
This has recently set me wondering if Nigel Farage might bail soon. He is rarely in the Commons or in Clacton, and does not even seem to have much to say about Streeting or Lammy advocating customs unions with the EU, an issue you'd think would be mother's milk to him. Is he still interested in politics? (That said, maybe he is just under the weather as there are some nasty bugs doing the rounds.)
I wonder if the 'I can't really remember what happened 50 years ago but I definitely did not say those racist and antisemitic things' row has put his gas at a peep. The one time I saw Farage address the issue directly he seemed uncharacteristically shifty and evasive.
28 witnesses, including Jewish students, and written communications amongst teachers, is quite a lot to dismiss as "lies, all lies". Tice is that crass imo; Farage is not.
It's also quite awkward with respect to Farage's position on Israel, and the portrayal of Muslims as The Mortal Enemy of Western Civilisation.
Witnesses at the time (as in recording in diaries, letters etc) or witnesses ‘recalling’ events of 50 years ago. Very big difference, as all good historians know.
28 witnesses seems pretty corroborative to me. The man’s a bully, and a spiv, and has been so since his earliest years.
I haven’t cared enough to look at what he did at school in detail, but isn’t prancing around with your arm in the air attention seeking rather than bullying?
"Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election," the DoJ says in a statement posted on X.
"To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.
"Nevertheless, out of our commitment to the law and transparency, the DoJ is releasing these documents with the legally required protections for Epstein’s victims."
LOL. As Mandy Rice-Davies might have said: "They would say that, wouldn't they."
Wasn’t that the response to the email from *his lawyer* saying that he’d been on the Epstein plane more than previously disclosed
SOAS appeals. It seems famously woke, so I might well like it there
It just seemed normal to me. It's the antiwokes who are wrong and must be politically and culturally destroyed.
Sadly for you, it's going to be the other way round.
I do hope veganism spares you and you're here to offer commentary on it all. The best thing about it will be those who agreed with it struggling to explain how they argued so vociferously for something so utterly fucking stupid.
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
I know someone who got done for 24 in a 20 mph zone in London and Google AI says 24 - 25.
I'm currently having lessons for my Advanced Drivers Test and speed limits are important for that and I struggle with some 20 and 30 limits at the margins and also don't want the distraction of keep checking so I am going to set my limiter on. Annoyingly I got told off for driving too slowly on my last lesson at one point on a country lane. They expect good progress. It was a bit weird as my wife thinks I drive too fast on country lanes.
The rule of thumb is a 20% margin of error - 10% for your speedometer and 10% for the police device. So 24 in a 20, or 84 on the motorway
Based on this polling I wouldn’t be surprised the Tories ahead of Reform at some point in quarter one of 2026, if present trends hold, not consistently but on an outlier basis.
Word missing there?
On the substantive point, am I right in thinking as well that Farage is at the same time the oldest and the least experienced of the four major party leaders? He's not likely to be improving now as he ages and he's never been in cabinet.
No, Starmer is about 18 months older than Farage.
Blair and Cameron had never been in government before they became PM.
Fair enough on the first point.
Cameron and Blair had both been Leaders of the Opposition. Farage hasn't even done that.
Indeed he quite often skives off Parliament. I think he finds it boring because its not all about him.
This has recently set me wondering if Nigel Farage might bail soon. He is rarely in the Commons or in Clacton, and does not even seem to have much to say about Streeting or Lammy advocating customs unions with the EU, an issue you'd think would be mother's milk to him. Is he still interested in politics? (That said, maybe he is just under the weather as there are some nasty bugs doing the rounds.)
I wonder if the 'I can't really remember what happened 50 years ago but I definitely did not say those racist and antisemitic things' row has put his gas at a peep. The one time I saw Farage address the issue directly he seemed uncharacteristically shifty and evasive.
28 witnesses, including Jewish students, and written communications amongst teachers, is quite a lot to dismiss as "lies, all lies". Tice is that crass imo; Farage is not.
It's also quite awkward with respect to Farage's position on Israel, and the portrayal of Muslims as The Mortal Enemy of Western Civilisation.
Witnesses at the time (as in recording in diaries, letters etc) or witnesses ‘recalling’ events of 50 years ago. Very big difference, as all good historians know.
28 witnesses seems pretty corroborative to me. The man’s a bully, and a spiv, and has been so since his earliest years.
I haven’t cared enough to look at what he did at school in detail, but isn’t prancing around with your arm in the air attention seeking rather than bullying?
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
I know someone who got done for 24 in a 20 mph zone in London and Google AI says 24 - 25.
I'm currently having lessons for my Advanced Drivers Test and speed limits are important for that and I struggle with some 20 and 30 limits at the margins and also don't want the distraction of keep checking so I am going to set my limiter on. Annoyingly I got told off for driving too slowly on my last lesson at one point on a country lane. They expect good progress. It was a bit weird as my wife thinks I drive too fast on country lanes.
The rule of thumb is a 20% margin of error - 10% for your speedometer and 10% for the police device. So 24 in a 20, or 84 on the motorway
Behave yourself. This is a full time job for me. Enforcement threshold is 10% + 2mph.
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
British farmers do appear to be cretinous, as a class. Brexit is exhibit 1.
However, if you care about land use and food quality, then you need to care about farmers.
Reeves’s problem is she actively hates much of the country, including farmers.
The amount of political capital burnt in this thing is incredible. Ultimately, the correct decision, tax should be targeted at investors and companies buying land. The vast majority of farm estates will now be exempt, providing they make use of the £5m spouse allowance
Maybe you’re a farmer, or live rurally. I’m not, I live in Manhattan FFS.
But the solution here is obvious to both of us.
How the hell does Reeves and Treasury get it so wrong?
The Labour party are no longer the party of postmen, coal miners, unionised workers and the working man (and woman) they are stuffed full of policy nerds, think tank advisers and Politics grads with less business experience than your average 5 year old
Thus is the politics of our times.
Working men, and their families, who leave home for work each morning in their uniform or their hi-viz no longer vote Labour. And the working middle-aged with white collar jobs living in the Home Counties, looking toward owning their own home and providing for their retirement, no longer vote Tory.
Both major parties have turned their back on their core constituencies - in the Tories’ case, by focusing looking after economically-inactive pensioners and with their irrational anti-European ideological obsessions, and in Labour’s case by putting metropolitan issues of cultural change ahead of the economic interests of their own voters.
Just amazing that both parties have been so poor. Hard to understand what happened. As a SME business owner I should be a Tory voter but I have not voted for them for a decade now. The Tories have stopped getting worse but they are a very long way from overtaking Reform.
Reform are party run from the streets not Westminster. Over a quarter of their voters came from Labour and are not going to vote Tory soon. The splitting of the right wing vote has increased the overall right wing vote base. In Scotland the two parties are developing their own unique identities
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
You own article confirms the 10% plus 4 remains the trigger ie 26mph with no plans to change
I am content with the reviews and changes and it shouldn't be an issue going forward
You said it was enforced at 27 though !
It is commonly expected 20 - 26 is the margin
For clarification I drive to town on former 30mph roads and certainly a speed between 24 and 26 seems quite the norm
I do believe many roads at 20mph are correct, especially round schools and hospitals where 26mph is too high
Hang on, you've just said that it's correct to drive at 25/6mph in 20 mph limits. But the next moment you say that it's Ok to have 20mph limits around schools etc, where of course people will drive at 25/6 ... that's an argument for having 15mph limits instead [edit] around the schools..
No - The problem relates to previous 30mph zones which are the ones Go Safe monitor and the 26mph rule applies
The limits around schools and hospitals already existed
I know a few people involved with animal welfare who are quite pleased by Labour ambition in this area. Nick Palmer probably knows a lot more.
I have a feeling I belong to a niche minority here. I am deeply uncomfortable about lobster boiling and have no problem with fox hunting.
On which subject, the plan to ban trail hounds.
In Cumberland and Westmorland there is a long tradition of trail hound racing which has never had any connection with hunting animals, has always used scent trails and doesn't do red jackets and stirrup cups and lives in a world closer to whippets than Anthony Trollope novels. This should not be banned.
Never quite understood our hierarchy of which animals we can torture and to what extent myself! Seems 90% custom and 10% logic.
Unfortunately for the lobster, and it probably says more about my human morality, but I can't get worked up about it either.
The one that gets me morally confused is the question of deaths per meal.
Is a juicy steak (let’s say 1% of a cow), or better still a chunk of braised whale (0.001%?), more ethical than a prawn cocktail (15 whole beings) or plate of whitebait (30 lives, ended right there)?
If we accept the fact of eating living creatures they should be killed humanely. Unconscious when killed, I suppose that means.
Good morning, everybody. How are turkeys slaughtered?
I don’t really understand why orthodox halal/kosher doesn’t even allow animals to be stunned before slaughter.
stupid religious nuttery no doubt
I’d describe “alive but stunned” as “stupid religious nuttery” - something to do with guaranteeing all the blood is out of the body (so they want the heart pumping).
Insisting on them not being stunned because there is a risk of killing the animal crosses over into gratuitous cruelty in my view
Based on this polling I wouldn’t be surprised the Tories ahead of Reform at some point in quarter one of 2026, if present trends hold, not consistently but on an outlier basis.
Word missing there?
On the substantive point, am I right in thinking as well that Farage is at the same time the oldest and the least experienced of the four major party leaders? He's not likely to be improving now as he ages and he's never been in cabinet.
No, Starmer is about 18 months older than Farage.
Blair and Cameron had never been in government before they became PM.
Fair enough on the first point.
Cameron and Blair had both been Leaders of the Opposition. Farage hasn't even done that.
Indeed he quite often skives off Parliament. I think he finds it boring because its not all about him.
This has recently set me wondering if Nigel Farage might bail soon. He is rarely in the Commons or in Clacton, and does not even seem to have much to say about Streeting or Lammy advocating customs unions with the EU, an issue you'd think would be mother's milk to him. Is he still interested in politics? (That said, maybe he is just under the weather as there are some nasty bugs doing the rounds.)
I wonder if the 'I can't really remember what happened 50 years ago but I definitely did not say those racist and antisemitic things' row has put his gas at a peep. The one time I saw Farage address the issue directly he seemed uncharacteristically shifty and evasive.
28 witnesses, including Jewish students, and written communications amongst teachers, is quite a lot to dismiss as "lies, all lies". Tice is that crass imo; Farage is not.
It's also quite awkward with respect to Farage's position on Israel, and the portrayal of Muslims as The Mortal Enemy of Western Civilisation.
Witnesses at the time (as in recording in diaries, letters etc) or witnesses ‘recalling’ events of 50 years ago. Very big difference, as all good historians know.
Dependent also on if stories may have been swapped, people coming forward separately with disjoing testimonies, are they credible figures etc.
Based on this polling I wouldn’t be surprised the Tories ahead of Reform at some point in quarter one of 2026, if present trends hold, not consistently but on an outlier basis.
Word missing there?
On the substantive point, am I right in thinking as well that Farage is at the same time the oldest and the least experienced of the four major party leaders? He's not likely to be improving now as he ages and he's never been in cabinet.
No, Starmer is about 18 months older than Farage.
Blair and Cameron had never been in government before they became PM.
Fair enough on the first point.
Cameron and Blair had both been Leaders of the Opposition. Farage hasn't even done that.
Indeed he quite often skives off Parliament. I think he finds it boring because its not all about him.
This has recently set me wondering if Nigel Farage might bail soon. He is rarely in the Commons or in Clacton, and does not even seem to have much to say about Streeting or Lammy advocating customs unions with the EU, an issue you'd think would be mother's milk to him. Is he still interested in politics? (That said, maybe he is just under the weather as there are some nasty bugs doing the rounds.)
I wonder if the 'I can't really remember what happened 50 years ago but I definitely did not say those racist and antisemitic things' row has put his gas at a peep. The one time I saw Farage address the issue directly he seemed uncharacteristically shifty and evasive.
28 witnesses, including Jewish students, and written communications amongst teachers, is quite a lot to dismiss as "lies, all lies". Tice is that crass imo; Farage is not.
It's also quite awkward with respect to Farage's position on Israel, and the portrayal of Muslims as The Mortal Enemy of Western Civilisation.
Witnesses at the time (as in recording in diaries, letters etc) or witnesses ‘recalling’ events of 50 years ago. Very big difference, as all good historians know.
28 witnesses seems pretty corroborative to me. The man’s a bully, and a spiv, and has been so since his earliest years.
I haven’t cared enough to look at what he did at school in detail, but isn’t prancing around with your arm in the air attention seeking rather than bullying?
Farage is deeply unpleasant man who is probably a racist. Spending 5 minutes reading a guardian article to confirm those views isn’t a good use of my time
No expert, but it doesn't look like a battleship to me.
TBF a Great War/WW2 corvette didn't look like the small sailing ship of the mid-C19 ... What is also notable is that it's to be called the Trump Class, which indicates that the first ship of the class will be named after Mr Trump (a class of warships is usually named after the first of the class, pace [edit] UK MoD and its stupid messing around of late).
Usually Presidential names get applied to Nimitz- or Ford-class nuclear aircraft carriers. But it's not cut and dry. Mr Carter got a nuke sub named after him (entirely appropriately and I imagine amicably, as he was a nuke sub engineer by trade).
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
I know someone who got done for 24 in a 20 mph zone in London and Google AI says 24 - 25.
I'm currently having lessons for my Advanced Drivers Test and speed limits are important for that and I struggle with some 20 and 30 limits at the margins and also don't want the distraction of keep checking so I am going to set my limiter on. Annoyingly I got told off for driving too slowly on my last lesson at one point on a country lane. They expect good progress. It was a bit weird as my wife thinks I drive too fast on country lanes.
The rule of thumb is a 20% margin of error - 10% for your speedometer and 10% for the police device. So 24 in a 20, or 84 on the motorway
Don't bank on it. Mrs Al was fined for doing 23 mph in a 20 mph zone, at 6am on a Sunday morning in Croydon.
I see the government is continuing with it's Grand Old Duke of York approach to policy announcements.
Remind me of winter fuel allowance. A defendable policy that pissed a lot of people off and then a partial U-turn a lot later that won't win back any of the alienated voters.
As it happens my world includes farms, and lawyers and accountants who serve farms and the rural constituency. The thing about IHT is that more or less everyone who may be affected does some planning of their affairs, often very simple, but this relies on fairly long term stability in how systems will operate - rather like the pension industry relies on it.
The IHT changes as first announced had the effect that for a particular group, mostly older, it was possible that for some years planning for IHT would for them be much harder than it is for the Duke of Westminster, and in some cases impossible.
Rural accountants and lawyers for months now have been working day and night, sometimes literally, to sort the issues arising among worried farmers. Today's news renders some of this unnecessary and irrelevant. I know lawyers who have had to refuse work because of the sheer volume coming their way, and real specialists can be thin on the ground.
My excellent MP (Penrith) has lost the whip for voting against the government on this issue, only to see the government immediately change course to something more like what he wanted.
Their management of issues remains dismal. For the first time for 1000 years Labour has loads of rural seats and they have squandered the lot.
Based on this polling I wouldn’t be surprised the Tories ahead of Reform at some point in quarter one of 2026, if present trends hold, not consistently but on an outlier basis.
Word missing there?
On the substantive point, am I right in thinking as well that Farage is at the same time the oldest and the least experienced of the four major party leaders? He's not likely to be improving now as he ages and he's never been in cabinet.
No, Starmer is about 18 months older than Farage.
Blair and Cameron had never been in government before they became PM.
Fair enough on the first point.
Cameron and Blair had both been Leaders of the Opposition. Farage hasn't even done that.
Indeed he quite often skives off Parliament. I think he finds it boring because its not all about him.
This has recently set me wondering if Nigel Farage might bail soon. He is rarely in the Commons or in Clacton, and does not even seem to have much to say about Streeting or Lammy advocating customs unions with the EU, an issue you'd think would be mother's milk to him. Is he still interested in politics? (That said, maybe he is just under the weather as there are some nasty bugs doing the rounds.)
I wonder if the 'I can't really remember what happened 50 years ago but I definitely did not say those racist and antisemitic things' row has put his gas at a peep. The one time I saw Farage address the issue directly he seemed uncharacteristically shifty and evasive.
28 witnesses, including Jewish students, and written communications amongst teachers, is quite a lot to dismiss as "lies, all lies". Tice is that crass imo; Farage is not.
It's also quite awkward with respect to Farage's position on Israel, and the portrayal of Muslims as The Mortal Enemy of Western Civilisation.
Witnesses at the time (as in recording in diaries, letters etc) or witnesses ‘recalling’ events of 50 years ago. Very big difference, as all good historians know.
28 witnesses seems pretty corroborative to me. The man’s a bully, and a spiv, and has been so since his earliest years.
I haven’t cared enough to look at what he did at school in detail, but isn’t prancing around with your arm in the air attention seeking rather than bullying?
Farage is deeply unpleasant man who is probably a racist. Spending 5 minutes reading a guardian article to confirm those views isn’t a good use of my time
So why did you venture in with your first comment about it being attention seeking not bullying then?
FPT: Andy_JS raised an important question about TV news. Decades ago, the wife of a friend asked me how a person could be well informed. (She wanted, I guessed later, to be a good citizen.)
I came up with this answer for national politics: Don't watch TV news*. Instead, read the best newspaper you can. Read another publication that is consistently critical of that newspaper, for balance. At that time, and in that place -- central Pennsylvania -- you could have done fairly well by reading the NYT and the National Review, or Commentary, regularly.
Now, it is more complex. But I would start by telling a person who asked that question not to rely on (anti) social media for facts.
(*I recall reading, at the time, that the 20 minutes or so given to the news on the national TV news programs -- would fit in a part of the NYT front page. About a third of a page, if I recall correctly.)
No expert, but it doesn't look like a battleship to me.
A far cry from USS Missouri of "Under Siege" fame!
It's a big cruiser.
But I think that any one of the psychopath at the top, the over promoted Lieutenant running the DoD, the Congress which will make sure it is made in 435 pieces in 435 towns, the USN who would want cruise missiles on a pedalo, and the various shipyards, would prevent it from being built in less than 15 years, never mind the 2-3 Trump is proposing.
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
British farmers do appear to be cretinous, as a class. Brexit is exhibit 1.
However, if you care about land use and food quality, then you need to care about farmers.
Reeves’s problem is she actively hates much of the country, including farmers.
The amount of political capital burnt in this thing is incredible. Ultimately, the correct decision, tax should be targeted at investors and companies buying land. The vast majority of farm estates will now be exempt, providing they make use of the £5m spouse allowance
The people benefiting from this change are those sitting on a highly tax efficient asset worth many millions who quite sincerely and genuinely want to keep it that way and don't see why they should pay the same tax as say someone running a productive business.
We have to concede an extremely effective lobbying exercise by wealthy landowners but we don't really need to agree with the principle of it. It's far more egregious than WFA for example.
Those who are genuinely worried about family farming would be far better off looking at *incomes* - for instance, supermarket buying practices - and food security.
But this lobbying has been all about protecting capital investment.
It's like houses - those who have houses are treated far better than those without when it comes to IHT. No wonder the values are distorted.
IHT is theft!
Property is theft comrade.
Your family member dies, you're bereaved, and you're left with a massive bill to Haitch-MRC - how does that work?
You are not paying the bill. Your dead relative is. You have to tax somebody, and dead people are better than live ones.
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
You own article confirms the 10% plus 4 remains the trigger ie 26mph with no plans to change
I am content with the reviews and changes and it shouldn't be an issue going forward
You said it was enforced at 27 though !
It is commonly expected 20 - 26 is the margin
For clarification I drive to town on former 30mph roads and certainly a speed between 24 and 26 seems quite the norm
I do believe many roads at 20mph are correct, especially round schools and hospitals where 26mph is too high
Hang on, you've just said that it's correct to drive at 25/6mph in 20 mph limits. But the next moment you say that it's Ok to have 20mph limits around schools etc, where of course people will drive at 25/6 ... that's an argument for having 15mph limits instead [edit] around the schools..
No - The problem relates to previous 30mph zones which are the ones Go Safe monitor and the 26mph rule applies
The limits around schools and hospitals already existed
The 26mph trigger no longer applies. Prosecution is for 10% plus 2mph.
I know a few people involved with animal welfare who are quite pleased by Labour ambition in this area. Nick Palmer probably knows a lot more.
I have a feeling I belong to a niche minority here. I am deeply uncomfortable about lobster boiling and have no problem with fox hunting.
On which subject, the plan to ban trail hounds.
In Cumberland and Westmorland there is a long tradition of trail hound racing which has never had any connection with hunting animals, has always used scent trails and doesn't do red jackets and stirrup cups and lives in a world closer to whippets than Anthony Trollope novels. This should not be banned.
Never quite understood our hierarchy of which animals we can torture and to what extent myself! Seems 90% custom and 10% logic.
Unfortunately for the lobster, and it probably says more about my human morality, but I can't get worked up about it either.
The one that gets me morally confused is the question of deaths per meal.
Is a juicy steak (let’s say 1% of a cow), or better still a chunk of braised whale (0.001%?), more ethical than a prawn cocktail (15 whole beings) or plate of whitebait (30 lives, ended right there)?
If we accept the fact of eating living creatures they should be killed humanely. Unconscious when killed, I suppose that means.
Good morning, everybody. How are turkeys slaughtered?
How can ANYONE on PB not know THAT after Sarah Palin's famous interview backdrop with he turkeys that did not get pardoned. Outrageous. She pardoned a turkey then did this interview soon after.
(In Usionia you put them in a funnel so the head sticks out at the bottom then cut the throat.)
Kirk was in a long tradition on the US radical right of "Jews over there good, Jews here bad". The nationalist right in Israel loves the former part and is happy to gloss over the latter. That article repeatedly says Kirk supported Israel, which he did, but it notes, "Kirk’s devotion to Israel was rooted in his Christianity." Kirk's support for Israel never stopped him repeating anti-Semitic tropes about Jews in the US.
The author of the Times of Israel piece writes, "And while he was sometimes critical of certain American donors or liberal Jewish groups, he consistently rejected the claim that such criticism equated to hostility toward Israel itself." That's true, but euphemistic at best. Kirk, indeed, supported Israel while saying deeply racist things about Jews in the West. The Times of Israel piece link for that sentence is https://www.factcheck.org/2025/09/viral-claims-about-charlie-kirks-words/?utm_source=chatgpt.com (which, by the way, shows the author was using ChatGPT - sheesh!). That Fact Check link is worth a read: it goes into detail about exactly what Kirk did and did not say, but it certainly does not conclude Kirk was innocent of anti-Semitism.
Anwyay, now I've given you multiple clips of Kirk saying anti-Semitic things, I presume you will now admit that he did say anti-Semitic things.
The US Christian right love Israel because they see it as fulfilling biblical prophecy and paving the way for the second coming of Christ. They don't like Jews in the US because they aren't Christians and are seen as pime movers behind things like liberalism, internationalism and secularism. The nuttier fringe think Jews are conspiring to replace white Christians with minorities, the better to control them (the so-called Great Replacement conspiracy theory). Israeli nationalists have cultivated US Christian right support but it's very much a marriage of convenience from their POV.
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
I see the government is continuing with it's Grand Old Duke of York approach to policy announcements.
Remind me of winter fuel allowance. A defendable policy that pissed a lot of people off and then a partial U-turn a lot later that won't win back any of the alienated voters.
Some of the early ones (particularly WFA) I thought might perhaps be explained by the Treasury having a shortlist of "things we've wanted to do for ages and which will bring in some money" ready to present, and the incoming government not having enough political nous to spot the political downsides. That they don't seem to have got any better at this is rather unfortunate.
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
You own article confirms the 10% plus 4 remains the trigger ie 26mph with no plans to change
I am content with the reviews and changes and it shouldn't be an issue going forward
You said it was enforced at 27 though !
It is commonly expected 20 - 26 is the margin
For clarification I drive to town on former 30mph roads and certainly a speed between 24 and 26 seems quite the norm
I do believe many roads at 20mph are correct, especially round schools and hospitals where 26mph is too high
Hang on, you've just said that it's correct to drive at 25/6mph in 20 mph limits. But the next moment you say that it's Ok to have 20mph limits around schools etc, where of course people will drive at 25/6 ... that's an argument for having 15mph limits instead [edit] around the schools..
No - The problem relates to previous 30mph zones which are the ones Go Safe monitor and the 26mph rule applies
The limits around schools and hospitals already existed
The 26mph trigger no longer applies. Prosecution is for 10% plus 2mph.
Before anyone takes this advice seriously, the police can and do prosecute for less in some parts of the country. It's just a guidance not some hard rule - I don't think it's used in Scotland where it might be just 10%. IIRC Wales is actually stricter, or used to be.
Based on this polling I wouldn’t be surprised the Tories ahead of Reform at some point in quarter one of 2026, if present trends hold, not consistently but on an outlier basis.
Word missing there?
On the substantive point, am I right in thinking as well that Farage is at the same time the oldest and the least experienced of the four major party leaders? He's not likely to be improving now as he ages and he's never been in cabinet.
No, Starmer is about 18 months older than Farage.
Blair and Cameron had never been in government before they became PM.
Fair enough on the first point.
Cameron and Blair had both been Leaders of the Opposition. Farage hasn't even done that.
Indeed he quite often skives off Parliament. I think he finds it boring because its not all about him.
This has recently set me wondering if Nigel Farage might bail soon. He is rarely in the Commons or in Clacton, and does not even seem to have much to say about Streeting or Lammy advocating customs unions with the EU, an issue you'd think would be mother's milk to him. Is he still interested in politics? (That said, maybe he is just under the weather as there are some nasty bugs doing the rounds.)
I wonder if the 'I can't really remember what happened 50 years ago but I definitely did not say those racist and antisemitic things' row has put his gas at a peep. The one time I saw Farage address the issue directly he seemed uncharacteristically shifty and evasive.
28 witnesses, including Jewish students, and written communications amongst teachers, is quite a lot to dismiss as "lies, all lies". Tice is that crass imo; Farage is not.
It's also quite awkward with respect to Farage's position on Israel, and the portrayal of Muslims as The Mortal Enemy of Western Civilisation.
Witnesses at the time (as in recording in diaries, letters etc) or witnesses ‘recalling’ events of 50 years ago. Very big difference, as all good historians know.
28 witnesses seems pretty corroborative to me. The man’s a bully, and a spiv, and has been so since his earliest years.
I haven’t cared enough to look at what he did at school in detail, but isn’t prancing around with your arm in the air attention seeking rather than bullying?
Farage is deeply unpleasant man who is probably a racist. Spending 5 minutes reading a guardian article to confirm those views isn’t a good use of my time
So why did you venture in with your first comment about it being attention seeking not bullying then?
Because it was an interesting discussion.
Not all of the conversations on here are entirely fact based and it’s a better board for it
Kirk was in a long tradition on the US radical right of "Jews over there good, Jews here bad". The nationalist right in Israel loves the former part and is happy to gloss over the latter. That article repeatedly says Kirk supported Israel, which he did, but it notes, "Kirk’s devotion to Israel was rooted in his Christianity." Kirk's support for Israel never stopped him repeating anti-Semitic tropes about Jews in the US.
The author of the Times of Israel piece writes, "And while he was sometimes critical of certain American donors or liberal Jewish groups, he consistently rejected the claim that such criticism equated to hostility toward Israel itself." That's true, but euphemistic at best. Kirk, indeed, supported Israel while saying deeply racist things about Jews in the West. The Times of Israel piece link for that sentence is https://www.factcheck.org/2025/09/viral-claims-about-charlie-kirks-words/?utm_source=chatgpt.com (which, by the way, shows the author was using ChatGPT - sheesh!). That Fact Check link is worth a read: it goes into detail about exactly what Kirk did and did not say, but it certainly does not conclude Kirk was innocent of anti-Semitism.
Anwyay, now I've given you multiple clips of Kirk saying anti-Semitic things, I presume you will now admit that he did say anti-Semitic things.
The US Christian right love Israel because they see it as fulfilling biblical prophecy and paving the way for the second coming of Christ. They don't like Jews in the US because they aren't Christians and are seen as pime movers behind things like liberalism, internationalism and secularism. The nuttier fringe think Jews are conspiring to replace white Christians with minorities, the better to control them (the so-called Great Replacement conspiracy theory). Israeli nationalists have cultivated US Christian right support but it's very much a marriage of convenience from their POV.
You'd like to think this stuff is fringe but in the US it's a big chunk of the population. No GOP president gets elected unless they have them onboard.
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
You own article confirms the 10% plus 4 remains the trigger ie 26mph with no plans to change
I am content with the reviews and changes and it shouldn't be an issue going forward
You said it was enforced at 27 though !
It is commonly expected 20 - 26 is the margin
For clarification I drive to town on former 30mph roads and certainly a speed between 24 and 26 seems quite the norm
I do believe many roads at 20mph are correct, especially round schools and hospitals where 26mph is too high
Hang on, you've just said that it's correct to drive at 25/6mph in 20 mph limits. But the next moment you say that it's Ok to have 20mph limits around schools etc, where of course people will drive at 25/6 ... that's an argument for having 15mph limits instead [edit] around the schools..
No - The problem relates to previous 30mph zones which are the ones Go Safe monitor and the 26mph rule applies
The limits around schools and hospitals already existed
The 26mph trigger no longer applies. Prosecution is for 10% plus 2mph.
The link you posted says Go Safe have no intention of changing the 26mph rule !!!!
FPT: Andy_JS raised an important question about TV news. Decades ago, the wife of a friend asked me how a person could be well informed. (She wanted, I guessed later, to be a good citizen.)
I came up with this answer for national politics: Don't watch TV news*. Instead, read the best newspaper you can. Read another publication that is consistently critical of that newspaper, for balance. At that time, and in that place -- central Pennsylvania -- you could have done fairly well by reading the NYT and the National Review, or Commentary, regularly.
Now, it is more complex. But I would start by telling a person who asked that question not to rely on (anti) social media for facts.
(*I recall reading, at the time, that the 20 minutes or so given to the news on the national TV news programs -- would fit in a part of the NYT front page. About a third of a page, if I recall correctly.)
There is a story about Bob Crow’s dad telling him to read the Morning Star and the FT (and disbelieve the latter). I try to do similar (FT and LRB plus private eye - and I don’t treat any as gospel). In my view if you don’t pay the news you consume (either directly or via licence fee / tax) don’t be surprised if it entirely serves someone else’s interest and / or is complete rot.
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
I know someone who got done for 24 in a 20 mph zone in London and Google AI says 24 - 25.
I'm currently having lessons for my Advanced Drivers Test and speed limits are important for that and I struggle with some 20 and 30 limits at the margins and also don't want the distraction of keep checking so I am going to set my limiter on. Annoyingly I got told off for driving too slowly on my last lesson at one point on a country lane. They expect good progress. It was a bit weird as my wife thinks I drive too fast on country lanes.
The rule of thumb is a 20% margin of error - 10% for your speedometer and 10% for the police device. So 24 in a 20, or 84 on the motorway
Behave yourself. This is a full time job for me. Enforcement threshold is 10% + 2mph.
I'm sure the ballpark was designed for old analogue Speedos.
I see the government is continuing with it's Grand Old Duke of York approach to policy announcements.
Remind me of winter fuel allowance. A defendable policy that pissed a lot of people off and then a partial U-turn a lot later that won't win back any of the alienated voters.
As it happens my world includes farms, and lawyers and accountants who serve farms and the rural constituency. The thing about IHT is that more or less everyone who may be affected does some planning of their affairs, often very simple, but this relies on fairly long term stability in how systems will operate - rather like the pension industry relies on it.
The IHT changes as first announced had the effect that for a particular group, mostly older, it was possible that for some years planning for IHT would for them be much harder than it is for the Duke of Westminster, and in some cases impossible.
Rural accountants and lawyers for months now have been working day and night, sometimes literally, to sort the issues arising among worried farmers. Today's news renders some of this unnecessary and irrelevant. I know lawyers who have had to refuse work because of the sheer volume coming their way, and real specialists can be thin on the ground.
My excellent MP (Penrith) has lost the whip for voting against the government on this issue, only to see the government immediately change course to something more like what he wanted.
Their management of issues remains dismal. For the first time for 1000 years Labour has loads of rural seats and they have squandered the lot.
Labour have won rural seats that they don’t understand and don’t know how to keep onside. The previous Tory government won red wall seats that they didn’t understand and didn’t know how to keep onside. I wonder how Reform will deal with the seats they may win?
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
I know someone who got done for 24 in a 20 mph zone in London and Google AI says 24 - 25.
I'm currently having lessons for my Advanced Drivers Test and speed limits are important for that and I struggle with some 20 and 30 limits at the margins and also don't want the distraction of keep checking so I am going to set my limiter on. Annoyingly I got told off for driving too slowly on my last lesson at one point on a country lane. They expect good progress. It was a bit weird as my wife thinks I drive too fast on country lanes.
The rule of thumb is a 20% margin of error - 10% for your speedometer and 10% for the police device. So 24 in a 20, or 84 on the motorway
Behave yourself. This is a full time job for me. Enforcement threshold is 10% + 2mph.
I'm sure the ballpark was designed for old analogue Speedos.
What happens if I am wearing some other brand of swimwear?
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
You own article confirms the 10% plus 4 remains the trigger ie 26mph with no plans to change
I am content with the reviews and changes and it shouldn't be an issue going forward
You said it was enforced at 27 though !
It is commonly expected 20 - 26 is the margin
For clarification I drive to town on former 30mph roads and certainly a speed between 24 and 26 seems quite the norm
I do believe many roads at 20mph are correct, especially round schools and hospitals where 26mph is too high
Hang on, you've just said that it's correct to drive at 25/6mph in 20 mph limits. But the next moment you say that it's Ok to have 20mph limits around schools etc, where of course people will drive at 25/6 ... that's an argument for having 15mph limits instead [edit] around the schools..
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
You own article confirms the 10% plus 4 remains the trigger ie 26mph with no plans to change
I am content with the reviews and changes and it shouldn't be an issue going forward
You said it was enforced at 27 though !
It is commonly expected 20 - 26 is the margin
For clarification I drive to town on former 30mph roads and certainly a speed between 24 and 26 seems quite the norm
I do believe many roads at 20mph are correct, especially round schools and hospitals where 26mph is too high
Hang on, you've just said that it's correct to drive at 25/6mph in 20 mph limits. But the next moment you say that it's Ok to have 20mph limits around schools etc, where of course people will drive at 25/6 ... that's an argument for having 15mph limits instead [edit] around the schools..
They need to modify the signs:
20 (ish)
20 (really)
That should do the trick,
20 mph speed limits on roads like the A503 Forest Road near Walthamstow are no good for so called "express buses" like Sadiq Khan's Superloop (the SL2 in this case).
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
I know someone who got done for 24 in a 20 mph zone in London and Google AI says 24 - 25.
I'm currently having lessons for my Advanced Drivers Test and speed limits are important for that and I struggle with some 20 and 30 limits at the margins and also don't want the distraction of keep checking so I am going to set my limiter on. Annoyingly I got told off for driving too slowly on my last lesson at one point on a country lane. They expect good progress. It was a bit weird as my wife thinks I drive too fast on country lanes.
The rule of thumb is a 20% margin of error - 10% for your speedometer and 10% for the police device. So 24 in a 20, or 84 on the motorway
Behave yourself. This is a full time job for me. Enforcement threshold is 10% + 2mph.
I'm sure the ballpark was designed for old analogue Speedos.
What happens if I am wearing some other brand of swimwear?
I see the government is continuing with it's Grand Old Duke of York approach to policy announcements.
Remind me of winter fuel allowance. A defendable policy that pissed a lot of people off and then a partial U-turn a lot later that won't win back any of the alienated voters.
Some of the early ones (particularly WFA) I thought might perhaps be explained by the Treasury having a shortlist of "things we've wanted to do for ages and which will bring in some money" ready to present, and the incoming government not having enough political nous to spot the political downsides. That they don't seem to have got any better at this is rather unfortunate.
To spot the downside of the WFA all you need to do is to know someone normal. Do these people never talk to their mum or anyone ordinary and non political? Do they not have emissaries they can send out in disguise into the actual world to find out what people walking the dog think about free stuff for old people?
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
You own article confirms the 10% plus 4 remains the trigger ie 26mph with no plans to change
I am content with the reviews and changes and it shouldn't be an issue going forward
You said it was enforced at 27 though !
It is commonly expected 20 - 26 is the margin
For clarification I drive to town on former 30mph roads and certainly a speed between 24 and 26 seems quite the norm
I do believe many roads at 20mph are correct, especially round schools and hospitals where 26mph is too high
Hang on, you've just said that it's correct to drive at 25/6mph in 20 mph limits. But the next moment you say that it's Ok to have 20mph limits around schools etc, where of course people will drive at 25/6 ... that's an argument for having 15mph limits instead [edit] around the schools..
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
I know someone who got done for 24 in a 20 mph zone in London and Google AI says 24 - 25.
I'm currently having lessons for my Advanced Drivers Test and speed limits are important for that and I struggle with some 20 and 30 limits at the margins and also don't want the distraction of keep checking so I am going to set my limiter on. Annoyingly I got told off for driving too slowly on my last lesson at one point on a country lane. They expect good progress. It was a bit weird as my wife thinks I drive too fast on country lanes.
The rule of thumb is a 20% margin of error - 10% for your speedometer and 10% for the police device. So 24 in a 20, or 84 on the motorway
Behave yourself. This is a full time job for me. Enforcement threshold is 10% + 2mph.
My theology is a little hazy, but isn't breaking the speed limit haram?
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
You own article confirms the 10% plus 4 remains the trigger ie 26mph with no plans to change
I am content with the reviews and changes and it shouldn't be an issue going forward
You said it was enforced at 27 though !
It is commonly expected 20 - 26 is the margin
For clarification I drive to town on former 30mph roads and certainly a speed between 24 and 26 seems quite the norm
I do believe many roads at 20mph are correct, especially round schools and hospitals where 26mph is too high
Hang on, you've just said that it's correct to drive at 25/6mph in 20 mph limits. But the next moment you say that it's Ok to have 20mph limits around schools etc, where of course people will drive at 25/6 ... that's an argument for having 15mph limits instead [edit] around the schools..
No - The problem relates to previous 30mph zones which are the ones Go Safe monitor and the 26mph rule applies
The limits around schools and hospitals already existed
The 26mph trigger no longer applies. Prosecution is for 10% plus 2mph.
That's what I was told at the most recent of my numerous speed awareness courses.
Based on this polling I wouldn’t be surprised the Tories ahead of Reform at some point in quarter one of 2026, if present trends hold, not consistently but on an outlier basis.
Word missing there?
On the substantive point, am I right in thinking as well that Farage is at the same time the oldest and the least experienced of the four major party leaders? He's not likely to be improving now as he ages and he's never been in cabinet.
No, Starmer is about 18 months older than Farage.
Blair and Cameron had never been in government before they became PM.
Fair enough on the first point.
Cameron and Blair had both been Leaders of the Opposition. Farage hasn't even done that.
Indeed he quite often skives off Parliament. I think he finds it boring because its not all about him.
This has recently set me wondering if Nigel Farage might bail soon. He is rarely in the Commons or in Clacton, and does not even seem to have much to say about Streeting or Lammy advocating customs unions with the EU, an issue you'd think would be mother's milk to him. Is he still interested in politics? (That said, maybe he is just under the weather as there are some nasty bugs doing the rounds.)
I wonder if the 'I can't really remember what happened 50 years ago but I definitely did not say those racist and antisemitic things' row has put his gas at a peep. The one time I saw Farage address the issue directly he seemed uncharacteristically shifty and evasive.
28 witnesses, including Jewish students, and written communications amongst teachers, is quite a lot to dismiss as "lies, all lies". Tice is that crass imo; Farage is not.
It's also quite awkward with respect to Farage's position on Israel, and the portrayal of Muslims as The Mortal Enemy of Western Civilisation.
Witnesses at the time (as in recording in diaries, letters etc) or witnesses ‘recalling’ events of 50 years ago. Very big difference, as all good historians know.
28 witnesses seems pretty corroborative to me. The man’s a bully, and a spiv, and has been so since his earliest years.
I haven’t cared enough to look at what he did at school in detail, but isn’t prancing around with your arm in the air attention seeking rather than bullying?
Farage is deeply unpleasant man who is probably a racist. Spending 5 minutes reading a guardian article to confirm those views isn’t a good use of my time
So why did you venture in with your first comment about it being attention seeking not bullying then?
Because it was an interesting discussion.
Not all of the conversations on here are entirely fact based and it’s a better board for it
Ok but hang on.
Post 1: You counter the 'bully' allegations with "wasn't it just attention seeking?"
Post2: You say you don't care enough to read the details to see if it was indeed just attention seeking.
Post3: Whilst still not caring to check if it was just attention seeking you say it's nevertheless interesting.
Really rather odd. But, look, you're not in the dock, and it is Christmas, so that's probably enough on the matter. I note your overall 'deeply unpleasant and probably a racist' assessment of the bloke we're talking about. Big tick for that.
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
I know someone who got done for 24 in a 20 mph zone in London and Google AI says 24 - 25.
I'm currently having lessons for my Advanced Drivers Test and speed limits are important for that and I struggle with some 20 and 30 limits at the margins and also don't want the distraction of keep checking so I am going to set my limiter on. Annoyingly I got told off for driving too slowly on my last lesson at one point on a country lane. They expect good progress. It was a bit weird as my wife thinks I drive too fast on country lanes.
The rule of thumb is a 20% margin of error - 10% for your speedometer and 10% for the police device. So 24 in a 20, or 84 on the motorway
Behave yourself. This is a full time job for me. Enforcement threshold is 10% + 2mph.
I'm sure the ballpark was designed for old analogue Speedos.
What happens if I am wearing some other brand of swimwear?
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
You own article confirms the 10% plus 4 remains the trigger ie 26mph with no plans to change
I am content with the reviews and changes and it shouldn't be an issue going forward
You said it was enforced at 27 though !
It is commonly expected 20 - 26 is the margin
For clarification I drive to town on former 30mph roads and certainly a speed between 24 and 26 seems quite the norm
I do believe many roads at 20mph are correct, especially round schools and hospitals where 26mph is too high
Hang on, you've just said that it's correct to drive at 25/6mph in 20 mph limits. But the next moment you say that it's Ok to have 20mph limits around schools etc, where of course people will drive at 25/6 ... that's an argument for having 15mph limits instead [edit] around the schools..
They need to modify the signs:
20 (ish)
20 (really)
That should do the trick,
There should be speed cameras outside schools.
My old primary school, Noobury Park, recently became a so-called "school street", with motor traffic banned between 8am and 9.15am, and between 2.30pm and 4pm.
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
You own article confirms the 10% plus 4 remains the trigger ie 26mph with no plans to change
I am content with the reviews and changes and it shouldn't be an issue going forward
You said it was enforced at 27 though !
It is commonly expected 20 - 26 is the margin
For clarification I drive to town on former 30mph roads and certainly a speed between 24 and 26 seems quite the norm
I do believe many roads at 20mph are correct, especially round schools and hospitals where 26mph is too high
Hang on, you've just said that it's correct to drive at 25/6mph in 20 mph limits. But the next moment you say that it's Ok to have 20mph limits around schools etc, where of course people will drive at 25/6 ... that's an argument for having 15mph limits instead [edit] around the schools..
No - The problem relates to previous 30mph zones which are the ones Go Safe monitor and the 26mph rule applies
The limits around schools and hospitals already existed
The 26mph trigger no longer applies. Prosecution is for 10% plus 2mph.
That's what I was told at the most recent of my numerous speed awareness courses.
I see the government is continuing with it's Grand Old Duke of York approach to policy announcements.
Remind me of winter fuel allowance. A defendable policy that pissed a lot of people off and then a partial U-turn a lot later that won't win back any of the alienated voters.
As it happens my world includes farms, and lawyers and accountants who serve farms and the rural constituency. The thing about IHT is that more or less everyone who may be affected does some planning of their affairs, often very simple, but this relies on fairly long term stability in how systems will operate - rather like the pension industry relies on it.
The IHT changes as first announced had the effect that for a particular group, mostly older, it was possible that for some years planning for IHT would for them be much harder than it is for the Duke of Westminster, and in some cases impossible.
Rural accountants and lawyers for months now have been working day and night, sometimes literally, to sort the issues arising among worried farmers. Today's news renders some of this unnecessary and irrelevant. I know lawyers who have had to refuse work because of the sheer volume coming their way, and real specialists can be thin on the ground.
My excellent MP (Penrith) has lost the whip for voting against the government on this issue, only to see the government immediately change course to something more like what he wanted.
Their management of issues remains dismal. For the first time for 1000 years Labour has loads of rural seats and they have squandered the lot.
Labour have won rural seats that they don’t understand and don’t know how to keep onside. The previous Tory government won red wall seats that they didn’t understand and didn’t know how to keep onside. I wonder how Reform will deal with the seats they may win?
Yes. But this is odd. There are quite a lot of jobs where understanding people different from your narrow personal circle matters quite a lot. GPs, police, teachers, hospitality people. Most people actually. You would have thought that it is absolutely of the essence of governance to be outstanding at this. It is of the same level of importance as being good at deciding which countries to invade, or preparing brilliantly for whatever outcome you get in a Brexit referendum and all the other things they excel at.
This is the best Christmas present me, my family and my friends could have had. I can now safely sleep at night, that is how bad it has been. Especially for those older than me with serious health issues. Bad news for agricultural valuers of course who would have made a fortune over the arguing the toss over the values of farms. It takes my estate out of the danger zone and so we can now look forwards to building the shed which we have needed for many years.
I had expected this to become a jockeying point when the new Labour leader was selected or else it to be put off for a year, and a year and a year.
They pointed the shotgun at the whole farming industry. We stood up to them and they have blinked. But we won't forget, no we won't forget ...
That is the whole point
The farmers will not forgive or vote labour because of this
They also voted en masse for Brexit and then realised they had screwed themselves. They are the ultimate selfish opportunists who believe the world owes them a living. Of course they won't vote labour.
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
I know someone who got done for 24 in a 20 mph zone in London and Google AI says 24 - 25.
I'm currently having lessons for my Advanced Drivers Test and speed limits are important for that and I struggle with some 20 and 30 limits at the margins and also don't want the distraction of keep checking so I am going to set my limiter on. Annoyingly I got told off for driving too slowly on my last lesson at one point on a country lane. They expect good progress. It was a bit weird as my wife thinks I drive too fast on country lanes.
The rule of thumb is a 20% margin of error - 10% for your speedometer and 10% for the police device. So 24 in a 20, or 84 on the motorway
Behave yourself. This is a full time job for me. Enforcement threshold is 10% + 2mph.
My theology is a little hazy, but isn't breaking the speed limit haram?
II Kings 9.20: The lookout reported, “He has reached them, but he isn’t coming back either. The driving is like that of Jehu son of Nimshi—he drives like a maniac.”
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
You own article confirms the 10% plus 4 remains the trigger ie 26mph with no plans to change
I am content with the reviews and changes and it shouldn't be an issue going forward
You said it was enforced at 27 though !
It is commonly expected 20 - 26 is the margin
For clarification I drive to town on former 30mph roads and certainly a speed between 24 and 26 seems quite the norm
I do believe many roads at 20mph are correct, especially round schools and hospitals where 26mph is too high
Hang on, you've just said that it's correct to drive at 25/6mph in 20 mph limits. But the next moment you say that it's Ok to have 20mph limits around schools etc, where of course people will drive at 25/6 ... that's an argument for having 15mph limits instead [edit] around the schools..
No - The problem relates to previous 30mph zones which are the ones Go Safe monitor and the 26mph rule applies
The limits around schools and hospitals already existed
The 26mph trigger no longer applies. Prosecution is for 10% plus 2mph.
That's what I was told at the most recent of my numerous speed awareness courses.
In Wales ?
No, Gloucestershire, but I assume it is a UK wide approach.
I see the government is continuing with it's Grand Old Duke of York approach to policy announcements.
Remind me of winter fuel allowance. A defendable policy that pissed a lot of people off and then a partial U-turn a lot later that won't win back any of the alienated voters.
As it happens my world includes farms, and lawyers and accountants who serve farms and the rural constituency. The thing about IHT is that more or less everyone who may be affected does some planning of their affairs, often very simple, but this relies on fairly long term stability in how systems will operate - rather like the pension industry relies on it.
The IHT changes as first announced had the effect that for a particular group, mostly older, it was possible that for some years planning for IHT would for them be much harder than it is for the Duke of Westminster, and in some cases impossible.
Rural accountants and lawyers for months now have been working day and night, sometimes literally, to sort the issues arising among worried farmers. Today's news renders some of this unnecessary and irrelevant. I know lawyers who have had to refuse work because of the sheer volume coming their way, and real specialists can be thin on the ground.
My excellent MP (Penrith) has lost the whip for voting against the government on this issue, only to see the government immediately change course to something more like what he wanted.
Their management of issues remains dismal. For the first time for 1000 years Labour has loads of rural seats and they have squandered the lot.
Today's climb down was something but still not enough. As the Tories, LDs and Reform have demanded, inheritance tax on family farms and family businesses should still be scrapped completely
Train drivers on up to £80,000 a year categorised as ‘working class’
The Office for National Statistics ranks the role as a ‘lower supervisory and technical occupation’, while police officers on half the salary are ‘middle class’
Detectives in the police force would be earning at least as much as train drivers if not more.
More police officers are likely to be graduates than train drivers too, though being a train driver is a skilled and important job
Just had a look at pay scales. Fuck me Im underpaid as a senior lecturer at a top 10 U.K. uni… Should have followed Dads footsteps into the police.
Police pensions are pretty good, too.
Can’t argue with that. Dad will be 30 years retired in May. Still taking home more in pension than I get paid…
Was he the chief Constable, or are you on minimum wage
He retired as acting super intendent, when that was a thing. I am a senior lecturer. Not a high flying academic, but the same pay issues that medics complain of have hit academia too.
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
You own article confirms the 10% plus 4 remains the trigger ie 26mph with no plans to change
I am content with the reviews and changes and it shouldn't be an issue going forward
You said it was enforced at 27 though !
It is commonly expected 20 - 26 is the margin
For clarification I drive to town on former 30mph roads and certainly a speed between 24 and 26 seems quite the norm
I do believe many roads at 20mph are correct, especially round schools and hospitals where 26mph is too high
Hang on, you've just said that it's correct to drive at 25/6mph in 20 mph limits. But the next moment you say that it's Ok to have 20mph limits around schools etc, where of course people will drive at 25/6 ... that's an argument for having 15mph limits instead [edit] around the schools..
They need to modify the signs:
20 (ish)
20 (really)
That should do the trick,
There should be speed cameras outside schools.
I think there are in some places. The only problem is the need to switch them off during school holidays. Etc.
Round here people don't seem get prosecuted if they are within 10% of the limit and if they're between 10 and 40% they get offered a Speed Awareness Course. Which is quite interesting and indeed informative. Costs a bit less than the fine and of course there are no points on your licence.
In Essex, too, over 80's on SAC's are offered a Driver Awareness Course; an approximately one hour driving assessment with a (in Mrs C's case) retired police driver who comments, in writing, on the driver's driving. Mrs C was delighted to be told that in fact her driving was OK and in fact there were places where she should speed up a little.
Why haven't I been on one? Well, I have done a SAC but it was before I was 80 and anyway because of health issues I've had to hand back my licence.
No expert, but it doesn't look like a battleship to me.
It's not. It's an oversized Clown class cruiser that will likely never be built (unless Trump serves a third term).
At the same time, the USN is struggling to get a new frigate built, and is cobbling together a platform based on a Coastguard cutter which won't even have VLS capacity, which sounds a bit like a floating Ajax.
No expert, but it doesn't look like a battleship to me.
A far cry from USS Missouri of "Under Siege" fame!
It's a big cruiser.
But I think that any one of the psychopath at the top, the over promoted Lieutenant running the DoD, the Congress which will make sure it is made in 435 pieces in 435 towns, the USN who would want cruise missiles on a pedalo, and the various shipyards, would prevent it from being built in less than 15 years, never mind the 2-3 Trump is proposing.
By the time they are launched, the "Trump" class will be known as the Economy Destroyers - USS Demented, USS Immobile, USS Spiteful and USS Epstein.
YouGov had a Reform 25% in late November. There's a clear sign of a small Tory recovery mirrored by Reform declining in the opinion poll average graph on Wikipedia.
The unknown is whether this trend will be reinforced by campaigning for the May elections, or if that will interrupt it.
Also, given the personal ambitions of many of those involved, what are the chances Kemi gets ditched after losing lots of councillors in May anyway?
Barring immense change during the next few months, the story of election night is almost written already, as significant Reform and Green gains are surely nailed on. The competition is for who gets seen as the biggest loser, and there Labour already has a very good head start.
Part of the question will be timing. The first results often create the story.
I think Wales is still in doubt though. If Reform do come further off the boil then the big story might be a Plaid victory in Wales, rather than Reform doing very well there.
Sunderland voting in a Reform council will be the first news story. Then will come some London boroughs.
Picking up on Wales, and the conversation yesterday, I see that on 20mh default speed limits in towns we have:
- Con current policy is to reverse, despite their noisy demands back in 2020/21 that timid Labour were not implementing it quicky enough. - Ref UK committed to reverse. - Evidence of the benefits is firming up in reduced casualties, safety and reduced insurance premiums, with annother year of data due before the Senedd elections next May.
One to watch.
(Checking, the position in England is that 20mph limits now cover areas where just under 20 million people live. TBH that is a lot higher than I thought it was.) -
I had the opportunity recently to spend at least half an hour in total driving through 20mph speed limits in Wales and so, in true PB.com fashion, I am now an expert.
What surprised me most, given the vitriol in online discussions about them, is how well-observed they were. My experience in the past of driving through 20mph speed limits in England and Scotland is that a lot of drivers will speed past anyone obeying the speed limit.
That was exactly my experience of driving in Wales soon after the limit was introduced. I have the impression that the vitriol has died down now, and some may even be acknowledging that lives have been saved and things are generally pleasanter but I don't follow Welsh politics much so I wouldn't really know if the hostility to Labour on this issue has abated at all.
I am a convert to the 20, after being opposed to it in the start. The roads in towns are so much safer. You can also pull out easily from side roads.
Most newer cars also have a limiter which means you don't have to keep monitoring your speed.
I was chatting to a chap from South Wales the other week. He says he loves driving at exactly 20 mph and watching the queue build up behind him. And if they get too close, he'll slow to 18...
There are a few who do this, but it in itself is dangerous causing anger and tailgating, even unsafe overtaking
The speed in these 20mph zones is not enforced until you reach 27mph
As far as the present position is, most councils are or have reviewed and reinstated some of the 30mph which have generally been accepted
Public Service announcement!
That is patently untrue. The 27mph prosecution trigger is a myth.
I hate the 20mph default, it is not easy to adhere to without the limiter deployed, but if it has saved the life of just one child (and the stats are compelling) it is worth its weight in Go Safe fines.
Team Nigel and the Tories are indulging in a Labour style hostage to fortune culture for demanding the return to a default 30mph limit. If there was any non-right wing media left they would be all over the change of speed limit on news of the first avoidable fatality.
You own article confirms the 10% plus 4 remains the trigger ie 26mph with no plans to change
I am content with the reviews and changes and it shouldn't be an issue going forward
You said it was enforced at 27 though !
It is commonly expected 20 - 26 is the margin
For clarification I drive to town on former 30mph roads and certainly a speed between 24 and 26 seems quite the norm
I do believe many roads at 20mph are correct, especially round schools and hospitals where 26mph is too high
Hang on, you've just said that it's correct to drive at 25/6mph in 20 mph limits. But the next moment you say that it's Ok to have 20mph limits around schools etc, where of course people will drive at 25/6 ... that's an argument for having 15mph limits instead [edit] around the schools..
No - The problem relates to previous 30mph zones which are the ones Go Safe monitor and the 26mph rule applies
The limits around schools and hospitals already existed
The 26mph trigger no longer applies. Prosecution is for 10% plus 2mph.
That's what I was told at the most recent of my numerous speed awareness courses.
In Wales ?
No, Gloucestershire, but I assume it is a UK wide approach.
No expert, but it doesn't look like a battleship to me.
It's not. It's an oversized Clown class cruiser that will likely never be built (unless Trump serves a third term).
At the same time, the USN is struggling to get a new frigate built, and is cobbling together a platform based on a Coastguard cutter which won't even have VLS capacity, which sounds a bit like a floating Ajax.
The next step will be to re-design all US military uniforms - lots more gold braid, stars, aigulettes etc, and, of course, a Very Special Uniform for the Commander in Chief himself. I mean, a chap can't be expected to be the head of the most powerful armed forces in the world whilst just wearing a suit, can he?
No expert, but it doesn't look like a battleship to me.
TBF a Great War/WW2 corvette didn't look like the small sailing ship of the mid-C19 ... What is also notable is that it's to be called the Trump Class, which indicates that the first ship of the class will be named after Mr Trump (a class of warships is usually named after the first of the class, pace [edit] UK MoD and its stupid messing around of late).
Usually Presidential names get applied to Nimitz- or Ford-class nuclear aircraft carriers. But it's not cut and dry. Mr Carter got a nuke sub named after him (entirely appropriately and I imagine amicably, as he was a nuke sub engineer by trade).
No serving leader of any nation (with the possible exception of Russia) has ever named a ship after themselves. It's pretty well the ultimate in imbecilic narcissism.
Comments
Do we know where they stand over the latest development, banning drag-hunting?
I wonder how long it will be before Mr Campbell-Savours has the whip restored
I’m not, I live in Manhattan FFS.
But the solution here is obvious to both of us.
How the hell does Reeves and Treasury get it so wrong?
https://www.partyof.wales/diogelwch_ffyrdd_road_safety
We have to concede an extremely effective lobbying exercise by wealthy landowners but we don't really need to agree with the principle of it. It's far more egregious than WFA for example.
I must admit I'm not an expert on all the distinctions.
There will be big relief in farming circles, maybe 2026 will see a change in the tin eared attitude to many problems from the Treasury
Noel Edmonds: What is Cake? Well, it has an active ingredient which is a dangerous psychoactive compound known as dimesmeric andersonphosphate. It stimulates the part of the brain called Shatner's Bassoon...
But this lobbying has been all about protecting capital investment.
It's like houses - those who have houses are treated far better than those without when it comes to IHT. No wonder the values are distorted.
I am content with the reviews and changes and it shouldn't be an issue going forward
As for lobbying, not many farmers are in the Labour party. Meanwhile Nicholas Joicey, the Group Chief Operating Officer at DEFRA, is married to the Chancellor of the Exchequer
Remind me of winter fuel allowance. A defendable policy that pissed a lot of people off and then a partial U-turn a lot later that won't win back any of the alienated voters.
Technically academic in that Labour can push the ban through the Commons regardless of the potential opposition of a handful of PC MPs.
But this is politics: who do you stand with, and what are your values? What's most important: animal welfare or trad country pursuits?
In the case of Plaid, do they back their rural core-voters as they did in the late 90s which would give Welsh Labour a line of attack, or close that off and risk the ire of the farmers of Caernarfon and Ceredigion?
The rise in auction sale prices over the last three years is perhaps difficult to understand but there is no doubt the inconvenience of shipping commodity food into the UK has more than ofset the difficulties with exporting.
The danger for the left with a further hunting ban will be that it will be easier to sweep the whole thing away.
Very few farmers voted against Brexit and I known of none who regrets the way they voted.
For clarification I drive to town on former 30mph roads and certainly a speed between 24 and 26 seems quite the norm
I do believe many roads at 20mph are correct, especially round schools and hospitals where 26mph is too high
Working men, and their families, who leave home for work each morning in their uniform or their hi-viz no longer vote Labour. And the working middle-aged with white collar jobs living in the Home Counties, looking toward owning their own home and providing for their retirement, no longer vote Tory.
Both major parties have turned their back on their core constituencies - in the Tories’ case, by focusing looking after economically-inactive pensioners and with their irrational anti-European ideological obsessions, and in Labour’s case by putting metropolitan issues of cultural change ahead of the economic interests of their own voters.
What I cannot get my head around is the principle of IHT allowances which penalise people according to what assets they own. The most obvious is the RNRB - a couple with an estate worth £1m and children etc., their estate pays 140K tax or not at all depending on whether they rent or own their house.
The author of the Times of Israel piece writes, "And while he was sometimes critical of certain American donors or liberal Jewish groups, he consistently rejected the claim that such criticism equated to hostility toward Israel itself." That's true, but euphemistic at best. Kirk, indeed, supported Israel while saying deeply racist things about Jews in the West. The Times of Israel piece link for that sentence is https://www.factcheck.org/2025/09/viral-claims-about-charlie-kirks-words/?utm_source=chatgpt.com (which, by the way, shows the author was using ChatGPT - sheesh!). That Fact Check link is worth a read: it goes into detail about exactly what Kirk did and did not say, but it certainly does not conclude Kirk was innocent of anti-Semitism.
Anwyay, now I've given you multiple clips of Kirk saying anti-Semitic things, I presume you will now admit that he did say anti-Semitic things.
I do hope veganism spares you and you're here to offer commentary on it all. The best thing about it will be those who agreed with it struggling to explain how they argued so vociferously for something so utterly fucking stupid.
"Trump unveils plans for 'Golden Fleet' battleships named after himself"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2084nq2npjo
No expert, but it doesn't look like a battleship to me.
Just amazing that both parties have been so poor. Hard to understand what happened. As a SME business owner I should be a Tory voter but I have not voted for them for a decade now. The Tories have stopped getting worse but they are a very long way from overtaking Reform.
Reform are party run from the streets not Westminster. Over a quarter of their voters came from Labour and are not going to vote Tory soon. The splitting of the right wing vote has increased the overall right wing vote base. In Scotland the two parties are developing their own unique identities
The limits around schools and hospitals already existed
Insisting on them not being stunned because there is a risk of killing the animal crosses over into gratuitous cruelty in my view
For example, a BAFTA winning director:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BejVEGuMaDE
Farage is deeply unpleasant man who is probably a racist. Spending 5 minutes reading a guardian article to confirm those views isn’t a good use of my time
Usually Presidential names get applied to Nimitz- or Ford-class nuclear aircraft carriers. But it's not cut and dry. Mr Carter got a nuke sub named after him (entirely appropriately and I imagine amicably, as he was a nuke sub engineer by trade).
The IHT changes as first announced had the effect that for a particular group, mostly older, it was possible that for some years planning for IHT would for them be much harder than it is for the Duke of Westminster, and in some cases impossible.
Rural accountants and lawyers for months now have been working day and night, sometimes literally, to sort the issues arising among worried farmers. Today's news renders some of this unnecessary and irrelevant. I know lawyers who have had to refuse work because of the sheer volume coming their way, and real specialists can be thin on the ground.
My excellent MP (Penrith) has lost the whip for voting against the government on this issue, only to see the government immediately change course to something more like what he wanted.
Their management of issues remains dismal. For the first time for 1000 years Labour has loads of rural seats and they have squandered the lot.
I came up with this answer for national politics: Don't watch TV news*. Instead, read the best newspaper you can. Read another publication that is consistently critical of that newspaper, for balance. At that time, and in that place -- central Pennsylvania -- you could have done fairly well by reading the NYT and the National Review, or Commentary, regularly.
Now, it is more complex. But I would start by telling a person who asked that question not to rely on (anti) social media for facts.
(*I recall reading, at the time, that the 20 minutes or so given to the news on the national TV news programs -- would fit in a part of the NYT front page. About a third of a page, if I recall correctly.)
But I think that any one of the psychopath at the top, the over promoted Lieutenant running the DoD, the Congress which will make sure it is made in 435 pieces in 435 towns, the USN who would want cruise missiles on a pedalo, and the various shipyards, would prevent it from being built in less than 15 years, never mind the 2-3 Trump is proposing.
Yes PC are not particularly serious but if it keeps the Nazis out they'll get my vote.
(In Usionia you put them in a funnel so the head sticks out at the bottom then cut the throat.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HEFmFOlSaQ
Not all of the conversations on here are entirely fact based and it’s a better board for it
Why do so many of these dweebs have ridiculous voices? Shapiro and Peterson quacking away make Starmer and Reeves sound like Brian Blessed.
20 (ish)
20 (really)
That should do the trick,
Post 1: You counter the 'bully' allegations with "wasn't it just attention seeking?"
Post2: You say you don't care enough to read the details to see if it was indeed just attention seeking.
Post3: Whilst still not caring to check if it was just attention seeking you say it's nevertheless interesting.
Really rather odd. But, look, you're not in the dock, and it is Christmas, so that's probably enough on the matter. I note your overall 'deeply unpleasant and probably a racist' assessment of the bloke we're talking about. Big tick for that.
The lookout reported, “He has reached them, but he isn’t coming back either. The driving is like that of Jehu son of Nimshi—he drives like a maniac.”
Round here people don't seem get prosecuted if they are within 10% of the limit and if they're between 10 and 40% they get offered a Speed Awareness Course. Which is quite interesting and indeed informative. Costs a bit less than the fine and of course there are no points on your licence.
In Essex, too, over 80's on SAC's are offered a Driver Awareness Course; an approximately one hour driving assessment with a (in Mrs C's case) retired police driver who comments, in writing, on the driver's driving. Mrs C was delighted to be told that in fact her driving was OK and in fact there were places where she should speed up a little.
Why haven't I been on one? Well, I have done a SAC but it was before I was 80 and anyway because of health issues I've had to hand back my licence.
It's an oversized Clown class cruiser that will likely never be built (unless Trump serves a third term).
At the same time, the USN is struggling to get a new frigate built, and is cobbling together a platform based on a Coastguard cutter which won't even have VLS capacity, which sounds a bit like a floating Ajax.
Well, actually it’s a turkey that thinks it’s a goose.
It’s trans-gander.
It's pretty well the ultimate in imbecilic narcissism.