Mailwatch(ed) Forum

They'll be looking anywhere and everywhere to find the money for tax cuts, so expect public spending to be utterly wrecked.

Repeating his "Cyclists should have number plates, insurance and ..." red meat for the walking dead at the hustings.

No details on the new "slimmed down" civil service (Dept of Transport) would cope with all the extra admin work.

Road spending is investment, rail is subsidy. Our people drive cars.

Mr Cyclist obviously ahead of the game, hence the name change to avoid legislation! But good to see Godzilla back

I wonder exactly how he plans to pay for his cycling plan, given bikes are zero VED. Is it to be per bike or per rider?

And will all riders be required to register - including kids?

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Wed Aug 17, 2022 10:43 pm And will all riders be required to register - including kids?

No detail, because it all falls aart under the slightest scrutiny.
Merely a policy Kited through the pages of the Mail.
Clearly targeted at their perceived white-van demographic, and Facebook's self-appointed highway code "experts".

Stand by for more road based culture war, based around city parking and speed limits being optional for "law abiding" drivers.

It's an argument I've made before, but Jesus Tapdancing Christ, don't the audience know they're being played for fucking morons and resent it? Aren't they even a little bit insulted that Shapps et al think they're dumb-fuck enough to eat this shit and smile?

I suspect a lot of it is the classic 'I/you/them' strategem, so oft-observed here.

Aren't there already laws to deal with dangerous cyclists?

That’s what I thought; for example you can be breatherlized if plod consider that you may be drunk in charge

I believe you can't be done for drunk in charge, but they will hit you with D&D or Drunk Simple. The speeding thing is a bit of a quirk of the law, but frankly the amount of time any cyclist would be breaking a twenty, let alone a thirty or forty mph limit is virtually zero. For reference, the current record for a ten mile TT stands at an average of 36mph, and that's as much to do with conditions and aero positioning as being a feat of riding strength. You'd struggle to find even well trained cyclists who could hit even close to that sort of average on the day to day.

Point being, there's plenty of applicable law and no real push from the plod to enforce it, mostly because it's not riding to the level of a real problem for the most part.

We had a cyclist done for speeding here about thirty years ago. Daft sod overtook a police car...

I've had the odd "watch the speed" chat, usually more in good humour than anything. Usually heading to work through the Castlereagh hills at about 6 on a Sunday morning, from a cop still dazed by the nonsense he dealt with the previous evening.

This is ominous

The transport secretary was accused of “advocating fire-and-rehire” tactics after he warned that the changes sought by rail companies could be imposed on workers.

Grant Shapps told Sky News on Friday that he could enact legislation referred to as a “section 188” to force through some of the measures at the heart of the current strikes.

The attack on worker's rights is under way

“If we can’t get this settled in the way that we are proposing, which is [asking unions], ‘Please put the deal to your membership,’ then we will have to move to what is called a section 188; it is a process of actually requiring these changes to go into place so it becomes mandated,” he said.

“That is the direction that this is moving in now.”..

https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... il-strikes

I'm so fucking glad that I'm getting close to retirement age.

Sebastian Fox, Michael Green, and Corinne Stockheath job-sharing as the UK's defence secretary?

Has the world gone completely fucking mad?

kreuzberger wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 10:51 am Sebastian Fox, Michael Green, and Corinne Stockheath job-sharing as the UK's defence secretary?

Has the world gone completely fucking mad?

No. Just our small, damp corner of it.

To be fair, Gavin Williamson set a pretty fucking low bar.

Shapps took in Ukrainian refugees and his great grandparents were Jewish refugees from the Russian Empire. Rather he is at the defence desk than a Brexit loon whose sympathies lie with Trump and detente with Putin.

Add to that he's Mick Jones' cousin. All well and good, but he's still a grasping, relentless con man.

Who in their right mind would put a spiv in charge of a budget totalling 55.5 billion of your British pounds?