malumbu

More details please, do you want to make, or defend, a claim. What is the claim about? Often solicitors will charge more than you will gain

If things are a bit crazy in the UK this is nothing compared to the States. The radio 4 show Dead Ringers still does a good job of lampooning politicians, the sketch with our national treasures getting position under Trump was classic, for example Ian McKellen was given head of Middle Earth.

I really enjoyed the play at the National Theatre Nye (Bevan) about the politician and the establishment of the NHS. He had to seriously compromise including some element of the private sector, GP practices, pharmacies being independent businesses, and consultants keeping on private work The days that a working class person from the valleys can be on the Cabinet are all but gone. But even then he was an outlier

Shame that this thread that was supposed to look how routes could be improved for cyclists just turned into complaint about cyclists. Sad really. If you would be interested to hear about one supporter of cycling has to say about improving infrastruture Rachel Aldred is giving a free lecture on Monday at the University of Westminster 18.00 start : https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/inaugural-lecture-professor-rachel-aldred-tickets-1038776527557?aff=eivtefrnd&utm_share_source=listing_android

All of this send them to the Tower, off with their heads reminds me of Cecil Parkinson who got caught with his pants down, resigned his position, then later returned as a minister to standing applause from his Tory MP colleagues. Ah, the good old days

Well I've done a few naughty things in my life that I am sure would come out If I was in office. Mostly in my younger days. I've grown up slightly since then and have even found my moral compass. Surely most of us have a guilty secret. Don't usually quite the scriptures but he/she without sin throw the first stone

Fortunately cycling I could avoid the congestion, using the shared pavement where appropriate. There is a flood outside Sainsbury's in Forest Hill, no doubt a caused by a cyclist. Nothing to do with a private utility company...

Shame, she seemed a decent Transport Secretary, it's not as if Grant Shapps never did anything wrong. It's also a shame that some seem to enjoy these sorts of revelations. She declared the offence so not sure why she needed to resign. I thought that in the UK we had a culture of forgiveness.

Ah thanks for giving me credit, but it predates my involvement with DVLA. Happy for all compliments, they are so rare on this site 😃 I can retire for the evening happy, and I expect the sun will be shining too. Bless I understand this is not the only thread with a love-in

Bit of an overreaction. Sadly it happens. I should have PMd the bloke who was going to pick up the FREE Miele fridge, I left it outside but he didn't turn up and came home and the scrap people had taken the compressor and left me the rest to take to the tip. But I didn't. And got over it. Until now.

Good grief, you are dismissive yet again. Read it with an open mind. Separately having worked with DVLA on a project or two I can definitely tell you that the owner is not necessarily the keeper of a vehicle. And the driver may be someone different as well 20 years ago a car registered with Manchester United was caught speeding. By law the keeper had to tell the police who was driving. They wouldn't and we're prepared to pay rather than reveal the ID of the driver, possibly now a very famous brand, influencer etc

So what you are saying DR is Yvette Cooper becoming the new Priti Braverman?* (*That's a scary combination of the two)

It's registered keeper that DVLA keeps, this is not necessarily the owner The Forbes article is relevant as a number of you keep going on, on this, and in another thread, that destruction could have been purely just by chance, eg a driver distracted by a UFO, or meteorite, whereas I and others point out that there are few collisions where the driver is not at fault. And the police have started to recognise this as moving away from using 'accident'. Some even suggested that it was not a motorised four wheel vehicle that caused the destruction, considering momentum and weight a 50 kg electric bike would need to do around about 4000 miles an hour to collide with this force, and even then most of the damage would be done to the bike. Or perhaps this

is it just me but is anyone else bothered about the branding on the screen when Newsnight is on, and now they have introduced a QR code linking you to I-player. Are they trying to catch the elusive young audience, I suppose you could argue that if they looked to the Beeb for info rather than X, FB and the like they would be better informed. But I find it annoying. And it didn't happen under a Tory Government.

An interesting article, most police are now not using the term accident but that there is still a trend to depersonalise collisions by referring to the car rather than driver. Worth a read irrespective of you position https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2024/11/26/most-uk-police-forces-now-use-incident-not-accident-finds-research/

Dulwich Park and Peckham Rye are always Waterlogged over late Autumn and winter. Not sure why you need to point this out. Southwark put in drainage on one of the areas where football is played, this was working well. The issue is South London clay. Part of our back garden gets waterlogged too. There was also massive pools off water on the South Circus too

So speeding traffic is one of the problems. I've witnessed boy racers hammering it at night on the one way. Shame some motorists cannot act more responsibly.

Who is signing the petition? If they are real people, entitled to vote in the UK, guess what? Mainly Tory and Reform voters. Not really a surprise. And the opposition have not done themselves any favours with the new leader and others signing it. Move on, and come back in four years when we have the next GE.

Semantics, if it was reasonably avoidable then it is not an accident. If the road user was not being reasonable then they could have avoided the collision. Not sure why you continue to be apologists for poor driving. If the incident occurred because a piece of space junk or a meteorite came to ground I'd agree that it was not avoidable. Highly unlikely. This thread had al but died, not sure why you would want to bring it back to life.

Good to hear that Farage and Musk are supporting this. I can't post further thought as it is before the watershed

Good point, I was listening to a radio documentary where an American couple hired a cottage in a place called Ambridge, either in Worcester or Warwick shire (couldn't find the village on a map). Imagine their surprise after they had let themselves in (key under the mat) when the owner came home - appears to be a scam. So maybe check out Airbnb Vbro and similar sites to see if your place is being listed without your permission.

How do we know this discussion represents what the country thinks? At present I expect that most are thinking of Xmas and the one political issue in the news this week will be the assisted dying Bill. I expect Starmer will ride this out and move on. It did amuse me the one comment that I wasn't Chancellor following my disappointment that fuel duty was not increased to bring it back in line with inflation. Yet so many of us think we know better! There would have been one almighty backlash if fuel duty had gone up. But again ride it out. I have many years experience working with the transport sector including the impact of give Blair a Bloody nose - ie the 2000 fuel protests; this still makes Labour shudder. For those not familiar this was an unholy alliance of farmers and hauliers blockading refineries and depots. This was effective as government was not prepared and then Blair wound the protestors up rather than let the protest subside of its own accord. As this involved trespasses on private land blockades would be prevented in future. There were some follow up campaigns in the 00s that did not disrupt the delivery of fuel, and led to short term shortages due to panic buying. Same thing happens when we get disruption of crude production when rigs/on shore infrastructure is disrupted due to extreme weather in the North Sea, or loss of production/refining due to accidents or technical issues. There is a bigger picture on resilience of transport and heating fuels since UK stopped being a net exporter of oil and gas. Lower reliance on gas fired power stations has helped. Russia clearly not. So whether the dissatisfaction with Labout this is an over-reaction or not, stoked on by the right wing media and quiet news days, we shall see. Public messaging has been poor and I am unsure why this is so. Ultimately neither Tories or Labour would admit to income tax staying historically high due to the freezing of the thresholds, and neither said they would raise income tax - when of course it would stay at these high levels. Maybe the fairest way of raising revenue would have been income tax rises, accompanied by raising the thresholds to protect the poorest paid and maybe even placate the squeezed middle. But we will never know. Meanwhile Clarkson and many others will continue to exploit the means to avoid tax. Whoops Alice just said what I said in one line. Lesson to self don't get on hobby horse.

Around 15% voted right and far right at the last election in our constituency. Green had a good vote, some no doubt being a protest, and if it had been tighter many would have kept with Labour. So not a lot around here would agree with some of the more extreme views on this thread.

Wat Tyler of course takes me back to the two poll tax rebellions. Not really sure why Thatch thought that poll tax was a good idea. Maybe she thought that those who had not bettered themselves and were living with a number of other people in modest accommodation needed a lesson. But she had done her time and the knives had already been sharpened in her own party. Too soon to think this is happening in Labour. I posted elsewhere a review of the last government's manifesto by a political analyst. Sobering how much they hadn't achieved. As with all manifestos. That working class hero turned bad Livingstone campaigned on slashing bus fares from the universe pound, at the time And reintroducing conductors. Neither happened, following a reality check. Instead by accident or design he revolutionised public transport with the Oyster card. Lest we forget.

Remember what happened to Wat Tyler