Hopefully Labour wins in Clacton, and Labour significantly improves the lot of people in places like Clacton.

Farage is already talking about five years’ time. I think it’s sadly not unrealistic for Reform to be eyeing up an M5S-style landslide if Labour doesn’t deliver change.

“They could watch the whole SD card back and use it as evidence against you for bad driving entirely unrelated to the case, but that would require time and effort so unless there was a reason to I wouldn’t worry.”

How long will this time and effort impediment remain? I’m pretty sure somebody somewhere will be working on ML systems for identifying likely offences in dashing footage right now, and initial analysis will be entirely automatic. You could feed in months of video and potentially very quickly get a list of itemised footage of speeding, red light infringements, dodgy overtakes and so on.

It’s a pity they still don’t seem to have a subscription that just gets music at high quality. I switched my family sub to Apple when Spotify started pushing iffy podcasts.

I see a story that the Tories are warning members that the campaign is short of money with a claim that they might start triaging constituencies within 48 hours.

Liz Truss has made the papers again too, pronouncing Tony Blair the worse UK PM. 🥬

I hadn’t realised Reform UK and TUV were in bed together now. I hope they catch some rotten afflictions from one another.

I’m sure the feeling isn’t really going to sink in until the Labour manifesto gets published. Anyone know when that will be? At the moment I feel like I’m waiting on medical test results: I know there’s definitely something badly wrong, but I don’t really know how badly wrong it is yet.

What change have Labour promised from the current rabble?

Irish Ferries pulled the same staffing trick about 20 years ago. They can get in the sea too.

Rishi Sunak, a man who struggles to use a contactless card, knows neither the price nor the value of things.

I’ve seen it suggested that some within the Conservative Party possibly want a campaign that puts Rishi front-and-centre and is heavy with nonsense policies. They know they’re going to lose anyway, and want to get as quickly as possible to a point where they can ditch an unpopular leader and pretend that the loss is because of his bad leadership and a poor campaign, and not because of 14 years of presiding over unprecedented decline in living standards and opportunity for the electorate.

How is this “national” service canard going down in Northern Ireland, I wonder?

Is the ITV coverage deliberately a confrontation between one-sided commentators and experts pretending to be blind? It’s almost like someone watched bad American sports coverage and said, “Yes, that’s what I want.”

IMO the upper chamber should be e.g. 180 people elected on a regional party list system with 1/3 up every two years, and a limit of two six year terms.

I’m with you on it being elected, but any party list would I think would hand parties far too much power. The last thing we should want is a more partisan upper house when we can see every day the results of the party dregs floated into the Commons in safe seats.

Don’t get excited? One less car is the best kind of NBD IMO.

example it’s around 600 miles from my door to Peebles

It is a big old drive from Oslo or Dijon alright.

Labour canvassers today –  claiming to be anti brexshit and “wait until we get in”. Aye right.

In the local elections my Labour county councillor didn’t disagree with me on my doorstep and called it a “stupid thing to say” multiple times when I said I wasn’t sure I could vote Labour after Starmer’s comments on LBC in October. Your canvassers are probably just in denial themselves.

This champions cup final is some match-up.

@ernielynch All these conservative centrists who oppose a manifesto for change but would like progressives like me to believe policies for change will emerge post-election seem to want me to believe abolishing/reforming the Lords is exactly the sort of thing Labour could do after winning.

I’ve seen Google maps suggest this too, fwiw. I also didn’t go for it, but I’ve been convinced since the advent of Waze that we need road pricing to help keep traffic on appropriate routes.

Is he about to announce he also won’t be standing for reelection?

Most of my riding is on a (fairly plain) 853 steel frame with long-drop calipers and indexed down tube shifters. While my aero carbon bike with deep rims is great on chain gangs, fast rides, and for chasing Strava segments; people are really missing out if that kind of road bike is all they ride. We also buy too many cheap mass-produced things and replace them too often. I think it’s a real shame if Mercian is gone, but also sadly par for our financialised deindustrialised commoditised times.

If you refuse, he could come across and piss in your water tank.

Arguably less bad than frozen sausages…

Yet again I am reminded how in Japan you have to prove exclusive use of a registered parking space in order to keep each car.

I can’t post mine, but it involves a statistical analysis which is in contempt of court.

Software development, and I say that as a grizzled veteran developer.

People being allowed to drive their kids to and from the school gates and cause utter chaos.

Great idea. How can anyone object. If you kill or seriously injure someone by your stupidity then you should pay. My only objection is that death should mean life. Real life.

If, as people are saying, few people are killed by cyclists then there is nowt to worry about., Comparison with motorists is stupid and purely a red herring .

commonsenseinnit.

I think there’s a common view that living with having killed someone is probably more than enough punishment for many drivers, with dangerously careless driving commonly normalised. Cyclists are also commonly considered a menace; only last week I had the misfortune of a conversation in Cambridge (of all places) with someone who genuinely saw Auriol Grey as the victim and Celia Ward as an aggressor whose family cynically played her status in society for sympathy.

did the illegality of the car have any bearing on the accident? Ie had (for example) the car failed its mot due to its engine light being on rather than its brakes being defective?

I’m not that convinced that Charlie Alliston would not have attempted to swerve around Kim Briggs when she stepped into the road, even had he not removed the front brake from his bike.

Neutered males spray loads too. Our now deceased bengal took out several toasters while trying to claim the kitchen, the bastard.

banana republic

It’s not even a republic.

Judging by the angry saucer-eyed little man who once tried to pick a fight with me after I gesticulated an objection to him hitting my thigh with his wing mirror in traffic, I think widespread cocaine use is probably a contributing factor.

We all know deep down that road pricing is probably the answer.

“Common Sense” makes me mad

“Common sense” is not a thing. Everything is learned. What “common sense” is is a mindset used to sneeringly abuse and other people, and an insidious attack on learning and growth. You might think my anger is appropriate, but after many years of quiet disquiet I now automatically file people who use the phrase in my “ignorant ****s” list.

Stelvio is right at the start in the stage that goes over it, so it’s more there for attrition than to be raced flat out as it would be at the end of a stage. Its removal would probably be less impactful to the race as a result.

Pogacar is such a phenomenon. I’ll forever hate seeing UAE win, but he comes across as personable as he is fast on a bike. I enjoyed watching the ride video he did with Matt Stephens on YouTube. (I would post a link, but I appear to be unable to paste it here…)

Drivers who think they’re doing others a favour when they try to upend priority on the roads and how there’s so often a massive gap behind them that they’ve now instead filled with their stupid **** headlight morse code and simpering petty anarchy.

https://www.vivobarefoot.com/uk/

Meh. I hope I’d base my strong opinions of my colleagues on something more substantial, and usually could.

There were a couple of people (Sarah Wallaston and one other) who were clearly in the wrong party pre-2019.

I’d probably put Heidi Allan in that bracket too: people who were probably well-intentioned but fell in with people with dodgy societal and economic viewpoints and lent their support to terrible things. Many of those people across society are still unwinding that received conservative orthodoxy years on from the Austerity-Brexit debacle, quietly not supporting the modern Conservative Party any more and not likely to be tempted back by culture wars and fascism.