I don’t know.

There are definitely some right wing elements in the Conservative Party who think he hasn’t gone far (been radically right wing) enough in dealing with small boat immigration, inflation, economic growth, NHS waiting lists and the national debt; whether they think there is someone else waiting in the wings who can be more effective in the regard is unknown to me.

Over the summer the impression I have got from coverage of him and his team is desperation; they seem to be flailing around looking for wedge issues (currently the “war on the motorist” nonsense seems to be in vogue, but they rotate between “small boats”, “net zero” and the like) while trying to distract from the failure to attain the five pledges and all the other things that are going wrong for everyday normal people - the “cost of living crisis”.

The trouble with over a decade of failing to raise pay in the public sector in line with inflation is that eventually you run out of other people’s free labour.

As for this bit: “NHS England and ministers have both said strikes by doctors are a factor in the rising number of people waiting for treatment.”

The waiting list began to slide in around 2011-2012 and progressively grew until 2020 when it then began to skyrocket. The problems predate the current strike action.

I sometimes wonder if there isn’t an element of doing things this way with the knowledge and expectation that others will expend energy and resources challenging it; win or lose, it might just prove to be an effective, devious and deliberate tactic for wearing people down.

Why does it seem that every time this government does something (whether or not I agree with the aim) there is an overall air of corner-cutting and incompetence?

Standard behaviour across all disciplines sadly; people no longer see the problem that the rules / processes in place were designed to mitigate against, and then they conclude that the rules / processes that are in place must be unnecessary. Never seems to occur to them that the reason the problems have gone away or are getting better is because of the rules / processes, or that to continue to see improvement the rules / processes need to be built upon.

Examples include speed limits, vaccination programmes and, topical these days, well-resourced IT departments.

Ok. Between the two the Vaer seems more robust, comes with a nicer strap and is more readily available (the Citizen BM8186-15E appears to be out of stock in a few places).

Doesn’t look bad; on paper nothing really stands out as a negative.

Do you have a particular budget? Is a field watch the particular style you’re after?

For a smaller wrist I was surprised by this Seiko here as it smaller despite being a diver (it’s also more expensive).

If the Vaer is the end result of a search process for what you like, you may as well go for it.

I can’t think of anything that would help apart from a Casio digital. But your post seemed kind of lonely all in its own so here’s a comment.

There’s me thinking that the parts of the expansion to the North and South circulars were insisted upon by the Tory government as part of a deal supporting TFL in the COVID-era, and that all Labour’S Khan did was to tack on expansion to the East and West.

To clarify my stance: I support the ULEZ expansion. I think that the support to those who need to upgrade or modify their vehicles (including specialist and commercial vehicles) has fallen short.

I brought up the tech because I see a lot of newer cars being driven in violation of the speed limit.

Should still be possible to hold to 20mph, with or without the tech.

“Immediate effect”; eleven weeks later.

Agree with what you said in full.

A lot of the conversation seems to be starting with “I don’t see why it should be 20mph so I’m going to ignore it”. I think your comment goes some way to explaining why this kind of thinking isn’t appropriate.

Roads aren’t just about cars and drivers.

I don’t think that law is going to get changed by repeatedly breaking it.

I also don’t think it is a bad law. The probability of a pedestrian being fatally injured at 20mph is lower than at 30mph; older studies showed a nearly tenfold reduction; not sure what the figures would be now with the trend towards larger and heavier vehicles (and the offset by pedestrian-friendly design - EuroNCAP score for this). For residential and pedestrian heavy areas I think 20mph is appropriate.

It is also worth bearing in mind that several areas in the UK have already committed to 20mph for residential areas.

I think the more likely outcome is going to be changes to roads and enforcement.

Here’s a .pdf factsheet from RoSPA that looks at 20mph zones.

Is one of the roads more popular with cyclists or more likely to have folks crossing? Roads aren’t just for cars.

How would you ensure compliance?

So it’s ok to not comply with laws when it feels right?

Most modern cars have speed limiters you can adjust on-the-go. By modern I mean made in the last five years or so.

No excuse for speeding.

If there’s a question of how appropriate a speed limit might be, that’s still not an excuse for speeding - that’s grounds for presenting a case to the local authority and campaigning for change via the legal route.

Residential street speed limits (20mph, 30mph) have to be the most poorly followed laws in the UK.

Edit to add: more expensive cars have had this feature for even longer; operating a vehicle within a given speed constraint with or without technology to help shouldn’t be hard for a competent driver. So: why the downvotes?

Indeed. The key word is “publish”. Social media companies and their legal teams have been fairly effective at influencing the thinking around who exactly is doing the publishing when something is posted.

Myst.

Bean does have this feature, but with caveats. At the moment the smoothest way I’ve found to experience a multi-community is by grouping them in a list on Mastodon.