Safe Speed Forums

As well as selling the details to sclampers....nice work if you can get it.
I sometimes wonder if the public services actually serve the public.

Note from the article that the IT services for benefits are being outsourced to india....what a mess this country has descended into....

Now we have a gov minster telling us to stock fuel in jerry cans at home...

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Well, it seems that over the past week or so any last shred of credibility this government enjoyed has disappeared:

- pasty tax
- cash for access
- granny tax
- alcohol duty escalator
- fuel duty increase
- fuel crisis Mark 2
- minimum alcohol pricing

Out of touch, arrogant and, worst of all, incompetent.

Edit: I see this is echoed by Peter Oborne in today's Daily Telegraph:

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Although this is not directly about the subject of outsourcing and security of data, I should like to reply to some issues related to the above posts.

There is not sufficient funding to pay for everything that people have become accustomed to so you have to either collect more tax or spend less.

Every Government (and especially Gordon Brown's) have made the tax system so complicated that tax avoidance schemes are easily possible and perfectly legal. Have you got an ISA? If so, why haven't you got your money in a normal taxed account? This is tax avoidance and, by the same logic, everyone may arrange their affairs to minimise the tax they are legally required to pay. There is no point in calling this "immoral" in some way as seems to be the case recently. It is the fault of the legislators in not framing laws properly. The merging of tax avoidance with tax evasion is insidious and debases the meaning of words.

Regarding the recent spending restrictions, the "granny tax" has been portrayed incorrectly, nobody is having anything they have now taken away. It is only the future expectation which people had which has been affected and you should never count on a Government to maintain any particular tax regime.

Most businesses and the Government have risk reduction plans to reduce the impact if possible problems occur. It is quite reasonable that with the risk of fuel deliveries being disrupted a prudent person might keep their tank full. This is not "panic buying" like is being portrayed, it is simply good sense. The price of fuel is a combination of world oil price and tax. As per above, the tax has to be raised somewhere and fuel is a "green" target.

At 40p/unit, the minimum alcohol pricing will only affect the guys under the railway bridge with their paper bags of drink. The rest of us, dare I say moderate drinkers, will really not be affected.

I agree that the presentation of some of these policies is very poor but this is a lot to do with the press hysterically reporting everything than reality. However, the idiot minister offering access to the PM for a donation was an arrogant fool. He could have implied everything on offer without promising anything and thus not be able to be criticised. He deserved everything he got.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

A common perception, but very far from the truth. A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that "minimum pricing across Britain would directly affect 71% of alcohol units in the off-trade, and nearly 90% of households which buy off-licence alcohol." It's the claret-drinkers screwing the poor, basically.

And the point is not that the government is being hard-hearted (which I fully accept in many respects it needs to be) but that it is doing so in a capricious and arbitrary manner and falling flat on its face on presentation.

"Never glad confident morning again".

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Our local HA is looking for £8000 to remove some wooden fencing that separates the cycle path from the road on three bends between Windermere and Ings.

I offered to have our town council's highways steward (the man that keeps drains and gullys clear etc.) along with some volunteer labour, do the job for FREE and probably with less disruption - but we have been told NO WAY could we be allowed to take the fencing down!

Now this could be done from the path, without any need to go onto the road, so what is the problem???

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

True.
But.
The problem is not us having more, it is having more people doing less, for more, than in the past.
Look at the inevitable pie chart that comes with your council tax letting you know that a very large percentage of your tax goes on staff and pensions.
Most services are contracted to "providers"....the private companies that actually do the work in public services (crapita)
Councils are losing staff...not much...they're losing part-time staff and temps at a high rate. As are government agencies such as the DfWP.
I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but at some time we have to look at the elephant in the corner and say; "isn't that an elephant in the corner" instead of hanging our coat on its tusks.
The elephant is overstaffing to provide abysmal services at higher cost....especially as the private sector (which actually does the work...since gov doesn't directly employ people building roads, or planning same) is being asked to take a hit and the blame at the same time.
Look at agencies like the environment agency....directly employing tens of thousands and contracting work out....I was fishing (rare..at 27 quid a year) last year and watched five EA staffers (replete with new mitsu 4wd's) take 3 hours to decide they were not going to put a sign on a mooring saying you couldn't fish from it.
The public will have to get used to having less, and paying more, so that others can build empires out of mountains of cash.
AND the "pasty tax" was a direct result of a ECJ ruling:

http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/d ... de=&part=1

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

There are two ways that the Government et al can spend less:

- reduce (or at least don't increase) your costs by squeezing salaries
- do less.

Governments in general should do a lot less. Doing less will result in some job losses but is probably an overall benefit as a lot of unnecessary things are done to "tick boxes" and cover people's political backs.

The example above of the fishing enforcement is a case in point. You make a regulation against fishing and 95% of people buy the licence. It is uneconomic to police the remaining 5% of dodgers so why bother doing it? Just say you will rigorously enforce the rules and then forget it. You have made your environmental point for the green lobby.

We get questionnaires asking us if we have a policy on ethics. The questionnaires never have a box to tick to say "I'm a politician."

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

TUT, TUT ,Ernest , setting a precedent- not acceptable to local gov't. That would do the planners /the HSE officers and Possibly Uncle Tom Cobley et al out of work . Then someone might notice that these levels of operation are not always needed , and job cuts might be the answer .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

It will affect 100% of off sales units! And heres why...

Consider Ciders (but the same applies to all other types of drink)

Currently rather nice ciders such as Scrumpy Jack sit at around the magic number (40p unit) selling for £4-£5 for 4x500ml. These sit confidently on the offie shelf secure in their superiour status next to their lower class "white Lightening/Frosty Jack" neighbors selling for £2.99 for 2L.

Since it alraedy sells for around the 40p/unit mark you might think that Scrumpy will be unaffected by this pricing change! You would be wrong....

If "White Lightning" etc are forced to sell for a price similar to the current price for Scrumpy Jack then its superior status will be threatened, so of course the price of the scrumpy will have to go up in order to maintain the perceptual differential. the same will occur accross the board, even products costing significantly more than the "Magic Number" will see their prices rise accordingly, You think your rather nice Merlot wont be affected! Think again!

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"