Linas.P

In the scales of evil I am sure British don't come close to soviets, nazis or japanese, that is not comparison I am making. I know many ex-Spanish colonies hates them and I am sure that if you ask right questions even in ex-British colonies not everything will be so rosy. Or better - if we look at the matter objectively... slave trade, natural resource and valuable mineral exploitation - that is British doing... However, it is fair to recognise that British Empire was as well vehicle for progress, no matter if it was asked for or forced. I just don't like the picture of of British Empire and later UK as "saviour of the world", because it wasn't and it isn't. In present time US is very similar to British Empire at it hay day, sure it brings some stability to allies, some wars they get engaged into do destroy evil, but overall US does what is best for US and what protects their geopolitical interests. Despite still overall making world a better place, it often translates into bloodshed as well. The questions sometimes is - at what cost? Or rather who is paying it? The WW2 and it's conclusion wasn't single day event. Entire Europe fought nazis, but eventually got overpowered. It wasn't British fighting nazis alone, this statement is huge disservice of millions Europeans who fought and died in the war (it is almost insulting). As well US supported UK long before joining the war and it wasn't all lend lease (which by the way was mostly free), Commonwealth supported the war (and Brit's can't take credit for it). Greek supported the war. Same damn soviets were in the mix. And all across the Europe there were countless resistance groups even after nazi occupation. One thing you recognise for sure that the main benefactor of British Empire was ... surprise surprise - Britain. As for of the rest - it is matter of perspective... is speaking English over your mother tongue can be considered positive? I am sure native americans appreciate democracy brits brought to them... Look - I am not saying Brits are evil... I am just saying that assuming that everything they did was some sort of "act of kindness" is wrong. They did what worked best for them at the time - that is all. Some benefited from progress of what was at the time most technologically advanced nation, some lay in unmarked graves... It is just how it works...

I am sure you can prove me wrong. As well - nobody is teaching me history, I am studying it myself and form my own opinions. Otherwise there is risk to end-up learning propaganda instead of history. I understand that as British, being taught in Brittan you would like to believe British Empire was "force for good" and that it liberated Europe from nazis (which it was indeed one of key parties to do - hence 50%), but going by the same history soviets has liberated half of the Europe as well... try to asking in Eastern Europe and see what they think about that "liberation". Or maybe ask half of the world which was occupied by British Empire how they feel about that? And I am not saying UK or British are evil - I am just recognising that country did what was best for it and not associating some heroic or overly patriotic values. Simple matter is - history changes depending on who is telling it, I take historic facts and interpret them myself to remove such biases and outright propaganda as best as I can.

First of all, it is not 2025, it is 2022. Volvo being faithful anti-motorist Chinese owned spy tool fitted it voluntary to all cars from 2019 if I am not mistaken. It is permanently connected to internet, same like over the air updates, but the claim is that this is needed to enable "intelligent" part of speed limiter i.e. so that it know what speed limit is applicable when. However, if something can be connected to internet one way, then it can be connected the opposite way as well. Technology is there, the questions is one when somebody decides to use it. Google knowing our location is different thing, as for all they know you maybe boldguy96 and that isn't linked with your car. So legally proving link between phone which was travelling at 119MPH and your car is difficult. It has been done, but it mostly been the case of people incriminating themselves or it being high profile crime. So it is possible to do, but police don't waste their money for using such techniques to prove speeding. Here however you talking about 1:1 car ID which can be linked with your number plate and you as registered keeper. And I am sure if government wasn't top look at that database there will be nobody to stop them. I am sure it will start in some completely unsuspicious way - like offering pay per mile VED and it will grow with that into full on tracking. Same for ISA itself - it was just one of many safety features proposed, but it was sneaked in small print and now we have it. The solution for time being is only using cars made until 2021 (I am sure I will be fine for at least 5 years), because as you mentioned at least for time being it is no required to be retrofitted.

It is - as of this year all new cars must have what is called Intelligent Speed Assist (ISA), but incorrectly assumed to be just a "speed limiter". However, the truth is much darker - ISA comes with full tracking capabilities and can tell exactly where you car is, how many miles it driven and at what speed. It is just a matter of time before it will be used not only to charge people per mile, but as well to instantaneously fine drivers for going over the limit. In theory maybe that is not so bad, if not for speed limit being somewhat arbitrary thing... ohh and not to mention all the privacy concerns. Obviously they say that for the time being feature is not turned on, or turned on but does not share private details with police/government, but it would be naive to thing that device which is tracking 24/7 will remain the same.

It wouldn't be wise considering they just launched new NX. I would say company would expect to allow 1-2 years breathing room before introducing car in the same segment. Unless RZ is somehow segmented completely differently from NX. So my guess is 2022 and 2023 would be left for NX, which was well received and I am sure sell very well. Then in 2024 or late 2023 they unveil RZ officially and start taking orders for deliveries in 2025.

I think we all are - "cyclists", pedestrians and "motorists". However, when it comes to tribalism not every person who has a bicycle is ideological cyclist and not every person who drivers is ideological motorist. Few guys here are quite clearly ideological cyclists and some others (including me) probably ideological motorists. Yet even objectively motorists pays ~£1500 more tax every year than other people, so it is not unjustified to have some expectations. Further, I have never complained about VED being too much or looking for other to pay, however that is on condition that roads are in acceptable shape... and they are simply NOT. UK roads are disgusting and objectively worst in Europe. Not only that drivers are still viewed as enemies of the society and attacked on every occasion as some sort of criminal, despite contributing billions towards well being of said society. And I don't care if somebody benefits from it either, nor I said money can't be spent on anything else but roads - as long as those roads are maintained and improved to support the growing need... and again they are not, they continuously getting worse. And how this all relates to KWH costing £4? Well that is simply reminder that having EV is not guaranteed escape from this extortion. Some early EV adopters are surprised, because they paid premium and have to live with inconvenience of EV, but they thought they did so to make it better for the society. Yet few years later they are thrown back together with "scum of society" (that is motorists according to vegetables) and treated just as poorly as any other motorists. Then they are surprised and enraged - don't be... all the taxes and discrimination was never about pollution, it has always been just rhetoric to justify taxing some more than others.

Goes back to tribalism post - cyclists see everyone who even dares to questions cyclist rights and responsibilities as anti-cyclist. As for VED - it is inherently unsustainable and unfair tax which was pushed with various excuses. Those excuses if applied more generally (be it playing devil's advocate) leads to suggestions that maybe cyclists should pay VED as well. Obviously they shouldn't, but if justification for VED would be true, then they should. And if we say they shouldn't, then at the same time we should agree that VED shouldn't exist either. I would not support taxing cyclist, although I would support making in mandatory for them to have at least TP insurance, have at least basic formal training and for bicycle technical requirement to be specified and maybe even inspected. This is not anti-cyclist, rather I just feel that using the roads (although not a privilege in my opinion) comes with some form of responsibility. And I would go even beyond that - I think kids ins schools should be taught of how to use roads safely. This is actually more important than math, chemistry or physics... although understanding them probably helps to understand why car can't stop on the dime and why it is pedestrian who probably should wait.

Often but not always. Politicians are so untouchable (parliament literally sovereign) that they don't shy away from literal corruption. As well different rules for them as it is for us. When they do it it is "lobbyism", but if we do it - then it would be "bribery, fraud and corruption". Partygate anyone?

Never had an issue on Dunlop Sportmax RT2, but it was very noticeable on Michelin PS4. One thing I agree on - wet rating is the key thing in UK, because that is going to be 65%+ of the mileage.

As well we tend to look into political scare as not only 2 dimensional, but literally lineal from left to right, with centre being sort of most balanced. Yet it is not the case at all - politics and policies are multidimensional thing. Most importantly party politics hurts us all, because it becomes mandatory to follow the party which one believes represents their political goal (be it socialist, liberalist, democrat or conservator) regardless if those parties are corrupt, efficient or even truly represents the ideology. More efficient way would be to look into the problem and find most suitable solution for, regardless where it sits on political scales. For example I do believe that best place for healthcare is in hands of centralised government, even if that is as amuricans would call it "communist idea", but at the same time I think that health care should be run efficiently, almost like company, negotiating harshly on all the contracts to get best value for it's customers (that is patients) and shareholders (taxpayers). Usually, the people who criticise NHS or social/healthcare are opposed to it not because they don't like the idea, but because they wrongly attribute inefficiency to state ownership. But to be fair it doesn't have to be inefficient - the only reason it is, is due to party politics and corruption. State owned companies can be just as efficient. The issue again is party politics, because if one identify as socialist, then they can't support private capital, even if that is most rational solution. Conservative can't support state ownership and so on. In the end of the day if they would forget their political agendas and just look into what is the best regardless of where it falls on political spectrum we all would be in better place.

They already are - Road User Levy £1000 a year or £10 a day or already higher VED for British trucks. Although probably it is too low compared the cars - trucks maxes out at £850, whereas private vehicles are very close to that, especially with additional luxury car tax. Most importantly again - tax revenues are more than enough for every person in UK to live like kings, if not for large amount of that revenue being wasted, we would not need any extra tax. Question we need to ask - where our taxes are going and who are responsible for services and infrastructure being so poor. That is purely political discussion without anyone being right or wrong. Based purely on economic indicators we know and that is fact that UK has prospered after joining EC and flatlined after leaving EU. Was it worth it? That is not for me to say, but economic damage is very clear and obvious. And economic benefit was defined and easy to prove. As well future prosperity promises are just that - promises. So far I have not seen any evidence of it being possible.

Later this decade ? I would not expect it before at least 2025.

IS250 was never meant to wear 19"... it is noticeable less comfortable and fuel efficient on 18", but acceptable. 19" is definitely overkill.

Sorry but I don't buy this. The claim that UK got into debt to defend and free the countries mentioned ... is partially true. In reality, UK was first and foremost defending itself and destroying nazis was the way to achieve this. So on this I would say 50/50%. But when it comes to rebuilding France or Germany, or Italy UK has not contributed crap. UK was isolating itself from European trade and counter productively still acted as if it is empire with whole useless Commonwealth project. If anything by 60's France and Germany was already outpacing UK in terms of growth, and by 70's European project was so much ahead that UK really wanted into it (and benefited greatly by joining). Only after joining what was at the time called European Communities, UK finally managed to match the growth and prosperity of other countries. Not to mention that of Germany was occupied and other half still had to pay reparations. If I would point to any particular reason why UK was so poor, then I would say it was majority fault of Labour social policies, unions made farce of work and productivity was very poor. Then secondly, the Tories contribute as well, by dismantling industries and making millions of workers even poorer. All in all country was very inefficient, didn't have good long term policy, subsequent governments were destroying policy of preceding governments and the disaster capitalists benefited from such mess. The only reason we are not stinking waste swamp is that somehow somebody made good decision by joining EC and overall prosperity of the continent lifted UK out of the mess it was.

Not sure what is your point. Fact is - companies generate tons of untaxed cash. They may invest them in pension funds and contribute pennies on pounds in the value of them, so that retiring people will get maybe 5-10% more on their pension pot then they otherwise would. Still it is clear that if they would have paid taxes at the rates they should, we could simply scrap VED and still have money to spare. Or cut income tax for individual by 10%, or spend 300 million more a week on NHS without leaving EU. In fact we main not even need 3rd layer pension schemes at all, because we could pay pensioners decent pensions just from taxes alone. Let me explain how 74bn debt works... you see you don't have to pay taxes if you don't have profits. Practical example - if crapple uses it's money pot to build new HQ for 1.2bn and if they make 1.2bn profit in that year then they have to pay tax on it and on profits they made, but if they borrow 1.2bn, then they can offload all tax on profits and on the building itself into debt. They can effectively claim they made no profit! As for commitment to invest 430bn that is nothing more than PR. I can commit to many things, but they are not legally binding and as well... "oh wow"... they committed to reinvest the money they basically stolen from the society ... heroes!

Yes - the social system we have works on principles of wealth redistribution. But then it is very hard to explain why richest pay the least... As well some services better than others... NHS is mediocre (other countries does it better), schools - mediocre, roads - horrible (objectively). But taxation is relatively high. I honestly can't think of any public service in UK which would be good or excellent. Taxation should indeed be raised for common good, SHOULD, the problem is that not everyone contributes and "common good" is questionable. It is all good to say that "cyclist" pays income tax and NI already, so we should get of their backs... but wait a second? Motorists do that as well. Even just mentioning as if motorists and cyclists as separate groups just shows how tribalism works and how successful is government divide and rule policy. Cyclist should not be enraged about their infrastructure - motorists literally pay 3.5times over for roads, not counting other taxes and there is enough money to both fix the roads and install separate cycle lanes everywhere. Yes our government... done a job, they existed, I would not call that good job. If anything France, Germany and Italy was in way way worse place after WW2. I would argue France and Germany in particular done way better job and even then their governments are far from perfect, so by comparison UK government did poor job. Obviously there are worse governments in the world and "current" (say last 20 years) government is the best government this country ever had, but you giving them way too much credit. I would rank UK government somewhere between acceptable and unacceptable. Not terrible, but not great. Saying that corruption is low is really hard to accept. Sure it is sometimes hard to divide outright corruption and government waste, but I can point out to at least 10 occasions in last year alone where government was found to have "lost" in excess of £100 million without much of the consequences. And those are only the ones which press got hold off and only the ones where the deal completely fell thought. However there are thousands of examples where we overpay for the service 10 fold, but goods gets delivered and nobody talk about it. This is how NHS works in principle and every NHS order is literally disaster. With some insider knowledge I know that NHS overpays for literally everything from 5 to 10 times... or more. As well it is outright corruption, not even just "waste" - simply said management gets their pockets lined with money, ministers literally sit on boards or have shares in pharmaceutics industry, even GPs get's a cut to promote certain drugs. If one party get's a benefit from ordering inferior or too expensive product using public money - that is definition of corruption. I can give specific examples, but the list would be 10 pages long. It starts from overpaying for every single drug, to pay 10 times more for things like titanium surgical screws, or sterile instruments. In one example MRI was purchased for £7.6 million, where the unit cost was £250k, fair enough they said radiological cabined needed refurbishment, but that was what - £100k extra. How many times is that? 21 times over the price! Sure enough Trust director's wife works as account manager for NHS in Siemens UK. And this is every single thing NHS buys, from basic chemicals to basic drugs. Actually, the cheaper is the thing the more NHS overpays... because it is easier to do it on cheap things. Say paracetamol costs literally like 1p per tablet, but some NHS trusts were found ordering pack of paracetamol with 8 tablets for £4.49... now multiply that by tens of millions of tablets at x56 the cost of what it should and see how much money was lost of generic drug alone. There was another example ordering hand soap and toilet paper, I don't remember the numbers but it was in similar ballpark. In short - saying that maybe there is little bit of waste here and there... just not true! NHS wastes like 50-70% of their budget. And then at the same time they can't even pay their staff decent salaries. It is literal disaster and on other hand - miracle... that being so inefficient it manages to provide any healthcare service at all.

Almost exactly that - Crapple has money "issue"... and by issue I mean they have so much money they don't know here to use it. As of 2021 it was $230billion in cash, which they can't use because it was not taxed. They can bring it back to US, but then they have to pay tax (I believe 35%). There were suggestions in Trump administration to make a deal with crapple to offer them bringing all the money back for 5% or 10% instead, but nothing happened with it. As such you often see ridiculous buy outs, where some tech company spends $10bn on some stupid loss making website or game, just because those billions are basically dirty/free money which can't be used for anything else. That is cute - car related goods and services are estimated to be ~£150 billion, that excludes VED and fuel duty. So by the same token cars pays for themselves? why tax them further. And this is typical trialist argument and both sides.

I don't think suggestion to VED bicycles was ever said or taken seriously by anyone. However, I think it just works as example - if roads are "privilege" which I don't believe they are, then all the users should be paying for that privilege, why only the car drivers should be contributing? Or at least I thought that was a gist of it. However, there is an issue in this statement, to begin with VED is just triple, quadruple, nonsensical tax out of nowhere and for nothing. It is completely made-up for no other reason except that goverment could do it, so they did. VED has nothing to do with cars and as of recently even pollution, and VED will definitely be introduced (is introduced for EVs). Why... just because... goverment had this cash cow and they don't want to stop milking it. When everyone realised that road maintenance excuse does not work, then they changed it to pollution, when pollution doesn't work it will be something else. It is not fair tax or something we inherently need to could justify, it exist for the sake of it. Could the same money be taken from somewhere else... yes, could the money be spent somewhere else... obviously. It is just general taxation, but in different name and it isn't very fair simply because it targets particular group and therefore there is no point to campaign to "ringfence" this tax for the roads - goverment knows very well this has nothing to do with the roads and they want it to be that way. With "less cars, less emissions" point you just support the statement of taxing the cyclist... because you see... eventually "less cars" turns into "no cars" and this means new victim and new revenue stream needs to be found. And this is why this tax isn't about pollution or road use - because if it would be then it would be designed to discourage such use, but it isn't - it is designed to make money out of such use. Goverment just realised that people are attached to their cars, or simply are dependant on them because they don't have other means. Maybe existing infrastructure maybe no suitable for cycling, or person can't cycle or simply don't want to cycle... and there is no public transport either, or it is too expensive, or too slow, or too disgusting... Point is - 85% of passenger miles and 75% of passenger journeys are made in car and this presents massive revenue stream, yet motorists are not organised or monolithic group, so they can stand-up to this. Taxing cyclist is just funny example, but it could be any other group of society which can be divided and can't defend itself. Maybe it is going to be elderly in large houses with inheritance tax, or bedroom tax, or excess rooms charge, or maybe they going to add tax on student loans and call-it "study excise tax"... use you imagination, it could be anything as long as they can find an excuse and form public opinion that it is somewhat justifiable.

Your point was spot-on in this context, because most of the tax is arbitrary in some way or another. Especially, those taxes which only applies to certain part of society - say smokers, motorists etc. So if we can arbitrarily say that drivers somehow are "detriment to the society" (which is crazy but goverment has pushed this narrative quite successfully probably since 60's), then clearly taxing the corporates would be far easier to justify, than say taxing the old or cyclists. The only problem - goverment owns the narrative and corporations owns the goverment (perhaps not directly, but via lobbies etc)... so don't expect much change there. If there is ever suggestion corporates have to pay even their fair share (10-19% corporate tax) there is always massive campaign to explain how they "employ the people" and how they "invest" and how basically we are prosperous just because they take 90%+ of their profits without paying any tax.

I would double on that. It does not matter whenever it is legal or not, the question is - whenever it is acceptable or why it is acceptable? Why as society we accept being double, triple, quadruple taxed... and most of us paying effective 20-45% tax rate and then on top of that we pay another 20-30% of our net income on other taxes... So for every £1 we earn we probably pay close to £0.55 in some form of tax or another. And nobody seems to be enraged about that, maybe slightly annoyed at most. Yet multibillion corporations pays effective taxes well under 10%... to be honest Microsoft was one of the fairest with close to 8% effective tax, Amazon, Google pays closer to 1% and Apple paid 0.05%! Why nobody are in arms about it? And all this goes back to tribalism, manipulation, narrative etc. Whilst we squabble who has to pay VED and who don't these massive corporations avoids paying billions - "LEGALLY"! Here you go! And I don't even blame trumpster - shouldn't our elected ones should be wiser? Or if not - are they deserving of public office?

As well I would note that we (as a society) as a whole overpay for the roads, even if we disregard position of motorist or cyclist etc. I haven't checked in last few years, but for 2018, 2019 and 2020 - VED alone was £36bn, £37bn and £37bn respectively. Expenditure on transport was ~£10bn for each year. But that for example includes £2bn subsidies to bus operators who made profit as well (it is basically giving tax money to private companies) and there were other expenses which has nothing to do with actually improving the roads. So is just motorists and just from VED already pays 3.5 times the what it cost to upkeep the roads, then realistically anyone who isn't VED paying motorists actually doesn't contribute anything to the roads, but benefits of ~£20bn+ from VED... it probably should be called vehicle "excessive" duty. As I have alluded before, and other people said - nobody is against fair taxation, or that people in need get's their care... but we are so far from that is hard to even comprehend. It just hurts to watch when say 30% of taxes we pay never benefits the society because they are just consumed by corruption and maybe another 30% are not used efficiently. You may disagree with my guestimate of %, but point is - imagine how perfect the life would be if all the taxes would be efficiently used for their intended purpose.

That is most convenient thing ever for government which wants to manipulate the public. Let two tribes fight whilst taxing both - support both views and then put some fuel in the fire for it to blow over from time to time. Just look at "vaxers" vs. "anti-vaxers" fight - both goes to extremes whilst goverment slowly introduces more and more totalitarian rules and control over-reach. As well I would not consider the roads use to be a privilege, not for drivers, not for cyclists.. and who are the users? Is passenger on the bus a user or just bus driver? Patient in the back of the ambulance? Person who called police or fire-fighters? Somebody buying potatoes in Lidl which were delivered by truck using the roads? I think we all benefit from roads even if we neither cycle, nor drive. So it is just a public infrastructure and public as a whole should contribute to it. I just remind here that for last 30 years goverment have never used more than 30% of VED collected on the roads. So just VED alone cover the cost of all the road infrastructure 3 times over and there is still money to spare.

It doesn't really matter - the VED is arbitrary tax. And when it comes to such taxes all that matters is justification for it, as long as goverment can find excuse, divide and rule, pit separate parts of society against each other and get away with it - they will do it. Because let's face it - motorists are taxed 3 or even 4 times for same thing... and all that is because goverment overtime created such "public opinion" that it is somehow "fair". We pay VAT on the car, then VAT on the fuel (which both are fair in my opinion), then we pay duty on the fuel... which is kind of borderline fair, but it isn't clear why VAT doesn't already cover that. But then we as well pay VED on top of all the other taxes as well - what is the exact justification again? And let's not forget insurance which is basically tax, because it is not optional and then on top of that you pay "insurance premium tax", the tax which is then taxed itself. Well... the common argument is that - "yeah, but what about that all expensive infrastructure". Well that infrastructure is public infrastructure and benefits everyone, regardless if they drive or not. Amazon deliveries, food supplies, police, ambulances and even the plumber or electrician you call out still has to use this infrastructure... so not only drivers benefits from it. Perhaps it could be argued that, beyond baseline - if we want to have extremely smooth and even roads, less congestion, state of the art traffic management solutions, secure and plentiful parking... overall thing which are outside of strictly being public infrastructure, only then it would be fair to charge drivers more for this additional level of service, but then lock that VED for only the roads. Now realistically we won't see tax on bicycles... part is the reason you mentioned - bicycles are just so low value, as soon as you try taxing them nobody would cycle. As well it would be very hard to find good excuse for it or somehow paint cyclists in such light that public would start hating them. This would be something which would be very obvious and people would get enraged. But let's be clear as well - hate for motorists is not justified either, it is made-up and made-up deliberately. As for NHS - it is great, but it is not perfect. Whenever we have VED or not have VED, the NHS would exist and could even be better. NHS problems are not linked to lack of taxation, or even lack of funding... the truth is - NHS is inefficient. Analogy would be - you have a fire place to heat your home, would it be better to find good quality and density fuel for fire place and buy it, or would it be better to just burn money instead. The way NHS is run now is basically equivalent to burning money instead of wood. And I am not saying it should not exist, or that individual people (especially staff on front line) doesn't do exceptional job... I am just saying the way it is run, managed, supplied and funded is inefficient and wasteful. And even ignoring this - we still collect more than enough tax to fund it, if only that tax would reach it.

Yes - I must admit this is still best system we have ever had in human history, but it does not mean it is perfect or even acceptable. Any money paid or taken against ones will could be considered theft, hence my argument - in ideal world we would all agree that taxation is fair and used for the things it meant to be used. I don't think anyone in their right mind would say that they don't want public services like NHS to exist, but at the same time when NHS spends 700million on some medicine or equipment that equipment is worth the money which was paid. Or when government pays 30 billion for track and trace system ... it actually works... or if it doesn't, then somebody goes to jail. Sadly I can't say that either of those things are the case.

And if not that, then they simply going to hike some other tax - VAT, income tax or something else. Obviously in ideal world there is another scenario - spending tax fairly and transparently, removing corruption and then everyone will be happy to contribute. But we don't live in ideal world and because everyone knows about corruption and the fact that large proportion of taxes are embezzled and otherwise wasted to enrich elites, nobody wants to contribute. Money has to be collected and to make people to contribute some way or another goverment uses very simple yet effective tactic - divide and rule. Collecting it via VED is just easier because it is easier to divide society like that, smear motorists (or any other group of society), create false narrative of moral high-ground for opposing group - let the two groups fight together, whilst they are forgetting that everyone loses and corrupt goverment wins.