Today's discussion about the news

I do think their main short term opportunity was a change of mood music. On that front I'm slightly baffled by their approach.

Seems to me that the whole approach pre-election was too safe, by saying they wouldn't move on the hard Brexit, or the self-imposed fiscal rules. Or on any of the three main personal taxes.

Labour would still have won by attacking the unaffordable NI cut a few months earlier. For one thing, within the same parliament Boris had intended to increase it from 10 to 12% to pay for all the hard work the NHS did undoing the damage from his press conferences. I also think there was an opportunity to attack austerity from the perspective of a lack of infrastructure investment - particularly outside of London - which in turn was an opportunity to present a revised set of fiscal rules that were a bit more nuanced than Osborne's "household budget" approach to national finances.

What has actually happened is they've boxed themselves in with a load of Tory policies, which only leave limited solutions - and these are basically the same as what we've just voted out.

If you can't see it's nuts, and has little to do with reporting news, I'm not surprised that your views are as they are. On the plus side, I do find the Telegraph very amusing at times. And baffling the rest of the time.

Wait, you're a fan now?🤔

Can't remember where I put the stuff about the woman who was killed by a lump of rock falling on her car, but I went that way today (Gorges de St May), and there are three or four sections down to single track with traffic lights. Jeez, I was looking at the geology, and that road would be closed completely in an instant here. And then I went up another (the Gorges de Trente Pas) where sooner or later there's going to be a massive rockfall, with virtually none of it with any sort of netting or safety nets. Probably best not to look up, and cycle as fast as you can.

The underlying problem is that roads like this, following rivers that have eroded bloomin' great cliffs, are essential, and as they've widened what were once just narrow roads, have become more inherently risky, and (to a large extent), no sensible amount of engineering is going to stop great chunks falling off from time to time. Nature will do what it will, sooner or later.

Anyway, my cycling helmet obviously made me invincible.

On that particular instance, it isn't clear why they don't just lop off a bit more hill to remove the overhang entirely.

I think there's a large element of 'do not disturb' if it's been hanging there for a few decades with no-one having been killed by bits falling off. It's a mixture of proactive and reactive safety works.

More great reporting from the Telegraph.

I wonder why they omitted to give any background on Asserson.

Of course, it might be that he's completely unbiased, but given the weight the Telegraph is giving to his report, with no dissenting voices, you'd have thought they might, just possibly, have mentioned his other campaigning activity in this area.

Is there still a yawning emoticon available?

Meh I think if you went back in time to the mid 90s and said gangs will steal millions of pounds worth of items that literally are able to be tracked to a few square meters...but police will do nothing with that tracking info...you'd raise a few eyebrows.

Wales is the place to go.

There's no point having a mobile phone in most of Wales, because it's a signal black spot.

You can do that right now pretty much.

Starlink is surprisingly bad anywhere there are trees or buildings though.

It must be great for people on boats.

Youre right. I’m gonna quit my job and rob people.

years ago my commute bike was stolen, midday, in an area with cctv and rentacops - who refused to give access to the cctv

it was on gumtree later in the day, sellers with multiple claimed names but the same mobile number, had ads for six other bikes at the same time

police weren't interested

clearly they could have called up to 'buy' any of the bikes on offer and arrested whoever they met for the purchase

but even though the multiple names and number on sale made it highly probable it was someone making a business out of bike theft, that was not a police matter

they suggested i go myself and seize back my bike, then call them if i encountered resistance, seemed like a good way to get stabbed, or maybe arrested myself for assault, so i declined

gumtree would not take down the ads either, not even for my own bike, their business model appears to be abetting criminals

so rc, seems like there's business to be done, complete with handy resale service!