Hit-and-run collisions in England and Wales up by nearly half in four years

vonhelmet wrote:

Not odd at all. They’re insulating themselves from the problem. It’s the same issue with the terrible state of the roads. Road repairs are the council’s responsibility. Council funding has been slashed, but that was all in the name of austerity and no one can argue with that. You end up with a huge disconnect between the problem and the resources needed to fix it.

The net result of 'devolution' in England has been the outsourcing of responsibility for making cuts across the board.

Central funding slashed, like you say - and you can blame your council when they stop collecting your bins or close your library, because it was the council's choice as to what was actually cut.

Of course, 'austerity' hasn't really meant 'austerity' under New Labour and the Tories. It's actually meant 'find £4-500bn for the banking system, and then cut facilities for people at the bottom of the pile who really need them, in order to pretend to be clawing some of the money back'. But that isn't as catchy.

Pushing50 wrote:

Quote - However, the Home Office highlighted a 39 per cent drop in road traffic casualties during the decade to 2017 and put the onus on police forces to tackle the issue.

In a statement, it said: "It is for chief constables and locally elected police and crime commissioners to decide how to deploy their resources in response to local priorities.” - Unquote

Not our problem. Now if we close our eyes, pass the buck, wash our hands and put a spin on the problem, hopefully it will all go away!

 

Odd that the home office distances itself from the problem and blames local police forces when the funding cuts *by central government* are arguably the cause of the problem...

brooksby wrote:

Odd that the home office distances itself from the problem and blames local police forces when the funding cuts *by central government* are arguably the cause of the problem...

I don't think it's arguable. Police forces have to make some tough decisions and roads policing is, for the most part, lower priority than chasing some of the many other scumbags that are prevalent.

I would like to include Councils to that sentence but IME Shropshire Council has plenty of money for stupid large-scale projects and ever decreasing budgets for adult and child social care, public transport and other stuff that councils are supposed to provide.

If anyone voted Conservative thinking that they would provide a more 'efficient' use of taxes than Labour then they have ignored Tory fiscal policy for the last 40 years - ever more generous tax breaks for the rich, demonisation of the poor, running down and selling off public property. They have had a worse record than Labour since WWII (source) and 'austerity' is Cameron & co's excuse to embolden those plans and screw as many people as possible before sailing off into their gilded, even more wealthy sunset.