Latest news with #Englanders
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
AAA warns of increased motorcycle fatalities amidst upcoming warmer weather
It's safe to say that colder weather is finally behind Englanders, and with that in mind, everyone is getting out and embracing the warmth. However, this brings a large uptick in fatal crashes involving motorcycles. Data from the last decade, from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), has been analyzed by AAA Northeast and revealed that nearly 60% of motorcycle fatalities happen between the months of May and September. NHTSA data also showed that those fatalities began to spike by 32% from April to May as the warmer weather ramps up, and accidents only continue to go up. In 2023, 6,335 motorcyclists were killed, resulting in 15% of all traffic fatalities, according to NHTSA. The highest number of motorcyclists killed since 1975, the earliest year for which that data was tracked. 'The continued increase in motorcyclist fatalities is especially troubling given that most categories of traffic fatalities decreased from 2022 to 2023, while motorcyclist deaths continued their dangerous climb,' said Mark Schieldrop, senior spokesperson for AAA Northeast. 'As we all take to the roads more frequently during warmer weather, drivers must keep in mind that staying alert and aware is critical to improving safety, especially as motorcycles can be more difficult to see because of their size.' According to the Massachusetts IMPACT data portal, last year, there were a reported 65 fatal crashes that involved motorcycles in Massachusetts. To ensure the safety of motorcyclists, AAA is offering these tips to drivers: Increase following distance and take extra care when driving behind a motor, especially when stopping or accelerating. Carefully check mirrors and blind spots for motorcycles, which are less visible than other vehicles on the road. If a motorcyclist has their turn signal on, wait to make sure they actually turn before passing them. The turn signals on many motorcycles do not turn off automatically, so there's a chance they could be activated from an earlier turn. Never drive distracted. At 55 mph, taking your eyes off the road for just 5 seconds is equivalent to driving the length of an entire football field blindfolded. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
The Guardian
09-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Ten Pound Poms series two review – this trashy, soapy migration drama is a knockoff Call the Midwife
Sunday nights on BBC One should offer an escape from the disappointments of the working week. But what's this? We're thousands of miles away and in the distant past, but we're uncomfortable and frustrated, mopping our troubled brows and wondering if we've all made a horrible mistake? That's right: Ten Pound Poms is back for a second season. Based on a real scheme that saw hundreds of thousands of Britons flee postwar austerity and move to Australia, paying a tenner for their passage on the understanding that a utopian existence awaited them in Oz, Ten Pound Poms concerns a gang of unfortunate Englanders who sail from Southampton to Sydney in 1956. Their plucky optimism is instantly squished when they find that, as was often the case with the real ten-pounders, the suburban idyll they've been promised is more like two-star glamping. Dumped in bug-infested huts built in a ring around a scrubby field, the would-be new Australians are derided and exploited at every turn, which makes their preexisting problems – teen pregnancy, addiction, loveless marriages – even more taxing. That domestic heartbreak plays out as a never-ending series of calamities that are bleak but simply resolved, which stops Ten Pound Poms aiming for prestige drama status and makes it more of a soap. British viewers who want to draw a chuckling Prisoner: Cell Block H comparison can point to the bad-matron manager of the migrant hostels, Mrs Walker, whose contempt for her helpless wards is reminiscent of a prison officer – and who is played with some relish by Tina Bursill, once top-dog inmate Sonia Stevens in Prisoner itself. There's a brimming cocktail of influences. Ten Pound Poms shares the panicky 'we've moved to Australia by mistake!' energy of Jimmy McGovern's Banished, although there are no summary executions and nobody ever suggests resorting to cannibalism. And, for older viewers, the sight of quietly determined women trapped in substandard housing, staring down adversity through a sheen of grimy perspiration, may stir a faint memory of Tenko. But although only Michelle Keegan's character, Kate, is a medical practitioner, the show's key inspiration is Call the Midwife: we're floating back to the 1950s to watch characters deal with issues that pointedly echo the present. Most obviously, we're on about immigration. The Britons have suffered deprivation in their country and made an arduous journey to a new home, wanting only to integrate and contribute, but they are abused by the authorities and rejected by prejudiced locals. Season one had a nicely barbed plotline about an Aussie who was hostile to the Poms, then relented and seemed like a rough diamond, but ultimately turned out not to actually care at all about newly arrived residents because his real issue was with Indigenous people. The point, about the link between opponents of immigration and racism, was not subtly made but worth making nonetheless. Season two extends its scope beyond the iniquities of the Ten Pound scheme itself by looking at slum landlords elsewhere in the city. Terry (Warren Brown), a war veteran who seems to have overcome the PTSD that once drove him to seek refuge in alcohol, makes a renewed effort to provide for his family. He ends up falling into the employ of a property mogul who is generous in the company of his fellow 'businessmen', but treats his Greek-immigrant tenants atrociously. Will Terry's goodness win out, or will money and status corrupt him? His less naive wife, Annie (Faye Marsay), meanwhile, may be given new opportunities at the clothing store where she controversially works, despite being a wife and mother. Marsay and Brown offer solid performances but the A-lister here is Keegan, who effectively stars in her own separate drama. Kate, a nurse, came to Australia on the same boat as everyone else, but isn't bothered about limited employment prospects or termites eating her hut, because back in the UK she was a struggling single mother whose baby son was shipped to Australia by a Catholic orphanage without her consent. Her emigration is a scheme to reclaim little Michael, who is now primary-school age and has been rehoused with a nice middle-class family: the season-one cliffhanger saw her coax him into her van and drive off towards an uncertain future. Keegan thrives on those deeper emotions, and the comeback episode has a fine scene where she meets the boy's adoptive mother (Nikki Shiels). They engage in a fraught prisoner's dilemma negotiation, each respecting and fearing the other's all-consuming maternal instinct, with the class divide between them adding an extra frisson. Empathic and nuanced, the encounter shows what writer Danny Brocklehurst and his cast are capable of, but regular viewers of Ten Pound Poms know the story is likely to revert to trashy, soapy strife before long. Like the sad, sweaty Poms, we'll just have to make do. Ten Pound Poms aired on BBC One and is on iPlayer now
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Keir Starmer will drag us back to the EU however he can
'Brexit was catastrophic for the UK, for our communities and for the next generation,' wrote Keir Starmer in 2016. So unshakable was his conviction that he resigned from Jeremy Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet over it, campaigned tirelessly for a second referendum, and voted at every opportunity to thwart the Conservative government's attempts to deliver Brexit. Now, installed in Downing Street, he is poised to ignore the will of the people and undo Brexit by stealth. Starmer, of course, will say all the right Brexity things like 'immigration is too high', 'We won't join the Customs Union', and so on. He knows that the British people, having suffered the indignity of being dismissed as xenophobes and little Englanders for daring to vote for independence, are not easily fooled. But Starmer has never been one to let principle get in the way of power. His long game is clear: Brexit must be diluted, dismantled, and ultimately destroyed, all while keeping up a facade of pragmatism. The EU has form when it comes to disregarding inconvenient democratic outcomes. The French and the Dutch overwhelmingly rejected the EU Constitution in 2005, only for it to be repackaged and forced through under the Lisbon Treaty. The Irish were made to vote again in 2009 after initially rejecting both the Nice and Lisbon Treaties. In 2015, the Greeks voted by 61 per cent to reject EU-imposed austerity measures, yet the bureaucrats in Brussels crushed them into submission regardless. Imagine Tusk and Barnier's delight if, in 2026, a decade after our 'divorce', we end up renewing vows. The pattern is clear: in the eyes of the EU, democracy is only valid when it delivers the 'correct' result and with Starmer in charge, they have a willing accomplice. Now, Starmer is cosying up to Brussels once again. As he attends the EU Council Leaders' Summit at the Palais d'Egmont—the very building where Ted Heath signed away our sovereignty in 1972 – the symbolism could not be more ominous. He speaks of 'Defence Co-operation', but we know what that really means: deeper entanglement with the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy, a slow creep towards subjugation under Brussels' decision-making. The damage Starmer could do is immense. Talk of a new UK-EU Security and Defence arrangement might sound innocuous, even beneficial, but it is anything but. NATO already provides the security architecture necessary to safeguard the UK and its allies. Post-Brexit, Britain has strengthened its defence partnerships with AUKUS (the nuclear submarine agreement with the US and Australia) and GCAP (the next-generation fighter jet programme with Japan and Italy). These are real, substantive alliances that reinforce British sovereignty. By contrast, deeper integration with EU security structures would do nothing but entangle Britain in the bloc's bureaucratic and ineffectual defence mechanisms, diluting our ability to act independently. Regulatory alignment is another looming threat. The Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, now before Parliament, will open the door to the UK once again shackling itself to EU rules on product standards, environmental policies, and consumer regulations. Rachel Reeves has already floated the idea of 'dynamic alignment', which would mean Britain slavishly following Brussels' regulations without a seat at the table. This would render Brexit meaningless, stripping us of the ability to shape our own economic destiny. Worse still, it would torpedo any prospect of a UK-US trade deal, one of the great prizes of Brexit. The failure of the Conservatives to properly repeal EU laws and prevent backsliding has already been a missed opportunity; Starmer's government could seal Brexit's fate. And then there is migration. Despite the Labour Party's new rhetoric on border control, history tells us where their real loyalties lie. The idea of a UK-EU 'Returns Deal' is being discussed, allowing Britain to send some asylum seekers back to Europe. But the price will be steep: an acceptance of free movement of workers, taking in an EU-imposed quota of asylum seekers, or granting Brussels further access to British fishing waters. None of this would be acceptable to the British public. Yet, given Labour's past enthusiasm for mass migration, can anyone truly believe Starmer's tough talk will translate into action? The reality is that while Britain has formally left the EU, we are still far from realising the full benefits of Brexit. Thousands of EU-derived regulations continue to stifle British business. The City is warning that without further deregulation, banks will relocate operations to the US. Legal migration remains at unsustainable levels. Northern Ireland is still partially within the EU's regulatory orbit, making a UK-US free trade agreement almost impossible. The job is not finished. The foundations of Brexit have been laid, but the structure remains incomplete. Starmer may present himself as a pragmatist, but he is an ideologue at heart. He believes in EU supremacy, in international courts overruling British sovereignty, in rule by bureaucrats rather than by the people. If the past decade has shown us anything, it is that Brexit is an ongoing battle, not a settled matter. If Starmer gets his way, the last nine years will have been for nothing. So we must beware the Brexit Reset, beware the reversal of democracy and beware the betrayal of the 17.4 million who voted to leave. The fight for a truly sovereign Britain must continue. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
