About The Tribune

How figures are computed, where the evidence comes from, and the editorial standards we hold ourselves to.

What this is

The Tribune is a public, continuously updated record of UK government performance on three preventable causes of British death: road incidents, polluted air, and preventable conditions.

Each issue is presented as the same set of evidence: how the UK compares against international peers, what those peers have done differently, what the government promised in the 2024 manifesto, and what has been delivered to date.

The platform foregrounds the gap between UK outcomes and best-in-class peer outcomes, not the trend in UK outcomes alone. This is deliberate. Pure improvement narratives absolve governments of accountability for the gap. The Tribune holds the gap visible, because the gap is policy.

The Tribune does not lobby for specific policies. It surfaces what is being promised, what is being delivered, and the distance between the two. The reader decides what to do with the evidence.

How figures are computed

Annual death figures

Source data is the most recent published figure from the authoritative national or international body for each issue:

Road safety: Department for Transport, Reported Road Casualties Great Britain (annual report).
Air quality: Royal College of Physicians and the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP).
Preventative health: Office for National Statistics, Avoidable Mortality in England and Wales (annual), with UK-wide extrapolation where ONS publishes England-only data.

Where ONS publishes England-only figures, UK totals are extrapolated using population scaling. This is flagged explicitly in each context.

Year-to-date figures

Annual figures are converted to year-to-date by dividing by 365 and multiplying by the current day of the year. The resulting figure is an estimate based on the assumption of uniform incident rate across the year. Real-world incident rates vary seasonally — road incidents peak in winter, air-pollution deaths peak in cold months, preventable-health deaths concentrate in winter. The Tribune does not adjust for seasonality in the headline figure but notes this where relevant.

Policy gap

For each issue, the policy gap is computed by applying a best-in-class peer's per-capita rate to the UK population. The difference between the UK rate and the peer rate, applied proportionally to UK incidence, yields the ‘lives in the gap’ figure — deaths that would not have occurred if the UK matched the peer.

Peer countries are selected from OECD high-income economies with comparable population density, GDP per capita, and healthcare expenditure. Peer selection is not adjusted to favour any particular country.

Delivery scoring

Manifesto commitments are scored against four states:

Delivered. Substantively achieved per credible third-party verification (gov.uk publications, Hansard, Full Fact, Institute for Government, King's Fund).
Partial. Achieved with material caveats or loopholes that weaken the commitment's intent.
In progress. Active implementation but not yet substantively achieved.
Not delivered. No substantive action recorded.

A commitment is counted only if the verbatim text in the 2024 manifesto names a specific policy outcome. General aspirations without specific delivery criteria are not counted as tracked commitments.

Sources

Editorial standards

Verbatim quotes only, with full citation including page reference where available.
Independent third-party verification required for any delivery scoring change.
No paid content. No political donations accepted. No affiliation with any UK political party.
Corrections are published with the original error preserved and the correction dated.
Living individuals named on the platform (ministers, MPs) are named only in their public capacity and only in respect of their public statements, votes, and actions.

Funding and independence

The Tribune is currently funded by the founder. No commercial sponsorship, no political party funding, no advertising. Source data is public. Platform operating costs (hosting, data ingest, scheduled monitoring agents) are disclosed annually. PLACEHOLDER pending public funding confirmation.

Corrections and contact

Found an error? Disagree with a delivery scoring? Have a source we should be citing?

Email corrections@thetribune.uk. Every submission is reviewed and a response provided within five working days.

Your move — write to your MP

1,247 letters sent this week · 23 MPs have responded

Write to your MP.

A letter to your MP on any of the three counts, pre-filled with the evidence above. Anonymous by default — your name is never published.

Letter preview · updates as you choose an issue

Dear your MP,

I am writing about the 640 preventable road deaths in Britain so far in 2026 — and the 1,633 that will happen by year end if nothing changes. The UK rate is now 50% above Norway's.

Labour's 2024 manifesto promised to keep our roads "safe", but no road safety strategy has been published, scoped, or budgeted in 540 days under Heidi Alexander. Labour also dropped its 2019 Vision Zero commitment from the 2024 manifesto.

I am asking you to press the government to publish a comprehensive road safety strategy with statutory targets, matching the standards of Norway and Sweden.

Yours sincerely,
[your name]

Drafting your statement

Dear your MP, I am writing about the 640 preventable road deaths in Britain so far in 2026 — and the 1,633 that will happen by year end if nothing changes. The UK rate is now 50% above Norway's. Labour's 2024 manifesto promised to keep our roads "safe", but no road safety strategy has been published, scoped, or budgeted in 540 days under Heidi Alexander. Labour also dropped its 2019 Vision Zero commitment from the 2024 manifesto. I am asking you to press the government to publish a comprehensive road safety strategy with statutory targets, matching the standards of Norway and Sweden. Yours sincerely, [your name]

Routing to

Your MP for —