Hello, we are Jonathan and Abigail - unashamed pedants who want to bring this affliction to bear on all things public policy and practice. We believe that details matter, especially in public administration. This is why today we are founding quibble: a campaign to fix the small stuff. Think, for example, about the cookie banner that we click on every webpage. Each instance is not a big deal, so we just put up with it. But its cumulative impact adds up - on average we press it 5 times per day. The European Commission estimates that it costs EU citizens 343 million hours per year. And who is there to represent the impacts of seemingly minor issues like this in a systematic way? We want quibble to be the answer. In the case of the cookie banner, lots of advocacy has rightly focused on privacy, but has this meant that user experience has taken a backseat? We believe there are ways to improve user experience without compromising on privacy. We will share more about this soon. Consider another example. Did you know that in some government-run car parks you can be fined for a minor keying error, such as accidentally typing a zero instead of an “o”? Again, we will come to the detail of this quibble in the coming weeks, but for now just consider again the question: who? Who is there currently to systematically represent the interests of the parker who is given an unfair ticket? An inherent feature of consumer interests is that those who have them rarely have enough other things in common to make collective organisation and representation feasible. This is the gap that quibble seeks to fill. Now of course excellent consumer interest groups exist. But understandably quibbles might not be at the top of their lists. Our hope is that quibble will be complementary; picking up the bottom-of-the-list issues faced by various groups - the stuff they are almost too embarrassed to raise because they are too small. We are not embarrassed about detail. If you’ve ever had a splinter, you know small things can have a big impact. This is what quibble is committed to tackling, and our wider hope is that by doing so we will also incentivise policy makers to be even more careful about detail. Check out our website here, including our first four campaigns: quibble.org.uk

Yes - but it's not just private car parks. We have received testimonies from several who have faced fines for minor keying errors in local authority car parks, too. See this example from Ealing council: theguardian.com/money/2025/j… And the rules announced today do not apply to local authority car parks. We need local authorities to commit to waiving these fines. In the meantime, we are pushing DfT for clearer statutory guidance.

✅ Already on it: the driver or train manager/guard repeating automated messages is one of the main issues we’re highlighting.

🚝💺🔊 A brief update on our train announcement work: While surveys have shown that the overall frequency of train announcements is about right, as many of you have told us there do remain issues of unnecessary repetition, and audibility.  Happily, we are not alone in highlighting this. In their 2026 What Matters to Rail Passengers in Great Britain  @TransportFocus found that "Clear and accurate audible announcements" was rail passengers' number one priority in terms of improving accessibility, with 64% of passengers saying this was "Very important". Using insights that have been shared with us by you, publicly available evidence, and some of our own findings, we have prepared a briefing on the evidence here which will be submitted to the Minister for Rail, and the teams managing the GBR transition.  For one, we are looking for clarity on what will happen to the Rail Delivery Group's Customer Information Pledges as part of the transition, and - assuming they are to be carried over in some form - the possibility of a tweak which we think would better account for this issue. More soon...!

Here are some photos from August: showing the condition then; and the number of people waiting to take photos that will be seen all over the world. Alongside airport arrival terminals and train stations, this is the kind of spot that plays an outsized role in landing impressions of our country - and which therefore deserve proportionate attention. Great to see this one looking so smart now.

Quibbles are bigger (or smaller!) than any one organisation. While this announcement surprised us, it's good to see the cause gaining currency. Martin has been an effective “quibbler” for a long time - one of our campaigns (Tax-Free Childcare name change) was even inspired by him. We wish the Small Ideas Initiative well. With the 5-month head start that we've had, we'd love to meet with @MartinSLewis, swap notes, and see how we can work together to fix the small stuff. We’re proud of what we've built and the progress made on our campaigns so far. We're also proud of the personal investment that we’ve both been making to get quibble going… and of the fact that we'll always be the OGs.😉

🚦 We’ve received several quibbles relating to puffin pedestrian crossings - particularly how sight to the near side signal can be blocked when a group of pedestrians are waiting. As part of looking into this, we reviewed the current DfT guidance, and found it to be clear on this issue (Article 19.1.8 of the Traffic Signs Manual recommends the addition of a repeater signal higher up in cases where there pedestrian flow is high). Although we’ve concluded that this issue doesn’t require policy-level advocacy, there are certainly some gaps in implementation, so if you notice any crossings where a higher repeater signal might be helpful, do feel free to let us know and we’d be happy to raise it with the council on your behalf.

Good to see the correction of minor errors on flight bookings (such as typos in names) being covered here - similar to our push for car parks to waive minor keying error cases.

We've been encouraged by responses to our requests for COVID signage removals - as in the case of the ones below, most have been grateful to be informed, and agreed to act. Do keep your examples coming - send us a photo and location and we'll do the rest.

Reminds us of the wayfinding signage issues in Heathrow Terminal 5 soon after its construction. As @rorysutherland has argued, part of the explanation is that those with the power to make decisions on projects like these are in charge of enormous budgets and are therefore focused on major expenses, often leaving these kinds of details unattended to. What they needed was a Minister of Detail - an individual or office with a low budget (to avoid the above distraction) but high executive power. Our purpose at quibble is basically to cosplay this role until it is actually fulfilled. 👷‍♂️🧑‍💼