The point here, Robin, is whether some other forecast was any better?
If weather is moving along at 200kt and the fronts are spaced by 20nm then you can forget weather forecasting
It just can't be done. You can sit there and point at the MSLP chart and all the muck coming this way from the US east coast and you can see it
will come but you cannot tell when exactly, or even approximately until a few hrs beforehand.
The other extreme is say the summer of 2003 when I flew from UK to Malaga and the QNH was 1013 the whole route, and flying back 3 days later I didn't even need to bother getting weather; the QNH was still about 1013 and the picture was the same.
Localised fog is also impossible to forecast well because its formation depends on very local conditions.
TAFs remain the best you will get. For VFR, one always should get TAFs along the whole route. Well, a METAR is the best
but that's only good for an immediate flight, having first checked on the MSLP chart that the situation over the whole area is pretty static.
The bit where the UKMO does pilots a dis-service is in longer range data, e.g. "can I fly back home 3 days from now?" They give you only the MSLP charts, and they flog the rest to commercial weather repackagers. That's where the GFS link I gave above comes in - use the detail from it in conjunction with the timing of fronts from the UKMO MSLP charts because the UKMO model is better for the UK typical SW airflow.