It doesn’t, everyone has known for the past 10 years what the route would be and bought accordingly with warnings.
My friend in Leeds knew before they bought their house in 2016 that HS2 would be running about 50m from their back garden..
This really is a complete own goal by Boris…
The decisions are stupid. Utterly utterly stupid. The attempt to spin it as delivery of the promise is frankly life-threatening to Boris's career.
Red wall voters are not stupid. They are now to be told that although the thing they were personally promised by the PM himself is not happening, enough bits are happening for you to have all the same benefits! Sheffield is still connected! There's still a time saving to Newcastle!
This has already gone down like the proverbial bucket of sick and it hasn't even yet been thrown. If Red Wall Tories turn out to try and spin this is a win they are finished. David Duguid tried yesterday to claim Tory credit for the cancellation of CCS in his constituency and was howled at by the SNP. Will the same but louder by Labour over this.
Red wall voters aren't stupid. The other thing red wall voters aren't mostly is rail commuters - they're car commuters.
It'd be great if we dropped London-obsessions about mass transit and invested better in roads instead or as well.
Car commuters - so let's talk about the Darlington Northern Relief road ( designed to get 1000 lorries a day off the streets of Darlington as they head to Teesside / Amazon) which was scrapped earlier this year.
I suspect a lot (most) other constituencies will have similar attack points. For Bishop Auckland it's a bypass that was going to bypass 2 villages / pain points but now will only bypass one in a way that the other village can no longer be bypassed.
Now give us those rather than the railway infrastructure by all means but Boris can't because these were scrapped earlier this year and other work prioritised. And there are only so many contractors to go round all of whom are busy.
This is a much bigger failing in my eyes than any London obsessions over a rail route taht wouldn't even be built for decades.
Yep by my point is - we aren't getting the trains and we aren't getting the promised road links (for they have already been deprioritised, with the contractors reassigned).
And that isn't acceptable. I'm not making excuses for the government - if the promised road links etc don't arrive then to quote the Foreign Secretary "That. Is. A. Disgrace."
But why aren't the road links getting a fraction of the media's attention that rail not planned to be built for decades anyway is getting?
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
It's not - there are a set of savings from the cancelled schemes but the new schemes have probably never been costed (and because of where they are will inevitably overrun by £bns and years as shown by the WCML electrification disaster).
Heck the biggest reason for HS2 was to avoid similar disasters in the future - initially by being a completely new line, and longer term because the extra capacity meant that future work would have diversions and capacity available to allow trains to continue running)
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
Investing in the North was - and is - a worthwhile project. It was about the only good thing the government had going for it.
It is the Treasury's stupid short-term penny wise pound foolish approach to investment which is behind this and I hope it scuppers Sunak's chances.
Will Labour promise to build what the Tories are not? Because if not, what is the point of them either?
Agreed. There's definitely only literally one issue facing any government or potential government. Anybody who says they care about health, foreign policy, policing, equality, the justice system, governance, electoral reform, the environment, or anything else is obviously lying.
If £96bn is available for infrastructure then I repeat that £96bn in road upgrades and new motorways etc would do far more for more people and for the economy than marginally faster commutes to London.
And if its all about "capacity" then lets apply that to roads too. How much would capacity be improved if a parallel M62 was built?
You can't increase road capacity inside towns and cities because there's no room to widen urban roads, so all your parallel M62 would achieve would be to usher people more quickly to longer tailbacks on the edges of urban areas.
We need a sensible mix of transport modes. Cars have had too much emphasis for too long.
Consider how much time PB, and the media likewise, talks about trains compared with talking about road travel and especially bus travel.
Trains are a middle class obsession - if people want to see a true levelling up then more attention needs paying to and more money needs investing in roads and especially buses.
I generally steer clear of being judgmental about parenting, but this takes the piss.
We had an experience with this recently. The Little 'un has a schoolfriend whose mum is (in our view) struggling. He apparently only eats potato waffles and chicken dippers. Every day. No food intolerances, just fussy. So when he's been around to ours, that's what we cook.
I'm not particularly happy with the little 'un eating just that, so I always cook more: fish fingers, peas, green beans etc, and let the boys tuck in. I scoff whatever they don't eat.
The last couple of visits, the friend has eaten more of the stuff, including, to his mum's amazement, melon.
It's so easy to get stuck in a rut with kids. We were with the little 'un for a while; but from what we've seen, other parents have it *much* worse.
Indeed - the daughter of friends of my family had a thing where she would eat only plain pasta. And this was in a household where both parents cooked and cooked well. They tried everything and anything.
Eventually she gave in and ate a range of things - but it was heart breaking for them for a while.
Meanwhile the whole cricket/Azeem Rafiq thing shows that you can think being born an Englishman really is winning the lottery of life but there is a rotten core which is pervasive and needs expunging.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
Morning Big_G hope you are bright and breezy!
I am definitely a political opponent of the liar, though as I have said consistently I expect the Tories to win the next election led by Sunak or similar. I'm not doing partisan ramping as the other lot won't win. For me it has been increasingly about Right and Wrong and thats been the theme for weeks as lies and corruption are piled high.
Lets look at your points here. You mention "20 years of disruption". Lets compare and contrast HS3/NPR with what they are about to announce.
NPR would have run from Liverpool Lime Street quickly onto a new line past Warrington to have a triangular junction with HS2 giving southern access towards Brum and London before running onto HS2 through Manchester Airport to an expanded Piccadilly. From there another new line with a lot of tunnels and a station in Bradford before running into the new Leeds HS station. A final reversal and out to rejoin HS2 to York.
The line would have been disruptive to build but not be disruptive to existing rail services. What we know of what is being unveiled at 10:30 is an expanded Transpennine upgrade. Which according to Network Rail will effectively close the line most weekends for years and have extended journey times during the week crawling over speed restrictions. Plus somehow a warp speed journey time Leeds to Bradford which much be along the New Pudsey route which again will need to be heavily and disruptively upgraded.
So no, this doesn't deliver faster and without disruption. We get more disruption for slower and fewer journeys. Without the extra capacity added throughout the finished product will have LESS capacity than now because the faster the express services run the fewer the slower services you can run on the same route.
Thank you for your reply and you know far more about the subject then I do
However I still support the cancellation of HS2E but we will have to see how this pans out politically in due course
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
Leeds is the tenth largest city in the UK. Lille is the tenth largest city in France. Even from London, I can take a train to Lille that travels at an average speed of 127mph. I can take a train to Leeds that averages 85mph. Transport connections in this country are a joke, and the Tories have just gutted the only serious attempt in my lifetime to improve them. Levelling Up? A joke.
Ummm...
From a geographical point of view, Lille is not exactly a typical French city - it lies at the nexus of London - Paris - Brussels.
If it wasn't on the route between three of Europe's capitals, it's train service would be a lot less impressive.
From London, yes, but most French population centres are connected by high speed rail. Can you point me to a French city of equivalent size to Leeds that has worse rail connectivity than Leeds does?
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
Absolutely correct Big G!
These massive schemes are a complete waste of money, they always end up years late and massively over budget. Look at Crossrail in London!
Much better to spend it on local targeted improvements, rail and road.
Have a good day all, and remember if you are on the train or bus, wear a mask. COVID hasn't gone away!
So, you think London would be better without the Underground? And a few local schemes between the Boroughs would be all that was required to get things working?
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
If you think that £96bn is going to get spent then I have a bridge (which won't get built) to sell you.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
Morning Big_G hope you are bright and breezy!
I am definitely a political opponent of the liar, though as I have said consistently I expect the Tories to win the next election led by Sunak or similar. I'm not doing partisan ramping as the other lot won't win. For me it has been increasingly about Right and Wrong and thats been the theme for weeks as lies and corruption are piled high.
Lets look at your points here. You mention "20 years of disruption". Lets compare and contrast HS3/NPR with what they are about to announce.
NPR would have run from Liverpool Lime Street quickly onto a new line past Warrington to have a triangular junction with HS2 giving southern access towards Brum and London before running onto HS2 through Manchester Airport to an expanded Piccadilly. From there another new line with a lot of tunnels and a station in Bradford before running into the new Leeds HS station. A final reversal and out to rejoin HS2 to York.
The line would have been disruptive to build but not be disruptive to existing rail services. What we know of what is being unveiled at 10:30 is an expanded Transpennine upgrade. Which according to Network Rail will effectively close the line most weekends for years and have extended journey times during the week crawling over speed restrictions. Plus somehow a warp speed journey time Leeds to Bradford which much be along the New Pudsey route which again will need to be heavily and disruptively upgraded.
So no, this doesn't deliver faster and without disruption. We get more disruption for slower and fewer journeys. Without the extra capacity added throughout the finished product will have LESS capacity than now because the faster the express services run the fewer the slower services you can run on the same route.
Thank you for your reply and you know far more about the subject then I do
However I still support the cancellation of HS2E but we will have to see how this pans out politically in due course
"you know far more about the subject then I do. However.."
The Lib Dem leaflet once again demonstrates that party's utter paucity of ideas.
They won in Chesham & Amersham. Against all the odds and against what virtually everyone on here predicted, except Mike Smithson.
Chesham and Amersham was in Chiltern which was 55% Remain and the LDs got 56% in the by election ie virtually identical.
North Shropshire however was 59% Leave and only 41% Remain
So viewed like that, they need to flip 1 Leave voter in 6 over sleaze, or have 2 Leave voters in 6 stay home over it. On balance that feels like too heavy a lift, but definitely not unthinkable.
Bit embarrassing if the Lib Dems ended up not making it to 40% though. The simplistic comparison then would suggest that sleaze had won the Tories votes...
I generally steer clear of being judgmental about parenting, but this takes the piss.
We had an experience with this recently. The Little 'un has a schoolfriend whose mum is (in our view) struggling. He apparently only eats potato waffles and chicken dippers. Every day. No food intolerances, just fussy. So when he's been around to ours, that's what we cook.
I'm not particularly happy with the little 'un eating just that, so I always cook more: fish fingers, peas, green beans etc, and let the boys tuck in. I scoff whatever they don't eat.
The last couple of visits, the friend has eaten more of the stuff, including, to his mum's amazement, melon.
It's so easy to get stuck in a rut with kids. We were with the little 'un for a while; but from what we've seen, other parents have it *much* worse.
Good on you!
I’d have thought food refusal was fairly basic child psych. Surely there’s some basic techniques that are effective? Sound like you’ve cracked it with your little one, anyway. Well done!
Thanks, but we're not there yet. For instance: if we go anywhere, I make sandwiches. He loves ham sandwiches. But if I buy any from a cafe, he hates butter on the bread. The margarine I put on at home is fine, and he loves butter on other things, but he refuses to eat cafe ham sandwiches ...
But he's getting a wider palate. When he started school, we were worried about him not eating school meals. But we decided not to send him in with sandwiches each day: instead, he'd have to eat the school lunches (*). More than anything else, I credit this to widening the foods he likes. He either eats the food at school or goes hungry, they're not going to cook especially for him.
(His friend apparently does not have a packed lunch, but does not eat the school lunch either...)
(*) Incidentally, when he started at school we parents were invited in to sample a school meal. It was a good idea, and the food was okay.
Our eldest has weird tastes, for a kid at least. Happily eats broccoli, carrots etc. Refuses chips (not really keen on most potato-based things, except mash, sometimes eats waffles too but not that fussed) and not keen on chicken nuggets etc (fishfingers fine). We've decided not to push on eating chips or chicken nuggets, for now
(Does make him a bit of a pain at kids parties though, where it's not unusual to be chicken nuggets and chips. He's fine when there's pizza or veggie sticks too.)
We also had our difficulties with faddy eating (mostly just a declaration that "I don't like it", often before he knew what 'it' even was). Eventually realised that it was probably to get more attention when his sister started weaning and joined him at the table. After a fair bit of stress and strop we realised that keeping it very low key and refusing to argue ("fine, no problem, I'll have it", combined sometimes with taking the plate away and thus calling the bluff) was the best approach.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
If you think that £96bn is going to get spent then I have a bridge (which won't get built) to sell you.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
Morning Big_G hope you are bright and breezy!
I am definitely a political opponent of the liar, though as I have said consistently I expect the Tories to win the next election led by Sunak or similar. I'm not doing partisan ramping as the other lot won't win. For me it has been increasingly about Right and Wrong and thats been the theme for weeks as lies and corruption are piled high.
Lets look at your points here. You mention "20 years of disruption". Lets compare and contrast HS3/NPR with what they are about to announce.
NPR would have run from Liverpool Lime Street quickly onto a new line past Warrington to have a triangular junction with HS2 giving southern access towards Brum and London before running onto HS2 through Manchester Airport to an expanded Piccadilly. From there another new line with a lot of tunnels and a station in Bradford before running into the new Leeds HS station. A final reversal and out to rejoin HS2 to York.
The line would have been disruptive to build but not be disruptive to existing rail services. What we know of what is being unveiled at 10:30 is an expanded Transpennine upgrade. Which according to Network Rail will effectively close the line most weekends for years and have extended journey times during the week crawling over speed restrictions. Plus somehow a warp speed journey time Leeds to Bradford which much be along the New Pudsey route which again will need to be heavily and disruptively upgraded.
So no, this doesn't deliver faster and without disruption. We get more disruption for slower and fewer journeys. Without the extra capacity added throughout the finished product will have LESS capacity than now because the faster the express services run the fewer the slower services you can run on the same route.
Thank you for your reply and you know far more about the subject then I do
However I still support the cancellation of HS2E but we will have to see how this pans out politically in due course
So you are happy for capacity to be reduced so that a non-stop train is slightly faster from Sheffield to London while 2 (or more) local commuter trains are cancelled to allow the other train to get there 5 minutes faster
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
It doesn’t, everyone has known for the past 10 years what the route would be and bought accordingly with warnings.
My friend in Leeds knew before they bought their house in 2016 that HS2 would be running about 50m from their back garden..
This really is a complete own goal by Boris…
The decisions are stupid. Utterly utterly stupid. The attempt to spin it as delivery of the promise is frankly life-threatening to Boris's career.
Red wall voters are not stupid. They are now to be told that although the thing they were personally promised by the PM himself is not happening, enough bits are happening for you to have all the same benefits! Sheffield is still connected! There's still a time saving to Newcastle!
This has already gone down like the proverbial bucket of sick and it hasn't even yet been thrown. If Red Wall Tories turn out to try and spin this is a win they are finished. David Duguid tried yesterday to claim Tory credit for the cancellation of CCS in his constituency and was howled at by the SNP. Will the same but louder by Labour over this.
Red wall voters aren't stupid. The other thing red wall voters aren't mostly is rail commuters - they're car commuters.
It'd be great if we dropped London-obsessions about mass transit and invested better in roads instead or as well.
This leads to an interesting (to me, at least...) question; are successful metropolitan areas successful because of access to good mass transit? How much does mass transit act as a catalyst for the economic success of an area?
IMV: without mass transit, there is zero way London could be an economic success. It would just drown in cars. So how much are areas like Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh etc held back by *not* having brilliant mass transit?
(And London's mass transit is brilliant, however much regular uses may wish to complain about it.)
I think that's quite close to a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
Many successful metropolitan areas like for example Austin, Texas rely predominantly upon cars for transportation. According to Wikipedia's statistics there cars (inc. carpools) form 83.1% of transportation with transit being only 5%.
Whether you wish to rely upon mass transit or roads, either way you need the investment. Our lack of investment in roads to keep up with increasing populations is a terrible failing in this nation. We've had new rail links be opened or planned repeatedly in the past couple of decades but what new motorways have opened in the last couple of decades? What new motorways are planned?
I was wondering if anyone would mention the US. It's a different country, with many cities having been built around the car.
In 1900, the city of Austin had 22,258 people. In 2000, 656,562. In 1900, London had 5 million people. In 2000, 7.2 million.
Austin grew in the age of the car, and had room to expand outwards. How long that will continue, with it having grown by 300k between 2000 and 2020, is anyone's guess.
Interesting that Dominic Raab is saying that the amount MP's earn from outside interests could be a measure of whether its appropriate or not. Yesterday it was all about hours.... https://twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1461253665176571905
Surely it is hours that matter. Judging by money is just the politics of envy. I want to know my MP is doing his job not how much money he has.
Apart from the bit where money can corrupt people into having the wrong priorities. Did you forget that bit?
Nope I didn't. I was focused just on that specific point in response to the post I was replying to. I'm sure you have seen my posts over the last few weeks. As far as I am concerned the biggest issue for me is in fact the conflict of interest and generally I would like to see nearly all second jobs gone. However I am not going to complain about someone writing a book or a surgeon keeping his eye in who might do very few hours but earn quite a bit.
I am far more concerned about a director/consultant asking a question that helps his company who earns £5,000 from it than a surgeon who earns £10,000 for carrying out an operation, provided the surgeon doesn't abuse the time he spends doing operations.
So the measure for me is:
Is there a potential conflict of interest
If yes then it is barred regardless.
If no then how much time is spent doing this other activity
Consider how much time PB, and the media likewise, talks about trains compared with talking about road travel and especially bus travel.
Trains are a middle class obsession - if people want to see a true levelling up then more attention needs paying to and more money needs investing in roads and especially buses.
The point is that clear promises were made. And those promises have been broken.
So why should anyone believe anything they say about anything else?
Leeds is the tenth largest city in the UK. Lille is the tenth largest city in France. Even from London, I can take a train to Lille that travels at an average speed of 127mph. I can take a train to Leeds that averages 85mph. Transport connections in this country are a joke, and the Tories have just gutted the only serious attempt in my lifetime to improve them. Levelling Up? A joke.
Ummm...
From a geographical point of view, Lille is not exactly a typical French city - it lies at the nexus of London - Paris - Brussels.
If it wasn't on the route between three of Europe's capitals, it's train service would be a lot less impressive.
Lots of HS plus a bridge to Ireland and, hey presto, at the nexus of London - Edinburgh - Belfast!
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
If you think that £96bn is going to get spent then I have a bridge (which won't get built) to sell you.
Oh, it might get spent. Just on endless feasibility studies, public enquiries, appeals, economic cases... Might be a great time to be in transport consultancy in the north
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
Leeds currently doesn't even have a park and ride from the (A64) North East side of town into the city centre. Hopefully that will change when the new ring road is completed next year (but I doubt it). We currently need to loop round to J45 on the M1 (adding 10 miles each way to the distance travelled).
Another problem is that Leeds really doesn't have any space for a metro - the only way to build one would have to be underground - otherwise it would make the Edinburgh tram look like a simple project.
Leeds is the tenth largest city in the UK. Lille is the tenth largest city in France. Even from London, I can take a train to Lille that travels at an average speed of 127mph. I can take a train to Leeds that averages 85mph. Transport connections in this country are a joke, and the Tories have just gutted the only serious attempt in my lifetime to improve them. Levelling Up? A joke.
Ummm...
From a geographical point of view, Lille is not exactly a typical French city - it lies at the nexus of London - Paris - Brussels.
If it wasn't on the route between three of Europe's capitals, it's train service would be a lot less impressive.
From London, yes, but most French population centres are connected by high speed rail. Can you point me to a French city of equivalent size to Leeds that has worse rail connectivity than Leeds does?
The French have never really properly upgraded the Cote d'Azur beyond Marseilles, so how about Nice?
Surely it is hours that matter. Judging by money is just the politics of envy. I want to know my MP is doing his job not how much money he has.
...but if my MP is earning a boatload of cash from their second job I would suspect they might be more concerned with acting in a way that didn't piss off their paymaster, rather than the voters, even if the number of hours is small...
See my reply to @Farooq I was answering a very specific point. I don't disagree with your point and I agree that is my biggest concern (see my previous posts) but I wasn't addressing that issue.
If £96bn is available for infrastructure then I repeat that £96bn in road upgrades and new motorways etc would do far more for more people and for the economy than marginally faster commutes to London.
And if its all about "capacity" then lets apply that to roads too. How much would capacity be improved if a parallel M62 was built?
You can't increase road capacity inside towns and cities because there's no room to widen urban roads, so all your parallel M62 would achieve would be to usher people more quickly to longer tailbacks on the edges of urban areas.
We need a sensible mix of transport modes. Cars have had too much emphasis for too long.
You can increase road capacity by ensuring that cars that are trying to go from A to C aren't clogging up B. You can certainly do it by ensuring they aren't having to go via D to do so.
If someone wants to drive from Liverpool (or Warrington, Widnes etc) to Leeds (or Huddersfield, Bradford etc) or vice-versa then they need to drive into Manchester and onto the M60 to do so. Why? They're not trying to get into Manchester! Going West to East (or vice versa) nobody should be on the M60 except those seeking to actually be in Manchester itself.
Building a new motorway along a sort of similar route to the East Lancs Road (A580) would serve as a good basis for a parallel M62. A new motorway connecting Liverpool, St Helens, Leigh, Bolton, Bury and Rochdale could then potentially join up with the M62 east of Manchester. That way traffic not seeking to go into Manchester, doesn't actually have to go into Manchester.
That would take traffic that doesn't need to be in Manchester off Manchester's roads, freeing up capacity in Manchester and it would also take traffic off the East Lancs Road etc freeing up congestion throughout that route.
Leeds is the tenth largest city in the UK. Lille is the tenth largest city in France. Even from London, I can take a train to Lille that travels at an average speed of 127mph. I can take a train to Leeds that averages 85mph. Transport connections in this country are a joke, and the Tories have just gutted the only serious attempt in my lifetime to improve them. Levelling Up? A joke.
Ummm...
From a geographical point of view, Lille is not exactly a typical French city - it lies at the nexus of London - Paris - Brussels.
If it wasn't on the route between three of Europe's capitals, it's train service would be a lot less impressive.
Lots of HS plus a bridge to Ireland and, hey presto, at the nexus of London - Edinburgh - Belfast!
You laugh at that Antrim to Britain bridge but it'll look awesome when Antrim declares UDI when Northern Ireland joins the Republic.
Investing in the North was - and is - a worthwhile project. It was about the only good thing the government had going for it.
It is the Treasury's stupid short-term penny wise pound foolish approach to investment which is behind this and I hope it scuppers Sunak's chances.
Will Labour promise to build what the Tories are not? Because if not, what is the point of them either?
Edited: and it also looks as if the government has shafted the poorest on social care as well.
...but all is not negative, fewer than ten troughing MPs have been shafted by Johnson's "second jobs policy". As you were!
One of the key reasons our EU experience failed was how WE spent our EU Social Fund money. No Milau Bridges for us, but plenty of cobblestones in Cemaes Bay (subsequently replaced by the utility companies with patchwork tarmac).
We don't do big infrastructure projects anymore, and it is not just the Conservatives. Southern M4 relief road project for Newport, canned.
"That Johnson has managed to turn essentially all of his MPs against him, by ordering everybody to go along with an act of egregious corruption, and then having done it, going back on it, humiliating and enraging both sides in equal measure, is as close to a piece of political performance art as you are ever likely to see."
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
Newcastle also
Yet Manors car park is never full and it is five minutes off the Tyne Bridge. Always use it.
Drive in from the Coast Road and Newcastle brags of 10,000 parking spaces.
It is all stick no carrot with Newcastle-Gateshead, especially closing Askew Road to the Tyne Bridge and routing traffic up through Gateshead. They need a good Park and Ride like they have in York and even, dare I say, Durham.
Do you think 'red wall' Tory MPs realise they were played? That gov't jumped on and adopted a watered-down version of the Labour proposals on second jobs, to ensure that vote happened before the rail announcement? They voted away their leverage. Pillocks.
Consider how much time PB, and the media likewise, talks about trains compared with talking about road travel and especially bus travel.
Trains are a middle class obsession - if people want to see a true levelling up then more attention needs paying to and more money needs investing in roads and especially buses.
The point is that clear promises were made. And those promises have been broken.
So why should anyone believe anything they say about anything else?
I think the actual point is that these are 15 year old proposals that have had complete cross party support until now.
And the proposed changes just don't make any sense to those who really understand Transport and those that understand bits by having an interest in it.
It's shown today by Boris continually talking about speed (interesting but not that important) and ignoring capacity and it's capacity that is important here. Add the capacity and you can then start improving local services but without that capacity the local services won't be available.
It's a local example but Darlington is getting a new £125m railway station. In theory it's because we need one. In reality it's to remove the need for Middlesbrough / Whitby trains from going near the ECML... That will allow 4-8 more trains an hour on the ECML and allow the hourly trains to Middlesbrough to be switched to every 15 minutes.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
Leeds currently doesn't even have a park and ride from the (A64) North East side of town into the city centre. Hopefully that will change when the new ring road is completed next year (but I doubt it). We currently need to loop round to J45 on the M1 (adding 10 miles each way to the distance travelled).
Another problem is that Leeds really doesn't have any space for a metro - the only way to build one would have to be underground - otherwise it would make the Edinburgh tram look like a simple project.
I started working in Leeds city centre in the middle of September 2005, by the start of October 2005 I regretted commuting in by car every day.
I get mine tomorrow. I am not sure that is even 6 months since my second. If it is it must be only just.
Morning all.
I believe the Scots are working to 4-week 'months' - as good as lunar months - when counting the 6 months. Our booster jab a week and a bit back was as far as I could recall 24 weeks + 1 day since the second original jab. Organised to be at the same time as the flu jab. Easy to change bookings if needed online or on phone - onlu problem was finding a new slot because of very high uptake and turnout.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
Those city centre motorways in Leeds are horrendous to navigate if you don't know them. Slip roads suddenly appearing in tunnels, multiple roads exiting at once, and every road seems to be the A61 or the A58 no matter which direction it's going in. Some horrific post war planning decisions taken in Leeds and elsewhere. The privatised public transport is awful there too - unreliable and super expensive compared to London. We have to drive up there every time we visit family because otherwise we'd not be able to get anywhere at all. As a Londoner by adoption but Scot/Northerner by birth and upbringing, people outside the capital are absolutely right that they get a raw deal infrastructure-wise. This latest shameful fiasco is just the latest example.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
If you think that £96bn is going to get spent then I have a bridge (which won't get built) to sell you.
Oh, it might get spent. Just on endless feasibility studies, public enquiries, appeals, economic cases... Might be a great time to be in transport consultancy in the north
If the right people don’t have power, do you know what happens? The wrong people get it: politicians, councillors, ordinary voters!
Interesting that Dominic Raab is saying that the amount MP's earn from outside interests could be a measure of whether its appropriate or not. Yesterday it was all about hours.... https://twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1461253665176571905
Surely it is hours that matter. Judging by money is just the politics of envy. I want to know my MP is doing his job not how much money he has.
Apart from the bit where money can corrupt people into having the wrong priorities. Did you forget that bit?
Nope I didn't. I was focused just on that specific point in response to the post I was replying to. I'm sure you have seen my posts over the last few weeks. As far as I am concerned the biggest issue for me is in fact the conflict of interest and generally I would like to see nearly all second jobs gone. However I am not going to complain about someone writing a book or a surgeon keeping his eye in who might do very few hours but earn quite a bit.
I am far more concerned about a director/consultant asking a question that helps his company who earns £5,000 from it than a surgeon who earns £10,000 for carrying out an operation, provided the surgeon doesn't abuse the time he spends doing operations.
So the measure for me is:
Is there a potential conflict of interest
If yes then it is barred regardless.
If no then how much time is spent doing this other activity
If too much than barred again
Otherwise ok. Money does not come into it.
Obviously I meant 'operations' and not 'an operation'. I think I might wonder why someone got £10,000 for 'an operation'
Consider how much time PB, and the media likewise, talks about trains compared with talking about road travel and especially bus travel.
Trains are a middle class obsession - if people want to see a true levelling up then more attention needs paying to and more money needs investing in roads and especially buses.
Great! Are your government taking the money saved to invest in northern roads or buses?
One thing about Covid that no one really seems to be stating:
The blunt reality is that vaccine effectiveness, upon which everything was and still is pinned, isnt quite as good as hoped, something illustrated by the fact you appartently need to be jabbed three times within 12 months and that the ability to prevent onward transmission isnt as good as what was hoped. Maybe version 2 of vaccines will improve this.
One thing does make me wonder, however about the way vaccine efficacy is being graded. How are they measuring this waning? Its not as if if I get a tetanus or a polio or whatever vaccine that my body maintains high levels of circulating antibodies for 10 or 15 years is it. What it should retain is memory in the locker about what to do when it comes across particular pathogen. How do you measure that memory? My understanding is that we have no idea whether that memory is anyway depleted, the entire science is based around the circulating antibodies which doesnt seem to actually be a good way of deciding vaccine effectiveness long term.
I am a fully signed up member of the vaccine club, doubled jabbed but its fair to say that I'm increasingly sceptical of the requirement for jab 3 on science grounds. I get it for the very old or the comprised who simply dont have the more finely tuned immunity system of most but are we really going end up with most of the population that have had two jabs then getting a third?
The standard efficacy measure is to compare the rates of infection in those vaccinated with those unvaccinated.
You do have to adjust for confounders (such as age differences, activity differences, and so forth) and increasing acquired immunity in the unjabbed provides an artificial apparent waning in any case to adjust for actual waning (if, say, half the unjabbed have acquired immunity, you’re not comparing vaxxed immune against unimmune but vaxxed immune against half-unimmune-and-half-infected-immune).
You also get difficulty if you don’t know the denominator (in the UK, we don’t actually know how many people are in the UK. The two main measures - ONS count and NIMS count - differ by several million, so whilst the number of jabbed per age range is well known, the number of unjabbed is very unclear (If you have jabbed 4.0 million in a certain age range and one measure things you have 4.2 million total people in that age range and the other reckons you have 4.8 million people, you have either 4.0 : 0.2 or 4.0 : 0.8, which changes the calculation significantly. And, of course, the antivaxxers grab the known-wrong numbers to “prove” it doesn’t work.
They’ve got around this to an extent by comparing triple-jabbed to double-jabbed and seen a huge and lasting benefit.
Some important points there on apparent waning.
The simplist figures to look at are the hospitalisations, ICU numbers and deaths as that measures the clinical impact. While the majority of our inpatients are double vaccinated and 15% triple, the severely sick are biased strongly to the unvaccinated.
It's been a long 2 years since this first appeared.
@HYUFD Off topic - Thank you for your reply yesterday to my questions. I liked your reply, not because I agree, obviously being an atheist, but because of your clear honest reply.
Your reply made me want to ask a few additional questions mainly because I don't get a chance to ask these questions of people of these beliefs normally and I am interested:
a) I assume from your reply you would consider yourself an evangelical Christian? Is my assumption correct?
b) If you believe in Adam and Eve does that mean you don't believe in evolution? I believe there are some Christians who believe in Evolution for all living things except humans. Are you in that category? If you are in that category what are your views on the other human species and that science has determined that Neanderthal DNA exists in most Homo Sapiens?
c) Do you believe the Old Testament in its entirety?
d) What are your views on where science contradicts traditional teachings eg age of the earth. The only justification I have heard is that God created the earth like this. Eg Argon Potassium dating which shows rocks to be million of years old is also a creation of God.
a) No, I am a traditional BCP Church of England Anglican, I just happen to believe in the Bible too. However the C of E is a broad church including evangelicals and liberals.
b) I don't disbelieve in evolution, in my view that is not incompatible with the story of Adam and Eve which for me is more about when sin entered the world than when humanity emerged.
c) I believe in the Old Testament and the New Testament, it is belief in the latter too that makes me Christian not Jewish.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
If you think that £96bn is going to get spent then I have a bridge (which won't get built) to sell you.
Between Scotland and Antrim?
I would rather think, the one with the nice flowers on it.
"That Johnson has managed to turn essentially all of his MPs against him, by ordering everybody to go along with an act of egregious corruption, and then having done it, going back on it, humiliating and enraging both sides in equal measure, is as close to a piece of political performance art as you are ever likely to see."
Fair play to @Tissue_Price and the 12? other con mps who voted against.
Brave chap. He made the right call when it mattered.
If this "fourth wave" does not hit England then one has to say that the CMO and Javid and Johnson got this right with the summer exit wave policy.
We will know in, what, five or six weeks?
By my reckoning we're already four months into our fourth wave in the UK.
Flatten the curve?
For all the huge rises across the continent (and actually large rises in Scotland and Wales), hasn’t the use of vaccine passports shown to be..well..pointless?
Interesting that Dominic Raab is saying that the amount MP's earn from outside interests could be a measure of whether its appropriate or not. Yesterday it was all about hours.... https://twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1461253665176571905
Surely it is hours that matter. Judging by money is just the politics of envy. I want to know my MP is doing his job not how much money he has.
Apart from the bit where money can corrupt people into having the wrong priorities. Did you forget that bit?
Nope I didn't. I was focused just on that specific point in response to the post I was replying to. I'm sure you have seen my posts over the last few weeks. As far as I am concerned the biggest issue for me is in fact the conflict of interest and generally I would like to see nearly all second jobs gone. However I am not going to complain about someone writing a book or a surgeon keeping his eye in who might do very few hours but earn quite a bit.
I am far more concerned about a director/consultant asking a question that helps his company who earns £5,000 from it than a surgeon who earns £10,000 for carrying out an operation, provided the surgeon doesn't abuse the time he spends doing operations.
So the measure for me is:
Is there a conflict of interest
If yes then it is barred regardless.
If no then how much time is spent doing this other activity
If too much than barred again
Otherwise ok. Money does not come into it.
Time spent on an activity is pretty hard to check. What if I'm an MP and I spend 20 hours in a month working on a side project, then declare that I did it in 5? How can anybody know I'm lying?
I'm getting very hawkish on 2nd jobs, even surgeons and lawyers "keeping their hand in". It's all very well to wave a scalpel of virtue over the conversation, but if an MP is doing boob jobs for a private clinic and then voting on legislation about plastic surgery then the fact that she's a surgeon keeping her hand in doesn't appear anywhere near as virtuous any more. I'm happy to bite the bullet and say they have to choose between them if their professional body requires a certain level of activity to maintain their license. If we lose a few MPs to the bar or a few lawyers to Parliament, so be it.
Leeds is the tenth largest city in the UK. Lille is the tenth largest city in France. Even from London, I can take a train to Lille that travels at an average speed of 127mph. I can take a train to Leeds that averages 85mph. Transport connections in this country are a joke, and the Tories have just gutted the only serious attempt in my lifetime to improve them. Levelling Up? A joke.
Ummm...
From a geographical point of view, Lille is not exactly a typical French city - it lies at the nexus of London - Paris - Brussels.
If it wasn't on the route between three of Europe's capitals, it's train service would be a lot less impressive.
From London, yes, but most French population centres are connected by high speed rail. Can you point me to a French city of equivalent size to Leeds that has worse rail connectivity than Leeds does?
The French have never really properly upgraded the Cote d'Azur beyond Marseilles, so how about Nice?
Eh?? Is there more than one Nice? The one I know has got TGV. Has had for years. And look at the train services - even Москва.
Consider how much time PB, and the media likewise, talks about trains compared with talking about road travel and especially bus travel.
Trains are a middle class obsession - if people want to see a true levelling up then more attention needs paying to and more money needs investing in roads and especially buses.
Great! Are your government taking the money saved to invest in northern roads or buses?
No.
So your point is...?
Is your opposition raising bus travel? No.
I remember when the previous leader of the Labour Party got a lot of stick for asking about buses at PMQs.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
Those city centre motorways in Leeds are horrendous to navigate if you don't know them. Slip roads suddenly appearing in tunnels, multiple roads exiting at once, and every road seems to be the A61 or the A58 no matter which direction it's going in. Some horrific post war planning decisions taken in Leeds and elsewhere. The privatised public transport is awful there too - unreliable and super expensive compared to London. We have to drive up there every time we visit family because otherwise we'd not be able to get anywhere at all. As a Londoner by adoption but Scot/Northerner by birth and upbringing, people outside the capital are absolutely right that they get a raw deal infrastructure-wise. This latest shameful fiasco is just the latest example.
Could be worse - the Newcastle inner motorway was designed by a German so has a junction on the right rather than the left.
I generally steer clear of being judgmental about parenting, but this takes the piss.
We had an experience with this recently. The Little 'un has a schoolfriend whose mum is (in our view) struggling. He apparently only eats potato waffles and chicken dippers. Every day. No food intolerances, just fussy. So when he's been around to ours, that's what we cook.
I'm not particularly happy with the little 'un eating just that, so I always cook more: fish fingers, peas, green beans etc, and let the boys tuck in. I scoff whatever they don't eat.
The last couple of visits, the friend has eaten more of the stuff, including, to his mum's amazement, melon.
It's so easy to get stuck in a rut with kids. We were with the little 'un for a while; but from what we've seen, other parents have it *much* worse.
In my experience the problem starts with health visitors, and the anxiety they create over babies maintaining even and steady weight gain. This creates a fear which combines with a generalised fear of social services that you, as a parent, will get into trouble if your child doesn't put on weight.
So a desperation is created that the child will eat at every meal, and if there is any hesitancy about any particular food a great deal of anxiety is triggered and the child is provided with whatever it takes that they will eat, and they will be unconsciously encouraged to avoid novel foods because of the parental anxiety around them.
Reduce the stress and a child's natural curiosity will see them want to try different foods in their own time.
Morning all. Anasthesia is very weird. You might feel a little sleepy, says the nurse, and the next thing you know it’s a couple of hours later and you feel like a bottle of whisky disappeared last night!
Welcome back, Sandpit - sounds promising despite the surreal aspect!
Last time I went under the knife (patella tendon reattachment), the anesthetist used a lot of the good stuff. I was flying when I came round - felt amazing. Bit more painful when it wore off though...
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
Those city centre motorways in Leeds are horrendous to navigate if you don't know them. Slip roads suddenly appearing in tunnels, multiple roads exiting at once, and every road seems to be the A61 or the A58 no matter which direction it's going in. Some horrific post war planning decisions taken in Leeds and elsewhere. The privatised public transport is awful there too - unreliable and super expensive compared to London. We have to drive up there every time we visit family because otherwise we'd not be able to get anywhere at all. As a Londoner by adoption but Scot/Northerner by birth and upbringing, people outside the capital are absolutely right that they get a raw deal infrastructure-wise. This latest shameful fiasco is just the latest example.
As bad as Leeds is, the A38(M) that goes through Birmingham is even worse.
For my proposed parallel M62 I don't precisely mean the route of the A580 as a basis since the A580 itself of course also goes to Manchester, which is part of the problem. All roads in the North seem to end up in Manchester even if you're not bloody trying to get to Manchester, which causes tremendous congestion there as people drive through Manchester who aren't even trying to get there.
My first suggestion would be a motorway on a similar route to the A580 from Liverpool to Leigh, then going on to Bolton and following a similar route to the A58 until you're past Rochdale.
That would seriously improve capacity and commuting times between those towns and cities and ensure that cars not actually going into Manchester would no longer be on the M60.
Interesting that Dominic Raab is saying that the amount MP's earn from outside interests could be a measure of whether its appropriate or not. Yesterday it was all about hours.... https://twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1461253665176571905
Surely it is hours that matter. Judging by money is just the politics of envy. I want to know my MP is doing his job not how much money he has.
Apart from the bit where money can corrupt people into having the wrong priorities. Did you forget that bit?
Nope I didn't. I was focused just on that specific point in response to the post I was replying to. I'm sure you have seen my posts over the last few weeks. As far as I am concerned the biggest issue for me is in fact the conflict of interest and generally I would like to see nearly all second jobs gone. However I am not going to complain about someone writing a book or a surgeon keeping his eye in who might do very few hours but earn quite a bit.
I am far more concerned about a director/consultant asking a question that helps his company who earns £5,000 from it than a surgeon who earns £10,000 for carrying out an operation, provided the surgeon doesn't abuse the time he spends doing operations.
So the measure for me is:
Is there a conflict of interest
If yes then it is barred regardless.
If no then how much time is spent doing this other activity
If too much than barred again
Otherwise ok. Money does not come into it.
Time spent on an activity is pretty hard to check. What if I'm an MP and I spend 20 hours in a month working on a side project, then declare that I did it in 5? How can anybody know I'm lying?
I'm getting very hawkish on 2nd jobs, even surgeons and lawyers "keeping their hand in". It's all very well to wave a scalpel of virtue over the conversation, but if an MP is doing boob jobs for a private clinic and then voting on legislation about plastic surgery then the fact that she's a surgeon keeping her hand in doesn't appear anywhere near as virtuous any more. I'm happy to bite the bullet and say they have to choose between them if their professional body requires a certain level of activity to maintain their license. If we lose a few MPs to the bar or a few lawyers to Parliament, so be it.
How do you have an Attorney General if you don't have lawyers in Parliament to select one from?
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
Newcastle also
Yet Manors car park is never full and it is five minutes off the Tyne Bridge. Always use it.
Drive in from the Coast Road and Newcastle brags of 10,000 parking spaces.
It is all stick no carrot with Newcastle-Gateshead, especially closing Askew Road to the Tyne Bridge and routing traffic up through Gateshead. They need a good Park and Ride like they have in York and even, dare I say, Durham.
Manors now closes to 6pm every day of the week. I can see it being bulldozed before too long.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
If you think that £96bn is going to get spent then I have a bridge (which won't get built) to sell you.
Oh, it might get spent. Just on endless feasibility studies, public enquiries, appeals, economic cases... Might be a great time to be in transport consultancy in the north
If the right people don’t have power, do you know what happens? The wrong people get it: politicians, councillors, ordinary voters!
"Wrong people" - The people in power as defined by the people out of power
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
Newcastle also
The golden age of "lets copy America". The planned motorway networks for Newcastle and Manchester were absolutely crazy. Even Halifax joined in - as crazy as its twin viaducts across the town are remember that an upper level was supposed to be added later on supports rising through the gap between the "lower" carriageways...
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
Those city centre motorways in Leeds are horrendous to navigate if you don't know them. Slip roads suddenly appearing in tunnels, multiple roads exiting at once, and every road seems to be the A61 or the A58 no matter which direction it's going in. Some horrific post war planning decisions taken in Leeds and elsewhere. The privatised public transport is awful there too - unreliable and super expensive compared to London. We have to drive up there every time we visit family because otherwise we'd not be able to get anywhere at all. As a Londoner by adoption but Scot/Northerner by birth and upbringing, people outside the capital are absolutely right that they get a raw deal infrastructure-wise. This latest shameful fiasco is just the latest example.
Could be worse - the Newcastle inner motorway was designed by a German so has a junction on the right rather than the left.
Coventry ring road takes the biscuit. Unlike every other road in the UK you are meant to stay right at all times, except when joining or exiting. Joining and exiting is fun. When I first lived there drove round it three times in one evening to get the hang of it.
Consider how much time PB, and the media likewise, talks about trains compared with talking about road travel and especially bus travel.
Trains are a middle class obsession - if people want to see a true levelling up then more attention needs paying to and more money needs investing in roads and especially buses.
Great! Are your government taking the money saved to invest in northern roads or buses?
No.
So your point is...?
They should be.
That they're not isn't good enough.
I don't think that either Richard or I are saying the government is doing a good job here. Things need to improve and looking at roads is the way to do it - but when will any party be courageous enough to do so?
Interesting that Dominic Raab is saying that the amount MP's earn from outside interests could be a measure of whether its appropriate or not. Yesterday it was all about hours.... https://twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1461253665176571905
Surely it is hours that matter. Judging by money is just the politics of envy. I want to know my MP is doing his job not how much money he has.
Apart from the bit where money can corrupt people into having the wrong priorities. Did you forget that bit?
Nope I didn't. I was focused just on that specific point in response to the post I was replying to. I'm sure you have seen my posts over the last few weeks. As far as I am concerned the biggest issue for me is in fact the conflict of interest and generally I would like to see nearly all second jobs gone. However I am not going to complain about someone writing a book or a surgeon keeping his eye in who might do very few hours but earn quite a bit.
I am far more concerned about a director/consultant asking a question that helps his company who earns £5,000 from it than a surgeon who earns £10,000 for carrying out an operation, provided the surgeon doesn't abuse the time he spends doing operations.
So the measure for me is:
Is there a conflict of interest
If yes then it is barred regardless.
If no then how much time is spent doing this other activity
If too much than barred again
Otherwise ok. Money does not come into it.
Time spent on an activity is pretty hard to check. What if I'm an MP and I spend 20 hours in a month working on a side project, then declare that I did it in 5? How can anybody know I'm lying?
I'm getting very hawkish on 2nd jobs, even surgeons and lawyers "keeping their hand in". It's all very well to wave a scalpel of virtue over the conversation, but if an MP is doing boob jobs for a private clinic and then voting on legislation about plastic surgery then the fact that she's a surgeon keeping her hand in doesn't appear anywhere near as virtuous any more. I'm happy to bite the bullet and say they have to choose between them if their professional body requires a certain level of activity to maintain their license. If we lose a few MPs to the bar or a few lawyers to Parliament, so be it.
How do you have an Attorney General if you don't have lawyers in Parliament to select one from?
Doesn't mean they have to be actually working as lawyers. Indeed, bit dodgy to have an AG actually acting as an advocate in court.
@HYUFD Off topic - Thank you for your reply yesterday to my questions. I liked your reply, not because I agree, obviously being an atheist, but because of your clear honest reply.
Your reply made me want to ask a few additional questions mainly because I don't get a chance to ask these questions of people of these beliefs normally and I am interested:
a) I assume from your reply you would consider yourself an evangelical Christian? Is my assumption correct?
b) If you believe in Adam and Eve does that mean you don't believe in evolution? I believe there are some Christians who believe in Evolution for all living things except humans. Are you in that category? If you are in that category what are your views on the other human species and that science has determined that Neanderthal DNA exists in most Homo Sapiens?
c) Do you believe the Old Testament in its entirety?
d) What are your views on where science contradicts traditional teachings eg age of the earth. The only justification I have heard is that God created the earth like this. Eg Argon Potassium dating which shows rocks to be million of years old is also a creation of God.
a) No, I am a traditional BCP Church of England Anglican, I just happen to believe in the Bible too. However the C of E is a broad church including evangelicals and liberals.
b) I don't disbelieve in evolution, in my view that is not compatible with the story of Adam and Eve which for me is more about when sin entered the world then when humanity emerged.
c) I believe in the Old Testament and the New Testament, it is belief in the latter too that makes me Christian not Jewish.
d) See b
Cheers HYUFD.
I assume you meant 'not incompatible'?
Interesting answers to b) and d). Thank you. I have not come across that answer before. Is that widely accepted by Christians? It is a neat answer.
I won't carry on asking questions here but if we meet I might like to ask you more, also I unfortunately don't have enough knowledge of the Old Testament to probe more.
Interesting that Dominic Raab is saying that the amount MP's earn from outside interests could be a measure of whether its appropriate or not. Yesterday it was all about hours.... https://twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1461253665176571905
Surely it is hours that matter. Judging by money is just the politics of envy. I want to know my MP is doing his job not how much money he has.
Oh I agree, but money is measurable, there will be a paper trail, hours worked, how would you know someone was working 20 hours a week on the second job rather than the 10 they declare?
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
Newcastle also
Yet Manors car park is never full and it is five minutes off the Tyne Bridge. Always use it.
Drive in from the Coast Road and Newcastle brags of 10,000 parking spaces.
It is all stick no carrot with Newcastle-Gateshead, especially closing Askew Road to the Tyne Bridge and routing traffic up through Gateshead. They need a good Park and Ride like they have in York and even, dare I say, Durham.
Manors now closes to 6pm every day of the week. I can see it being bulldozed before too long.
Wasn't half of Manors car park (and the old cinema) knocked down to allow Northumbria to expand, It's years since we've been that way as we always use Granger Town car park or Ricky Road unless going to the Cluny.
It doesn’t, everyone has known for the past 10 years what the route would be and bought accordingly with warnings.
My friend in Leeds knew before they bought their house in 2016 that HS2 would be running about 50m from their back garden..
This really is a complete own goal by Boris…
The decisions are stupid. Utterly utterly stupid. The attempt to spin it as delivery of the promise is frankly life-threatening to Boris's career.
Red wall voters are not stupid. They are now to be told that although the thing they were personally promised by the PM himself is not happening, enough bits are happening for you to have all the same benefits! Sheffield is still connected! There's still a time saving to Newcastle!
This has already gone down like the proverbial bucket of sick and it hasn't even yet been thrown. If Red Wall Tories turn out to try and spin this is a win they are finished. David Duguid tried yesterday to claim Tory credit for the cancellation of CCS in his constituency and was howled at by the SNP. Will the same but louder by Labour over this.
Red wall voters aren't stupid. The other thing red wall voters aren't mostly is rail commuters - they're car commuters.
It'd be great if we dropped London-obsessions about mass transit and invested better in roads instead or as well.
This leads to an interesting (to me, at least...) question; are successful metropolitan areas successful because of access to good mass transit? How much does mass transit act as a catalyst for the economic success of an area?
IMV: without mass transit, there is zero way London could be an economic success. It would just drown in cars. So how much are areas like Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh etc held back by *not* having brilliant mass transit?
(And London's mass transit is brilliant, however much regular uses may wish to complain about it.)
I think that's quite close to a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
Many successful metropolitan areas like for example Austin, Texas rely predominantly upon cars for transportation. According to Wikipedia's statistics there cars (inc. carpools) form 83.1% of transportation with transit being only 5%.
Whether you wish to rely upon mass transit or roads, either way you need the investment. Our lack of investment in roads to keep up with increasing populations is a terrible failing in this nation. We've had new rail links be opened or planned repeatedly in the past couple of decades but what new motorways have opened in the last couple of decades? What new motorways are planned?
I was wondering if anyone would mention the US. It's a different country, with many cities having been built around the car.
In 1900, the city of Austin had 22,258 people. In 2000, 656,562. In 1900, London had 5 million people. In 2000, 7.2 million.
Austin grew in the age of the car, and had room to expand outwards. How long that will continue, with it having grown by 300k between 2000 and 2020, is anyone's guess.
Would this be the same Austin that just voted in a ballot initiative to introduce a public underground system?
For my proposed parallel M62 I don't precisely mean the route of the A580 as a basis since the A580 itself of course also goes to Manchester, which is part of the problem. All roads in the North seem to end up in Manchester even if you're not bloody trying to get to Manchester, which causes tremendous congestion there as people drive through Manchester who aren't even trying to get there.
My first suggestion would be a motorway on a similar route to the A580 from Liverpool to Leigh, then going on to Bolton and following a similar route to the A58 until you're past Rochdale.
That would seriously improve capacity and commuting times between those towns and cities and ensure that cars not actually going into Manchester would no longer be on the M60.
Manchester was supposed to have an inner ring motorway and various arterial motorways which would have avoided todays problems (and created many more). The 90s solution was separate the M60 from the M62 with a new motorway from west of J12 to east of J18 with only a junction with the M61. Did egregious things to Whitefield so was canned.
You think Manchester is bad? Try driving anywhere in West Yorkshire.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
Newcastle also
The golden age of "lets copy America". The planned motorway networks for Newcastle and Manchester were absolutely crazy. Even Halifax joined in - as crazy as its twin viaducts across the town are remember that an upper level was supposed to be added later on supports rising through the gap between the "lower" carriageways...
One can still see the bits of the pedestrian walkway built to remove pedestrians completely from Princes Street in Edinburgh on the 1950s-60s shop facades.
The Lib Dem leaflet once again demonstrates that party's utter paucity of ideas. Whether simply attacking their opponents will be enough who knows.
It's a by-election when there's a government majority of 77. It doesn't help anyone to make the voters a bunch of promises about the next Liberal Democrat government.
Indeed were they to do so, I'm pretty sure malc would be accusing them of ridiculous hubris.
Interesting that Dominic Raab is saying that the amount MP's earn from outside interests could be a measure of whether its appropriate or not. Yesterday it was all about hours.... https://twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1461253665176571905
Surely it is hours that matter. Judging by money is just the politics of envy. I want to know my MP is doing his job not how much money he has.
Apart from the bit where money can corrupt people into having the wrong priorities. Did you forget that bit?
Nope I didn't. I was focused just on that specific point in response to the post I was replying to. I'm sure you have seen my posts over the last few weeks. As far as I am concerned the biggest issue for me is in fact the conflict of interest and generally I would like to see nearly all second jobs gone. However I am not going to complain about someone writing a book or a surgeon keeping his eye in who might do very few hours but earn quite a bit.
I am far more concerned about a director/consultant asking a question that helps his company who earns £5,000 from it than a surgeon who earns £10,000 for carrying out an operation, provided the surgeon doesn't abuse the time he spends doing operations.
So the measure for me is:
Is there a conflict of interest
If yes then it is barred regardless.
If no then how much time is spent doing this other activity
If too much than barred again
Otherwise ok. Money does not come into it.
Time spent on an activity is pretty hard to check. What if I'm an MP and I spend 20 hours in a month working on a side project, then declare that I did it in 5? How can anybody know I'm lying?
I'm getting very hawkish on 2nd jobs, even surgeons and lawyers "keeping their hand in". It's all very well to wave a scalpel of virtue over the conversation, but if an MP is doing boob jobs for a private clinic and then voting on legislation about plastic surgery then the fact that she's a surgeon keeping her hand in doesn't appear anywhere near as virtuous any more. I'm happy to bite the bullet and say they have to choose between them if their professional body requires a certain level of activity to maintain their license. If we lose a few MPs to the bar or a few lawyers to Parliament, so be it.
How do you have an Attorney General if you don't have lawyers in Parliament to select one from?
Doesn't mean they have to be actually working as lawyers. Indeed, bit dodgy to have an AG actually acting as an advocate in court.
The AG doesn't do external work when he is the AG. but you can't have a non lawyer doing that job, the amount of knowledge required would require years of training before you could appoint someone.
It's not the straightforward decision making rule other ministerial positions are.
Consider how much time PB, and the media likewise, talks about trains compared with talking about road travel and especially bus travel.
Trains are a middle class obsession - if people want to see a true levelling up then more attention needs paying to and more money needs investing in roads and especially buses.
The point is that clear promises were made. And those promises have been broken.
So why should anyone believe anything they say about anything else?
Since when did anyone believe anything any government promised ?
And you're assuming everyone is disappointed, whereas many are delighted:
Interesting that Dominic Raab is saying that the amount MP's earn from outside interests could be a measure of whether its appropriate or not. Yesterday it was all about hours.... https://twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1461253665176571905
Surely it is hours that matter. Judging by money is just the politics of envy. I want to know my MP is doing his job not how much money he has.
Apart from the bit where money can corrupt people into having the wrong priorities. Did you forget that bit?
Nope I didn't. I was focused just on that specific point in response to the post I was replying to. I'm sure you have seen my posts over the last few weeks. As far as I am concerned the biggest issue for me is in fact the conflict of interest and generally I would like to see nearly all second jobs gone. However I am not going to complain about someone writing a book or a surgeon keeping his eye in who might do very few hours but earn quite a bit.
I am far more concerned about a director/consultant asking a question that helps his company who earns £5,000 from it than a surgeon who earns £10,000 for carrying out an operation, provided the surgeon doesn't abuse the time he spends doing operations.
So the measure for me is:
Is there a conflict of interest
If yes then it is barred regardless.
If no then how much time is spent doing this other activity
If too much than barred again
Otherwise ok. Money does not come into it.
Time spent on an activity is pretty hard to check. What if I'm an MP and I spend 20 hours in a month working on a side project, then declare that I did it in 5? How can anybody know I'm lying?
I'm getting very hawkish on 2nd jobs, even surgeons and lawyers "keeping their hand in". It's all very well to wave a scalpel of virtue over the conversation, but if an MP is doing boob jobs for a private clinic and then voting on legislation about plastic surgery then the fact that she's a surgeon keeping her hand in doesn't appear anywhere near as virtuous any more. I'm happy to bite the bullet and say they have to choose between them if their professional body requires a certain level of activity to maintain their license. If we lose a few MPs to the bar or a few lawyers to Parliament, so be it.
How do you have an Attorney General if you don't have lawyers in Parliament to select one from?
Do what Blair did.
His first AG (for two years) was an MP was nearly 70 years old and for the rest of Labour's tenure in government Labour's AG came from the Lords.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
I am sorry but I have no recall of ramping up city centre car usage as I simply have not thought it feasible
I would never take my car into a city centre to be fair
Interesting that Dominic Raab is saying that the amount MP's earn from outside interests could be a measure of whether its appropriate or not. Yesterday it was all about hours.... https://twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1461253665176571905
Surely it is hours that matter. Judging by money is just the politics of envy. I want to know my MP is doing his job not how much money he has.
Apart from the bit where money can corrupt people into having the wrong priorities. Did you forget that bit?
Nope I didn't. I was focused just on that specific point in response to the post I was replying to. I'm sure you have seen my posts over the last few weeks. As far as I am concerned the biggest issue for me is in fact the conflict of interest and generally I would like to see nearly all second jobs gone. However I am not going to complain about someone writing a book or a surgeon keeping his eye in who might do very few hours but earn quite a bit.
I am far more concerned about a director/consultant asking a question that helps his company who earns £5,000 from it than a surgeon who earns £10,000 for carrying out an operation, provided the surgeon doesn't abuse the time he spends doing operations.
So the measure for me is:
Is there a conflict of interest
If yes then it is barred regardless.
If no then how much time is spent doing this other activity
If too much than barred again
Otherwise ok. Money does not come into it.
Time spent on an activity is pretty hard to check. What if I'm an MP and I spend 20 hours in a month working on a side project, then declare that I did it in 5? How can anybody know I'm lying?
I'm getting very hawkish on 2nd jobs, even surgeons and lawyers "keeping their hand in". It's all very well to wave a scalpel of virtue over the conversation, but if an MP is doing boob jobs for a private clinic and then voting on legislation about plastic surgery then the fact that she's a surgeon keeping her hand in doesn't appear anywhere near as virtuous any more. I'm happy to bite the bullet and say they have to choose between them if their professional body requires a certain level of activity to maintain their license. If we lose a few MPs to the bar or a few lawyers to Parliament, so be it.
How do you have an Attorney General if you don't have lawyers in Parliament to select one from?
Doesn't mean they have to be actually working as lawyers. Indeed, bit dodgy to have an AG actually acting as an advocate in court.
Well the AG does act as an advocate in court, but only for the government (and possibly for the crown).
The rules doesn't permit them to act as an advocate for anyone else whilst they are AG.
For my proposed parallel M62 I don't precisely mean the route of the A580 as a basis since the A580 itself of course also goes to Manchester, which is part of the problem. All roads in the North seem to end up in Manchester even if you're not bloody trying to get to Manchester, which causes tremendous congestion there as people drive through Manchester who aren't even trying to get there.
My first suggestion would be a motorway on a similar route to the A580 from Liverpool to Leigh, then going on to Bolton and following a similar route to the A58 until you're past Rochdale.
That would seriously improve capacity and commuting times between those towns and cities and ensure that cars not actually going into Manchester would no longer be on the M60.
Manchester was supposed to have an inner ring motorway and various arterial motorways which would have avoided todays problems (and created many more). The 90s solution was separate the M60 from the M62 with a new motorway from west of J12 to east of J18 with only a junction with the M61. Did egregious things to Whitefield so was canned.
You think Manchester is bad? Try driving anywhere in West Yorkshire.
Absolutely the M60 and the M62 should be separated and it sounds like that proposal is a similar one to mine and its a shame it was never built. A junction with the M61 is a good idea too, connects that route with more places like Preston etc and relieves congestion on the M6 too. Though on my proposed route of course I would have a junction connecting it with the M6 when it intersects there too, would relieve congestion in Warrington as people change from the M62 to the M6 and vice-versa.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
I am sorry but I have no recall of ramping up city centre car usage as I simply have not thought it feasible
I would never take my car into a city centre to be fair
Maybe it is another poster you have in mind
I'm talking about one of the feasibility studies the government is looking into and you have assumed will be approved as part of the £96 billion you think will be spent.
Interesting that Dominic Raab is saying that the amount MP's earn from outside interests could be a measure of whether its appropriate or not. Yesterday it was all about hours.... https://twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1461253665176571905
Surely it is hours that matter. Judging by money is just the politics of envy. I want to know my MP is doing his job not how much money he has.
Apart from the bit where money can corrupt people into having the wrong priorities. Did you forget that bit?
Nope I didn't. I was focused just on that specific point in response to the post I was replying to. I'm sure you have seen my posts over the last few weeks. As far as I am concerned the biggest issue for me is in fact the conflict of interest and generally I would like to see nearly all second jobs gone. However I am not going to complain about someone writing a book or a surgeon keeping his eye in who might do very few hours but earn quite a bit.
I am far more concerned about a director/consultant asking a question that helps his company who earns £5,000 from it than a surgeon who earns £10,000 for carrying out an operation, provided the surgeon doesn't abuse the time he spends doing operations.
So the measure for me is:
Is there a conflict of interest
If yes then it is barred regardless.
If no then how much time is spent doing this other activity
If too much than barred again
Otherwise ok. Money does not come into it.
Time spent on an activity is pretty hard to check. What if I'm an MP and I spend 20 hours in a month working on a side project, then declare that I did it in 5? How can anybody know I'm lying?
I'm getting very hawkish on 2nd jobs, even surgeons and lawyers "keeping their hand in". It's all very well to wave a scalpel of virtue over the conversation, but if an MP is doing boob jobs for a private clinic and then voting on legislation about plastic surgery then the fact that she's a surgeon keeping her hand in doesn't appear anywhere near as virtuous any more. I'm happy to bite the bullet and say they have to choose between them if their professional body requires a certain level of activity to maintain their license. If we lose a few MPs to the bar or a few lawyers to Parliament, so be it.
How do you have an Attorney General if you don't have lawyers in Parliament to select one from?
Interesting that Dominic Raab is saying that the amount MP's earn from outside interests could be a measure of whether its appropriate or not. Yesterday it was all about hours.... https://twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1461253665176571905
Surely it is hours that matter. Judging by money is just the politics of envy. I want to know my MP is doing his job not how much money he has.
Apart from the bit where money can corrupt people into having the wrong priorities. Did you forget that bit?
Nope I didn't. I was focused just on that specific point in response to the post I was replying to. I'm sure you have seen my posts over the last few weeks. As far as I am concerned the biggest issue for me is in fact the conflict of interest and generally I would like to see nearly all second jobs gone. However I am not going to complain about someone writing a book or a surgeon keeping his eye in who might do very few hours but earn quite a bit.
I am far more concerned about a director/consultant asking a question that helps his company who earns £5,000 from it than a surgeon who earns £10,000 for carrying out an operation, provided the surgeon doesn't abuse the time he spends doing operations.
So the measure for me is:
Is there a conflict of interest
If yes then it is barred regardless.
If no then how much time is spent doing this other activity
If too much than barred again
Otherwise ok. Money does not come into it.
Time spent on an activity is pretty hard to check. What if I'm an MP and I spend 20 hours in a month working on a side project, then declare that I did it in 5? How can anybody know I'm lying?
I'm getting very hawkish on 2nd jobs, even surgeons and lawyers "keeping their hand in". It's all very well to wave a scalpel of virtue over the conversation, but if an MP is doing boob jobs for a private clinic and then voting on legislation about plastic surgery then the fact that she's a surgeon keeping her hand in doesn't appear anywhere near as virtuous any more. I'm happy to bite the bullet and say they have to choose between them if their professional body requires a certain level of activity to maintain their license. If we lose a few MPs to the bar or a few lawyers to Parliament, so be it.
How do you have an Attorney General if you don't have lawyers in Parliament to select one from?
Simply select the best one for the job whether they are in parliament or not? Imagine the outcry from certain quarters if the rules were simply we had to alternate between male and female AGs.....it would be a disaster as the best person might not get it if not open equally to all. Yet the same people are quite content to select the AG from a tiny sample of lawyer MPs.
The whole role of AG is not working anyway, they are not holding the government to act within the law, but finding excuses for them to avoid doing so.
I remember reading that Leeds was the fourth biggest city in England (behind London, Birmingham, and Manchester). I can't see it being down in tenth.
Nope. That’s only using local authority borders (under which it would be bigger than Manchester, farcically). In real-world metro terms it’s still big but not that big!
Interesting that Dominic Raab is saying that the amount MP's earn from outside interests could be a measure of whether its appropriate or not. Yesterday it was all about hours.... https://twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1461253665176571905
Surely it is hours that matter. Judging by money is just the politics of envy. I want to know my MP is doing his job not how much money he has.
Apart from the bit where money can corrupt people into having the wrong priorities. Did you forget that bit?
Nope I didn't. I was focused just on that specific point in response to the post I was replying to. I'm sure you have seen my posts over the last few weeks. As far as I am concerned the biggest issue for me is in fact the conflict of interest and generally I would like to see nearly all second jobs gone. However I am not going to complain about someone writing a book or a surgeon keeping his eye in who might do very few hours but earn quite a bit.
I am far more concerned about a director/consultant asking a question that helps his company who earns £5,000 from it than a surgeon who earns £10,000 for carrying out an operation, provided the surgeon doesn't abuse the time he spends doing operations.
So the measure for me is:
Is there a conflict of interest
If yes then it is barred regardless.
If no then how much time is spent doing this other activity
If too much than barred again
Otherwise ok. Money does not come into it.
Time spent on an activity is pretty hard to check. What if I'm an MP and I spend 20 hours in a month working on a side project, then declare that I did it in 5? How can anybody know I'm lying?
I'm getting very hawkish on 2nd jobs, even surgeons and lawyers "keeping their hand in". It's all very well to wave a scalpel of virtue over the conversation, but if an MP is doing boob jobs for a private clinic and then voting on legislation about plastic surgery then the fact that she's a surgeon keeping her hand in doesn't appear anywhere near as virtuous any more. I'm happy to bite the bullet and say they have to choose between them if their professional body requires a certain level of activity to maintain their license. If we lose a few MPs to the bar or a few lawyers to Parliament, so be it.
How do you have an Attorney General if you don't have lawyers in Parliament to select one from?
Doesn't mean they have to be actually working as lawyers. Indeed, bit dodgy to have an AG actually acting as an advocate in court.
The AG doesn't do external work when he is the AG. but you can't have a non lawyer doing that job, the amount of knowledge required would require years of training before you could appoint someone.
It's not the straightforward decision making rule other ministerial positions are.
Any lawyer going into Pmt is, or should be, giving up that job to a considerable degree. So the selection is going to be limited in that sense. As TSE pointed out a peerage sorts the problem of choosing from MPs.
Leeds is the tenth largest city in the UK. Lille is the tenth largest city in France. Even from London, I can take a train to Lille that travels at an average speed of 127mph. I can take a train to Leeds that averages 85mph. Transport connections in this country are a joke, and the Tories have just gutted the only serious attempt in my lifetime to improve them. Levelling Up? A joke.
Ummm...
From a geographical point of view, Lille is not exactly a typical French city - it lies at the nexus of London - Paris - Brussels.
If it wasn't on the route between three of Europe's capitals, it's train service would be a lot less impressive.
Lots of HS plus a bridge to Ireland and, hey presto, at the nexus of London - Edinburgh - Belfast!
Interesting that Dominic Raab is saying that the amount MP's earn from outside interests could be a measure of whether its appropriate or not. Yesterday it was all about hours.... https://twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1461253665176571905
Surely it is hours that matter. Judging by money is just the politics of envy. I want to know my MP is doing his job not how much money he has.
Apart from the bit where money can corrupt people into having the wrong priorities. Did you forget that bit?
Nope I didn't. I was focused just on that specific point in response to the post I was replying to. I'm sure you have seen my posts over the last few weeks. As far as I am concerned the biggest issue for me is in fact the conflict of interest and generally I would like to see nearly all second jobs gone. However I am not going to complain about someone writing a book or a surgeon keeping his eye in who might do very few hours but earn quite a bit.
I am far more concerned about a director/consultant asking a question that helps his company who earns £5,000 from it than a surgeon who earns £10,000 for carrying out an operation, provided the surgeon doesn't abuse the time he spends doing operations.
So the measure for me is:
Is there a conflict of interest
If yes then it is barred regardless.
If no then how much time is spent doing this other activity
If too much than barred again
Otherwise ok. Money does not come into it.
Time spent on an activity is pretty hard to check. What if I'm an MP and I spend 20 hours in a month working on a side project, then declare that I did it in 5? How can anybody know I'm lying?
I'm getting very hawkish on 2nd jobs, even surgeons and lawyers "keeping their hand in". It's all very well to wave a scalpel of virtue over the conversation, but if an MP is doing boob jobs for a private clinic and then voting on legislation about plastic surgery then the fact that she's a surgeon keeping her hand in doesn't appear anywhere near as virtuous any more. I'm happy to bite the bullet and say they have to choose between them if their professional body requires a certain level of activity to maintain their license. If we lose a few MPs to the bar or a few lawyers to Parliament, so be it.
I think I agree. There's no logic to how the genuine scandal of Boris Johnson trying to ditch safeguards against corruption so as to facilitate corruption has morphed into a moral panic about MPs 2nd jobs. But given it has, and given there is an issue here, let's grasp the nettle and go for the clear and simple option. No 2nd paid jobs apart from those that are clearly in public service, eg being a government minister.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
Newcastle also
Yet Manors car park is never full and it is five minutes off the Tyne Bridge. Always use it.
Drive in from the Coast Road and Newcastle brags of 10,000 parking spaces.
It is all stick no carrot with Newcastle-Gateshead, especially closing Askew Road to the Tyne Bridge and routing traffic up through Gateshead. They need a good Park and Ride like they have in York and even, dare I say, Durham.
Manors now closes to 6pm every day of the week. I can see it being bulldozed before too long.
Probably because people never use it. However it is there and is available and is pretty large. You say there is little space for cars to park but there are 10,000 spaces in Newcastle.
It may get more use once the Council stop allowing free evening parking inside the "congestion zone" as long as the council open it, which NE1 seemed to think they would.
Leeds is the tenth largest city in the UK. Lille is the tenth largest city in France. Even from London, I can take a train to Lille that travels at an average speed of 127mph. I can take a train to Leeds that averages 85mph. Transport connections in this country are a joke, and the Tories have just gutted the only serious attempt in my lifetime to improve them. Levelling Up? A joke.
Ummm...
From a geographical point of view, Lille is not exactly a typical French city - it lies at the nexus of London - Paris - Brussels.
If it wasn't on the route between three of Europe's capitals, it's train service would be a lot less impressive.
From London, yes, but most French population centres are connected by high speed rail. Can you point me to a French city of equivalent size to Leeds that has worse rail connectivity than Leeds does?
The French have never really properly upgraded the Cote d'Azur beyond Marseilles, so how about Nice?
Eh?? Is there more than one Nice? The one I know has got TGV. Has had for years. And look at the train services - even Москва.
6h12m from Paris, 558 miles at 90mph average speed by TGV. In the UK we have Inverness at an equivalent distance from the capital, 567 miles from London, 8h12m at 69mph.
Just to disagree with posts from RCS100 from previous days:
RCS claimed that western Germany has similar vaccination rates to the UK. This isn't really true. https://impfdashboard.de/ gives the figure of 78.4% of people in Germany 18+ years old fully vaccinated.
So there is a much larger percentage of unvaccinated adults (18+) in Germany (maybe roughly twice as large, I saw figures showing 90+% adults vaccinated in the UK).
Additionally Germany has only 85.7% over 60s fully vaccinated - so a lot more unvaccinated older people. Germany also has a slightly older population which makes things worse.
But is this just a problem in east Germany? For sure it's a LOT worse in Saxony, but the overall vaccination figures for West Germany are only roughly a percentage point higher than the German average. This is because east Germany (excluding Berlin which is a special case, and also has a vaccination rate slightly higher than the national average) is only 15% of the population, and because some of those east German states have vaccination rates close to the national average, so they are not pulling the average down by much.
So, no, vaccination rates among west German adults are not really similar to the UK.
As an aside RCS100 fudged things somewhat by making the "catholic" states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg a partial exception. Apart from the fact that these 2 states have nearly 40% of the population of the former western states (excluding Berlin again), I'm not sure that "catholic" is the important factor here. Baden-Württemberg has no more catholics than Rhineland-Palatinate or NRW, the Saarland has the highest percentage of catholics of any state in Germany, and yet the second-highest vaccination rate in the country (after Bremen, whose figures I am a bit suspicious of). Hessen has a low vaccination rate despite not having many catholics.
But it's true there is currently a bit of a north-south as well as a kind of east-west divide in how things are going.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
Those city centre motorways in Leeds are horrendous to navigate if you don't know them. Slip roads suddenly appearing in tunnels, multiple roads exiting at once, and every road seems to be the A61 or the A58 no matter which direction it's going in. Some horrific post war planning decisions taken in Leeds and elsewhere. The privatised public transport is awful there too - unreliable and super expensive compared to London. We have to drive up there every time we visit family because otherwise we'd not be able to get anywhere at all. As a Londoner by adoption but Scot/Northerner by birth and upbringing, people outside the capital are absolutely right that they get a raw deal infrastructure-wise. This latest shameful fiasco is just the latest example.
Could be worse - the Newcastle inner motorway was designed by a German so has a junction on the right rather than the left.
The Tokyo highways merge and join from wherever they could find space, the junctions do or don't work in various directions at random, the road markings are kind of unhelpful and Google Maps is totally shit. I used to find them totally baffling until I discovered this PDF, which to my knowledge is the world's best PDF: https://www.shutoko.jp/-/media/pdf/customer/use/network/navimap/211001/map_all.pdf
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
I am sorry but I have no recall of ramping up city centre car usage as I simply have not thought it feasible
I would never take my car into a city centre to be fair
Maybe it is another poster you have in mind
I'm talking about one of the feasibility studies the government is looking into and you have assumed will be approved as part of the £96 billion you think will be spent.
How much of the £96 bn is within this parliament? Or is it like social care where the money is negligible for this parliament and kicked into the next parliament, which is not bound by whatever BJ says (to be honest clearly neither is he).
The government's other masterstroke is that the sleaze/second jobs issue is now pre-scheduled to return to the headlines in January/February.
How come, please?
Because the Tory motion passed yesterday asks the committee to come back with proposals then, and the committee has already asked for (and is likely to be granted) time for a parliamentary debate on them. The committee may well come back with proposals close to Labour's ideas, given that Bryant is the chair, or alternatively it surely won't be that difficult for the opposition to find reasons why the Tory proposals "don't go far enough"
Leeds is the tenth largest city in the UK. Lille is the tenth largest city in France. Even from London, I can take a train to Lille that travels at an average speed of 127mph. I can take a train to Leeds that averages 85mph. Transport connections in this country are a joke, and the Tories have just gutted the only serious attempt in my lifetime to improve them. Levelling Up? A joke.
Ummm...
From a geographical point of view, Lille is not exactly a typical French city - it lies at the nexus of London - Paris - Brussels.
If it wasn't on the route between three of Europe's capitals, it's train service would be a lot less impressive.
The government's other masterstroke is that the sleaze/second jobs issue is now pre-scheduled to return to the headlines in January/February.
How come, please?
Because the Tory motion passed yesterday asks the committee to come back with proposals then, and the committee has already asked for (and is likely to be granted) time for a parliamentary debate on them. The committee may well come back with proposals close to Labour's ideas, given that Bryant is the chair, or alternatively it surely won't be that difficult for the opposition to find reasons why the Tory proposals "don't go far enough"
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
I am sorry but I have no recall of ramping up city centre car usage as I simply have not thought it feasible
I would never take my car into a city centre to be fair
Maybe it is another poster you have in mind
I'm talking about one of the feasibility studies the government is looking into and you have assumed will be approved as part of the £96 billion you think will be spent.
How much of the £96 bn is within this parliament? Or is it like social care where the money is negligible for this parliament and kicked into the next parliament, which is not bound by whatever BJ says (to be honest clearly neither is he).
Wait until the press see the new Social care proposals that were quietly announced yesterday - few people have mentioned them yet as the devil (and giant monsters) are in the detail.
And those giant monsters are shall we say very regressive in some circumstances.
This last two weeks has been a self inflicted own goal by Boris which has damaged him and his government
This forum has been an open season on everything about Boris and it does seem dominated by his political opponents and at times it is difficult to consider anything on its merit with so much antagonism
However, I am going to say that on the cancellation of HS2E and HS3 I think it is very much the correct decision despite the fury coming from labour mayor's, politicians and others
These projects would involve upto 20 years of disruption before one train had passed over them, and cost billions including apparently 40 billion alone to tunnel under the Pennines, whereas the monies saved can be directed to quicker more local transport improvements
I did read that a conservative mp in the area has welcomed the change of direction as he said his constituents would have had years of construction work only to see HST spending through
It is unquestionably a controversial decision, and of course Boris's self inflicted reputation of being untrustworthy does not help, but he does seem willing to take the hit and to me it is the right decision
So what if it takes years to build? Most of our rail network was built in the 1840s and we're still benefiting from it almost 200 years later. Where is the ambition or the foresightedness? Is this what happens when a party gets most of its votes from the elderly?
The money (£96 billion) is still being invested in rail and transport in the north
No it isn't.
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
And the projects just aren't feasible - they will discover that the work and closures required render the work economically unviable.
I know one of the projects that BigG has been hyping up won't work.
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
I am sorry but I have no recall of ramping up city centre car usage as I simply have not thought it feasible
I would never take my car into a city centre to be fair
Maybe it is another poster you have in mind
I'm talking about one of the feasibility studies the government is looking into and you have assumed will be approved as part of the £96 billion you think will be spent.
I just cannot see how driving a car into the city centre is sensible
Interesting that Dominic Raab is saying that the amount MP's earn from outside interests could be a measure of whether its appropriate or not. Yesterday it was all about hours.... https://twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1461253665176571905
Surely it is hours that matter. Judging by money is just the politics of envy. I want to know my MP is doing his job not how much money he has.
Apart from the bit where money can corrupt people into having the wrong priorities. Did you forget that bit?
Nope I didn't. I was focused just on that specific point in response to the post I was replying to. I'm sure you have seen my posts over the last few weeks. As far as I am concerned the biggest issue for me is in fact the conflict of interest and generally I would like to see nearly all second jobs gone. However I am not going to complain about someone writing a book or a surgeon keeping his eye in who might do very few hours but earn quite a bit.
I am far more concerned about a director/consultant asking a question that helps his company who earns £5,000 from it than a surgeon who earns £10,000 for carrying out an operation, provided the surgeon doesn't abuse the time he spends doing operations.
So the measure for me is:
Is there a conflict of interest
If yes then it is barred regardless.
If no then how much time is spent doing this other activity
If too much than barred again
Otherwise ok. Money does not come into it.
Time spent on an activity is pretty hard to check. What if I'm an MP and I spend 20 hours in a month working on a side project, then declare that I did it in 5? How can anybody know I'm lying?
I'm getting very hawkish on 2nd jobs, even surgeons and lawyers "keeping their hand in". It's all very well to wave a scalpel of virtue over the conversation, but if an MP is doing boob jobs for a private clinic and then voting on legislation about plastic surgery then the fact that she's a surgeon keeping her hand in doesn't appear anywhere near as virtuous any more. I'm happy to bite the bullet and say they have to choose between them if their professional body requires a certain level of activity to maintain their license. If we lose a few MPs to the bar or a few lawyers to Parliament, so be it.
I think I agree. There's no logic to how the genuine scandal of Boris Johnson trying to ditch safeguards against corruption so as to facilitate corruption has morphed into a moral panic about MPs 2nd jobs. But given it has, and given there is an issue here, let's grasp the nettle and go for the clear and simple option. No 2nd paid jobs apart from those that are clearly in public service, eg being a government minister.
I see a problem with that. Williamson or Grayling being a government minister is most certainly not in the public interest. Actually, perhaps this could work, if it is enforced literally.....
Consider how much time PB, and the media likewise, talks about trains compared with talking about road travel and especially bus travel.
Trains are a middle class obsession - if people want to see a true levelling up then more attention needs paying to and more money needs investing in roads and especially buses.
Great! Are your government taking the money saved to invest in northern roads or buses?
No.
So your point is...?
My point is that the government should do so.
That it doesn't is a reason to criticise it.
Of course the people in government - both politicians and bureaucrats - are also middle class and so obsessed about trains.
Comments
But why aren't the road links getting a fraction of the media's attention that rail not planned to be built for decades anyway is getting?
To Raab: Boris previously said he can definitely confirm the Eastern rail link. Now he says there will be a feasibility study. Which is it?
Heck the biggest reason for HS2 was to avoid similar disasters in the future - initially by being a completely new line, and longer term because the extra capacity meant that future work would have diversions and capacity available to allow trains to continue running)
They are going to look at feasibility studies, I'm fairly certain that £96 billion will not be spent.
We need a sensible mix of transport modes. Cars have had too much emphasis for too long.
Tory MPs will not forget, nor will Northern voters.
Consider how much time PB, and the media likewise, talks about trains compared with talking about road travel and especially bus travel.
Trains are a middle class obsession - if people want to see a true levelling up then more attention needs paying to and more money needs investing in roads and especially buses.
Eventually she gave in and ate a range of things - but it was heart breaking for them for a while.
However I still support the cancellation of HS2E but we will have to see how this pans out politically in due course
Expanding car usage into city centres is a non starters in large parts of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds due to the burgeoning pedestrianisation of those cities.
It's bizarre, both Leeds and Manchester city centres have motorways running through them and very little space for those cars to be parked.
Siri, sum up the last few years in just 11 words.
(Does make him a bit of a pain at kids parties though, where it's not unusual to be chicken nuggets and chips. He's fine when there's pizza or veggie sticks too.)
We also had our difficulties with faddy eating (mostly just a declaration that "I don't like it", often before he knew what 'it' even was). Eventually realised that it was probably to get more attention when his sister started weaning and joined him at the table. After a fair bit of stress and strop we realised that keeping it very low key and refusing to argue ("fine, no problem, I'll have it", combined sometimes with taking the plate away and thus calling the bluff) was the best approach.
He’s a lay for next PM/Con leader at current odds, imo
In 1900, the city of Austin had 22,258 people. In 2000, 656,562.
In 1900, London had 5 million people. In 2000, 7.2 million.
Austin grew in the age of the car, and had room to expand outwards. How long that will continue, with it having grown by 300k between 2000 and 2020, is anyone's guess.
I am far more concerned about a director/consultant asking a question that helps his company who earns £5,000 from it than a surgeon who earns £10,000 for carrying out an operation, provided the surgeon doesn't abuse the time he spends doing operations.
So the measure for me is:
Is there a potential conflict of interest
If yes then it is barred regardless.
If no then how much time is spent doing this other activity
If too much than barred again
Otherwise ok. Money does not come into it.
So why should anyone believe anything they say about anything else?
Another problem is that Leeds really doesn't have any space for a metro - the only way to build one would have to be underground - otherwise it would make the Edinburgh tram look like a simple project.
If someone wants to drive from Liverpool (or Warrington, Widnes etc) to Leeds (or Huddersfield, Bradford etc) or vice-versa then they need to drive into Manchester and onto the M60 to do so. Why? They're not trying to get into Manchester! Going West to East (or vice versa) nobody should be on the M60 except those seeking to actually be in Manchester itself.
Building a new motorway along a sort of similar route to the East Lancs Road (A580) would serve as a good basis for a parallel M62. A new motorway connecting Liverpool, St Helens, Leigh, Bolton, Bury and Rochdale could then potentially join up with the M62 east of Manchester. That way traffic not seeking to go into Manchester, doesn't actually have to go into Manchester.
That would take traffic that doesn't need to be in Manchester off Manchester's roads, freeing up capacity in Manchester and it would also take traffic off the East Lancs Road etc freeing up congestion throughout that route.
One of the key reasons our EU experience failed was how WE spent our EU Social Fund money. No Milau Bridges for us, but plenty of cobblestones in Cemaes Bay (subsequently replaced by the utility companies with patchwork tarmac).
We don't do big infrastructure projects anymore, and it is not just the Conservatives. Southern M4 relief road project for Newport, canned.
"That Johnson has managed to turn essentially all of his MPs against him, by ordering everybody to go along with an act of egregious corruption, and then having done it, going back on it, humiliating and enraging both sides in equal measure, is as close to a piece of political performance art as you are ever likely to see."
Drive in from the Coast Road and Newcastle brags of 10,000 parking spaces.
It is all stick no carrot with Newcastle-Gateshead, especially closing Askew Road to the Tyne Bridge and routing traffic up through Gateshead. They need a good Park and Ride like they have in York and even, dare I say, Durham.
https://www.ft.com/content/1b32c2db-12de-41d8-89c0-8a454fec378a
And the proposed changes just don't make any sense to those who really understand Transport and those that understand bits by having an interest in it.
It's shown today by Boris continually talking about speed (interesting but not that important) and ignoring capacity and it's capacity that is important here. Add the capacity and you can then start improving local services but without that capacity the local services won't be available.
It's a local example but Darlington is getting a new £125m railway station. In theory it's because we need one. In reality it's to remove the need for Middlesbrough / Whitby trains from going near the ECML... That will allow 4-8 more trains an hour on the ECML and allow the hourly trains to Middlesbrough to be switched to every 15 minutes.
Public transport wasn't really an option.
I believe the Scots are working to 4-week 'months' - as good as lunar months - when counting the 6 months. Our booster jab a week and a bit back was as far as I could recall 24 weeks + 1 day since the second original jab. Organised to be at the same time as the flu jab. Easy to change bookings if needed online or on phone - onlu problem was finding a new slot because of very high uptake and turnout.
As a Londoner by adoption but Scot/Northerner by birth and upbringing, people outside the capital are absolutely right that they get a raw deal infrastructure-wise. This latest shameful fiasco is just the latest example.
No.
So your point is...?
b) I don't disbelieve in evolution, in my view that is not incompatible with the story of Adam and Eve which for me is more about when sin entered the world than when humanity emerged.
c) I believe in the Old Testament and the New Testament, it is belief in the latter too that makes me Christian not Jewish.
d) See b
Brave chap. He made the right call when it mattered.
I'm getting very hawkish on 2nd jobs, even surgeons and lawyers "keeping their hand in". It's all very well to wave a scalpel of virtue over the conversation, but if an MP is doing boob jobs for a private clinic and then voting on legislation about plastic surgery then the fact that she's a surgeon keeping her hand in doesn't appear anywhere near as virtuous any more. I'm happy to bite the bullet and say they have to choose between them if their professional body requires a certain level of activity to maintain their license. If we lose a few MPs to the bar or a few lawyers to Parliament, so be it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice-Ville_station
I remember when the previous leader of the Labour Party got a lot of stick for asking about buses at PMQs.
So a desperation is created that the child will eat at every meal, and if there is any hesitancy about any particular food a great deal of anxiety is triggered and the child is provided with whatever it takes that they will eat, and they will be unconsciously encouraged to avoid novel foods because of the parental anxiety around them.
Reduce the stress and a child's natural curiosity will see them want to try different foods in their own time.
My first suggestion would be a motorway on a similar route to the A580 from Liverpool to Leigh, then going on to Bolton and following a similar route to the A58 until you're past Rochdale.
That would seriously improve capacity and commuting times between those towns and cities and ensure that cars not actually going into Manchester would no longer be on the M60.
That they're not isn't good enough.
I don't think that either Richard or I are saying the government is doing a good job here. Things need to improve and looking at roads is the way to do it - but when will any party be courageous enough to do so?
I assume you meant 'not incompatible'?
Interesting answers to b) and d). Thank you. I have not come across that answer before. Is that widely accepted by Christians? It is a neat answer.
I won't carry on asking questions here but if we meet I might like to ask you more, also I unfortunately don't have enough knowledge of the Old Testament to probe more.
https://www.kut.org/transportation/2021-07-16/heres-what-austins-underground-light-rail-could-look-like
You think Manchester is bad? Try driving anywhere in West Yorkshire.
https://duncanstephen.net/pedestrian-ways/
And there was the scheme to build an urban motorway through the riverside meadows in Oxford.
It's not the straightforward decision making rule other ministerial positions are.
And you're assuming everyone is disappointed, whereas many are delighted:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-59303941
Believe it or not most people have transport requirements other than how fast they can go to London by train.
His first AG (for two years) was an MP was nearly 70 years old and for the rest of Labour's tenure in government Labour's AG came from the Lords.
I would never take my car into a city centre to be fair
Maybe it is another poster you have in mind
The rules doesn't permit them to act as an advocate for anyone else whilst they are AG.
The whole role of AG is not working anyway, they are not holding the government to act within the law, but finding excuses for them to avoid doing so.
It may get more use once the Council stop allowing free evening parking inside the "congestion zone" as long as the council open it, which NE1 seemed to think they would.
RCS claimed that western Germany has similar vaccination rates to the UK. This isn't really true.
https://impfdashboard.de/
gives the figure of 78.4% of people in Germany 18+ years old fully vaccinated.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations?areaType=overview&areaName=United Kingdom
has 80.1% over 12s fully vaccinated, which seems similar. But:
- the fully-vaccinated rate for 12-17 year olds in the UK is tiny
- in older groups there is also a bigger gap in the UK between single and double-vaccinated.
So there is a much larger percentage of unvaccinated adults (18+) in Germany (maybe roughly twice as large, I saw figures showing 90+% adults vaccinated in the UK).
Additionally Germany has only 85.7% over 60s fully vaccinated - so a lot more unvaccinated older people. Germany also has a slightly older population which makes things worse.
But is this just a problem in east Germany? For sure it's a LOT worse in Saxony, but the overall vaccination figures for West Germany are only roughly a percentage point higher than the German average. This is because east Germany (excluding Berlin which is a special case, and also has a vaccination rate slightly higher than the national average) is only 15% of the population, and because some of those east German states have vaccination rates close to the national average, so they are not pulling the average down by much.
So, no, vaccination rates among west German adults are not really similar to the UK.
As an aside RCS100 fudged things somewhat by making the "catholic" states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg a partial exception. Apart from the fact that these 2 states have nearly 40% of the population of the former western states (excluding Berlin again), I'm not sure that "catholic" is the important factor here. Baden-Württemberg has no more catholics than Rhineland-Palatinate or NRW, the Saarland has the highest percentage of catholics of any state in Germany, and yet the second-highest vaccination rate in the country (after Bremen, whose figures I am a bit suspicious of). Hessen has a low vaccination rate despite not having many catholics.
But it's true there is currently a bit of a north-south as well as a kind of east-west divide in how things are going.
https://www.shutoko.jp/-/media/pdf/customer/use/network/navimap/211001/map_all.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_districts_by_population
The decision to scrap NPR is indefensible.
And those giant monsters are shall we say very regressive in some circumstances.
That it doesn't is a reason to criticise it.
Of course the people in government - both politicians and bureaucrats - are also middle class and so obsessed about trains.