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The betting gets tighter in North Shropshire – politicalbetting.com

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  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,140
    eek said:

    eek said:

    Good morning

    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.
    Graun already on the case:

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/17/englands-poorest-oaps-face-same-care-costs-as-wealthier-elderly-analysts-suggest
  • eek said:

    eek said:

    Good morning

    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.
    Not seen the details but from the budget, wage inflation, staffing and demographics it is impossible to see how care gets any better in the next few years, they will do very well to maintain current levels.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,140

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Good morning

    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
    I'm struck by the way in which you imply that that map actually makes things easier ...
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,703

    I see that PB is babbling about trains again.

    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.
    We need both.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,611

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Boy, sure about that?

    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!
    Leeds still the 8th biggest in England on the fair metric of urban area. Note that the HS2E cancellations cuts off cities #5 (Newcastle) #6 Nottingham and #7 Sheffield and #8 Leeds.

    Absolute madness.

    1 London 8294058 1,570
    2 Birmingham 2293099 267.8
    3 Manchester 1741961 115.6
    4 Liverpool 830112 43.18
    5 Newcastle 794500 44
    6 Nottingham 667218 28.81
    7 Sheffield 656160 142.06
    8 Leeds 596027 213
    9 Bristol 558566 110
    10 Middlesbrough 472200 20.8
    11 Leicester 447328 73.32
    12 Portsmouth 438489 40.25
    13 Bradford 417061 370
    14 Bournemouth 382536 17.83
    15 Reading 373836 55.35
    16 Huddersfield 367976
    17 Stoke 360810
    18 Coventry 335274 98.64
    19 Birkenhead 331232
    20 Southampton 305887 20
    21 Hull 299724 71.45
    22 Sunderland 295503
    23 Wigan 285347
    24 Brighton 280187
    25 Southend 269714 41.76

  • Carnyx said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Good morning

    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
    I'm struck by the way in which you imply that that map actually makes things easier ...
    You can zoom right in close and see all the little lanes
  • eek said:

    Good morning

    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
    But that's what one of the plans the government will be looking at in their feasibility studies, you know the £96 billion pound you think will be spent.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kinabalu said:

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Scott_xP said:

    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.....
    Ha, yes. Or indeed and especially the top banana. The 'public service' angle there is quite elusive at times.
  • 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.
    Gosh I never realised you were an infrastructure planner!
  • eek said:

    Good morning

    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).
    Well isn't that the nub of HS2?

    People have been banging on about it for decades now it feels like. Yet this stretch was never going to be built until the 40s anyway.

    It's a farce. If it was going to be built it shouldn't take decades to do so.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,957
    edited November 2021
    eek said:


    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.

    Well this is the write up in The Times.

    Poorer pensioners will pay tens of thousands of pounds more for social care as the government waters down key reforms to save money.

    Boris Johnson has been accused of breaking his promise that no one would have to sell their homes to pay for care after the changes were slipped out yesterday. They mean that less wealthy older people will have to use up most of their assets if they need expensive help.

    MPs will be asked to vote on the reforms in what could become the latest north-south flashpoint in the Conservative Party, because it will affect more pensioners in red wall seats.

    In September Johnson said that he would cap the amount older people had to contribute towards their social care at £86,000 under a new health and care levy. A reformed means test was to allow anyone with assets below £100,000 to receive government help towards this cap, while those with assets of below £20,000 would pay nothing.

    However, yesterday the government said it would be changing the means test system. Only personal contributions, and not the government help, will count as spending towards the cap, meaning those with fewer assets will have to pay for their own care for significantly longer and spend much more. More people will have to pay up to the full £86,000 cap, even if their assets dip below £100,000.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/poorer-pensioners-hit-as-cap-on-social-care-costs-diluted-f2xszq70s
  • 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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    edited November 2021
    kamski said:

    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.

    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.

    Let's make sure we're all using the same numbers here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1195589/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccinations-number-federal-state-per-1000-germany/

    I would suggest there are three Germanies: there is North West Germany, that abuts the Netherland, Belgium and Denmark. This contains Bremen, Saarland, Hamburg, etc and has overall vaccination rates similar to the UK. The highest of the German states - Bremen - has double vaccinated more than 10 points higher than the German average, and more than 15 points higher than the average for East Germany.

    There is then is Southern Germany - Baden Wuttenberg, Bavaria (and you might want to add Rheinland-Palatinate and Hesse), which has vaccination rates below the average for Germany, and quite a way below the UK.

    Then you have Eastern Germany - Saxony, Brandenburg, Thuringia, and Saxony-Anhalt - which (as a group) has fully vaccinated below 60%, and looks more like Poland than the UK.
  • Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Boy, sure about that?

    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!
    Leeds still the 8th biggest in England on the fair metric of urban area. Note that the HS2E cancellations cuts off cities #5 (Newcastle) #6 Nottingham and #7 Sheffield and #8 Leeds.

    Absolute madness.

    1 London 8294058 1,570
    2 Birmingham 2293099 267.8
    3 Manchester 1741961 115.6
    4 Liverpool 830112 43.18
    5 Newcastle 794500 44
    6 Nottingham 667218 28.81
    7 Sheffield 656160 142.06
    8 Leeds 596027 213
    9 Bristol 558566 110
    10 Middlesbrough 472200 20.8
    11 Leicester 447328 73.32
    12 Portsmouth 438489 40.25
    13 Bradford 417061 370
    14 Bournemouth 382536 17.83
    15 Reading 373836 55.35
    16 Huddersfield 367976
    17 Stoke 360810
    18 Coventry 335274 98.64
    19 Birkenhead 331232
    20 Southampton 305887 20
    21 Hull 299724 71.45
    22 Sunderland 295503
    23 Wigan 285347
    24 Brighton 280187
    25 Southend 269714 41.76

    Can I admit to knowing very little about transport infrastructure or trains on here? But yes, it does seem a bit weird that we don't join up our big northern cities with decent trains.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,716
    Cyclefree said:

    I see that PB is babbling about trains again.

    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?
    On the other hand our PM has several times promised to 'love honour and obey until death us do part'.
    Or something like that.
    And ...........
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,611

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Boy, sure about that?

    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!
    Leeds still the 8th biggest in England on the fair metric of urban area. Note that the HS2E cancellations cuts off cities #5 (Newcastle) #6 Nottingham and #7 Sheffield and #8 Leeds.

    Absolute madness.

    1 London 8294058 1,570
    2 Birmingham 2293099 267.8
    3 Manchester 1741961 115.6
    4 Liverpool 830112 43.18
    5 Newcastle 794500 44
    6 Nottingham 667218 28.81
    7 Sheffield 656160 142.06
    8 Leeds 596027 213
    9 Bristol 558566 110
    10 Middlesbrough 472200 20.8
    11 Leicester 447328 73.32
    12 Portsmouth 438489 40.25
    13 Bradford 417061 370
    14 Bournemouth 382536 17.83
    15 Reading 373836 55.35
    16 Huddersfield 367976
    17 Stoke 360810
    18 Coventry 335274 98.64
    19 Birkenhead 331232
    20 Southampton 305887 20
    21 Hull 299724 71.45
    22 Sunderland 295503
    23 Wigan 285347
    24 Brighton 280187
    25 Southend 269714 41.76

    Can I admit to knowing very little about transport infrastructure or trains on here? But yes, it does seem a bit weird that we don't join up our big northern cities with decent trains.
    It is ludicrous. Were we to do so, intercity commenting becomes much more feasible, and the economic benefits massive. One the reasons London is so successful is sheer access – it's fast and easy to reach central London from lots of places, so its labour pool is huge.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    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.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice-Ville_station
    High speed rail in France goes from Paris, through Lyon, to Marseilles. It then slows to an absolute crawl as it winds its way along the Cote d'Azur. Yes, you can get anywhere - including Moscow - from Nice, but it does not mean it is on high speed tracks.

    You claim is a little bit like saying that because fast trains eventually make it to the furthest reaches of Cornwall, that Cornwall has high speed rail.
  • 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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Boy, sure about that?

    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!
    Leeds still the 8th biggest in England on the fair metric of urban area. Note that the HS2E cancellations cuts off cities #5 (Newcastle) #6 Nottingham and #7 Sheffield and #8 Leeds.

    Absolute madness.

    1 London 8294058 1,570
    2 Birmingham 2293099 267.8
    3 Manchester 1741961 115.6
    4 Liverpool 830112 43.18
    5 Newcastle 794500 44
    6 Nottingham 667218 28.81
    7 Sheffield 656160 142.06
    8 Leeds 596027 213
    9 Bristol 558566 110
    10 Middlesbrough 472200 20.8
    11 Leicester 447328 73.32
    12 Portsmouth 438489 40.25
    13 Bradford 417061 370
    14 Bournemouth 382536 17.83
    15 Reading 373836 55.35
    16 Huddersfield 367976
    17 Stoke 360810
    18 Coventry 335274 98.64
    19 Birkenhead 331232
    20 Southampton 305887 20
    21 Hull 299724 71.45
    22 Sunderland 295503
    23 Wigan 285347
    24 Brighton 280187
    25 Southend 269714 41.76

    "cuts off" is a bit strong.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    rcs1000 said:

    kamski said:

    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.

    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.

    Let's make sure we're all using the same numbers here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1195589/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccinations-number-federal-state-per-1000-germany/

    I would suggest there are three Germanies: there is North West Germany, that abuts the Netherland, Belgium and Denmark. This contains Bremen, Saarland, Hamburg, etc and has overall vaccination rates similar to the UK. The highest of the German states - Bremen - has double vaccinated more than 10 points higher than the German average, and more than 15 points higher than the average for East Germany.

    There is then is Southern Germany - Baden Wuttenberg, Bavaria (and you might want to add Rheinland-Palatinate and Hesse), which has vaccination rates below the average for Germany, and quite a way below the UK.

    Then you have Eastern Germany - Saxony, Brandenburg, Thuringia, and Saxony-Anhalt - which (as a group) has fully vaccinated below 60%, and looks more like Poland than the UK.
    The issue is that Germany is ultimately one country so when those eastern and southern states fuck up it puts the whole nation under pressure.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    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 a geographic point of view, you need also to include Bradford and Kirklees
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_districts_by_population

    The decision to scrap NPR is indefensible.
    I don't disagree (and I also think it very odd the way that people continually conflate commuter rail and Intercity services).
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,611
    Farooq said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Boy, sure about that?

    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!
    Leeds still the 8th biggest in England on the fair metric of urban area. Note that the HS2E cancellations cuts off cities #5 (Newcastle) #6 Nottingham and #7 Sheffield and #8 Leeds.

    Absolute madness.

    1 London 8294058 1,570
    2 Birmingham 2293099 267.8
    3 Manchester 1741961 115.6
    4 Liverpool 830112 43.18
    5 Newcastle 794500 44
    6 Nottingham 667218 28.81
    7 Sheffield 656160 142.06
    8 Leeds 596027 213
    9 Bristol 558566 110
    10 Middlesbrough 472200 20.8
    11 Leicester 447328 73.32
    12 Portsmouth 438489 40.25
    13 Bradford 417061 370
    14 Bournemouth 382536 17.83
    15 Reading 373836 55.35
    16 Huddersfield 367976
    17 Stoke 360810
    18 Coventry 335274 98.64
    19 Birkenhead 331232
    20 Southampton 305887 20
    21 Hull 299724 71.45
    22 Sunderland 295503
    23 Wigan 285347
    24 Brighton 280187
    25 Southend 269714 41.76

    "cuts off" is a bit strong.
    Well cuts them off the HS network. The inter-city links are generally pisspoor currently.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,081
    Newton Dunn:

    The high political drama appears to have had a profound effect on Johnson. One ally tells me he had “an existential moment” over the past two weeks, seeing for the first time how it could all end for him, and quickly, if he lost the trust of his backbenchers.

    Another ally talks of “an internal panic” in No10 over the collapse of authority, especially in the whips office.

    The 2019ers are both substantial in number (107 of them, close to a third of all Tory MPs) and relatively close-knit and well organised, held together by their own WhatsApp group called “The 109”, after a journalist misreported their number. Here’s the other thing about the new masters of Westminster that really troubles No10: unlike previous Tory intakes, they’re unashamedly independent and are far more wedded to their constituents than party doctrine. They are more like US Congressmen, who only have a loose affiliation to the Republican party. Some 71 of the 2019-ers have wafer-thin majorities.

    Finally, they as well as Boris know they control his political future. If they lose their seats in 2024, he loses his majority. It all means the PM now has his work cut out over the next three years to keep them on side. They won’t let him forget them again.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,738
    Johnson’s nightmare November continues The Tories lose their lead with another pollster. Survation has

    CON 37%
    LAB 37%
    LD 10%. SNP 5%
    GRE 4
    REFUK 2%

    https://twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/status/1461275127581229060
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,393
    So Bradford is being shafted. NPR, RIP.

    Bozo probably can't even point to Bradford on a map.

    I've always been against HS2. However, the most damaging parts of the route are going ahead anyway but without any benefits for West Yorkshire and the North East whatsoever. So even worse than it would have been if the whole thing was being built.
  • pingping Posts: 3,724
    edited November 2021

    eek said:


    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.

    Well this is the write up in The Times.

    Poorer pensioners will pay tens of thousands of pounds more for social care as the government waters down key reforms to save money.

    Boris Johnson has been accused of breaking his promise that no one would have to sell their homes to pay for care after the changes were slipped out yesterday. They mean that less wealthy older people will have to use up most of their assets if they need expensive help.

    MPs will be asked to vote on the reforms in what could become the latest north-south flashpoint in the Conservative Party, because it will affect more pensioners in red wall seats.

    In September Johnson said that he would cap the amount older people had to contribute towards their social care at £86,000 under a new health and care levy. A reformed means test was to allow anyone with assets below £100,000 to receive government help towards this cap, while those with assets of below £20,000 would pay nothing.

    However, yesterday the government said it would be changing the means test system. Only personal contributions, and not the government help, will count as spending towards the cap, meaning those with fewer assets will have to pay for their own care for significantly longer and spend much more. More people will have to pay up to the full £86,000 cap, even if their assets dip below £100,000.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/poorer-pensioners-hit-as-cap-on-social-care-costs-diluted-f2xszq70s
    /unpopularopinion

    People should pay for their own care, if they have assets.

    Taxpayer funded (free) social care should only be provided for the destitute.

    Say it ain’t so
  • 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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Scott_xP said:

    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.
    Good argument, also put by @LostPassword and I don't have an answer.

    But how do you ban all jobs?

    You could put the same argument for someone writing a novel (which seems to be common for MPs for some reason). We can think of conflicts of interest here (copyright issues) also and also there is no way of monitoring time, but how would you stop it?

    Where does a hobby stop and a job start. I guess it is where it stops costing you money and you start making money from it, but that often happens by accident / good fortune.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,611

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Boy, sure about that?

    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!
    Leeds still the 8th biggest in England on the fair metric of urban area. Note that the HS2E cancellations cuts off cities #5 (Newcastle) #6 Nottingham and #7 Sheffield and #8 Leeds.

    Absolute madness.

    1 London 8294058 1,570
    2 Birmingham 2293099 267.8
    3 Manchester 1741961 115.6
    4 Liverpool 830112 43.18
    5 Newcastle 794500 44
    6 Nottingham 667218 28.81
    7 Sheffield 656160 142.06
    8 Leeds 596027 213
    9 Bristol 558566 110
    10 Middlesbrough 472200 20.8
    11 Leicester 447328 73.32
    12 Portsmouth 438489 40.25
    13 Bradford 417061 370
    14 Bournemouth 382536 17.83
    15 Reading 373836 55.35
    16 Huddersfield 367976
    17 Stoke 360810
    18 Coventry 335274 98.64
    19 Birkenhead 331232
    20 Southampton 305887 20
    21 Hull 299724 71.45
    22 Sunderland 295503
    23 Wigan 285347
    24 Brighton 280187
    25 Southend 269714 41.76

    The top seven cities on that list all have rapid transit systems – so Leeds (8th) really is in the screw zone. No rapid transit. No HSR.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,140
    rcs1000 said:

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    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.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice-Ville_station
    High speed rail in France goes from Paris, through Lyon, to Marseilles. It then slows to an absolute crawl as it winds its way along the Cote d'Azur. Yes, you can get anywhere - including Moscow - from Nice, but it does not mean it is on high speed tracks.

    You claim is a little bit like saying that because fast trains eventually make it to the furthest reaches of Cornwall, that Cornwall has high speed rail.
    Fair enough. But dont' downplay the impact of direct services and not having to get out and change. Like HS2 to HS1 in London. (Though now in terms of Edinburgh to Brussel I will still be heading to KX and strolling over the road to St P for the foreseeable future.)
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,081

    So Bradford is being shafted. NPR, RIP.

    Bozo probably can't even point to Bradford on a map.

    I've always been against HS2. However, the most damaging parts of the route are going ahead anyway but without any benefits for West Yorkshire and the North East whatsoever. So even worse than it would have been if the whole thing was being built.

    Yep, all those Bucks Tories are still going to see and hear the bulldozers, but for a railway that no longer fulfils its original remit.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    edited November 2021
    Has this been flogged to death yet? If not I think it should be. For someone affectionately known as 'thicko' it's quite a rate for his advice

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/18/graham-brady-faces-questions-over-opaque-800-an-hour-job
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Let's be honest, "the north" begins and ends in Manchester at Whitehall.
  • 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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    Yes there's nothing I like more on the motorway than pulling over onto the hard shoulder to do a spot of shopping in the many retail and leisure facilities available the full length of the road.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Boy, sure about that?

    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!
    Leeds still the 8th biggest in England on the fair metric of urban area. Note that the HS2E cancellations cuts off cities #5 (Newcastle) #6 Nottingham and #7 Sheffield and #8 Leeds.

    Absolute madness.

    1 London 8294058 1,570
    2 Birmingham 2293099 267.8
    3 Manchester 1741961 115.6
    4 Liverpool 830112 43.18
    5 Newcastle 794500 44
    6 Nottingham 667218 28.81
    7 Sheffield 656160 142.06
    8 Leeds 596027 213
    9 Bristol 558566 110
    10 Middlesbrough 472200 20.8
    11 Leicester 447328 73.32
    12 Portsmouth 438489 40.25
    13 Bradford 417061 370
    14 Bournemouth 382536 17.83
    15 Reading 373836 55.35
    16 Huddersfield 367976
    17 Stoke 360810
    18 Coventry 335274 98.64
    19 Birkenhead 331232
    20 Southampton 305887 20
    21 Hull 299724 71.45
    22 Sunderland 295503
    23 Wigan 285347
    24 Brighton 280187
    25 Southend 269714 41.76

    Don't forget Bradford and Huddersfield.
    The whole point of NPR was to link up Manchester and the urban areas of West Yorkshire.
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,394
    OT. Perhaps worth recalling that LibDem success in rural Shropshire isn't unprecedented. They actually won the very rural Ludlow seat (basically South Shropshire) at the 2001 general election. Their vote has collapsed since but they retain a strong presence at council level.

    I'm old enough to remember the latter years of Major's government when every by-election, no matter how safe the seat supposedly was, became a easy gain for whichever opposition party emerged as the challenger.

    Amazing how fast things have changed. Hartlepool seems a long time ago now.

  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    kjh said:

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Scott_xP said:

    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.
    Good argument, also put by @LostPassword and I don't have an answer.

    But how do you ban all jobs?

    You could put the same argument for someone writing a novel (which seems to be common for MPs for some reason). We can think of conflicts of interest here (copyright issues) also and also there is no way of monitoring time, but how would you stop it?

    Where does a hobby stop and a job start. I guess it is where it stops costing you money and you start making money from it, but that often happens by accident / good fortune.
    There's no shortage of tax/benefit law on what's a job and what isn't.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Boy, sure about that?

    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!
    Leeds still the 8th biggest in England on the fair metric of urban area. Note that the HS2E cancellations cuts off cities #5 (Newcastle) #6 Nottingham and #7 Sheffield and #8 Leeds.

    Absolute madness.

    1 London 8294058 1,570
    2 Birmingham 2293099 267.8
    3 Manchester 1741961 115.6
    4 Liverpool 830112 43.18
    5 Newcastle 794500 44
    6 Nottingham 667218 28.81
    7 Sheffield 656160 142.06
    8 Leeds 596027 213
    9 Bristol 558566 110
    10 Middlesbrough 472200 20.8
    11 Leicester 447328 73.32
    12 Portsmouth 438489 40.25
    13 Bradford 417061 370
    14 Bournemouth 382536 17.83
    15 Reading 373836 55.35
    16 Huddersfield 367976
    17 Stoke 360810
    18 Coventry 335274 98.64
    19 Birkenhead 331232
    20 Southampton 305887 20
    21 Hull 299724 71.45
    22 Sunderland 295503
    23 Wigan 285347
    24 Brighton 280187
    25 Southend 269714 41.76

    Can I admit to knowing very little about transport infrastructure or trains on here? But yes, it does seem a bit weird that we don't join up our big northern cities with decent trains.
    And #10 if you are using that list as that Middlesbrough figure is for the Tees Valley which includes both Middlesbrough (coast line) and Darlington (ECML)
  • 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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    100% this.

    Incidentally Rochdale out of interest, I think its ridiculous the M58 doesn't connect with the M61. Out of interest I just put into Google Maps asking for a route between Aintree and Bolton. The fastest route it suggests to me is to to take the M62.

    Yes that's right the route from Aintree (start of the M58 of course) to Bolton is to avoid the M58 altogether, go South on the M57, East on the M62, then go back up North via the M60 and the M61 and finally the A666.

    Had the M58 been built properly, the route would be the M58 alone and that's that. Straight run, and the cars wouldn't need to be on the M61 or the M60 or the M62 or the M57 so traffic would be freed up from all those roads.

    It is because cars have no alternative but to take those routes that they're so congested. So using the fact they're congested as a reason not to invest is truly absurd.
  • Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Boy, sure about that?

    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!
    Leeds still the 8th biggest in England on the fair metric of urban area. Note that the HS2E cancellations cuts off cities #5 (Newcastle) #6 Nottingham and #7 Sheffield and #8 Leeds.

    Absolute madness.

    1 London 8294058 1,570
    2 Birmingham 2293099 267.8
    3 Manchester 1741961 115.6
    4 Liverpool 830112 43.18
    5 Newcastle 794500 44
    6 Nottingham 667218 28.81
    7 Sheffield 656160 142.06
    8 Leeds 596027 213
    9 Bristol 558566 110
    10 Middlesbrough 472200 20.8
    11 Leicester 447328 73.32
    12 Portsmouth 438489 40.25
    13 Bradford 417061 370
    14 Bournemouth 382536 17.83
    15 Reading 373836 55.35
    16 Huddersfield 367976
    17 Stoke 360810
    18 Coventry 335274 98.64
    19 Birkenhead 331232
    20 Southampton 305887 20
    21 Hull 299724 71.45
    22 Sunderland 295503
    23 Wigan 285347
    24 Brighton 280187
    25 Southend 269714 41.76

    Can I admit to knowing very little about transport infrastructure or trains on here? But yes, it does seem a bit weird that we don't join up our big northern cities with decent trains.
    The problem is the age of the network. The Victorians were brilliant at building viaducts and tunnels through places which are now very full of buildings and people. So you can't widen the existing routes. There used to be (in some places) parallel routes but these were closed and largely built over.

    So the alternative is a new line. Which has just been cancelled.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    IanB2 said:

    Newton Dunn:

    The high political drama appears to have had a profound effect on Johnson. One ally tells me he had “an existential moment” over the past two weeks, seeing for the first time how it could all end for him, and quickly, if he lost the trust of his backbenchers.

    Another ally talks of “an internal panic” in No10 over the collapse of authority, especially in the whips office.

    The 2019ers are both substantial in number (107 of them, close to a third of all Tory MPs) and relatively close-knit and well organised, held together by their own WhatsApp group called “The 109”, after a journalist misreported their number. Here’s the other thing about the new masters of Westminster that really troubles No10: unlike previous Tory intakes, they’re unashamedly independent and are far more wedded to their constituents than party doctrine. They are more like US Congressmen, who only have a loose affiliation to the Republican party. Some 71 of the 2019-ers have wafer-thin majorities.

    Finally, they as well as Boris know they control his political future. If they lose their seats in 2024, he loses his majority. It all means the PM now has his work cut out over the next three years to keep them on side. They won’t let him forget them again.

    @Tissue_Price's stand on the Paterson vote looks more and more like John Hampden refusing to come across with the ship money.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    Pulpstar said:

    Let's be honest, "the north" begins and ends in Manchester at Whitehall.

    And the BBC.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    IanB2 said:

    So Bradford is being shafted. NPR, RIP.

    Bozo probably can't even point to Bradford on a map.

    I've always been against HS2. However, the most damaging parts of the route are going ahead anyway but without any benefits for West Yorkshire and the North East whatsoever. So even worse than it would have been if the whole thing was being built.

    Yep, all those Bucks Tories are still going to see and hear the bulldozers, but for a railway that no longer fulfils its original remit.
    Yep - the Lib Dems now have a lovely set of winnable seats in Buckinghamshire. They can probably hit constituencies on both the ECML and WCML with a few white lies.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Farooq said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Boy, sure about that?

    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!
    Leeds still the 8th biggest in England on the fair metric of urban area. Note that the HS2E cancellations cuts off cities #5 (Newcastle) #6 Nottingham and #7 Sheffield and #8 Leeds.

    Absolute madness.

    1 London 8294058 1,570
    2 Birmingham 2293099 267.8
    3 Manchester 1741961 115.6
    4 Liverpool 830112 43.18
    5 Newcastle 794500 44
    6 Nottingham 667218 28.81
    7 Sheffield 656160 142.06
    8 Leeds 596027 213
    9 Bristol 558566 110
    10 Middlesbrough 472200 20.8
    11 Leicester 447328 73.32
    12 Portsmouth 438489 40.25
    13 Bradford 417061 370
    14 Bournemouth 382536 17.83
    15 Reading 373836 55.35
    16 Huddersfield 367976
    17 Stoke 360810
    18 Coventry 335274 98.64
    19 Birkenhead 331232
    20 Southampton 305887 20
    21 Hull 299724 71.45
    22 Sunderland 295503
    23 Wigan 285347
    24 Brighton 280187
    25 Southend 269714 41.76

    "cuts off" is a bit strong.
    Well cuts them off the HS network. The inter-city links are generally pisspoor currently.
    Partilly agree. Manchester to Leeds by train isn't fun, both in terms of the journey itself and the fact that you end up in Leeds.

    In my neck of the woods, things are somewhat worse. There are no train stations in the entire constituency.
    If you want to go from Aberdeen to Banff by public transport, it's 45 miles on the bus and takes 2 hours. That's nearly double the time it takes from Manchester to Leeds, which is about the same distance.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Good morning

    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
    Can confirm. I went to Daikoku PA on a Friday night (automotive equivalent of the Black Stone in Mecca) and it was a fucking nightmare. The transmission in my hired Yaris started making noises like a Gundam's cock in a blender on the way back to the hotel.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    100% this.

    Incidentally Rochdale out of interest, I think its ridiculous the M58 doesn't connect with the M61. Out of interest I just put into Google Maps asking for a route between Aintree and Bolton. The fastest route it suggests to me is to to take the M62.

    Yes that's right the route from Aintree (start of the M58 of course) to Bolton is to avoid the M58 altogether, go South on the M57, East on the M62, then go back up North via the M60 and the M61 and finally the A666.

    Had the M58 been built properly, the route would be the M58 alone and that's that. Straight run, and the cars wouldn't need to be on the M61 or the M60 or the M62 or the M57 so traffic would be freed up from all those roads.

    It is because cars have no alternative but to take those routes that they're so congested. So using the fact they're congested as a reason not to invest is truly absurd.
    Roads are going to be a great idea when a brand new car is now 2 times average wages rather than 1 times average wage.

    Most of the world is working on the basis that the capital costs of an EV will mean fewer people can afford them, yet you want more roads even though the houses people live in already don't have enough parking spaces.
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,394
    IanB2 said:

    Newton Dunn:

    The high political drama appears to have had a profound effect on Johnson. One ally tells me he had “an existential moment” over the past two weeks, seeing for the first time how it could all end for him, and quickly, if he lost the trust of his backbenchers.

    Another ally talks of “an internal panic” in No10 over the collapse of authority, especially in the whips office.

    The 2019ers are both substantial in number (107 of them, close to a third of all Tory MPs) and relatively close-knit and well organised, held together by their own WhatsApp group called “The 109”, after a journalist misreported their number. Here’s the other thing about the new masters of Westminster that really troubles No10: unlike previous Tory intakes, they’re unashamedly independent and are far more wedded to their constituents than party doctrine. They are more like US Congressmen, who only have a loose affiliation to the Republican party. Some 71 of the 2019-ers have wafer-thin majorities.

    Finally, they as well as Boris know they control his political future. If they lose their seats in 2024, he loses his majority. It all means the PM now has his work cut out over the next three years to keep them on side. They won’t let him forget them again.

    That's really interesting. Boris needs some decent PPS's to keep him in contact with MPs. He's definitely not a Commons man himself, probably has little feel for the parliamentary party, and if he ends up reliant on Rees-Mogg for advice, who it is very difficult to imagine has much in common with Red Wallers (as he apparently did for Paterson), is gonna keep running into trouble.
  • IanB2 said:

    Newton Dunn:

    The high political drama appears to have had a profound effect on Johnson. One ally tells me he had “an existential moment” over the past two weeks, seeing for the first time how it could all end for him, and quickly, if he lost the trust of his backbenchers.

    Another ally talks of “an internal panic” in No10 over the collapse of authority, especially in the whips office.

    The 2019ers are both substantial in number (107 of them, close to a third of all Tory MPs) and relatively close-knit and well organised, held together by their own WhatsApp group called “The 109”, after a journalist misreported their number. Here’s the other thing about the new masters of Westminster that really troubles No10: unlike previous Tory intakes, they’re unashamedly independent and are far more wedded to their constituents than party doctrine. They are more like US Congressmen, who only have a loose affiliation to the Republican party. Some 71 of the 2019-ers have wafer-thin majorities.

    Finally, they as well as Boris know they control his political future. If they lose their seats in 2024, he loses his majority. It all means the PM now has his work cut out over the next three years to keep them on side. They won’t let him forget them again.

    Tom Newton Dunn's middle name is Zoltan, presumably chosen by his Hungarian mother.
  • eek said:

    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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    100% this.

    Incidentally Rochdale out of interest, I think its ridiculous the M58 doesn't connect with the M61. Out of interest I just put into Google Maps asking for a route between Aintree and Bolton. The fastest route it suggests to me is to to take the M62.

    Yes that's right the route from Aintree (start of the M58 of course) to Bolton is to avoid the M58 altogether, go South on the M57, East on the M62, then go back up North via the M60 and the M61 and finally the A666.

    Had the M58 been built properly, the route would be the M58 alone and that's that. Straight run, and the cars wouldn't need to be on the M61 or the M60 or the M62 or the M57 so traffic would be freed up from all those roads.

    It is because cars have no alternative but to take those routes that they're so congested. So using the fact they're congested as a reason not to invest is truly absurd.
    Roads are going to be a great idea when a brand new car is now 2 times average wages rather than 1 times average wage.

    Most of the world is working on the basis that the capital costs of an EV will mean fewer people can afford them, yet you want more roads even though the houses people live in already don't have enough parking spaces.
    I want more parking spaces per house too. I've said two off road parking spaces per house should be the norm for almost all new construction.

    I think the notion that cars are going to be too expensive to buy is a terrible excuse used by those with an anti-car agenda. The capital costs of EVs are coming down rapidly and the running costs of EVs can be even lower than ICE running costs. My money would be on as many people owning cars in the future as do in the present and the anti-car agenda is doomed to failure.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,393

    OT. Perhaps worth recalling that LibDem success in rural Shropshire isn't unprecedented. They actually won the very rural Ludlow seat (basically South Shropshire) at the 2001 general election. Their vote has collapsed since but they retain a strong presence at council level.

    I'm old enough to remember the latter years of Major's government when every by-election, no matter how safe the seat supposedly was, became a easy gain for whichever opposition party emerged as the challenger.

    Amazing how fast things have changed. Hartlepool seems a long time ago now.

    Well done to those who called "Peak Johnson" when the inflatable Bozo was being paraded around Hartlepool the morning after the by-election.
  • Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Boy, sure about that?

    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!
    Leeds still the 8th biggest in England on the fair metric of urban area. Note that the HS2E cancellations cuts off cities #5 (Newcastle) #6 Nottingham and #7 Sheffield and #8 Leeds.

    Absolute madness.

    1 London 8294058 1,570
    2 Birmingham 2293099 267.8
    3 Manchester 1741961 115.6
    4 Liverpool 830112 43.18
    5 Newcastle 794500 44
    6 Nottingham 667218 28.81
    7 Sheffield 656160 142.06
    8 Leeds 596027 213
    9 Bristol 558566 110
    10 Middlesbrough 472200 20.8
    11 Leicester 447328 73.32
    12 Portsmouth 438489 40.25
    13 Bradford 417061 370
    14 Bournemouth 382536 17.83
    15 Reading 373836 55.35
    16 Huddersfield 367976
    17 Stoke 360810
    18 Coventry 335274 98.64
    19 Birkenhead 331232
    20 Southampton 305887 20
    21 Hull 299724 71.45
    22 Sunderland 295503
    23 Wigan 285347
    24 Brighton 280187
    25 Southend 269714 41.76

    "cuts off" is a bit strong.
    Well cuts them off the HS network. The inter-city links are generally pisspoor currently.
    Partilly agree. Manchester to Leeds by train isn't fun, both in terms of the journey itself and the fact that you end up in Leeds.

    In my neck of the woods, things are somewhat worse. There are no train stations in the entire constituency.
    If you want to go from Aberdeen to Banff by public transport, it's 45 miles on the bus and takes 2 hours. That's nearly double the time it takes from Manchester to Leeds, which is about the same distance.
    Ironically they didn't close the coast loop and the short branch to Banff until 1968 - would be very well used now if it was open. Similarly the lines to Fraserburgh and Peterhead.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited November 2021

    eek said:

    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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    100% this.

    Incidentally Rochdale out of interest, I think its ridiculous the M58 doesn't connect with the M61. Out of interest I just put into Google Maps asking for a route between Aintree and Bolton. The fastest route it suggests to me is to to take the M62.

    Yes that's right the route from Aintree (start of the M58 of course) to Bolton is to avoid the M58 altogether, go South on the M57, East on the M62, then go back up North via the M60 and the M61 and finally the A666.

    Had the M58 been built properly, the route would be the M58 alone and that's that. Straight run, and the cars wouldn't need to be on the M61 or the M60 or the M62 or the M57 so traffic would be freed up from all those roads.

    It is because cars have no alternative but to take those routes that they're so congested. So using the fact they're congested as a reason not to invest is truly absurd.
    Roads are going to be a great idea when a brand new car is now 2 times average wages rather than 1 times average wage.

    Most of the world is working on the basis that the capital costs of an EV will mean fewer people can afford them, yet you want more roads even though the houses people live in already don't have enough parking spaces.
    I want more parking spaces per house too. I've said two off road parking spaces per house should be the norm for almost all new construction.

    I think the notion that cars are going to be too expensive to buy is a terrible excuse used by those with an anti-car agenda. The capital costs of EVs are coming down rapidly and the running costs of EVs can be even lower than ICE running costs. My money would be on as many people owning cars in the future as do in the present and the anti-car agenda is doomed to failure.
    Never going to happen.

    A bedroom / extra downstairs room is worth £50,000 to £100,000 to the builder - so the car space goes.

    As for the idea of more cars, I would ask why uber and co were all betting on car ownership dropping rather than rising in the future.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    kjh said:

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Scott_xP said:

    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.
    Good argument, also put by @LostPassword and I don't have an answer.

    But how do you ban all jobs?

    You could put the same argument for someone writing a novel (which seems to be common for MPs for some reason). We can think of conflicts of interest here (copyright issues) also and also there is no way of monitoring time, but how would you stop it?

    Where does a hobby stop and a job start. I guess it is where it stops costing you money and you start making money from it, but that often happens by accident / good fortune.
    This is why income is an essential component. Possibly some rules around gardening leave post-parliament, perhaps for a year after leaving with the same rate of pay as when you're an MP. Don't know, haven't sat and worked out a detailed system so I'm persuadable that I'm wrong.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Boy, sure about that?

    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!
    Leeds still the 8th biggest in England on the fair metric of urban area. Note that the HS2E cancellations cuts off cities #5 (Newcastle) #6 Nottingham and #7 Sheffield and #8 Leeds.

    Absolute madness.

    1 London 8294058 1,570
    2 Birmingham 2293099 267.8
    3 Manchester 1741961 115.6
    4 Liverpool 830112 43.18
    5 Newcastle 794500 44
    6 Nottingham 667218 28.81
    7 Sheffield 656160 142.06
    8 Leeds 596027 213
    9 Bristol 558566 110
    10 Middlesbrough 472200 20.8
    11 Leicester 447328 73.32
    12 Portsmouth 438489 40.25
    13 Bradford 417061 370
    14 Bournemouth 382536 17.83
    15 Reading 373836 55.35
    16 Huddersfield 367976
    17 Stoke 360810
    18 Coventry 335274 98.64
    19 Birkenhead 331232
    20 Southampton 305887 20
    21 Hull 299724 71.45
    22 Sunderland 295503
    23 Wigan 285347
    24 Brighton 280187
    25 Southend 269714 41.76

    Can I admit to knowing very little about transport infrastructure or trains on here? But yes, it does seem a bit weird that we don't join up our big northern cities with decent trains.
    I recall this being a key feature of Northern Powerhouse.
  • IanB2 said:

    Newton Dunn:

    The high political drama appears to have had a profound effect on Johnson. One ally tells me he had “an existential moment” over the past two weeks, seeing for the first time how it could all end for him, and quickly, if he lost the trust of his backbenchers.

    Another ally talks of “an internal panic” in No10 over the collapse of authority, especially in the whips office.

    The 2019ers are both substantial in number (107 of them, close to a third of all Tory MPs) and relatively close-knit and well organised, held together by their own WhatsApp group called “The 109”, after a journalist misreported their number. Here’s the other thing about the new masters of Westminster that really troubles No10: unlike previous Tory intakes, they’re unashamedly independent and are far more wedded to their constituents than party doctrine. They are more like US Congressmen, who only have a loose affiliation to the Republican party. Some 71 of the 2019-ers have wafer-thin majorities.

    Finally, they as well as Boris know they control his political future. If they lose their seats in 2024, he loses his majority. It all means the PM now has his work cut out over the next three years to keep them on side. They won’t let him forget them again.

    That's really interesting. Boris needs some decent PPS's to keep him in contact with MPs. He's definitely not a Commons man himself, probably has little feel for the parliamentary party, and if he ends up reliant on Rees-Mogg for advice, who it is very difficult to imagine has much in common with Red Wallers (as he apparently did for Paterson), is gonna keep running into trouble.
    This perhaps supports the theory that Sunak is stuffing Johnson with these MPs (mainly Northern and Midlands) by kabooming the entire HS2 Eastern project this morning.

    Otherwise why on earth is Johnson doing this?

  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,716
    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Boy, sure about that?

    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!
    Leeds still the 8th biggest in England on the fair metric of urban area. Note that the HS2E cancellations cuts off cities #5 (Newcastle) #6 Nottingham and #7 Sheffield and #8 Leeds.

    Absolute madness.

    1 London 8294058 1,570
    2 Birmingham 2293099 267.8
    3 Manchester 1741961 115.6
    4 Liverpool 830112 43.18
    5 Newcastle 794500 44
    6 Nottingham 667218 28.81
    7 Sheffield 656160 142.06
    8 Leeds 596027 213
    9 Bristol 558566 110
    10 Middlesbrough 472200 20.8
    11 Leicester 447328 73.32
    12 Portsmouth 438489 40.25
    13 Bradford 417061 370
    14 Bournemouth 382536 17.83
    15 Reading 373836 55.35
    16 Huddersfield 367976
    17 Stoke 360810
    18 Coventry 335274 98.64
    19 Birkenhead 331232
    20 Southampton 305887 20
    21 Hull 299724 71.45
    22 Sunderland 295503
    23 Wigan 285347
    24 Brighton 280187
    25 Southend 269714 41.76

    "cuts off" is a bit strong.
    Well cuts them off the HS network. The inter-city links are generally pisspoor currently.
    Partilly agree. Manchester to Leeds by train isn't fun, both in terms of the journey itself and the fact that you end up in Leeds.

    In my neck of the woods, things are somewhat worse. There are no train stations in the entire constituency.
    If you want to go from Aberdeen to Banff by public transport, it's 45 miles on the bus and takes 2 hours. That's nearly double the time it takes from Manchester to Leeds, which is about the same distance.
    Colchester to Cambridge by rail isn't good, either.
  • Nigelb said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Boy, sure about that?

    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!
    Leeds still the 8th biggest in England on the fair metric of urban area. Note that the HS2E cancellations cuts off cities #5 (Newcastle) #6 Nottingham and #7 Sheffield and #8 Leeds.

    Absolute madness.

    1 London 8294058 1,570
    2 Birmingham 2293099 267.8
    3 Manchester 1741961 115.6
    4 Liverpool 830112 43.18
    5 Newcastle 794500 44
    6 Nottingham 667218 28.81
    7 Sheffield 656160 142.06
    8 Leeds 596027 213
    9 Bristol 558566 110
    10 Middlesbrough 472200 20.8
    11 Leicester 447328 73.32
    12 Portsmouth 438489 40.25
    13 Bradford 417061 370
    14 Bournemouth 382536 17.83
    15 Reading 373836 55.35
    16 Huddersfield 367976
    17 Stoke 360810
    18 Coventry 335274 98.64
    19 Birkenhead 331232
    20 Southampton 305887 20
    21 Hull 299724 71.45
    22 Sunderland 295503
    23 Wigan 285347
    24 Brighton 280187
    25 Southend 269714 41.76

    Don't forget Bradford and Huddersfield.
    The whole point of NPR was to link up Manchester and the urban areas of West Yorkshire.
    It's an awful decision. The worst kind of penny pinching short term bollocks.

    Maybe enough rebellion to block the change in House?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    Yes there's nothing I like more on the motorway than pulling over onto the hard shoulder to do a spot of shopping in the many retail and leisure facilities available the full length of the road.
    There's Frank's burger van on the A23. Handy if you're halfway to Brighton and fancy a nibble.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    IanB2 said:

    Newton Dunn:

    The high political drama appears to have had a profound effect on Johnson. One ally tells me he had “an existential moment” over the past two weeks, seeing for the first time how it could all end for him, and quickly, if he lost the trust of his backbenchers.

    Another ally talks of “an internal panic” in No10 over the collapse of authority, especially in the whips office.

    The 2019ers are both substantial in number (107 of them, close to a third of all Tory MPs) and relatively close-knit and well organised, held together by their own WhatsApp group called “The 109”, after a journalist misreported their number. Here’s the other thing about the new masters of Westminster that really troubles No10: unlike previous Tory intakes, they’re unashamedly independent and are far more wedded to their constituents than party doctrine. They are more like US Congressmen, who only have a loose affiliation to the Republican party. Some 71 of the 2019-ers have wafer-thin majorities.

    Finally, they as well as Boris know they control his political future. If they lose their seats in 2024, he loses his majority. It all means the PM now has his work cut out over the next three years to keep them on side. They won’t let him forget them again.

    That's really interesting. Boris needs some decent PPS's to keep him in contact with MPs. He's definitely not a Commons man himself, probably has little feel for the parliamentary party, and if he ends up reliant on Rees-Mogg for advice, who it is very difficult to imagine has much in common with Red Wallers (as he apparently did for Paterson), is gonna keep running into trouble.
    This perhaps supports the theory that Sunak is stuffing Johnson with these MPs (mainly Northern and Midlands) by kabooming the entire HS2 Eastern project this morning.

    Otherwise why on earth is Johnson doing this?

    Boris is doing it because the Southern MPs want something to talk about (without understanding that what's left of the new Garden Bridge HS2 is something that everyone else can use to attack them).

    Someone asked yesterday what Sunak would have that would allow him to change things when he replaces Boris. I suspect it's a very large sum of (hidden) money for the infrastructure and levelling up agenda that Boris scrapped today.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Scott_xP said:

    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.
    Good argument, also put by @LostPassword and I don't have an answer.

    But how do you ban all jobs?

    You could put the same argument for someone writing a novel (which seems to be common for MPs for some reason). We can think of conflicts of interest here (copyright issues) also and also there is no way of monitoring time, but how would you stop it?

    Where does a hobby stop and a job start. I guess it is where it stops costing you money and you start making money from it, but that often happens by accident / good fortune.
    This is why income is an essential component. Possibly some rules around gardening leave post-parliament, perhaps for a year after leaving with the same rate of pay as when you're an MP. Don't know, haven't sat and worked out a detailed system so I'm persuadable that I'm wrong.
    Clearly I'm persuadable also as you have done a good job on me.
  • kinabalu said:

    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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    Yes there's nothing I like more on the motorway than pulling over onto the hard shoulder to do a spot of shopping in the many retail and leisure facilities available the full length of the road.
    There's Frank's burger van on the A23. Handy if you're halfway to Brighton and fancy a nibble.
    Maybe it's those porn shops on the A1 that he has in mind. Or the mythical Honey Pot Lane Industrial Estate, one of Lincolnshire's top attractions.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,342
    tlg86 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Let's be honest, "the north" begins and ends in Manchester at Whitehall.

    And the BBC.
    I live in England and have to drive south for 120 miles and over 2 hours to get in sight of Manchester. BTW, Berwick (which is in England though most people seem not to know that) is 207 miles north of Manchester, and four hours driving.

  • Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Boy, sure about that?

    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!
    Leeds still the 8th biggest in England on the fair metric of urban area. Note that the HS2E cancellations cuts off cities #5 (Newcastle) #6 Nottingham and #7 Sheffield and #8 Leeds.

    Absolute madness.

    1 London 8294058 1,570
    2 Birmingham 2293099 267.8
    3 Manchester 1741961 115.6
    4 Liverpool 830112 43.18
    5 Newcastle 794500 44
    6 Nottingham 667218 28.81
    7 Sheffield 656160 142.06
    8 Leeds 596027 213
    9 Bristol 558566 110
    10 Middlesbrough 472200 20.8
    11 Leicester 447328 73.32
    12 Portsmouth 438489 40.25
    13 Bradford 417061 370
    14 Bournemouth 382536 17.83
    15 Reading 373836 55.35
    16 Huddersfield 367976
    17 Stoke 360810
    18 Coventry 335274 98.64
    19 Birkenhead 331232
    20 Southampton 305887 20
    21 Hull 299724 71.45
    22 Sunderland 295503
    23 Wigan 285347
    24 Brighton 280187
    25 Southend 269714 41.76

    "cuts off" is a bit strong.
    Well cuts them off the HS network. The inter-city links are generally pisspoor currently.
    Partilly agree. Manchester to Leeds by train isn't fun, both in terms of the journey itself and the fact that you end up in Leeds.

    In my neck of the woods, things are somewhat worse. There are no train stations in the entire constituency.
    If you want to go from Aberdeen to Banff by public transport, it's 45 miles on the bus and takes 2 hours. That's nearly double the time it takes from Manchester to Leeds, which is about the same distance.
    Ironically they didn't close the coast loop and the short branch to Banff until 1968 - would be very well used now if it was open. Similarly the lines to Fraserburgh and Peterhead.
    The line to St Andrews only closed in 1969.
  • eek said:

    eek said:

    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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    100% this.

    Incidentally Rochdale out of interest, I think its ridiculous the M58 doesn't connect with the M61. Out of interest I just put into Google Maps asking for a route between Aintree and Bolton. The fastest route it suggests to me is to to take the M62.

    Yes that's right the route from Aintree (start of the M58 of course) to Bolton is to avoid the M58 altogether, go South on the M57, East on the M62, then go back up North via the M60 and the M61 and finally the A666.

    Had the M58 been built properly, the route would be the M58 alone and that's that. Straight run, and the cars wouldn't need to be on the M61 or the M60 or the M62 or the M57 so traffic would be freed up from all those roads.

    It is because cars have no alternative but to take those routes that they're so congested. So using the fact they're congested as a reason not to invest is truly absurd.
    Roads are going to be a great idea when a brand new car is now 2 times average wages rather than 1 times average wage.

    Most of the world is working on the basis that the capital costs of an EV will mean fewer people can afford them, yet you want more roads even though the houses people live in already don't have enough parking spaces.
    I want more parking spaces per house too. I've said two off road parking spaces per house should be the norm for almost all new construction.

    I think the notion that cars are going to be too expensive to buy is a terrible excuse used by those with an anti-car agenda. The capital costs of EVs are coming down rapidly and the running costs of EVs can be even lower than ICE running costs. My money would be on as many people owning cars in the future as do in the present and the anti-car agenda is doomed to failure.
    Never going to happen.

    A bedroom / extra downstairs room is worth £50,000 to £100,000 to the builder - so the car space goes.

    As for the idea of more cars, I would ask why uber and co were all betting on car ownership dropping rather than rising in the future.
    Off road parking doesn't need to be in place of a room. I'm talking about a driveway not a garage. No reason in most of the country for a semi-detached not to have a driveway that can fit 2 cars and have an electric charge point.

    As for Uber et al then my simple answer is that they're wrong and they're cashing in on people who are wrong.
  • kinabalu said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Boy, sure about that?

    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!
    Leeds still the 8th biggest in England on the fair metric of urban area. Note that the HS2E cancellations cuts off cities #5 (Newcastle) #6 Nottingham and #7 Sheffield and #8 Leeds.

    Absolute madness.

    1 London 8294058 1,570
    2 Birmingham 2293099 267.8
    3 Manchester 1741961 115.6
    4 Liverpool 830112 43.18
    5 Newcastle 794500 44
    6 Nottingham 667218 28.81
    7 Sheffield 656160 142.06
    8 Leeds 596027 213
    9 Bristol 558566 110
    10 Middlesbrough 472200 20.8
    11 Leicester 447328 73.32
    12 Portsmouth 438489 40.25
    13 Bradford 417061 370
    14 Bournemouth 382536 17.83
    15 Reading 373836 55.35
    16 Huddersfield 367976
    17 Stoke 360810
    18 Coventry 335274 98.64
    19 Birkenhead 331232
    20 Southampton 305887 20
    21 Hull 299724 71.45
    22 Sunderland 295503
    23 Wigan 285347
    24 Brighton 280187
    25 Southend 269714 41.76

    Can I admit to knowing very little about transport infrastructure or trains on here? But yes, it does seem a bit weird that we don't join up our big northern cities with decent trains.
    I recall this being a key feature of Northern Powerhouse.
    I wonder if Northern Bluster and Waffle will resonate just as well in their all important focus groups?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,616
    eek said:

    eek said:

    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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    100% this.

    Incidentally Rochdale out of interest, I think its ridiculous the M58 doesn't connect with the M61. Out of interest I just put into Google Maps asking for a route between Aintree and Bolton. The fastest route it suggests to me is to to take the M62.

    Yes that's right the route from Aintree (start of the M58 of course) to Bolton is to avoid the M58 altogether, go South on the M57, East on the M62, then go back up North via the M60 and the M61 and finally the A666.

    Had the M58 been built properly, the route would be the M58 alone and that's that. Straight run, and the cars wouldn't need to be on the M61 or the M60 or the M62 or the M57 so traffic would be freed up from all those roads.

    It is because cars have no alternative but to take those routes that they're so congested. So using the fact they're congested as a reason not to invest is truly absurd.
    Roads are going to be a great idea when a brand new car is now 2 times average wages rather than 1 times average wage.

    Most of the world is working on the basis that the capital costs of an EV will mean fewer people can afford them, yet you want more roads even though the houses people live in already don't have enough parking spaces.
    I want more parking spaces per house too. I've said two off road parking spaces per house should be the norm for almost all new construction.

    I think the notion that cars are going to be too expensive to buy is a terrible excuse used by those with an anti-car agenda. The capital costs of EVs are coming down rapidly and the running costs of EVs can be even lower than ICE running costs. My money would be on as many people owning cars in the future as do in the present and the anti-car agenda is doomed to failure.
    Never going to happen.

    A bedroom / extra downstairs room is worth £50,000 to £100,000 to the builder - so the car space goes.

    As for the idea of more cars, I would ask why uber and co were all betting on car ownership dropping rather than rising in the future.
    A room is worth "£50,000 to £100,000"

    If anything sums up the insanity of the artificial land shortage for building, this is it. Makes Tesla shares look a bit cheap.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    MaxPB said:

    I'm still shocked that the government is making this level of poor decisions. It's almost like there's no one in number 10/11 who has any contact with the outside world.

    One of my friends pointed out that the US is about to go on a massive spending spree which will increase production capacity of a huge range of services and products and by 2030 everything will be in oversupply. A £350bn infrastructure renewal plan for the whole country would have a lot of purchasing power by then. There just seems to be a real lack of vision and enterprise. From energy, to transport, to water or fibre optic cabling, the UK just seems happy to be in the investment slow lane.

    I do wonder if moving the Treasury outside London will have an impact on things - but as I posted below that already appears to be quietly being watered down.
  • algarkirk said:

    tlg86 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Let's be honest, "the north" begins and ends in Manchester at Whitehall.

    And the BBC.
    I live in England and have to drive south for 120 miles and over 2 hours to get in sight of Manchester. BTW, Berwick (which is in England though most people seem not to know that) is 207 miles north of Manchester, and four hours driving.

    Its the same in Scotland. When I drive south it is 4 hrs 30 to the English border. And thats despite most of that being on high speed dual carriageways / motorways.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited November 2021

    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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    Yes there's nothing I like more on the motorway than pulling over onto the hard shoulder to do a spot of shopping in the many retail and leisure facilities available the full length of the road.
    Like the Trafford Centre at J9 and J10 of the M60?

    Or Cheshire Oaks at J10 of the M53?

    Yes those are popular places to pull over at.

    EDIT: I initially wrote J1 for Cheshire Oaks, Cheshire Oaks is J10 but coincidentally there is a J1 outlet too called appropriately enough JunctionONE in Wallasey.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,716
    edited November 2021

    kinabalu said:

    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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    Yes there's nothing I like more on the motorway than pulling over onto the hard shoulder to do a spot of shopping in the many retail and leisure facilities available the full length of the road.
    There's Frank's burger van on the A23. Handy if you're halfway to Brighton and fancy a nibble.
    Maybe it's those porn shops on the A1 that he has in mind. Or the mythical Honey Pot Lane Industrial Estate, one of Lincolnshire's top attractions.
    There's one of those on the A12, just N of Witham. Big fence around it so you can't see how many, or whose, cars are parked there.
    Frustrating!
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,716

    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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    Yes there's nothing I like more on the motorway than pulling over onto the hard shoulder to do a spot of shopping in the many retail and leisure facilities available the full length of the road.
    Like the Trafford Centre at J9 and J10 of the M60?

    Or Cheshire Oaks at J1 of the M53?

    Yes those are popular places to pull over at.
    Tebay Services. Now that really IS useful.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    edited November 2021

    algarkirk said:

    tlg86 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Let's be honest, "the north" begins and ends in Manchester at Whitehall.

    And the BBC.
    I live in England and have to drive south for 120 miles and over 2 hours to get in sight of Manchester. BTW, Berwick (which is in England though most people seem not to know that) is 207 miles north of Manchester, and four hours driving.

    Its the same in Scotland. When I drive south it is 4 hrs 30 to the English border. And thats despite most of that being on high speed dual carriageways / motorways.
    The 60mph limit on the A9 and failure to dual the whole distance is hardly helpful

    Just as an aside I have travelled that road to visit family in Lossiemouth for over 50 years
  • Labour Party member and a doctor, Gilbert House, has been suspended from the party for saying only women experience the menopause.

  • theakestheakes Posts: 839
    William Hill have Labour 8-1 at Bexley, most money still going on the Cons, Lib Dems 2-1, yes 2-1 at Shropshire North with 60% of the bets or money going on them! Remarkable.
  • Labour Party member and a doctor, Gilbert House, has been suspended from the party for saying only women experience the menopause.

    Wow.

    It seems the Labour Party want to deny that women even exist nowadays.
  • algarkirk said:

    tlg86 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Let's be honest, "the north" begins and ends in Manchester at Whitehall.

    And the BBC.
    I live in England and have to drive south for 120 miles and over 2 hours to get in sight of Manchester. BTW, Berwick (which is in England though most people seem not to know that) is 207 miles north of Manchester, and four hours driving.

    Its the same in Scotland. When I drive south it is 4 hrs 30 to the English border. And thats despite most of that being on high speed dual carriageways / motorways.
    The 60mph limit on the A9 and failure to dual the whole distance is hardly helpful

    Just as an aside I have travelled that road to visit family in Lossiemouth for over 50 years
    From my part of Aberdeenshire it is 40 minutes of (fast) single carriageways to reach the A90 north of Aberdeen. Its then dualled all the way to Gretna. It takes so long because it is such a long way - Scotland is much bigger than the central belt...
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,257

    eek said:

    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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    100% this.

    Incidentally Rochdale out of interest, I think its ridiculous the M58 doesn't connect with the M61. Out of interest I just put into Google Maps asking for a route between Aintree and Bolton. The fastest route it suggests to me is to to take the M62.

    Yes that's right the route from Aintree (start of the M58 of course) to Bolton is to avoid the M58 altogether, go South on the M57, East on the M62, then go back up North via the M60 and the M61 and finally the A666.

    Had the M58 been built properly, the route would be the M58 alone and that's that. Straight run, and the cars wouldn't need to be on the M61 or the M60 or the M62 or the M57 so traffic would be freed up from all those roads.

    It is because cars have no alternative but to take those routes that they're so congested. So using the fact they're congested as a reason not to invest is truly absurd.
    Roads are going to be a great idea when a brand new car is now 2 times average wages rather than 1 times average wage.

    Most of the world is working on the basis that the capital costs of an EV will mean fewer people can afford them, yet you want more roads even though the houses people live in already don't have enough parking spaces.
    I want more parking spaces per house too. I've said two off road parking spaces per house should be the norm for almost all new construction.

    I think the notion that cars are going to be too expensive to buy is a terrible excuse used by those with an anti-car agenda. The capital costs of EVs are coming down rapidly and the running costs of EVs can be even lower than ICE running costs. My money would be on as many people owning cars in the future as do in the present and the anti-car agenda is doomed to failure.
    I'm with you TCO for EVs coming into line with ICE cars. If they don't, they won't be bought. If a government bans ICEs anyway then there will be a different government next.

    Thing is though, for me preference order for commute (if I wasn't able to cycle) would be, if cost was no object:
    1. Self driving car
    2. Train
    3. Self-driven car
    4. Bus

    I don't know how common such an order would be, but I really don't miss my old car commute. If my commute was more viable by train then I'd have done it by train anyway (there's a bit of distance both ends to the stations, but the main limiter is slow and infrequent trains).

    A good train service is great, you have some time to do other stuff on your way in, whether work or relaxation, that you don't get driving a car particularly into a city.

    Almost every family (outside of the major city centres, at least) will want a car. But there could be better ways for many to commute. We still have a car, but now we have one car rather than two. With increased WFH, that becomes more viable for more people (the calculation of second car ownership cost changes when you only use it a few times a week).

    Self driving cars would change things as you could do something else while commuting and still have the door to door convenience and your own space. But they are a long way off for general use.

    Buses, if they were actually nice inside, with space similar to trains and dedicated lanes everywhere in cities could also be a solution - e.g. I've used trams in other countries for commute which have met those criteria and a 'bus' (more like a luxury coach) when I lived in Gothenburg for a few months that took workers from the centre to an industrial area.

    (Also with you on off-street parking, btw - not only for residents but for visitors. It's really convenient to e.g. be able to have visiting cars and off the road and ideally not blocking each other in).
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,738
    Government announce £96 billion HS2 replacement bus service to Leeds.
    https://twitter.com/MJowen174/status/1461275678066847745
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    kjh said:

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Farooq said:

    kjh said:

    Scott_xP said:

    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.
    Good argument, also put by @LostPassword and I don't have an answer.

    But how do you ban all jobs?

    You could put the same argument for someone writing a novel (which seems to be common for MPs for some reason). We can think of conflicts of interest here (copyright issues) also and also there is no way of monitoring time, but how would you stop it?

    Where does a hobby stop and a job start. I guess it is where it stops costing you money and you start making money from it, but that often happens by accident / good fortune.
    I think we're coming at the lobbying/corruption/second jobs issue from the wrong end. The problem is less that MPs are talking these fake jobs and being influenced by them, but that companies are buying MPs.

    Put more effort into using existing (or strengthened) bribery and corruption laws to convict companies and their executives who buy influence via MPs "consulting" and then you will see the offer of these sorts of jobs to MPs dry up.
  • algarkirk said:

    tlg86 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Let's be honest, "the north" begins and ends in Manchester at Whitehall.

    And the BBC.
    I live in England and have to drive south for 120 miles and over 2 hours to get in sight of Manchester. BTW, Berwick (which is in England though most people seem not to know that) is 207 miles north of Manchester, and four hours driving.

    Its the same in Scotland. When I drive south it is 4 hrs 30 to the English border. And thats despite most of that being on high speed dual carriageways / motorways.
    The 60mph limit on the A9 and failure to dual the whole distance is hardly helpful

    Just as an aside I have travelled that road to visit family in Lossiemouth for over 50 years
    From my part of Aberdeenshire it is 40 minutes of (fast) single carriageways to reach the A90 north of Aberdeen. Its then dualled all the way to Gretna. It takes so long because it is such a long way - Scotland is much bigger than the central belt...
    Absolutely and I do not think it is generally appreciated just how much bigger Scotland is outside the central belt and may I say very beautiful and in places stunning
  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199
    rcs1000 said:

    kamski said:

    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.

    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.

    Let's make sure we're all using the same numbers here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1195589/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccinations-number-federal-state-per-1000-germany/

    I would suggest there are three Germanies: there is North West Germany, that abuts the Netherland, Belgium and Denmark. This contains Bremen, Saarland, Hamburg, etc and has overall vaccination rates similar to the UK. The highest of the German states - Bremen - has double vaccinated more than 10 points higher than the German average, and more than 15 points higher than the average for East Germany.

    There is then is Southern Germany - Baden Wuttenberg, Bavaria (and you might want to add Rheinland-Palatinate and Hesse), which has vaccination rates below the average for Germany, and a little below the UK.

    Then you have Eastern Germany - Saxony, Brandenburg, Thuringia, and Saxony-Anhalt - which (as a group) has fully vaccinated below 60%, and looks more like Poland than the UK.
    Well, yes and no. Firstly, and most importantly, the percentage of unvaccinated adults in Germany (including west Germany) is a LOT higher than in the UK.

    This article in the FT from a few days ago has the numbers of people 12+ with no vaccine as
    Germany 22.1%
    UK13.6%
    https://www.ft.com/content/f04ac67b-92e4-4bab-8c23-817cc0483df5

    If you look at numbers of older people unvaccinated the difference is much bigger. And as explained above, the west German rate is NOT much lower than the German national average - maybe 1% or so. There's little point drawing too many conclusions from tiny Bremen (less than 600k population). I'm anyway not convinced its vaccination rates are really that much higher than surrounding Lower Saxony. Bremen did (does?) have vaccination trucks going around that made it very easy for people to show up and get vaccinated, I wouldn't be surprised if people from surrounding Lower Saxony turned up, got jabbed, and got added to the Bremen numbers. I did find this report from way back in January about people from Lower Saxony getting vaccinated in Bremen:
    https://www.butenunbinnen.de/nachrichten/bremen-impfstart-corona-laenderausgleich-100.html

    Secondly, it doesn't really divide into 3 groups in that way, just have a look at the map here:
    https://impfdashboard.de/ (which is also mostly where I get my German figures from). Where do Meck-Pomm and Berlin fit into your three groups? Poland has a rate of 53% fully vaccinated - with the exception of Saxony, the east German states are closer to the German national average than they are to Poland.

    The Saarland doesn't border the Netherlands, Belgium or Denmark, nor any of your "North West Germany" states, so are you throwing them in with that group purely on the basis of the high vaccination rate?. (neither Bremen nor Hamburg border the Netherlands, Belgium or Denmark either, but at least they are in the north west ish). Rhineland-Palatinate does border Belgium.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    eek said:

    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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    100% this.

    Incidentally Rochdale out of interest, I think its ridiculous the M58 doesn't connect with the M61. Out of interest I just put into Google Maps asking for a route between Aintree and Bolton. The fastest route it suggests to me is to to take the M62.

    Yes that's right the route from Aintree (start of the M58 of course) to Bolton is to avoid the M58 altogether, go South on the M57, East on the M62, then go back up North via the M60 and the M61 and finally the A666.

    Had the M58 been built properly, the route would be the M58 alone and that's that. Straight run, and the cars wouldn't need to be on the M61 or the M60 or the M62 or the M57 so traffic would be freed up from all those roads.

    It is because cars have no alternative but to take those routes that they're so congested. So using the fact they're congested as a reason not to invest is truly absurd.
    Roads are going to be a great idea when a brand new car is now 2 times average wages rather than 1 times average wage.

    Most of the world is working on the basis that the capital costs of an EV will mean fewer people can afford them, yet you want more roads even though the houses people live in already don't have enough parking spaces.
    I want more parking spaces per house too. I've said two off road parking spaces per house should be the norm for almost all new construction.

    I think the notion that cars are going to be too expensive to buy is a terrible excuse used by those with an anti-car agenda. The capital costs of EVs are coming down rapidly and the running costs of EVs can be even lower than ICE running costs. My money would be on as many people owning cars in the future as do in the present and the anti-car agenda is doomed to failure.
    If the capital costs are higher but the running costs are lower then the obvious solution is to convert the capital cost to a running cost with credit. As already happens.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,342
    edited November 2021

    kinabalu said:

    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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    Yes there's nothing I like more on the motorway than pulling over onto the hard shoulder to do a spot of shopping in the many retail and leisure facilities available the full length of the road.
    There's Frank's burger van on the A23. Handy if you're halfway to Brighton and fancy a nibble.
    Maybe it's those porn shops on the A1 that he has in mind. Or the mythical Honey Pot Lane Industrial Estate, one of Lincolnshire's top attractions.
    It's ace.

    https://phillipssutton.co.uk/honeypot-lane-industrial-estate-colsterworth/

    and what's more it is close to the equally legendary Colsterworth services and Travelodge, the Ritz of Grantham. And very nearby is the fantastical Woolsthorpe where, so the story goes, Newton saw the apple drop, downwards in this case, and discovered gravity.

    When all is said and done, it's Lincolnshire, and therefore uniquely unknown and interesting.



  • Grant Shapps live from the HOC now on Sky/BBC
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,716

    eek said:

    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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    100% this.

    Incidentally Rochdale out of interest, I think its ridiculous the M58 doesn't connect with the M61. Out of interest I just put into Google Maps asking for a route between Aintree and Bolton. The fastest route it suggests to me is to to take the M62.

    Yes that's right the route from Aintree (start of the M58 of course) to Bolton is to avoid the M58 altogether, go South on the M57, East on the M62, then go back up North via the M60 and the M61 and finally the A666.

    Had the M58 been built properly, the route would be the M58 alone and that's that. Straight run, and the cars wouldn't need to be on the M61 or the M60 or the M62 or the M57 so traffic would be freed up from all those roads.

    It is because cars have no alternative but to take those routes that they're so congested. So using the fact they're congested as a reason not to invest is truly absurd.
    Roads are going to be a great idea when a brand new car is now 2 times average wages rather than 1 times average wage.

    Most of the world is working on the basis that the capital costs of an EV will mean fewer people can afford them, yet you want more roads even though the houses people live in already don't have enough parking spaces.
    I want more parking spaces per house too. I've said two off road parking spaces per house should be the norm for almost all new construction.

    I think the notion that cars are going to be too expensive to buy is a terrible excuse used by those with an anti-car agenda. The capital costs of EVs are coming down rapidly and the running costs of EVs can be even lower than ICE running costs. My money would be on as many people owning cars in the future as do in the present and the anti-car agenda is doomed to failure.
    If the capital costs are higher but the running costs are lower then the obvious solution is to convert the capital cost to a running cost with credit. As already happens.
    There's a great deal of existing housing, though, which was built before cars were 'normal'.
  • Sebastian Fox going for the stupid vote - cancellation of the repeatedly promised plans is a Good Thing. Not delivering will deliver etc.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,342

    Labour Party member and a doctor, Gilbert House, has been suspended from the party for saying only women experience the menopause.

    Wow.

    It seems the Labour Party want to deny that women even exist nowadays.
    Unless this is a spoof (surely) Labour and Tories seem to be neck and neck in the closely contested competition to lose the next election.

  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781

    algarkirk said:

    tlg86 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Let's be honest, "the north" begins and ends in Manchester at Whitehall.

    And the BBC.
    I live in England and have to drive south for 120 miles and over 2 hours to get in sight of Manchester. BTW, Berwick (which is in England though most people seem not to know that) is 207 miles north of Manchester, and four hours driving.

    Its the same in Scotland. When I drive south it is 4 hrs 30 to the English border. And thats despite most of that being on high speed dual carriageways / motorways.
    The 60mph limit on the A9 and failure to dual the whole distance is hardly helpful

    Just as an aside I have travelled that road to visit family in Lossiemouth for over 50 years
    The average speed cameras don't work for the dualled bits.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571

    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.
    Sometime around 2050, then ?
  • NPR is now the Warrington - Manchester Airport connection and then a tunnel out of Manchester towards Stalybridge. Still trundling through Standedge and onwards through Huddersfield then.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,342

    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.
    The problem is the wider network. Many of these roads get proposed and not built because there is nowhere for the traffic to go at either end. One example is the M67 - the extension westward was cancelled when the IRR was cancelled. The extension eastward would dump traffic onto the M1 (congested) or possibly all the way to the A1 (congested).

    Your M580 sounds like the M58. This started on the Liverpool IRR and ran south of Wigan to join the M61. Cancelled at the western end when the Liverpool IRR was cancelled (a motorway on stilts past the Liver Building...), the western end with the M61 already busy.
    But this is the idiocy, of course the "other end" is still busy because many of the vehicles on the "other end" will be the same frigging vehicles as are going to drive on the new route. If someone is driving into Liverpool then yes they're going to end up in Liverpool, no two ways about that, but they don't need to end up in Manchester if they're not going to Manchester.

    If someone is going to Preston or Blackburn then they may end up on the M61 but they were going to either way.

    Its the middle bit that gets improved more than the other end and every time you improve the middle bit you are freeing up somebody else's "other end".

    The whole frigging point of the motorway network is to get people off inner town and city A roads and to get quickly from their own point A to point B but the problem with the lack of routes is that people end up forced to drive through places like Warrington and Manchester that they have no intention of even going to.
    An advantage with new roads is that it improves communications and allows development along the length of the road whereas with rail its only at the points around the stations.
    Yes there's nothing I like more on the motorway than pulling over onto the hard shoulder to do a spot of shopping in the many retail and leisure facilities available the full length of the road.
    Like the Trafford Centre at J9 and J10 of the M60?

    Or Cheshire Oaks at J1 of the M53?

    Yes those are popular places to pull over at.
    Tebay Services. Now that really IS useful.
    Tebay services is to motorway service stations as Hogwarts is to Grimstown Comprehensive.

  • He's still claiming to be building the "core Northern Powerhouse network" whilst announcing he is cancelling it.
  • NPR is now the Warrington - Manchester Airport connection and then a tunnel out of Manchester towards Stalybridge. Still trundling through Standedge and onwards through Huddersfield then.

    With a bus replacement service after 8pm.
  • Shapps is quoting Starmer stating he would cancel HS2
  • OMG I thought @RochdalePioneers was joking saying that Warrington to Manchester was the new high speed route.

    Just turned on the news and heard Grant Schapps actually say it. What is the fucking point of having a high speed rail line from Warrington to Manchester?

    We're about 10 fucking miles from Manchester! Is that what is needed to be High Speed?
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,013
    edited November 2021

    OMG I thought @RochdalePioneers was joking saying that Warrington to Manchester was the new high speed route.

    Just turned on the news and heard Grant Schapps actually say it. What is the fucking point of having a high speed rail line from Warrington to Manchester?

    We're about 10 fucking miles from Manchester! Is that what is needed to be High Speed?

    Its very simple - he thinks you are stupid.

    NPR was Liverpool to York. One section was Warrington to Manchester Airport to connect the Liverpool and Manchester spurs of HS2 West - the section just announced. Another section was Manchester to Leeds via Bradford - now curtailed to just clear the Manchester suburbs. The final section was a curve to connect the two eastern spurs at the top of HS2 East so that services heading out of Leeds could run through to York.

    So what they are building as a "New High Speed Line" is a curve between HS2 and HS2. And a tunnel to allow it access to the east. After that? They can 4 track Standedge tunnel, but its slow access on the west then a horrible curve at the east. Not fast to Huddersfield. Then the minor bit of 4 tracking east of Huddersfield before compressing back to the existing twisty 2 track railways through Dewsbury to Leeds.

    An utter utter farce, and he has the brass balls to have two alternative personas announce this as delivering the project.

    They think you are stupid enough to still vote for them. Are you?

    CORRECTION - they're building a new base tunnel to emerge at Marsden. And then the aforementioned trundle through Huddersfield.
  • OMG I thought @RochdalePioneers was joking saying that Warrington to Manchester was the new high speed route.

    Just turned on the news and heard Grant Schapps actually say it. What is the fucking point of having a high speed rail line from Warrington to Manchester?

    We're about 10 fucking miles from Manchester! Is that what is needed to be High Speed?

    Its very simple - he thinks you are stupid.

    NPR was Liverpool to York. One section was Warrington to Manchester Airport to connect the Liverpool and Manchester spurs of HS2 West - the section just announced. Another section was Manchester to Leeds via Bradford - now curtailed to just clear the Manchester suburbs. The final section was a curve to connect the two eastern spurs at the top of HS2 East so that services heading out of Leeds could run through to York.

    So what they are building as a "New High Speed Line" is a curve between HS2 and HS2. And a tunnel to allow it access to the east. After that? They can 4 track Standedge tunnel, but its slow access on the west then a horrible curve at the east. Not fast to Huddersfield. Then the minor bit of 4 tracking east of Huddersfield before compressing back to the existing twisty 2 track railways through Dewsbury to Leeds.

    An utter utter farce, and he has the brass balls to have two alternative personas announce this as delivering the project.

    They think you are stupid enough to still vote for them. Are you?
    Apparently Starmer supports the cancellation of HS2E
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,342

    OMG I thought @RochdalePioneers was joking saying that Warrington to Manchester was the new high speed route.

    Just turned on the news and heard Grant Schapps actually say it. What is the fucking point of having a high speed rail line from Warrington to Manchester?

    We're about 10 fucking miles from Manchester! Is that what is needed to be High Speed?

    Its very simple - he thinks you are stupid.

    NPR was Liverpool to York. One section was Warrington to Manchester Airport to connect the Liverpool and Manchester spurs of HS2 West - the section just announced. Another section was Manchester to Leeds via Bradford - now curtailed to just clear the Manchester suburbs. The final section was a curve to connect the two eastern spurs at the top of HS2 East so that services heading out of Leeds could run through to York.

    So what they are building as a "New High Speed Line" is a curve between HS2 and HS2. And a tunnel to allow it access to the east. After that? They can 4 track Standedge tunnel, but its slow access on the west then a horrible curve at the east. Not fast to Huddersfield. Then the minor bit of 4 tracking east of Huddersfield before compressing back to the existing twisty 2 track railways through Dewsbury to Leeds.

    An utter utter farce, and he has the brass balls to have two alternative personas announce this as delivering the project.

    They think you are stupid enough to still vote for them. Are you?
    Apparently Starmer supports the cancellation of HS2E
    Has any party got a plan for reopening Hexham to Riccarton Junction?

  • OMG I thought @RochdalePioneers was joking saying that Warrington to Manchester was the new high speed route.

    Just turned on the news and heard Grant Schapps actually say it. What is the fucking point of having a high speed rail line from Warrington to Manchester?

    We're about 10 fucking miles from Manchester! Is that what is needed to be High Speed?

    Its very simple - he thinks you are stupid.

    NPR was Liverpool to York. One section was Warrington to Manchester Airport to connect the Liverpool and Manchester spurs of HS2 West - the section just announced. Another section was Manchester to Leeds via Bradford - now curtailed to just clear the Manchester suburbs. The final section was a curve to connect the two eastern spurs at the top of HS2 East so that services heading out of Leeds could run through to York.

    So what they are building as a "New High Speed Line" is a curve between HS2 and HS2. And a tunnel to allow it access to the east. After that? They can 4 track Standedge tunnel, but its slow access on the west then a horrible curve at the east. Not fast to Huddersfield. Then the minor bit of 4 tracking east of Huddersfield before compressing back to the existing twisty 2 track railways through Dewsbury to Leeds.

    An utter utter farce, and he has the brass balls to have two alternative personas announce this as delivering the project.

    They think you are stupid enough to still vote for them. Are you?
    Apparently Starmer supports the cancellation of HS2E
    Supported. And frankly, and...?????

    The whole point in HS2 and NPR was to bypass such stupid partisan hackery. Build it over years for the benefit of centuries.
This discussion has been closed.