Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The reality is that life has changed. We aren't going back to pre-COVID commuting patterns no matter how many trains they put on.
Could that mean HS2 is not such a big deal anymore?
Well I thought the case for HS2 was ropey before COVID!
Personally, I think the case for railways going forward is that many people won't be able to afford a personal car once the internal combustion engine has gone.
The cost of EV cars is a different issue - but I'm not so sure - currently an EV lease isn't much worse than a ICE one once you factor in the difference in price between electric and diesel.
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.
It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
There are two types of commuter journey.
Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.
Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.
The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
The former is taxed to high heaven with fuel duty.
The latter gets billions of taxes spent on it.
Strip car taxes down to the amount that gets invested in roads, and have trains entirely funded by passengers and taxation on those passengers, and then see how popular they both are.
Got to ask you - how do you do that from where we are now?
The simple answer is that you can't do so. London is built around a central city with suburbs that people commute from via train. You can't just upend what has been built over 200 years overnight - and you simply can't the current number of cars into London during rush hour let alone add 500,000 more cars.
Likewise Manchester - I know people who drive to Bury and then catch the tram from there as it's just easier.
I never said not to have trains, I simply said they should be commercially run.
Privatise them properly, abolish all subsidies, and let the train companies charge whatever is commercially appropriate to operate.
If people don't want to pay a commercial rate to get into London on a train, they can invest elsewhere instead.
Would it not make sense, if we did that, to start road pricing instead of fuel duty?
That's a serious question from a man who commutes along the M6 Toll every weekday and has to pay through the nose for it.
I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.
There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with
Leave 52%
Remain 48%
Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.
I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
I like that idea.
My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.
The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.
Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
Satan´s little helpers...
I think they forget I have the power to dismiss them or relocate them to somewhere inhospitable.
Not…Sheffield…
I was thinking Middlesbrough.
Middlesbrough has the sea near by and redeeming features.
If you are punishing someone send them to Stoke on Trent.
I think Merthyr's worse.
Not by much, mind you.
Yep Merthyr would trump stoke - simple because of the journey time to get absolutely anywhere.
My problem with Boro is that I know the place and it really isn't that bad - there are way worse places to be.
Now Loftus....
The last I saw of Loftus was a big hole in the ground. Where all the alum shale was.
So Loftus had become downus?
It was certainly a big place in the Jurassic. Now ...
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.
It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
You have clearly never commuted to Central London then. Or some other city centres where I would prefer a train to sitting in a traffic jam. And of course if people can't travel by train, the traffic gets even worse.
Nobody has switched to commuting by car because there aren't quite as many trains in the peaks.
It's possible. The fewer trains, the harder it is to leave work when you want to which lengthens your journey. It also makes it worse if the train you wanted to catch is cancelled, as it is longer to the next one. For example, my 1713 from Farnborough no longer runs. There is a 1703 or a 1733. So that adds 20 minutes onto the journey if you can't leave early.
One thing that was discovered post-privatisation was that if you run more trains, more people travel. Increasing frequency of (say) an hourly service to a half-hourly leads to a previously full-train being replaced with two trains that are more than half-full.
People *hate* waiting for trains and busses; make the wait shorter, and more people travel. Sadly, they haven't taken the next step and realised that waiting facilities matter (at anything other than large stations; they've learnt about the cash cows there).
(There's at least one paper on this somewhere; I'll have to try to dig it up.)
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.
It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
There are two types of commuter journey.
Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.
Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.
The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
The former is taxed to high heaven with fuel duty.
The latter gets billions of taxes spent on it.
Strip car taxes down to the amount that gets invested in roads, and have trains entirely funded by passengers and taxation on those passengers, and then see how popular they both are.
Got to ask you - how do you do that from where we are now?
The simple answer is that you can't do so. London is built around a central city with suburbs that people commute from via train. You can't just upend what has been built over 200 years overnight - and you simply can't the current number of cars into London during rush hour let alone add 500,000 more cars.
Likewise Manchester - I know people who drive to Bury and then catch the tram from there as it's just easier.
I never said not to have trains, I simply said they should be commercially run.
Privatise them properly, abolish all subsidies, and let the train companies charge whatever is commercially appropriate to operate.
If people don't want to pay a commercial rate to get into London on a train, they can invest elsewhere instead.
The problem with that is that London needs x00,000 workers to arrive everyday and the infrastructure has been built for the last 200 years for these people to arrive by public transport. Replacing that infrastucture would cost way more than continuing that subsidy. Case in point the Limehouse tunnel (1 mile long cost £300m back in the 1993 - add inflation especially housing inflation and guess what it would cost to build now).
The solution for TFL and network south east is to add a levy on London business rates to pay for TFL subsidy.
The problem with that approach is that the levy would have a long term impact on the business rates chargeable in London and that costs the Treasury money...
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.
It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
There are two types of commuter journey.
Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.
Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.
The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
The former is taxed to high heaven with fuel duty.
The latter gets billions of taxes spent on it.
Strip car taxes down to the amount that gets invested in roads, and have trains entirely funded by passengers and taxation on those passengers, and then see how popular they both are.
Got to ask you - how do you do that from where we are now?
The simple answer is that you can't do so. London is built around a central city with suburbs that people commute from via train. You can't just upend what has been built over 200 years overnight - and you simply can't the current number of cars into London during rush hour let alone add 500,000 more cars.
Likewise Manchester - I know people who drive to Bury and then catch the tram from there as it's just easier.
I never said not to have trains, I simply said they should be commercially run.
Privatise them properly, abolish all subsidies, and let the train companies charge whatever is commercially appropriate to operate.
If people don't want to pay a commercial rate to get into London on a train, they can invest elsewhere instead.
Would it not make sense, if we did that, to start road pricing instead of fuel duty?
That's a serious question from a man who commutes along the M6 Toll every weekday and has to pay through the nose for it.
Rail travellers pay pro rata for every metre of track on which they run. Drivers don't, not per mile driven: the general taxpayer does.
Mileage taxation ... interesting idea. But hard on the rustics.
I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.
It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
There are two types of commuter journey.
Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.
Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.
The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
The former is taxed to high heaven with fuel duty.
The latter gets billions of taxes spent on it.
Strip car taxes down to the amount that gets invested in roads, and have trains entirely funded by passengers and taxation on those passengers, and then see how popular they both are.
Got to ask you - how do you do that from where we are now?
The simple answer is that you can't do so. London is built around a central city with suburbs that people commute from via train. You can't just upend what has been built over 200 years overnight - and you simply can't the current number of cars into London during rush hour let alone add 500,000 more cars.
Likewise Manchester - I know people who drive to Bury and then catch the tram from there as it's just easier.
I never said not to have trains, I simply said they should be commercially run.
Privatise them properly, abolish all subsidies, and let the train companies charge whatever is commercially appropriate to operate.
If people don't want to pay a commercial rate to get into London on a train, they can invest elsewhere instead.
Would it not make sense, if we did that, to start road pricing instead of fuel duty?
That's a serious question from a man who commutes along the M6 Toll every weekday and has to pay through the nose for it.
Rail travellers pay pro rata for every metre of track on which they run. Drivers don't, not per mile driven: the general taxpayer does.
Mileage taxation ... interesting idea. But hard on the rustics.
I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.
There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with
Leave 52%
Remain 48%
Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.
I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
I like that idea.
My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.
The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.
Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
Satan´s little helpers...
I think they forget I have the power to dismiss them or relocate them to somewhere inhospitable.
Not…Sheffield…
I was thinking Middlesbrough.
My best man worked for 2 years in a chlorine factory in Middlesbrough…
He hasn’t been back since he met Roger Jenkins
RJ stopped my smoking habit in 1977 ("smoking's for losers"). He was one of my students.
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.
It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
There are two types of commuter journey.
Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.
Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.
The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
The former is taxed to high heaven with fuel duty.
The latter gets billions of taxes spent on it.
Strip car taxes down to the amount that gets invested in roads, and have trains entirely funded by passengers and taxation on those passengers, and then see how popular they both are.
Got to ask you - how do you do that from where we are now?
The simple answer is that you can't do so. London is built around a central city with suburbs that people commute from via train. You can't just upend what has been built over 200 years overnight - and you simply can't the current number of cars into London during rush hour let alone add 500,000 more cars.
Likewise Manchester - I know people who drive to Bury and then catch the tram from there as it's just easier.
I never said not to have trains, I simply said they should be commercially run.
Privatise them properly, abolish all subsidies, and let the train companies charge whatever is commercially appropriate to operate.
If people don't want to pay a commercial rate to get into London on a train, they can invest elsewhere instead.
Would it not make sense, if we did that, to start road pricing instead of fuel duty?
That's a serious question from a man who commutes along the M6 Toll every weekday and has to pay through the nose for it.
Road pricing done properly would be a tiny fraction of the cost of fuel duty, the cost of the M6 Toll is ridiculous especially considering the taxes those driving on it are already paying.
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.
It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
There are two types of commuter journey.
Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.
Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.
The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
The former is taxed to high heaven with fuel duty.
The latter gets billions of taxes spent on it.
Strip car taxes down to the amount that gets invested in roads, and have trains entirely funded by passengers and taxation on those passengers, and then see how popular they both are.
Got to ask you - how do you do that from where we are now?
The simple answer is that you can't do so. London is built around a central city with suburbs that people commute from via train. You can't just upend what has been built over 200 years overnight - and you simply can't the current number of cars into London during rush hour let alone add 500,000 more cars.
Likewise Manchester - I know people who drive to Bury and then catch the tram from there as it's just easier.
I never said not to have trains, I simply said they should be commercially run.
Privatise them properly, abolish all subsidies, and let the train companies charge whatever is commercially appropriate to operate.
If people don't want to pay a commercial rate to get into London on a train, they can invest elsewhere instead.
Would it not make sense, if we did that, to start road pricing instead of fuel duty?
That's a serious question from a man who commutes along the M6 Toll every weekday and has to pay through the nose for it.
See my avatar? My "M6 extended remix" would incorporate a toll-free M6, er, Toll!
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.
It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
There are two types of commuter journey.
Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.
Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.
The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
The former is taxed to high heaven with fuel duty.
The latter gets billions of taxes spent on it.
Strip car taxes down to the amount that gets invested in roads, and have trains entirely funded by passengers and taxation on those passengers, and then see how popular they both are.
Got to ask you - how do you do that from where we are now?
The simple answer is that you can't do so. London is built around a central city with suburbs that people commute from via train. You can't just upend what has been built over 200 years overnight - and you simply can't the current number of cars into London during rush hour let alone add 500,000 more cars.
Likewise Manchester - I know people who drive to Bury and then catch the tram from there as it's just easier.
I never said not to have trains, I simply said they should be commercially run.
Privatise them properly, abolish all subsidies, and let the train companies charge whatever is commercially appropriate to operate.
If people don't want to pay a commercial rate to get into London on a train, they can invest elsewhere instead.
Would it not make sense, if we did that, to start road pricing instead of fuel duty?
That's a serious question from a man who commutes along the M6 Toll every weekday and has to pay through the nose for it.
Road pricing done properly would be a tiny fraction of the cost of fuel duty, the cost of the M6 Toll is ridiculous especially considering the taxes those driving on it are already paying.
One of the advantages of fuel duty of course is it does reward careful, smooth, moderately paced driving which is also desirable environmentally.
I am not sure whether, given the amount that will need spending on replacing bridges over the next 20 years, I agree about how much less it would be. It just seemed neater as a way of working and would make comparisons of cost more straightforward.
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.
It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
There are two types of commuter journey.
Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.
Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.
The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
The former is taxed to high heaven with fuel duty.
The latter gets billions of taxes spent on it.
Strip car taxes down to the amount that gets invested in roads, and have trains entirely funded by passengers and taxation on those passengers, and then see how popular they both are.
Got to ask you - how do you do that from where we are now?
The simple answer is that you can't do so. London is built around a central city with suburbs that people commute from via train. You can't just upend what has been built over 200 years overnight - and you simply can't the current number of cars into London during rush hour let alone add 500,000 more cars.
Likewise Manchester - I know people who drive to Bury and then catch the tram from there as it's just easier.
I never said not to have trains, I simply said they should be commercially run.
Privatise them properly, abolish all subsidies, and let the train companies charge whatever is commercially appropriate to operate.
If people don't want to pay a commercial rate to get into London on a train, they can invest elsewhere instead.
Would it not make sense, if we did that, to start road pricing instead of fuel duty?
That's a serious question from a man who commutes along the M6 Toll every weekday and has to pay through the nose for it.
Road pricing done properly would be a tiny fraction of the cost of fuel duty, the cost of the M6 Toll is ridiculous especially considering the taxes those driving on it are already paying.
How does that work - whatever money the treasury gets from fuel duty needs to be replaced by something.
It really wouldn't surprise me to see road pricing being 10p or more per mile.
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Well, there are only two ways to cover the cost of the railways: from the farepayer and from the taxpayer. Increasing the latter is politically impossible because it's effectively a subsidy of relatively rich South Eastern commuters and hence contrary to leveling up, and if increasing the former is politically impossible because media coverage is dictated by journalists who predominantly are relatively rich South Eastern commuters, then there's only one solution left - cut costs.
Can't see that that is the case at all, except insofar as there is an overall budget pie to be cut up.
(1) That doesn't cover the case of Scotland, NI and IIRC recently) Wales. (2) That doesn't cover capital investment grants to specific projects. HS2 is an obvious example. (3) That doesn't allow for the point that different Train Operating Companies have different budgets and agreements with DfT.
For all those reasons, differential funding can be and is applied to different areas. So one could reduce funding for London and increase it for the Adlestrop branch line, for instance. Or the converse. Indeed, it was the absurdly small funding to the NE as opposed to London commuters that exemplifies the issue -but also shows the poiint that differential funding does exist.
Does Oxford-Worcester count as a branch line? Should be referred to Sunil for a definitive judgment.
The old O, W and W was something of a loose end in the old days ... but not latterly. You are right!
Went to Adlestrop (the name!) a few years ago. The old station sign now adorns the village bus shelter. A spine-tingling sight, so perhaps the shade of Edward Thomas was still lurking.
More ridiculous hypocrisy today, I can see, following Johnson's "powder rooms of North London" speech, with the new hard drugs crackdown. The treatment parts look constructive, but the crowd-pleasing and culture-war flavoured measures on "taking away the passports of middle-class druggies, and interfering with their lives", will achieve nothing socially useful. Johnson is only able to give such a vivid and poetic portrayal of the "powder rooms of North London", because he knows them initimately well himself, as do some of his colleagues.
I’ll bite.
If you want to continue with drug criminalisation (a different question), then targeting the users with stiff penalties is the way to go.
And you have to go after the wealthy ones, not the poor ones. The wealthy drug users keep the dealers in business. Dealers are not daft. You know you can charge someone middle class more and that subsidises the lower end of the market.
Which means the poor suffer from leniency towards the rich. One of the key reasons why Manchester was such a drugs capital in the 1980s and 1990s was that it had a very large concentration of well-off students living in a very close proximity to Moss Side. They could leave when they finished their degrees but they left behind the problems.
So, nail the middle class users. Name and shame them. It will only take a few examples for the rest of them to realise the cost of doing drugs is too high as opposed to a badge of honour.
It's such a dumb policy. Imagine the case of a normal twenty or thirty something who occasionally takes MDMA when they go clubbing. They get caught and lose their driving license. They need their car for work so they lose their job and stop paying taxes. They go from being a successful fully functioning member of society to being a burden on taxpayers. All for possessing a substance far less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. Almost the only harm that a drug like MDMA does to society comes from the fact that criminals profit from it, which is entirely because it is illegal. It's a pure Catch-22 situation: it should be illegal because it's harmful because it's illegal. Only a government dead from the neck up and utterly bereft of ideas would come up with something this dumb.
It's a policy for turning mostly functional middle class drug users into not at all functional petty criminal drug addicts.
I'm at a loss as to where the idea could have come from. Anyone who knows anything about drugs knows that prosecuting users doesn't actually get you anywhere or solve anything.
And I don't see how there is any actual votes in it.
I don't know where this has come form, as some have speculated in may be a focus group thing.
But I suspect this is much more a cases having spent the last 19 months telling people what to do for there own good, its become a but of a habit, maybe even an addiction to control over other people lives.
Didn't someone on PB suggest it was a diversion tactic against the chatterati for being so rude as to complain about Mr Johnson's parties, non-masking in hospitals etc.?
I do also wonder if other politicians are being targeted at the same time. Though I don't know enough about their habits to judge, and don't want to.
When I was at uni the students who took a lot of illegal drugs all fitted the socioeconomic profile of the PM and most of the Cabinet. There is I would imagine a fair amount of hypocrisy at work here, including among voters who smoke and get drunk but say they want the government to get tough on drugs, as though they are not also drug users (and in the case of anyone who gets drunk, abusers).
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.
It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
There are two types of commuter journey.
Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.
Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.
The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
The former is taxed to high heaven with fuel duty.
The latter gets billions of taxes spent on it.
Strip car taxes down to the amount that gets invested in roads, and have trains entirely funded by passengers and taxation on those passengers, and then see how popular they both are.
Got to ask you - how do you do that from where we are now?
The simple answer is that you can't do so. London is built around a central city with suburbs that people commute from via train. You can't just upend what has been built over 200 years overnight - and you simply can't the current number of cars into London during rush hour let alone add 500,000 more cars.
Likewise Manchester - I know people who drive to Bury and then catch the tram from there as it's just easier.
I never said not to have trains, I simply said they should be commercially run.
Privatise them properly, abolish all subsidies, and let the train companies charge whatever is commercially appropriate to operate.
If people don't want to pay a commercial rate to get into London on a train, they can invest elsewhere instead.
Would it not make sense, if we did that, to start road pricing instead of fuel duty?
That's a serious question from a man who commutes along the M6 Toll every weekday and has to pay through the nose for it.
Road pricing done properly would be a tiny fraction of the cost of fuel duty, the cost of the M6 Toll is ridiculous especially considering the taxes those driving on it are already paying.
How does that work - whatever money the treasury gets from fuel duty needs to be replaced by something.
It really wouldn't surprise me to see road pricing being 10p or more per mile.
How about it gets replaced with taxes on trains at the same rate as cars are taxed?
The Treasury shouldn't be treating drivers as a golden goose.
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.
It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
You have clearly never commuted to Central London then. Or some other city centres where I would prefer a train to sitting in a traffic jam. And of course if people can't travel by train, the traffic gets even worse.
Nobody has switched to commuting by car because there aren't quite as many trains in the peaks.
It's possible. The fewer trains, the harder it is to leave work when you want to which lengthens your journey. It also makes it worse if the train you wanted to catch is cancelled, as it is longer to the next one. For example, my 1713 from Farnborough no longer runs. There is a 1703 or a 1733. So that adds 20 minutes onto the journey if you can't leave early.
One thing that was discovered post-privatisation was that if you run more trains, more people travel. Increasing frequency of (say) an hourly service to a half-hourly leads to a previously full-train being replaced with two trains that are more than half-full.
People *hate* waiting for trains and busses; make the wait shorter, and more people travel. Sadly, they haven't taken the next step and realised that waiting facilities matter (at anything other than large stations; they've learnt about the cash cows there).
(There's at least one paper on this somewhere; I'll have to try to dig it up.)
There is a whole pile of papers on it - locally it's the justification for the improvements to Darlington's station - moving the Boro trains off the ECML will allow a 15 minute train service to Boro, Redcar and Saltburn / Whitby.
On topic (vaguely), I'd like to share my argument that 2000 Miles by the Pretenders is NOT a Christmas song, even though it is routinely treated as such.
It was written about the death of a member of the band, James Honeyman-Scott, who had died of a drug overdose in New York in the middle of June. The wintery references are to Chrissie Hynde's mental state, and are purely ironic given it is set in the middle of summer. A couple of Christmas references are specifically to it NOT being Christmas ("it felt LIKE Christmas time", "he'll be back at Christmas time") and "I can hear people singing, it must be Christmas time" is a nod to the funeral - just about the only time many people go to Church and join in singing, other than at Christmas.
Of course, that's all undercut by the fact it was released at Christmas, with a Christmassy video... but that's the music biz for you.
Saw an ad the other day to the tune of Fairytale of New York. Of course that is a Christmas song, but it struck me that "Merry Christmas my arse, I pray to God it's our last" was not really appropriate, especially as we are still in a pandemic and if granny and grandad catch covid off little Jimmy, it may well be their last. Maybe not many people actually know the words.
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.
It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
There are two types of commuter journey.
Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.
Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.
The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
The former is taxed to high heaven with fuel duty.
The latter gets billions of taxes spent on it.
Strip car taxes down to the amount that gets invested in roads, and have trains entirely funded by passengers and taxation on those passengers, and then see how popular they both are.
Got to ask you - how do you do that from where we are now?
The simple answer is that you can't do so. London is built around a central city with suburbs that people commute from via train. You can't just upend what has been built over 200 years overnight - and you simply can't the current number of cars into London during rush hour let alone add 500,000 more cars.
Likewise Manchester - I know people who drive to Bury and then catch the tram from there as it's just easier.
I never said not to have trains, I simply said they should be commercially run.
Privatise them properly, abolish all subsidies, and let the train companies charge whatever is commercially appropriate to operate.
If people don't want to pay a commercial rate to get into London on a train, they can invest elsewhere instead.
Would it not make sense, if we did that, to start road pricing instead of fuel duty?
That's a serious question from a man who commutes along the M6 Toll every weekday and has to pay through the nose for it.
Road pricing done properly would be a tiny fraction of the cost of fuel duty, the cost of the M6 Toll is ridiculous especially considering the taxes those driving on it are already paying.
How does that work - whatever money the treasury gets from fuel duty needs to be replaced by something.
It really wouldn't surprise me to see road pricing being 10p or more per mile.
How about it gets replaced with taxes on trains at the same rate as cars are taxed?
The Treasury shouldn't be treating drivers as a golden goose.
You cannot tell me that the £210 I will spend to get down to London by train next weekend gives the treasury less money than the £60 in fuel it would otherwise cost me.
By my estimate that is 7-8 times more than I would be paying in fuel duty.
Long distance rail journeys are seriously profitable - it's commuter services (especially those outside London) where the big losses are made.
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Well, there are only two ways to cover the cost of the railways: from the farepayer and from the taxpayer. Increasing the latter is politically impossible because it's effectively a subsidy of relatively rich South Eastern commuters and hence contrary to leveling up, and if increasing the former is politically impossible because media coverage is dictated by journalists who predominantly are relatively rich South Eastern commuters, then there's only one solution left - cut costs.
Can't see that that is the case at all, except insofar as there is an overall budget pie to be cut up.
(1) That doesn't cover the case of Scotland, NI and IIRC recently) Wales. (2) That doesn't cover capital investment grants to specific projects. HS2 is an obvious example. (3) That doesn't allow for the point that different Train Operating Companies have different budgets and agreements with DfT.
For all those reasons, differential funding can be and is applied to different areas. So one could reduce funding for London and increase it for the Adlestrop branch line, for instance. Or the converse. Indeed, it was the absurdly small funding to the NE as opposed to London commuters that exemplifies the issue -but also shows the poiint that differential funding does exist.
Does Oxford-Worcester count as a branch line? Should be referred to Sunil for a definitive judgment.
The old O, W and W was something of a loose end in the old days ... but not latterly. You are right!
Went to Adlestrop (the name!) a few years ago. The old station sign now adorns the village bus shelter. A spine-tingling sight, so perhaps the shade of Edward Thomas was still lurking.
I'd never heard that! But so it is - must go there sometime just to pay homage.
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
NEW: 20m boosters in British arms - UK is third country (only behind US and China) to pass landmark for 3rd doses (though still just under half of eligible adults have had their jab).
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.
It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
There are two types of commuter journey.
Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.
Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.
The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
The former is taxed to high heaven with fuel duty.
The latter gets billions of taxes spent on it.
Strip car taxes down to the amount that gets invested in roads, and have trains entirely funded by passengers and taxation on those passengers, and then see how popular they both are.
Got to ask you - how do you do that from where we are now?
The simple answer is that you can't do so. London is built around a central city with suburbs that people commute from via train. You can't just upend what has been built over 200 years overnight - and you simply can't the current number of cars into London during rush hour let alone add 500,000 more cars.
Likewise Manchester - I know people who drive to Bury and then catch the tram from there as it's just easier.
I never said not to have trains, I simply said they should be commercially run.
Privatise them properly, abolish all subsidies, and let the train companies charge whatever is commercially appropriate to operate.
If people don't want to pay a commercial rate to get into London on a train, they can invest elsewhere instead.
How do you price in pollution, congestion, noise and other externalities associated with cars?
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I've never seen Die Hard! The best Christmas Movie is It's A Wonderful Life, anyway, so this whole discussion is kind of pointless...
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I've never seen Die Hard! The best Christmas Movie is It's A Wonderful Life, anyway, so this whole discussion is kind of pointless...
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I've never seen Die Hard! The best Christmas Movie is It's A Wonderful Life, anyway, so this whole discussion is kind of pointless...
I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.
There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with
Leave 52%
Remain 48%
Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.
I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
I like that idea.
My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.
The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.
Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
Satan´s little helpers...
I think they forget I have the power to dismiss them or relocate them to somewhere inhospitable.
Not…Sheffield…
I was thinking Middlesbrough.
My best man worked for 2 years in a chlorine factory in Middlesbrough…
He hasn’t been back since he met Roger Jenkins
RJ stopped my smoking habit in 1977 ("smoking's for losers"). He was one of my students.
Did you have him down as a future serial-model dating Demi-billionaire kingpin?
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I've never seen Die Hard! The best Christmas Movie is It's A Wonderful Life, anyway, so this whole discussion is kind of pointless...
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I've never seen Die Hard! The best Christmas Movie is It's A Wonderful Life, anyway, so this whole discussion is kind of pointless...
The Muppet Christmas Carol is far and away the best...
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I watched Die Hard 3 the other day for the first time in ages. The zenith of Western civilisation pretty much. 1995, the most credible villain going was an East German bank robber. More innocent times…
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I've never seen Die Hard! The best Christmas Movie is It's A Wonderful Life, anyway, so this whole discussion is kind of pointless...
Again - the best Christmas Movie is The Muppet Christmas Carol - what's more unlike the other films people mention it's also British.
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I watched Die Hard 3 the other day for the first time in ages. The zenith of Western civilisation pretty much. 1995, the most credible villain going was an East German bank robber. More innocent times…
[spoiler]
He was the brother of the robber in the first Die Hard!
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I watched Die Hard 3 the other day for the first time in ages. The zenith of Western civilisation pretty much. 1995, the most credible villain going was an East German bank robber. More innocent times…
[spoiler]
He was the brother of the robber in the first Die Hard!
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.
It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
There are two types of commuter journey.
Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.
Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.
The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
The former is taxed to high heaven with fuel duty.
The latter gets billions of taxes spent on it.
Strip car taxes down to the amount that gets invested in roads, and have trains entirely funded by passengers and taxation on those passengers, and then see how popular they both are.
There are more costs to road travel than just the cost of the roads.
I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.
There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with
Leave 52%
Remain 48%
Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.
I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
I like that idea.
My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.
The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.
Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
Satan´s little helpers...
I think they forget I have the power to dismiss them or relocate them to somewhere inhospitable.
Not…Sheffield…
I was thinking Middlesbrough.
My best man worked for 2 years in a chlorine factory in Middlesbrough…
He hasn’t been back since he met Roger Jenkins
RJ stopped my smoking habit in 1977 ("smoking's for losers"). He was one of my students.
Did you have him down as a future serial-model dating Demi-billionaire kingpin?
Hard as nails. Took no prisoners. Others jogged for health, he ran like mad with a backpack full of bricks. But I did teach him a thing or two, and am forever grateful for the smoking turn-off.
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The reality is that life has changed. We aren't going back to pre-COVID commuting patterns no matter how many trains they put on.
Could that mean HS2 is not such a big deal anymore?
Well I thought the case for HS2 was ropey before COVID!
Personally, I think the case for railways going forward is that many people won't be able to afford a personal car once the internal combustion engine has gone.
The cost of EV cars is a different issue - but I'm not so sure - currently an EV lease isn't much worse than a ICE one once you factor in the difference in price between electric and diesel.
Wait till the lithium runs out
1) It won't. 2) Iron sulphur batteries (or half a dozen other chemistries) might replace them anyway.
Within five years EVs will be cheaper to build than the fossil fuel alternatives.
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I've never seen Die Hard! The best Christmas Movie is It's A Wonderful Life, anyway, so this whole discussion is kind of pointless...
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.
It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
There are two types of commuter journey.
Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.
Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.
The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
I live very much down south. I used to commute 8 miles across the conurbation, which took me 20-30 minutes by car, depending on traffic.
Public transport? An hour and a quarter minimum. Not counting extended waiting time.
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Well, there are only two ways to cover the cost of the railways: from the farepayer and from the taxpayer. Increasing the latter is politically impossible because it's effectively a subsidy of relatively rich South Eastern commuters and hence contrary to leveling up, and if increasing the former is politically impossible because media coverage is dictated by journalists who predominantly are relatively rich South Eastern commuters, then there's only one solution left - cut costs.
Can't see that that is the case at all, except insofar as there is an overall budget pie to be cut up.
(1) That doesn't cover the case of Scotland, NI and IIRC recently) Wales. (2) That doesn't cover capital investment grants to specific projects. HS2 is an obvious example. (3) That doesn't allow for the point that different Train Operating Companies have different budgets and agreements with DfT.
For all those reasons, differential funding can be and is applied to different areas. So one could reduce funding for London and increase it for the Adlestrop branch line, for instance. Or the converse. Indeed, it was the absurdly small funding to the NE as opposed to London commuters that exemplifies the issue -but also shows the poiint that differential funding does exist.
Does Oxford-Worcester count as a branch line? Should be referred to Sunil for a definitive judgment.
The old O, W and W was something of a loose end in the old days ... but not latterly. You are right!
Went to Adlestrop (the name!) a few years ago. The old station sign now adorns the village bus shelter. A spine-tingling sight, so perhaps the shade of Edward Thomas was still lurking.
That confused me horribly for a moment, because when I think of 'railways' and 'Edward Thomas' I naturally think of the Talyllyn first.
As we were discussing trains and have now gone on to pointless blethering about some film, try to drag us back to something approaching reality with my look at the passenger transport numbers.
National Rail passenger numbers, having moved above 70% of pre-Covid in mid-November, fell back in the last full week of the month to the mid-60s. On the London Underground, passenger numbers peaked at 64% of pre-Covid on November 25th (the figure for the 26th, 44%) is distorted by the strike action on various lines.
It's not hard to see the reasons for TfL's crisis - bus passenger numbers are 75-80% of pre-Covid but that doesn't help if you've lost a third of your passenger traffic on the tube.
There's been the predictable excoriation of Sadiq Khan but it's hard to see how Boris Johnson, as Mayor, would have done any different. The fact is the operational financial model of TfL (and other passenger transport operators) has bene broken and if we are to believe Rishi Sunak who is unfortunately starting to look like a predictable Conservative Chancellor, there will be some big cuts to services as a condition for continued Government support.
I presume the thinking will be the longer wait for your tube, train and bus will be mitigated by the comforting knowledge you'll be paying less in income tax (and of course the wealthier you are the greater the reduction).
Notions of raising personal allowances or the threshold for higher rate taxation (which were at least an imaginative response) have been abandoned for good old-fashioned trickle-down.
More ridiculous hypocrisy today, I can see, following Johnson's "powder rooms of North London" speech, with the new hard drugs crackdown. The treatment parts look constructive, but the crowd-pleasing and culture-war flavoured measures on "taking away the passports of middle-class druggies, and interfering with their lives", will achieve nothing socially useful. Johnson is only able to give such a vivid and poetic portrayal of the "powder rooms of North London", because he knows them initimately well himself, as do some of his colleagues.
I’ll bite.
If you want to continue with drug criminalisation (a different question), then targeting the users with stiff penalties is the way to go.
And you have to go after the wealthy ones, not the poor ones. The wealthy drug users keep the dealers in business. Dealers are not daft. You know you can charge someone middle class more and that subsidises the lower end of the market.
Which means the poor suffer from leniency towards the rich. One of the key reasons why Manchester was such a drugs capital in the 1980s and 1990s was that it had a very large concentration of well-off students living in a very close proximity to Moss Side. They could leave when they finished their degrees but they left behind the problems.
So, nail the middle class users. Name and shame them. It will only take a few examples for the rest of them to realise the cost of doing drugs is too high as opposed to a badge of honour.
It's such a dumb policy. Imagine the case of a normal twenty or thirty something who occasionally takes MDMA when they go clubbing. They get caught and lose their driving license. They need their car for work so they lose their job and stop paying taxes. They go from being a successful fully functioning member of society to being a burden on taxpayers. All for possessing a substance far less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. Almost the only harm that a drug like MDMA does to society comes from the fact that criminals profit from it, which is entirely because it is illegal. It's a pure Catch-22 situation: it should be illegal because it's harmful because it's illegal. Only a government dead from the neck up and utterly bereft of ideas would come up with something this dumb.
If the only harm was to the user, I’d agree. I know plenty of middle class professional drug partakers - along different ends of the usage spectrum - and, to the most part, it doesn’t impact their ability to work. Certainly less so than alcohol in a number of cases.
However, my main point, was that the higher cost is borne by the poorer communities. Having wealthier individuals able to buy drugs provides the economic basis for many gangs to supply drugs to lower income groups. If there were not these buyers, the economics for a lot of the drugs trade would look less attractive.
I have firm views in favour of correct categorisation for many things, but in terms of Christmas films I am a radical inclusionist. Die Hard is a Christmas Film.
There was this incel virgin on PB who kept on posting on lots of Brexit related posts with
Leave 52%
Remain 48%
Now he gets triggered by something that has 52% winning once again.
You're comparing a referendum with an opinion poll. Remember, Remain had a huge lead in the polls, but when people went to vote, the result was very different.
I suggested we should have a referendum on masks, but actually, this is more important.
I like that idea.
My team's work Christmas meal/meet up has been cancelled, the overwhelming consensus is to have a watch along party on December the 20th.
The majority have chosen the film will be Die Hard.
Most of them will be eating Hawaiian pizzas as well.
Would you like to make the Zoom log-in widely available? Sounds like a hell of a night....
We don't use Zoom but I can ask our IT boffins if it is possible to create a log in code for you all.
There might be more fun than you can handle. The team comprises of 20 or so people, mostly lawyers, accountants, bankers, statisticians, and mathematicians.
That is more excitement than most people can handle.
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I've never seen Die Hard! The best Christmas Movie is It's A Wonderful Life, anyway, so this whole discussion is kind of pointless...
I've not seen Die Hard either.
Nor have I
The last film I watched was the Railway Children (with Jenny Agutter) or the Great Escape, I just cannot remember.
Re; the posters asking what's motivated this sudden drugs "crackdown", it seems that we've missed this story from just a couple of hours ago.
Lindsey Hoyle is actually calling in police because of the amount of traces of drugs found on the parliamentary estate, including in the toilets next to Boris Johnson's office.
It seems that this could be damage limitation, not least because of the very significant potential toxicity, so to speak, of it in combination with other current high-level corruption and double standards stories. The " whiff " of decadence, if you like.
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The most straightforward way of commuting is driving. That's how the overwhelming majority of people commute.
It'd be great if the Treasury quit playing with train sets and got in touch with the real world.
There are two types of commuter journey.
Up north it will be car to factory / office / business park on the edge of town - that favours people driving cars.
Elsewhere it will be into a central location (City / Town) - that favours public transport.
The latter requires public transport for it to work sensible...
I live very much down south. I used to commute 8 miles across the conurbation, which took me 20-30 minutes by car, depending on traffic.
Public transport? An hour and a quarter minimum. Not counting extended waiting time.
That's the point - public transport commuting only works if you are commuting into the centre. If the office isn't in the town / city centre it becomes a faff. It's why I've never said that Philip's idea doesn't work - just the fact Philip's idea doesn't work in some places.
But when you apply the logic to London / Manchester / Edinburgh/ Glasgow / Newcastle you can see that if your workplace / office is in the city centre the only (sane) way to get there is via public transport.
Which is why I pointed out that the costs need to be a levy on business rates in those areas.
More ridiculous hypocrisy today, I can see, following Johnson's "powder rooms of North London" speech, with the new hard drugs crackdown. The treatment parts look constructive, but the crowd-pleasing and culture-war flavoured measures on "taking away the passports of middle-class druggies, and interfering with their lives", will achieve nothing socially useful. Johnson is only able to give such a vivid and poetic portrayal of the "powder rooms of North London", because he knows them initimately well himself, as do some of his colleagues.
I’ll bite.
If you want to continue with drug criminalisation (a different question), then targeting the users with stiff penalties is the way to go.
And you have to go after the wealthy ones, not the poor ones. The wealthy drug users keep the dealers in business. Dealers are not daft. You know you can charge someone middle class more and that subsidises the lower end of the market.
Which means the poor suffer from leniency towards the rich. One of the key reasons why Manchester was such a drugs capital in the 1980s and 1990s was that it had a very large concentration of well-off students living in a very close proximity to Moss Side. They could leave when they finished their degrees but they left behind the problems.
So, nail the middle class users. Name and shame them. It will only take a few examples for the rest of them to realise the cost of doing drugs is too high as opposed to a badge of honour.
It's such a dumb policy. Imagine the case of a normal twenty or thirty something who occasionally takes MDMA when they go clubbing. They get caught and lose their driving license. They need their car for work so they lose their job and stop paying taxes. They go from being a successful fully functioning member of society to being a burden on taxpayers. All for possessing a substance far less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. Almost the only harm that a drug like MDMA does to society comes from the fact that criminals profit from it, which is entirely because it is illegal. It's a pure Catch-22 situation: it should be illegal because it's harmful because it's illegal. Only a government dead from the neck up and utterly bereft of ideas would come up with something this dumb.
If the only harm was to the user, I’d agree. I know plenty of middle class professional drug partakers - along different ends of the usage spectrum - and, to the most part, it doesn’t impact their ability to work. Certainly less so than alcohol in a number of cases.
However, my main point, was that the higher cost is borne by the poorer communities. Having wealthier individuals able to buy drugs provides the economic basis for many gangs to supply drugs to lower income groups. If there were not these buyers, the economics for a lot of the drugs trade would look less attractive.
You’ve missed his point quite spectacularly there.
On topic (vaguely), I'd like to share my argument that 2000 Miles by the Pretenders is NOT a Christmas song, even though it is routinely treated as such.
It was written about the death of a member of the band, James Honeyman-Scott, who had died of a drug overdose in New York in the middle of June. The wintery references are to Chrissie Hynde's mental state, and are purely ironic given it is set in the middle of summer. A couple of Christmas references are specifically to it NOT being Christmas ("it felt LIKE Christmas time", "he'll be back at Christmas time") and "I can hear people singing, it must be Christmas time" is a nod to the funeral - just about the only time many people go to Church and join in singing, other than at Christmas.
Of course, that's all undercut by the fact it was released at Christmas, with a Christmassy video... but that's the music biz for you.
It's become a Christmas song by usage.
The key factor - both for Christmas music and Christmas films - is, I think, not "is it OK to listen to/watch this at Christmas" - but "would it be seen as a bit weird to listen to/watch it not at Christmas".
Re the posters asking what's motivated this sudden drugs "crackdown", it seems that we've missed this crucial story from a couple of hours ago.
Lindsey Hoyle is actually calling in police because of the amount of traces of drugs found on the parliamentary estate, including in the toilets next to Boris Johnson's office.
It seems that this could be damage limitation, not least because of the very significant potential toxicity of it, so to speak, in combination with other current high-level corruption and double standards stories. The "whiff of decadence", if you like.
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I've never seen Die Hard! The best Christmas Movie is It's A Wonderful Life, anyway, so this whole discussion is kind of pointless...
I've not seen Die Hard either.
Nor have I
The last film I watched was the Railway Children (with Jenny Agutter) or the Great Escape, I just cannot remember.
Re; the posters asking what's motivated this sudden drugs "crackdown", it seems that we've missed this story from just a couple of hours ago.
Lindsey Hoyle is actually calling in police because of the amount of traces of drugs found on the parliamentary estate, including in the toilets next to Boris Johnson's office.
It seems that this could be damage limitation, not least because of the very significant potential toxicity, so to speak, of it in combination with other current high-level corruption and double standards stories. The " whiff " of decadence, if you like.
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I've never seen Die Hard! The best Christmas Movie is It's A Wonderful Life, anyway, so this whole discussion is kind of pointless...
I've not seen Die Hard either.
Nor have I
The last film I watched was the Railway Children (with Jenny Agutter) or the Great Escape, I just cannot remember.
Re the posters asking what's motivated this sudden drugs "crackdown", it seems that we've missed this crucial story from a couple of hours ago.
Lindsey Hoyle is actually calling in police because of the amount of traces of drugs found on the parliamentary estate, including in the toilets next to Boris Johnson's office.
It seems that this could be damage limitation, not least because of the very significant potential toxicity of it, so to speak, in combination with other current high-level corruption and double standards stories. The "whiff of decadence", if you like.
As we were discussing trains and have now gone on to pointless blethering about some film, try to drag us back to something approaching reality with my look at the passenger transport numbers.
National Rail passenger numbers, having moved above 70% of pre-Covid in mid-November, fell back in the last full week of the month to the mid-60s. On the London Underground, passenger numbers peaked at 64% of pre-Covid on November 25th (the figure for the 26th, 44%) is distorted by the strike action on various lines.
It's not hard to see the reasons for TfL's crisis - bus passenger numbers are 75-80% of pre-Covid but that doesn't help if you've lost a third of your passenger traffic on the tube.
There's been the predictable excoriation of Sadiq Khan but it's hard to see how Boris Johnson, as Mayor, would have done any different. The fact is the operational financial model of TfL (and other passenger transport operators) has bene broken and if we are to believe Rishi Sunak who is unfortunately starting to look like a predictable Conservative Chancellor, there will be some big cuts to services as a condition for continued Government support.
I presume the thinking will be the longer wait for your tube, train and bus will be mitigated by the comforting knowledge you'll be paying less in income tax (and of course the wealthier you are the greater the reduction).
Notions of raising personal allowances or the threshold for higher rate taxation (which were at least an imaginative response) have been abandoned for good old-fashioned trickle-down.
TfL has been in financial trouble for years; Covid has just brought all the troubles home to roost. However: Khan's fare freeze was a stupid electoral bung, as many people said at the time, and worsened a bad problem.
Try to excuse Sadiq as much as you like: the fare freeze was a cast-iron sign that he was uninterested in the finances of TfL - as he thought the government would have to bail them out.
Incidentally, the whole situation was made worse by TfL's greed in trying to hoover up as much transport in and around the capital as they could get: e.g. the creation of London Overground.
I suspect, rather like the coronavirus, drug use and abuse in this country is endemic meaning we have to learn to live with it rather than harbour any expectations we can eliminate it completely.
As I've argued recently, I'm left wondering what the point of a law if you're not able to adequately enforce it? It's clear in my part of town, drug use among some sections of the community is endemic and the consequence of the current criminalisation is or are begging and other petty crime and criminality by addicts to fund their habits.
What would be the impact of legalisation? I'm not wholly convinced it's the panacea some proponents suggest. After all, we've legalised gambling but we know there's still too many who get sucked into addiction with awful consequences for themselves and those around them (and often wholly innocent victims who are "collateral damage").
There's the aspect of the allure of the drug business and how, for those who believe they have no prospects in the legitimate world or economy, the attraction of substantial amounts of apparently easy money from dealing or supplying is powerful.
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I've never seen Die Hard! The best Christmas Movie is It's A Wonderful Life, anyway, so this whole discussion is kind of pointless...
I've not seen Die Hard either.
Nor have I
The last film I watched was the Railway Children (with Jenny Agutter) or the Great Escape, I just cannot remember.
Mail: Boris Johnson is today facing more pressure to explain events at Downing Street Christmas parties last year after his deputy admitted any 'formal' events would have breached Covid laws.
Dominic Raab made the admission after Labour MPs demanded the Metropolitan Police probe two gatherings in November and December last year.
Both are said to have seen 40 or 50 people crammed 'cheek by jowl' in an inside room, and one is reported to have included a secret Santa and festive quiz.
I suspect, rather like the coronavirus, drug use and abuse in this country is endemic meaning we have to learn to live with it rather than harbour any expectations we can eliminate it completely.
As I've argued recently, I'm left wondering what the point of a law if you're not able to adequately enforce it? It's clear in my part of town, drug use among some sections of the community is endemic and the consequence of the current criminalisation is or are begging and other petty crime and criminality by addicts to fund their habits.
What would be the impact of legalisation? I'm not wholly convinced it's the panacea some proponents suggest. After all, we've legalised gambling but we know there's still too many who get sucked into addiction with awful consequences for themselves and those around them (and often wholly innocent victims who are "collateral damage").
There's the aspect of the allure of the drug business and how, for those who believe they have no prospects in the legitimate world or economy, the attraction of substantial amounts of apparently easy money from dealing or supplying is powerful.
Got to say this new Drugs law (if it exists) is going to be very much like gambling with something like a 1% chance of being caught and the an additional 50% chance that the police screw up the evidence enough that it doesn't stand up in court.
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Good job they're not trying to get people back into offices or anything, trashing the most straightforward form of commuting would make it much more difficult.
The reality is that life has changed. We aren't going back to pre-COVID commuting patterns no matter how many trains they put on.
Could that mean HS2 is not such a big deal anymore?
Well I thought the case for HS2 was ropey before COVID!
Personally, I think the case for railways going forward is that many people won't be able to afford a personal car once the internal combustion engine has gone.
The cost of EV cars is a different issue - but I'm not so sure - currently an EV lease isn't much worse than a ICE one once you factor in the difference in price between electric and diesel.
Wait till the lithium runs out
1) It won't. 2) Iron sulphur batteries (or half a dozen other chemistries) might replace them anyway.
Within five years EVs will be cheaper to build than the fossil fuel alternatives.
I think that timescale is a little over-optimistic, though I hope you're correct.
There will be pain in the transfer over to EV, but the pain will be endured.
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I've never seen Die Hard! The best Christmas Movie is It's A Wonderful Life, anyway, so this whole discussion is kind of pointless...
I've not seen Die Hard either.
Nor have I
The last film I watched was the Railway Children (with Jenny Agutter) or the Great Escape, I just cannot remember.
Mind you it might have been South Pacific !!!!!
I thought I was a bit tragic. But you win.
And I am not joking - I rarely ever watch films
Yes, fair enough, but you are really pushing it to the extreme. South Pacific ffs. My parents had the LP. It was ancient history in the early 1970s. You have missed *A LOT*.
Mail: Boris Johnson is today facing more pressure to explain events at Downing Street Christmas parties last year after his deputy admitted any 'formal' events would have breached Covid laws.
Dominic Raab made the admission after Labour MPs demanded the Metropolitan Police probe two gatherings in November and December last year.
Both are said to have seen 40 or 50 people crammed 'cheek by jowl' in an inside room, and one is reported to have included a secret Santa and festive quiz.
Marr displayed the rule and it seems for it to be illegal it would have to be a party , not a few drinks at the end of the day in a work environment
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
We're back to the stupid command control fuckwittery of this supposedly Tory government. Since the rail sector bankrupted itself, we now have an army of DfT mandarins trying to manage the industry on restricted budgets. They have no idea how a railway works hence stupidity like Cross Country being commanded to park up its HSTs to save wedge.
What is needed is StateCo - a government owned commercial enterprise to run the railways. Like Deutsche Bahn. Who own Arriva. Who operate the Cross Country franchise.
Mail: Boris Johnson is today facing more pressure to explain events at Downing Street Christmas parties last year after his deputy admitted any 'formal' events would have breached Covid laws.
Dominic Raab made the admission after Labour MPs demanded the Metropolitan Police probe two gatherings in November and December last year.
Both are said to have seen 40 or 50 people crammed 'cheek by jowl' in an inside room, and one is reported to have included a secret Santa and festive quiz.
Hmm.
That Independent report below about Lindsey Hoyle mentions "politicians openly snorting cocaine at a party".
Not at no.10, surely, and the centre of national government itself ? The world would be shocked , and astounded !
As we were discussing trains and have now gone on to pointless blethering about some film, try to drag us back to something approaching reality with my look at the passenger transport numbers.
National Rail passenger numbers, having moved above 70% of pre-Covid in mid-November, fell back in the last full week of the month to the mid-60s. On the London Underground, passenger numbers peaked at 64% of pre-Covid on November 25th (the figure for the 26th, 44%) is distorted by the strike action on various lines.
It's not hard to see the reasons for TfL's crisis - bus passenger numbers are 75-80% of pre-Covid but that doesn't help if you've lost a third of your passenger traffic on the tube.
There's been the predictable excoriation of Sadiq Khan but it's hard to see how Boris Johnson, as Mayor, would have done any different. The fact is the operational financial model of TfL (and other passenger transport operators) has bene broken and if we are to believe Rishi Sunak who is unfortunately starting to look like a predictable Conservative Chancellor, there will be some big cuts to services as a condition for continued Government support.
I presume the thinking will be the longer wait for your tube, train and bus will be mitigated by the comforting knowledge you'll be paying less in income tax (and of course the wealthier you are the greater the reduction).
Notions of raising personal allowances or the threshold for higher rate taxation (which were at least an imaginative response) have been abandoned for good old-fashioned trickle-down.
TfL has been in financial trouble for years; Covid has just brought all the troubles home to roost. However: Khan's fare freeze was a stupid electoral bung, as many people said at the time, and worsened a bad problem.
Try to excuse Sadiq as much as you like: the fare freeze was a cast-iron sign that he was uninterested in the finances of TfL - as he thought the government would have to bail them out.
Incidentally, the whole situation was made worse by TfL's greed in trying to hoover up as much transport in and around the capital as they could get: e.g. the creation of London Overground.
Sadiq has been told to find a source of money to provide the subsidy required - supposedly by mid November but extended now until December 8th.
That "subsidy" can only come from a levy on Council tax or business rates - and the Government is being very clear as to who has to suggest the idea.
And yes,. the fare freeze was an incredibly stupid idea (as such things always are).
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
We're back to the stupid command control fuckwittery of this supposedly Tory government. Since the rail sector bankrupted itself, we now have an army of DfT mandarins trying to manage the industry on restricted budgets. They have no idea how a railway works hence stupidity like Cross Country being commanded to park up its HSTs to save wedge.
What is needed is StateCo - a government owned commercial enterprise to run the railways. Like Deutsche Bahn. Who own Arriva. Who operate the Cross Country franchise.
Which is what Great British Rail is supposed to be - but that is already been cut because the DfT are frankly both useless and don't want to lose any "power" they have.
Re the posters asking what's motivated this sudden drugs "crackdown", it seems that we've missed this crucial story from a couple of hours ago.
Lindsey Hoyle is actually calling in police because of the amount of traces of drugs found on the parliamentary estate, including in the toilets next to Boris Johnson's office.
It seems that this could be damage limitation, not least because of the very significant potential toxicity of it, so to speak, in combination with other current high-level corruption and double standards stories. The "whiff of decadence", if you like.
How could we get a drug sniffer dog visiting No 10?
Supporters of prohibition are dreamers. It can’t ever be effected properly. Even in countries where possession carries the death penalty, drug abuse still goes on under the surface, with the harsh enforcement policies leading to even more ruthless criminal syndicates to facilitate the trade.
Policy is about choosing between hard choices. Either you can criminalise otherwise law abiding contributors to society and enable a vast black economy that funds all manner of other criminal activity. Or you accept that humans are gonna get high and seek to legislate in such a way to minimise societal harm in the process.
It genuinely puzzles me that we are still stuck on the same broken record.
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I've never seen Die Hard! The best Christmas Movie is It's A Wonderful Life, anyway, so this whole discussion is kind of pointless...
I've not seen Die Hard either.
Nor have I
The last film I watched was the Railway Children (with Jenny Agutter) or the Great Escape, I just cannot remember.
Mind you it might have been South Pacific !!!!!
I thought I was a bit tragic. But you win.
And I am not joking - I rarely ever watch films
Yes, fair enough, but you are really pushing it to the extreme. South Pacific ffs. My parents had the LP. It was ancient history in the early 1970s. You have missed *A LOT*.
South Pacific was a little tongue in cheek but I was dragged to watch my sister perform in South Pacific at the local theatre in the mid fifties
Gen Z are disinterested in the Christmas status of a 33 year old movie with a star born 50 years before them. But they are no doubt furiously debating whether Hawkeye is a Christmas show (spoiler: it is).
I was outraged to find my neighbours teenage kids had never seen Die Hard....
I've never seen Die Hard! The best Christmas Movie is It's A Wonderful Life, anyway, so this whole discussion is kind of pointless...
I've not seen Die Hard either.
Nor have I
The last film I watched was the Railway Children (with Jenny Agutter) or the Great Escape, I just cannot remember.
Re the posters asking what's motivated this sudden drugs "crackdown", it seems that we've missed this crucial story from a couple of hours ago.
Lindsey Hoyle is actually calling in police because of the amount of traces of drugs found on the parliamentary estate, including in the toilets next to Boris Johnson's office.
It seems that this could be damage limitation, not least because of the very significant potential toxicity of it, so to speak, in combination with other current high-level corruption and double standards stories. The "whiff of decadence", if you like.
How could we get a drug sniffer dog visiting No 10?
Supporters of prohibition are dreamers. It can’t ever be effected properly. Even in countries where possession carries the death penalty, drug abuse still goes on under the surface, with the harsh enforcement policies leading to even more ruthless criminal syndicates to facilitate the trade.
Policy is about choosing between hard choices. Either you can criminalise otherwise law abiding contributors to society and enable a vast black economy that funds all manner of other criminal activity. Or you accept that humans are gonna get high and seek to legislate in such a way to minimise societal harm in the process.
It genuinely puzzles me that we are still stuck on the same broken record.
The issue is that often the sane choices are "brave" decisions because no one is prepared to do the education required to explain why you are doing what you are doing.
Believe it or not HS2 is a prime example of this. It's sold as speed but in reality it's about Capacity. However speed doesn't require any explanation but the impact on capacity of trains running at different speeds would require a lot of explanation.. So HS2 was sold as faster trains to London and all the other benefits went unsaid.
As we were discussing trains and have now gone on to pointless blethering about some film, try to drag us back to something approaching reality with my look at the passenger transport numbers.
National Rail passenger numbers, having moved above 70% of pre-Covid in mid-November, fell back in the last full week of the month to the mid-60s. On the London Underground, passenger numbers peaked at 64% of pre-Covid on November 25th (the figure for the 26th, 44%) is distorted by the strike action on various lines.
It's not hard to see the reasons for TfL's crisis - bus passenger numbers are 75-80% of pre-Covid but that doesn't help if you've lost a third of your passenger traffic on the tube.
There's been the predictable excoriation of Sadiq Khan but it's hard to see how Boris Johnson, as Mayor, would have done any different. The fact is the operational financial model of TfL (and other passenger transport operators) has bene broken and if we are to believe Rishi Sunak who is unfortunately starting to look like a predictable Conservative Chancellor, there will be some big cuts to services as a condition for continued Government support.
I presume the thinking will be the longer wait for your tube, train and bus will be mitigated by the comforting knowledge you'll be paying less in income tax (and of course the wealthier you are the greater the reduction).
Notions of raising personal allowances or the threshold for higher rate taxation (which were at least an imaginative response) have been abandoned for good old-fashioned trickle-down.
TfL has been in financial trouble for years; Covid has just brought all the troubles home to roost. However: Khan's fare freeze was a stupid electoral bung, as many people said at the time, and worsened a bad problem.
Try to excuse Sadiq as much as you like: the fare freeze was a cast-iron sign that he was uninterested in the finances of TfL - as he thought the government would have to bail them out.
Incidentally, the whole situation was made worse by TfL's greed in trying to hoover up as much transport in and around the capital as they could get: e.g. the creation of London Overground.
Sadiq has been told to find a source of money to provide the subsidy required - supposedly by mid November but extended now until December 8th.
That "subsidy" can only come from a levy on Council tax or business rates - and the Government is being very clear as to who has to suggest the idea.
And yes,. the fare freeze was an incredibly stupid idea (as such things always are).
It wasn't even a fare freeze, except for tourists and occasional travellers.
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
Well, there are only two ways to cover the cost of the railways: from the farepayer and from the taxpayer. Increasing the latter is politically impossible because it's effectively a subsidy of relatively rich South Eastern commuters and hence contrary to leveling up, and if increasing the former is politically impossible because media coverage is dictated by journalists who predominantly are relatively rich South Eastern commuters, then there's only one solution left - cut costs.
Can't see that that is the case at all, except insofar as there is an overall budget pie to be cut up.
(1) That doesn't cover the case of Scotland, NI and IIRC recently) Wales. (2) That doesn't cover capital investment grants to specific projects. HS2 is an obvious example. (3) That doesn't allow for the point that different Train Operating Companies have different budgets and agreements with DfT.
For all those reasons, differential funding can be and is applied to different areas. So one could reduce funding for London and increase it for the Adlestrop branch line, for instance. Or the converse. Indeed, it was the absurdly small funding to the NE as opposed to London commuters that exemplifies the issue -but also shows the poiint that differential funding does exist.
Does Oxford-Worcester count as a branch line? Should be referred to Sunil for a definitive judgment.
The old O, W and W was something of a loose end in the old days ... but not latterly. You are right!
Went to Adlestrop (the name!) a few years ago. The old station sign now adorns the village bus shelter. A spine-tingling sight, so perhaps the shade of Edward Thomas was still lurking.
That confused me horribly for a moment, because when I think of 'railways' and 'Edward Thomas' I naturally think of the Talyllyn first.
But then I remembered about the poet...
"All the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire" has an echo of Housman's Bredon Hill which you mentioned a few months ago. All the birds of Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, indeed.
Mail: Boris Johnson is today facing more pressure to explain events at Downing Street Christmas parties last year after his deputy admitted any 'formal' events would have breached Covid laws.
Dominic Raab made the admission after Labour MPs demanded the Metropolitan Police probe two gatherings in November and December last year.
Both are said to have seen 40 or 50 people crammed 'cheek by jowl' in an inside room, and one is reported to have included a secret Santa and festive quiz.
Marr displayed the rule and it seems for it to be illegal it would have to be a party , not a few drinks at the end of the day in a work environment
I doubt we will ever know
I thought that from the very first time I heard the story - it's not a party it's just some overtime with little work and a bit of alcohol. Everyone attending has already spent 6+ hours with each other that day so no one has any additional risk of getting Covid.
Re the posters asking what's motivated this sudden drugs "crackdown", it seems that we've missed this crucial story from a couple of hours ago.
Lindsey Hoyle is actually calling in police because of the amount of traces of drugs found on the parliamentary estate, including in the toilets next to Boris Johnson's office.
It seems that this could be damage limitation, not least because of the very significant potential toxicity of it, so to speak, in combination with other current high-level corruption and double standards stories. The "whiff of decadence", if you like.
How could we get a drug sniffer dog visiting No 10?
Supporters of prohibition are dreamers. It can’t ever be effected properly. Even in countries where possession carries the death penalty, drug abuse still goes on under the surface, with the harsh enforcement policies leading to even more ruthless criminal syndicates to facilitate the trade.
Policy is about choosing between hard choices. Either you can criminalise otherwise law abiding contributors to society and enable a vast black economy that funds all manner of other criminal activity. Or you accept that humans are gonna get high and seek to legislate in such a way to minimise societal harm in the process.
It genuinely puzzles me that we are still stuck on the same broken record.
The issue is that often the sane choices are "brave" decisions because no one is prepared to do the education required to explain why you are doing what you are doing.
It’s because they have to undo the decades of propaganda before they can even start the education! As my old grandad once said, when he was a lad opiate addicts were pitied rather than criminalised. “No one would choose that life, it makes no sense trying to send them to prison” or words to that effect.
In a perfect world we’d have a JV between the Ministries of Health and Science researching the perfect narcotic. One which carries no physical addiction, has minimal negative health consequences and where the effects can be switched off by antidote.
Rishi Sunak really is a £$@* and other rude words.
He really hates the trains and the users therein.
Train operators have been told to find ways to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the railway’s operating costs next year, in a move that is likely to spell fewer services and worse stations for passengers.
The Department for Transport seeks to cut spending by 10% following Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget.
With the Treasury anxious to limit spending on rail, which increased massively during the pandemic, letters from the DfT’s managing director of passenger services, Peter Wilkinson, have been sent to individual operators setting out the swingeing cuts needed across the industry.
We're back to the stupid command control fuckwittery of this supposedly Tory government. Since the rail sector bankrupted itself, we now have an army of DfT mandarins trying to manage the industry on restricted budgets. They have no idea how a railway works hence stupidity like Cross Country being commanded to park up its HSTs to save wedge.
What is needed is StateCo - a government owned commercial enterprise to run the railways. Like Deutsche Bahn. Who own Arriva. Who operate the Cross Country franchise.
And bus services everywhere - I used to catch an Arriva bus to take me from the Metro in Copenhagen to the office I was working at.
TfL has been in financial trouble for years; Covid has just brought all the troubles home to roost. However: Khan's fare freeze was a stupid electoral bung, as many people said at the time, and worsened a bad problem.
Try to excuse Sadiq as much as you like: the fare freeze was a cast-iron sign that he was uninterested in the finances of TfL - as he thought the government would have to bail them out.
Incidentally, the whole situation was made worse by TfL's greed in trying to hoover up as much transport in and around the capital as they could get: e.g. the creation of London Overground.
The issue pre-Covid was the network, hampered in some places by antiquated track and signalling, was running at capacity. Trains were full and there simply wasn't the capacity to run more trains over some parts of the system because the signalling couldn't handle it.
Many cities have co-ordinated passenger transport systems - bringing some of the rail lines into TfL was generally and genuinely welcomed at the time.
The problem now is a third of the passengers have gone - the Government insisted in 2020 as a condition of bail out all services were maintained so you had empty tubes going up and down the lines. TfL have begun to reduce capacity discretely by not replacing drivers who leave - fewer drivers means more gaps in the service whether they are called "cancellations" or not.
If Sunak wants to look "tough" and reduce the subsidy, the options will either be a big Council Tax rise (which any future Conservative Mayor will have to retain) or a reduction in services (up to 10% of buses could be axed) or the complete mothballing of one or more lines (the Bakerloo, for a number of reasons, is the obvious target but even then maintenance will have to continue so it's not a complete saving).
Mail: Boris Johnson is today facing more pressure to explain events at Downing Street Christmas parties last year after his deputy admitted any 'formal' events would have breached Covid laws.
Dominic Raab made the admission after Labour MPs demanded the Metropolitan Police probe two gatherings in November and December last year.
Both are said to have seen 40 or 50 people crammed 'cheek by jowl' in an inside room, and one is reported to have included a secret Santa and festive quiz.
Marr displayed the rule and it seems for it to be illegal it would have to be a party , not a few drinks at the end of the day in a work environment
I doubt we will ever know
I think we already know. There's a reason why every government spokesperson is parroting the same line and refusing to say any more.
Jeddah GP - I won't be at all surprised if the title is settled today by one of them going into the wall.
If Lewis goes into the wall it's game over.
However, assuming Lewis gets to the first corner is first place it will be Max having to take all the risks, Lewis will be able to ignore the issues behind him.
Mail: Boris Johnson is today facing more pressure to explain events at Downing Street Christmas parties last year after his deputy admitted any 'formal' events would have breached Covid laws.
Dominic Raab made the admission after Labour MPs demanded the Metropolitan Police probe two gatherings in November and December last year.
Both are said to have seen 40 or 50 people crammed 'cheek by jowl' in an inside room, and one is reported to have included a secret Santa and festive quiz.
Marr displayed the rule and it seems for it to be illegal it would have to be a party , not a few drinks at the end of the day in a work environment
I doubt we will ever know
I thought that from the very first time I heard the story - it's not a party it's just some overtime with little work and a bit of alcohol. Everyone attending has already spent 6+ hours with each other that day so no one has any additional risk of getting Covid.
That seems to be what happened and why Boris insists the rules were not broken
Until Marr showed the actual regulation, it did seem it was illegal but I would suggest everyone who is so convinced on this story including the daily mirror just check the actual definition in the regulations and realise it could well have conformed with covid rules
TfL has been in financial trouble for years; Covid has just brought all the troubles home to roost. However: Khan's fare freeze was a stupid electoral bung, as many people said at the time, and worsened a bad problem.
Try to excuse Sadiq as much as you like: the fare freeze was a cast-iron sign that he was uninterested in the finances of TfL - as he thought the government would have to bail them out.
Incidentally, the whole situation was made worse by TfL's greed in trying to hoover up as much transport in and around the capital as they could get: e.g. the creation of London Overground.
The issue pre-Covid was the network, hampered in some places by antiquated track and signalling, was running at capacity. Trains were full and there simply wasn't the capacity to run more trains over some parts of the system because the signalling couldn't handle it.
Many cities have co-ordinated passenger transport systems - bringing some of the rail lines into TfL was generally and genuinely welcomed at the time.
The problem now is a third of the passengers have gone - the Government insisted in 2020 as a condition of bail out all services were maintained so you had empty tubes going up and down the lines. TfL have begun to reduce capacity discretely by not replacing drivers who leave - fewer drivers means more gaps in the service whether they are called "cancellations" or not.
If Sunak wants to look "tough" and reduce the subsidy, the options will either be a big Council Tax rise (which any future Conservative Mayor will have to retain) or a reduction in services (up to 10% of buses could be axed) or the complete mothballing of one or more lines (the Bakerloo, for a number of reasons, is the obvious target but even then maintenance will have to continue so it's not a complete saving).
It's more than the mothballing of the Bakerloo line - I believe its 20% of bus services and the Bakerloo line.
Re the posters asking what's motivated this sudden drugs "crackdown", it seems that we've missed this crucial story from a couple of hours ago.
Lindsey Hoyle is actually calling in police because of the amount of traces of drugs found on the parliamentary estate, including in the toilets next to Boris Johnson's office.
It seems that this could be damage limitation, not least because of the very significant potential toxicity of it, so to speak, in combination with other current high-level corruption and double standards stories. The "whiff of decadence", if you like.
How could we get a drug sniffer dog visiting No 10?
Supporters of prohibition are dreamers. It can’t ever be effected properly. Even in countries where possession carries the death penalty, drug abuse still goes on under the surface, with the harsh enforcement policies leading to even more ruthless criminal syndicates to facilitate the trade.
Policy is about choosing between hard choices. Either you can criminalise otherwise law abiding contributors to society and enable a vast black economy that funds all manner of other criminal activity. Or you accept that humans are gonna get high and seek to legislate in such a way to minimise societal harm in the process.
It genuinely puzzles me that we are still stuck on the same broken record.
The issue is that often the sane choices are "brave" decisions because no one is prepared to do the education required to explain why you are doing what you are doing.
It’s because they have to undo the decades of propaganda before they can even start the education! As my old grandad once said, when he was a lad opiate addicts were pitied rather than criminalised. “No one would choose that life, it makes no sense trying to send them to prison” or words to that effect.
In a perfect world we’d have a JV between the Ministries of Health and Science researching the perfect narcotic. One which carries no physical addiction, has minimal negative health consequences and where the effects can be switched off by antidote.
Some doctors appear to be warming to the idea that microdoses of LSD and magic mushrooms might roughly fit this profile, according to the report I posted up here earlier in the week.
According to the government's new post-Boris Johnson's toilets crackdown announced today, these would lose you your license and freedom to travel, ofcourse.
Mail: Boris Johnson is today facing more pressure to explain events at Downing Street Christmas parties last year after his deputy admitted any 'formal' events would have breached Covid laws.
Dominic Raab made the admission after Labour MPs demanded the Metropolitan Police probe two gatherings in November and December last year.
Both are said to have seen 40 or 50 people crammed 'cheek by jowl' in an inside room, and one is reported to have included a secret Santa and festive quiz.
Marr displayed the rule and it seems for it to be illegal it would have to be a party , not a few drinks at the end of the day in a work environment
I doubt we will ever know
I think we already know. There's a reason why every government spokesperson is parroting the same line and refusing to say any more.
As a matter of interest did you watch Marr and read the definition and understand just why this may well have been legal
Another day, another example of David Cameron’s Twitter maxim.
Why are political parties still not properly vetting their candidates’ social media histories, when they know that not-so-friendly opponents and newspapers definitely will be?
Helen Morgan, Lib Dem candidate in North Shropshire with today’s Godwin award, for writing, in the context of her son reading a book about the Holocaust:
“He commented that the Nazis were only able to do such terrible things because they didn’t think their victims were people. He’s 11. On Twitter this morning, there are people talking about cancelling their RNLI donations because they have picked up “illegals”. The language used every day in this country – by the Government, press and people with thousands of followers on social media – it’s nothing short of chilling.”
Then she liked a post from someone who replied:
‘Having visited Auschwitz concentration camp in the recent past. It really brings home man’s inhumanity to man. Now on a daily basis the language and actions of the Conservative Party make me more and more concerned about the direction they are taking the UK and its people.’
Her own post is totally on the money. The post she liked is perhaps a bit over the top. But I'm sure that plenty of people share the sentiment that the othering and scapegoating of refugees that's going on in this country right now is chilling, and, for anyone with a knowledge of European history, has some alarming historical resonances.
The suggestion that the Tories are similar to the Nazis in outlook and policies is absurd and, frankly, as good an example of "othering" as you will find. The SNP do very similar things demonising something like 25% of Scots who vote Tory and who, as a result, are apparently not real Scots. It also encourages the arrogance and moral superiority complex that so many liberals, in the broadest sense, are prone to and is one of the reasons that they fail at the ballot box.
There was a chap about 2000 years ago who had some interesting observations about motes and beams. She should reflect on it.
Thank goodness Tories and Unionists never indulge in that kind of behaviour (I couldn’t find the photoshop of Sturgeon in an SS uniform so beloved by your fruitier fellow travellers, I suspect twitter may have banned it). Motes and beams indeed.
That’s the one. Ironically what one might call the far right in Scotland tends to Unionism.
That’s a very seriously point actually as to why the SNP are wrong. Like Hitler they love the politics of nationalism. Take off those tinted glasses though and they see across the border in north of old Albion they feel 100% just the same as SNP about flipping London dominance.
Also SNP need to realise just how many Scots are in London flipping enjoying that flipping London south Albion thing!
SNP won’t last much longer. People of Scotland will tire of the Nationalism spectacles, gravitate to another approach and Scot nationalism will go back to be a fringe thing.
I see you’re as insightful and original on this topic as on others.
😕
I’m genuine sorry if I touched a nerve on Scottish Separatism that matters to you. To be honest divvy I really would like to listen and learn here as I have never chatted with SNP before. can you answer a few straightforward questions about it?
1. Last time ref said it wanted to keep both the £ and the Monarchy? Will that be exactly the same in the next ref? 2. Really? Having both those things, is it proper independence from continued English and London influence? or a sort of half way house have your cake and eat it independence? 3. Surely the only True definition of independence is own currency and negotiate trade deal with what’s left of UK and everywhere else? Like Ireland? Because the place to avoid is the basket case facade democracy, Zimbabwe ending up in, you can have a parliament but not own the land, the resources, the ability to tax the necessary amount of wealth? 4. If Scotland has independence from England, does it have the economy and assets to maintain the current lifestyle, free higher education etc, enough wealth owned, invested and generated, to tax, to maintain standards of living it currently enjoys? What main industry will it have other than tourism? 5. Basically boils down to simple question, are the English currently takers from Scotland, Scotland takers from England, or current balance about right and fair? 6. If you want to keep the monarchy, then why not trust a Royal Commission how we can share these Isles, in a helping sharing UK commonwealth (which it should already have been the last few hundred years) where everyone’s regional and local identity feels in a happy place? But To create such a happy place cannot be achieved through ramping nationalism and localism, and holding separatist referendums, can it?
Mail: Boris Johnson is today facing more pressure to explain events at Downing Street Christmas parties last year after his deputy admitted any 'formal' events would have breached Covid laws.
Dominic Raab made the admission after Labour MPs demanded the Metropolitan Police probe two gatherings in November and December last year.
Both are said to have seen 40 or 50 people crammed 'cheek by jowl' in an inside room, and one is reported to have included a secret Santa and festive quiz.
Marr displayed the rule and it seems for it to be illegal it would have to be a party , not a few drinks at the end of the day in a work environment
I doubt we will ever know
I think we already know. There's a reason why every government spokesperson is parroting the same line and refusing to say any more.
As a matter of interest did you watch Marr and read the definition and understand just why this may well have been legal
Eating, drinking, and playing party games isn't ever going to come under the definition of a gathering that is primarily for business reasons, is it?
You spent an entire year telling us all what a charlatan Boris was. Don't start defending him now.
Re the posters asking what's motivated this sudden drugs "crackdown", it seems that we've missed this crucial story from a couple of hours ago.
Lindsey Hoyle is actually calling in police because of the amount of traces of drugs found on the parliamentary estate, including in the toilets next to Boris Johnson's office.
It seems that this could be damage limitation, not least because of the very significant potential toxicity of it, so to speak, in combination with other current high-level corruption and double standards stories. The "whiff of decadence", if you like.
How could we get a drug sniffer dog visiting No 10?
Supporters of prohibition are dreamers. It can’t ever be effected properly. Even in countries where possession carries the death penalty, drug abuse still goes on under the surface, with the harsh enforcement policies leading to even more ruthless criminal syndicates to facilitate the trade.
Policy is about choosing between hard choices. Either you can criminalise otherwise law abiding contributors to society and enable a vast black economy that funds all manner of other criminal activity. Or you accept that humans are gonna get high and seek to legislate in such a way to minimise societal harm in the process.
It genuinely puzzles me that we are still stuck on the same broken record.
The issue is that often the sane choices are "brave" decisions because no one is prepared to do the education required to explain why you are doing what you are doing.
It’s because they have to undo the decades of propaganda before they can even start the education! As my old grandad once said, when he was a lad opiate addicts were pitied rather than criminalised. “No one would choose that life, it makes no sense trying to send them to prison” or words to that effect.
In a perfect world we’d have a JV between the Ministries of Health and Science researching the perfect narcotic. One which carries no physical addiction, has minimal negative health consequences and where the effects can be switched off by antidote.
That was how oxycontin was marketed, and if you go back far enough, heroin too.
Re the posters asking what's motivated this sudden drugs "crackdown", it seems that we've missed this crucial story from a couple of hours ago.
Lindsey Hoyle is actually calling in police because of the amount of traces of drugs found on the parliamentary estate, including in the toilets next to Boris Johnson's office.
It seems that this could be damage limitation, not least because of the very significant potential toxicity of it, so to speak, in combination with other current high-level corruption and double standards stories. The "whiff of decadence", if you like.
How could we get a drug sniffer dog visiting No 10?
Supporters of prohibition are dreamers. It can’t ever be effected properly. Even in countries where possession carries the death penalty, drug abuse still goes on under the surface, with the harsh enforcement policies leading to even more ruthless criminal syndicates to facilitate the trade.
Policy is about choosing between hard choices. Either you can criminalise otherwise law abiding contributors to society and enable a vast black economy that funds all manner of other criminal activity. Or you accept that humans are gonna get high and seek to legislate in such a way to minimise societal harm in the process.
It genuinely puzzles me that we are still stuck on the same broken record.
The issue is that often the sane choices are "brave" decisions because no one is prepared to do the education required to explain why you are doing what you are doing.
It’s because they have to undo the decades of propaganda before they can even start the education! As my old grandad once said, when he was a lad opiate addicts were pitied rather than criminalised. “No one would choose that life, it makes no sense trying to send them to prison” or words to that effect.
In a perfect world we’d have a JV between the Ministries of Health and Science researching the perfect narcotic. One which carries no physical addiction, has minimal negative health consequences and where the effects can be switched off by antidote.
That was how oxycontin was marketed, and if you go back far enough, heroin too.
TfL has been in financial trouble for years; Covid has just brought all the troubles home to roost. However: Khan's fare freeze was a stupid electoral bung, as many people said at the time, and worsened a bad problem.
Try to excuse Sadiq as much as you like: the fare freeze was a cast-iron sign that he was uninterested in the finances of TfL - as he thought the government would have to bail them out.
Incidentally, the whole situation was made worse by TfL's greed in trying to hoover up as much transport in and around the capital as they could get: e.g. the creation of London Overground.
The issue pre-Covid was the network, hampered in some places by antiquated track and signalling, was running at capacity. Trains were full and there simply wasn't the capacity to run more trains over some parts of the system because the signalling couldn't handle it.
Many cities have co-ordinated passenger transport systems - bringing some of the rail lines into TfL was generally and genuinely welcomed at the time.
The problem now is a third of the passengers have gone - the Government insisted in 2020 as a condition of bail out all services were maintained so you had empty tubes going up and down the lines. TfL have begun to reduce capacity discretely by not replacing drivers who leave - fewer drivers means more gaps in the service whether they are called "cancellations" or not.
If Sunak wants to look "tough" and reduce the subsidy, the options will either be a big Council Tax rise (which any future Conservative Mayor will have to retain) or a reduction in services (up to 10% of buses could be axed) or the complete mothballing of one or more lines (the Bakerloo, for a number of reasons, is the obvious target but even then maintenance will have to continue so it's not a complete saving).
So you're saying the problem pre-Covid was outdated infrastructure. If that was the case, the answer was simple: invest in the infrastructure - i.e. spend - rather than have a massive electoral bung in the form of a fare freeze, and make matters worse.
Comments
That's a serious question from a man who commutes along the M6 Toll every weekday and has to pay through the nose for it.
People *hate* waiting for trains and busses; make the wait shorter, and more people travel. Sadly, they haven't taken the next step and realised that waiting facilities matter (at anything other than large stations; they've learnt about the cash cows there).
(There's at least one paper on this somewhere; I'll have to try to dig it up.)
Replacing that infrastucture would cost way more than continuing that subsidy. Case in point the Limehouse tunnel (1 mile long cost £300m back in the 1993 - add inflation especially housing inflation and guess what it would cost to build now).
The solution for TFL and network south east is to add a levy on London business rates to pay for TFL subsidy.
The problem with that approach is that the levy would have a long term impact on the business rates chargeable in London and that costs the Treasury money...
Mileage taxation ... interesting idea. But hard on the rustics.
Another classic Bruce Willis movie!
They mostly vote Labour anyway.....
I am not sure whether, given the amount that will need spending on replacing bridges over the next 20 years, I agree about how much less it would be. It just seemed neater as a way of working and would make comparisons of cost more straightforward.
It really wouldn't surprise me to see road pricing being 10p or more per mile.
Did you hear about the psephologist from Warsaw wot moved to Haiti?
He became a Voodoo Pole!
(I thank you!)
The Treasury shouldn't be treating drivers as a golden goose.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300144 seems a good starting point for the academic reports.
I have bad feelings about the F1 race.
By my estimate that is 7-8 times more than I would be paying in fuel duty.
Long distance rail journeys are seriously profitable - it's commuter services (especially those outside London) where the big losses are made.
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.9425795,-1.6496536,3a,75y,117.92h,85.88t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1she2sdyimwkz-Ngx-JK8kpQ!2e0!6shttps://streetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com/v1/thumbnail?panoid=he2sdyimwkz-Ngx-JK8kpQ&cb_client=maps_sv.tactile.gps&w=203&h=100&yaw=84.462166&pitch=0&thumbfov=100!7i13312!8i6656
RIP Sir Frank.
The best Christmas Movie is It's A Wonderful Life, anyway, so this whole discussion is kind of pointless...
He was the brother of the robber in the first Die Hard!
Next question?
2) Iron sulphur batteries (or half a dozen other chemistries) might replace them anyway.
Within five years EVs will be cheaper to build than the fossil fuel alternatives.
Public transport? An hour and a quarter minimum. Not counting extended waiting time.
But then I remembered about the poet...
As we were discussing trains and have now gone on to pointless blethering about some film, try to drag us back to something approaching reality with my look at the passenger transport numbers.
National Rail passenger numbers, having moved above 70% of pre-Covid in mid-November, fell back in the last full week of the month to the mid-60s. On the London Underground, passenger numbers peaked at 64% of pre-Covid on November 25th (the figure for the 26th, 44%) is distorted by the strike action on various lines.
It's not hard to see the reasons for TfL's crisis - bus passenger numbers are 75-80% of pre-Covid but that doesn't help if you've lost a third of your passenger traffic on the tube.
There's been the predictable excoriation of Sadiq Khan but it's hard to see how Boris Johnson, as Mayor, would have done any different. The fact is the operational financial model of TfL (and other passenger transport operators) has bene broken and if we are to believe Rishi Sunak who is unfortunately starting to look like a predictable Conservative Chancellor, there will be some big cuts to services as a condition for continued Government support.
I presume the thinking will be the longer wait for your tube, train and bus will be mitigated by the comforting knowledge you'll be paying less in income tax (and of course the wealthier you are the greater the reduction).
Notions of raising personal allowances or the threshold for higher rate taxation (which were at least an imaginative response) have been abandoned for good old-fashioned trickle-down.
However, my main point, was that the higher cost is borne by the poorer communities. Having wealthier individuals able to buy drugs provides the economic basis for many gangs to supply drugs to lower income groups. If there were not these buyers, the economics for a lot of the drugs trade would look less attractive.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-59536795
But the government never claimed it would....as we know the only way to do so is to totally shutdown travel into your country.
The last film I watched was the Railway Children (with Jenny Agutter) or the Great Escape, I just cannot remember.
Mind you it might have been South Pacific !!!!!
Lindsey Hoyle is actually calling in police because of the amount of traces of drugs found on the parliamentary estate, including in the toilets next to Boris Johnson's office.
It seems that this could be damage limitation, not least because of the very significant potential toxicity, so to speak, of it in combination with other current high-level corruption and double standards stories. The " whiff " of decadence, if you like.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/drugs-westminster-speaker-hoyle-police-b1970106.html
But when you apply the logic to London / Manchester / Edinburgh/ Glasgow / Newcastle you can see that if your workplace / office is in the city centre the only (sane) way to get there is via public transport.
Which is why I pointed out that the costs need to be a levy on business rates in those areas.
The key factor - both for Christmas music and Christmas films - is, I think, not "is it OK to listen to/watch this at Christmas" - but "would it be seen as a bit weird to listen to/watch it not at Christmas".
Danger is it has shades of back to basics, and we know how that ended.
Try to excuse Sadiq as much as you like: the fare freeze was a cast-iron sign that he was uninterested in the finances of TfL - as he thought the government would have to bail them out.
Incidentally, the whole situation was made worse by TfL's greed in trying to hoover up as much transport in and around the capital as they could get: e.g. the creation of London Overground.
As I've argued recently, I'm left wondering what the point of a law if you're not able to adequately enforce it? It's clear in my part of town, drug use among some sections of the community is endemic and the consequence of the current criminalisation is or are begging and other petty crime and criminality by addicts to fund their habits.
What would be the impact of legalisation? I'm not wholly convinced it's the panacea some proponents suggest. After all, we've legalised gambling but we know there's still too many who get sucked into addiction with awful consequences for themselves and those around them (and often wholly innocent victims who are "collateral damage").
There's the aspect of the allure of the drug business and how, for those who believe they have no prospects in the legitimate world or economy, the attraction of substantial amounts of apparently easy money from dealing or supplying is powerful.
Dominic Raab made the admission after Labour MPs demanded the Metropolitan Police probe two gatherings in November and December last year.
Both are said to have seen 40 or 50 people crammed 'cheek by jowl' in an inside room, and one is reported to have included a secret Santa and festive quiz.
There will be pain in the transfer over to EV, but the pain will be endured.
I doubt we will ever know
What is needed is StateCo - a government owned commercial enterprise to run the railways. Like Deutsche Bahn. Who own Arriva. Who operate the Cross Country franchise.
That Independent report below about Lindsey Hoyle mentions "politicians openly snorting cocaine at a party".
Not at no.10, surely, and the centre of national government itself ? The world would be shocked , and astounded !
That "subsidy" can only come from a levy on Council tax or business rates - and the Government is being very clear as to who has to suggest the idea.
And yes,. the fare freeze was an incredibly stupid idea (as such things always are).
Policy is about choosing between hard choices. Either you can criminalise otherwise law abiding contributors to society and enable a vast black economy that funds all manner of other criminal activity. Or you accept that humans are gonna get high and seek to legislate in such a way to minimise societal harm in the process.
It genuinely puzzles me that we are still stuck on the same broken record.
Believe it or not HS2 is a prime example of this. It's sold as speed but in reality it's about Capacity. However speed doesn't require any explanation but the impact on capacity of trains running at different speeds would require a lot of explanation.. So HS2 was sold as faster trains to London and all the other benefits went unsaid.
In a perfect world we’d have a JV between the Ministries of Health and Science researching the perfect narcotic. One which carries no physical addiction, has minimal negative health consequences and where the effects can be switched off by antidote.
Many cities have co-ordinated passenger transport systems - bringing some of the rail lines into TfL was generally and genuinely welcomed at the time.
The problem now is a third of the passengers have gone - the Government insisted in 2020 as a condition of bail out all services were maintained so you had empty tubes going up and down the lines. TfL have begun to reduce capacity discretely by not replacing drivers who leave - fewer drivers means more gaps in the service whether they are called "cancellations" or not.
If Sunak wants to look "tough" and reduce the subsidy, the options will either be a big Council Tax rise (which any future Conservative Mayor will have to retain) or a reduction in services (up to 10% of buses could be axed) or the complete mothballing of one or more lines (the Bakerloo, for a number of reasons, is the obvious target but even then maintenance will have to continue so it's not a complete saving).
However, assuming Lewis gets to the first corner is first place it will be Max having to take all the risks, Lewis will be able to ignore the issues behind him.
Until Marr showed the actual regulation, it did seem it was illegal but I would suggest everyone who is so convinced on this story including the daily mirror just check the actual definition in the regulations and realise it could well have conformed with covid rules
Edit 18% see https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/tfl-financial-crisis-tube-line-closed-bankruptcy-b968230.html
https://twitter.com/Friseal/status/1467096792772845571?s=20
The 'pollster' is currently aff his nut on a 'Sturgeon is the new Thatcher' meme. These people are seriously weird.
https://twitter.com/FacundoSavala/status/1467409383470546945?s=20
According to the government's new post-Boris Johnson's toilets crackdown announced today, these would lose you your license and freedom to travel, ofcourse.
1. Last time ref said it wanted to keep both the £ and the Monarchy? Will that be exactly the same in the next ref?
2. Really? Having both those things, is it proper independence from continued English and London influence? or a sort of half way house have your cake and eat it independence?
3. Surely the only True definition of independence is own currency and negotiate trade deal with what’s left of UK and everywhere else? Like Ireland? Because the place to avoid is the basket case facade democracy, Zimbabwe ending up in, you can have a parliament but not own the land, the resources, the ability to tax the necessary amount of wealth?
4. If Scotland has independence from England, does it have the economy and assets to maintain the current lifestyle, free higher education etc, enough wealth owned, invested and generated, to tax, to maintain standards of living it currently enjoys? What main industry will it have other than tourism?
5. Basically boils down to simple question, are the English currently takers from Scotland, Scotland takers from England, or current balance about right and fair?
6. If you want to keep the monarchy, then why not trust a Royal Commission how we can share these Isles, in a helping sharing UK commonwealth (which it should already have been the last few hundred years) where everyone’s regional and local identity feels in a happy place? But To create such a happy place cannot be achieved through ramping nationalism and localism, and holding separatist referendums, can it?
You spent an entire year telling us all what a charlatan Boris was. Don't start defending him now.
Regardless of the bizarre fantasies of the bumpkins on PB.