I need help. I'm addicted to oatcakes (Orkney variety). Went trudging through the rain to replenish the depleted stock before elevenses.
Anyway, on topic: the header says What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride. Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
Re Hunt breaking cover against Johnson, he who wields the knife never wears the crown comes to mind.
I think the nasty way Dorries attacked Hunt, which was inexcusable, has damaged his prospects and I just do not see the membership electing him though a place in the cabinet would be very sensible
Otoh Hunt's new book Zero on reducing avoidable deaths in the NHS might help establish him as a deep thinker with at least one more policy idea than the current incumbent.
"I'm not the target audience so what the fuck do I know but I fail to see the political appeal of the chunky tory milf. The last three years of her political career have been managed decline. How the fuck do you get to potential PM from there? She flashed her Beetle Bonnet on that diving program but there has to be more to it."
Harsh but fair. However I'm all in favour of politicians using their sex if they can. They're usually no use nor ornament, so if they are ornamental, go ahead.
I need help. I'm addicted to oatcakes (Orkney variety). Went trudging through the rain to replenish the depleted stock before elevenses.
Anyway, on topic: the header says What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride. Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
PMQs in half an hour are going to be a nightmare for Boris, and I expect him to make it worse by attacking everything and everyone as it is never his fault
One of these days Johnson's actually going to lose his temper at PMQs and that really will upset the Speaker. Just possibly could see him suspended!
I would like him to see off Boris, but not win, a la Hezza, allowing the good ship Penny to sail to victory.
I'm not the target audience so what the fuck do I know but I fail to see the political appeal of the chunky tory milf. The last three years of her political career have been managed decline. How the fuck do you get to potential PM from there? She flashed her Beetle Bonnet on that diving program but there has to be more to it.
I don't really see anything substantive in your critique to be honest. The other day your main line of attack was that she looked like Boris in a dress. If that's true, perhaps we should ask him to wear one more often. As for her career, being able to serve under Boris, but not being part of his core team, is as good a recommendation as you can make for anyone of the runners and riders. In Boris's Government, promotion is no longer a sign of ability as you know.
I think she's the best candidate because she's 1. Bright. 2. Has clear vision within the role - ie., doesn't want the job 'because I think I'd be quite good at it' a la Cameron/Boris. Of course it helps that her views seem to be fairly aligned to mine, but not completely - she's way more Atlantacist than I'd be. But at least she wants to do something. 3. As bonuses, she's also a very good commons performer, attractive/telegenic, and seems a very caring person. I don't really see what more we can ask for at this point.
Whoever wins, if Boris goes, is really going to need a strategy to manage the economy and cost of living on the one hand, and the rapidly degrading state of some of our public services (particularly the NHS but also education) on the other. She seems to be all about tax cuts. That does at least give her an ideology, but is it enough. You need to show how tax cuts will a. be affordable, b. allow us to invest where investment is needed.
They will also need to be able to think creatively and pragmatically about our relationship with the EU. So far all I get from Mordaunt is pure Brexit orthodoxy and "global Britain". Nothing meaningful on the NIP. Not that Boris can lay claim to anything better.
Could be terror, could be a terrible accident. Reasons to think it is terror: it’s right next to a church and it is - apparently - the scene of a previous lethal terror attack, by a truck, on the Berlin Christmas Market in 2016
PMQs in half an hour are going to be a nightmare for Boris, and I expect him to make it worse by attacking everything and everyone as it is never his fault
I thought the Northern Ireland bill was going to be published today, but there doesn't seem to be any talk about it. Is that not happening?
"I'm not the target audience so what the fuck do I know but I fail to see the political appeal of the chunky tory milf. The last three years of her political career have been managed decline. How the fuck do you get to potential PM from there? She flashed her Beetle Bonnet on that diving program but there has to be more to it."
Harsh but fair. However I'm all in favour of politicians using their sex if they can. They're usually no use nor ornament, so if they are ornamental, go ahead.
Labour have the Ginger Minger in the wings.
Less fair. The Labour one is purely imaginary, in the heads of certain Tories.
“This is reportedly the manager of a cinema in Sheffield addressing a theocratic mob protesting at the screening of a "blasphemous" film (The Lady of Heaven). Thoroughly depressing to see him capitulate to their demands and confirm the film has been binned.”
Beyond bleak. We are yielding to violent thugs. There is no hope for Britain. The Tories are as spineless as Labour
Well, after the success of the Sikh protests against that play, back in the day, it was official. Threaten violence and you get your way.
Apparently, that incident was responsible, in part for the formation of the EDL. The White Power scum thought, apparently, "Street violence & threats gets compliance. We like that. We should have some of that".
Note the way their demos were all about creating a "There will be trouble unless X is stopped" narrative?
The most dispiriting thing about this is that the menace and hate comes from a small repulsive minority, which consistently bullies the other Muslims, let alone the rest of the country
Eg the guy in the first video is the same guy who led the disturbing protests against the Batley and Spen teacher. That teacher now lives under a different identity, in fear of his life, and of his family’s life. For being a teacher
“Batley Grammar School A year on from Prophet Muhammad Batley school row and teacher still in hiding as family 'at risk'”
Perhaps instead of fantasising about driverless trains and how a digital railway can fix infrastructure problems without construction, they might instead go and study why our railway system is so absurdly expensive.
It didn't used to be like this pre-privatisation. So its the change in structure - not ownership - which has driven this. A myriad of contracts and performance clauses and penalties. A "build it to withstand a direct nuclear strike and you are legally liable for it not getting nuked for the next 40 years" clause that exploded HS2 construction costs. Rolling stock that costs multiple times its real cost because in today's DfT dictated railway there is no guarantee your rolling stock will be used for more than a few years (yet another nearly new fleet just being parked up as we speak).
Instead of lazy war with the workers tropes, they should go to Germany. Italy. The Netherlands. See how they manage to do everything better for a lot less costs. Then do that.
Or we could go back to pre-privatisation levels of usage of the railways. There was a long-term downwards trend in railway usage until the 1990s and post-privatisation it has more than doubled (pre-pandemic).
Abolish all railways subsidies and allow railways to operate on whatever people are prepared to pay for which will be a fraction of the volume, just as it used to be before fuel duty started getting ramped up to insane levels to push people onto rails instead.
We don't get subsidised to drive a car, we get heavily taxed, there is no reason to subsidise railways, let people choose whatever means of transport suits them personally and let that be that on a level playing field.
A quick dive into the costs of running the road network in the UK:
In direct expenditure terms, sure: the main tax drivers pay is on fuel & that raised about £26billion in 2021. Vehicle exise duty raised just under £7billion. At the same time, about £12billion was spent on road maintenance that year (source for the first is UK gov website, the latter comes from statistica.) So on the face of it, drivers are paying £33billion for £12billion of services.
So including accident costs drives the cost of the road network to £22billion, even if we ignore the personal cost of the injuries sustained & only care about the economic impact (& that was in a pandemic year: the cost in 2018 was £13billion.)
Are there other externalities we’re not considering? Obviously there’s the cost of pollution which we know has major impacts on death rates in cities due to asthma & other diseases. Noise pollution is a significant cost, although it’s difficult to measure directly. Direct asthma treatment costs the NHS about a £billion / year. Total economic costs are probably at least double that. Hard to know what portion is caused by the road network, but it must be sizable.
Congestion costs are very significant economically - simply by blocking up the road network drivers cost the UK billions a year. Recent estimates seem to be in the £7billion a year region ( https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-news/94871/traffic-jams-costs-in-the-uk ), although I image that’s a crude number - probably just counting lost hours vs incomes. Still, that is almost totally wasted time, so...
So looking at the numbers, based solely on the externalities that can be directly accounted for (accidents, congestion), drivers are barely paying their way - they paid £33billion in return for £29billion of costs. Adding in reasonable estimates for other externalities (eg, asthma costs the NHS £1billion / year, knock on economic costs are probably twice that, maybe the road network is responsible for a third of that? & so on for all the others) suggests that drivers might be just about paying ther way?
The moment we include any accounting for the pain & suffering imposed on people due to road accidents the cost argument is blown out of the water of course. The UK government statistics include estimates for these costs based on standard economic approaches to estimating them based on revealed preferences.
(If I’ve missed any obvious externalities of driving that we can account for do point them out!)
Some of that is ridiculous or out of date.
Electric cars don't produce emissions or cause asthma so looking at the future that is an utterly preposterous thing to include.
But not as preposterous as including "congestion" as a "cost". Congestion isn't a cost, its something the drivers experience themselves. Yes sitting in traffic is wasted time, but so is standing at the station or the bus stop waiting for your train or bus to arrive. Would you include that as a "cost" to the UK in the same way you're trying to pretend that its a cost for drivers? Its not a cost, its a choice as to how people are spending their time.
My wife takes two busses to get work because she doesn't drive, one into the town centre, then one out again to her work, it takes her an hour to get to work. If I drive her route it takes me 12 minutes if the road is clear, or about 15 minutes if the road is congested. Which is the bigger "cost" of wasted time, the potential 3 minutes of me stuck in traffic, or the extra three quarters of an hour her journey takes using public transport?
Electric cars can still cause pollution wherever the electricity is generated.
If you're gaining 45 minutes plus by driving compared to going on a bus, you personally are avoiding a huge "cost" of wasted time. In which case, you should presumably be willing to pay a premium for that option, including in terms of what you pay the government.
Any pollution that electricity is costing us should be charged equitably on all electricity, not just drivers.
If you're gaining 45 minutes + by driving then how can you count "congestion" as a cost because of the wasted time. The time "wasted" is negative 45 minutes, while the time "wasted" for much of the country of travelling by car instead of rail can be an hour or more.
Sorry for not being clearer: I'm making a different point. I'm turning the cost/benefit analysis on its head.
If I provide you with a service that saves you 45+ minutes twice a day, then the service I am providing is very valuable to you. You would be expected to be willing to pay a considerable amount for this service.
If I provide you a service that saves you, say, £1000 per month, which costs me £100 per month to provide, what should I charge you? Capitalism says I should charge you slightly less than £1000 per month because that's what you'd be willing to pay.
Well, the nation is providing you a service that saves you 45+ minutes twice a day, so it makes sense for the nation to "charge" you a lot of money for this service, irrespective of what it costs the nation to provide it.
Could be terror, could be a terrible accident. Reasons to think it is terror: it’s right next to a church and it is - apparently - the scene of a previous lethal terror attack, by a truck, on the Berlin Christmas Market in 2016
PMQs in half an hour are going to be a nightmare for Boris, and I expect him to make it worse by attacking everything and everyone as it is never his fault
Naah 1. I was vindicated by Gray 2. I've said sorry 3. More Tory MPs back me now than when they first elected me 4. Starmer is a commienazi who wants to block the reintroduction of the bushel which will transform our farming communities
I would like him to see off Boris, but not win, a la Hezza, allowing the good ship Penny to sail to victory.
I'm not the target audience so what the fuck do I know but I fail to see the political appeal of the chunky tory milf. The last three years of her political career have been managed decline. How the fuck do you get to potential PM from there? She flashed her Beetle Bonnet on that diving program but there has to be more to it.
I don't really see anything substantive in your critique to be honest. The other day your main line of attack was that she looked like Boris in a dress. If that's true, perhaps we should ask him to wear one more often. As for her career, being able to serve under Boris, but not being part of his core team, is as good a recommendation as you can make for anyone of the runners and riders. In Boris's Government, promotion is no longer a sign of ability as you know.
I think she's the best candidate because she's 1. Bright. 2. Has clear vision within the role - ie., doesn't want the job 'because I think I'd be quite good at it' a la Cameron/Boris. Of course it helps that her views seem to be fairly aligned to mine, but not completely - she's way more Atlantacist than I'd be. But at least she wants to do something. 3. As bonuses, she's also a very good commons performer, attractive/telegenic, and seems a very caring person. I don't really see what more we can ask for at this point.
Whoever wins, if Boris goes, is really going to need a strategy to manage the economy and cost of living on the one hand, and the rapidly degrading state of some of our public services (particularly the NHS but also education) on the other. She seems to be all about tax cuts. That does at least give her an ideology, but is it enough. You need to show how tax cuts will a. be affordable, b. allow us to invest where investment is needed.
They will also need to be able to think creatively and pragmatically about our relationship with the EU. So far all I get from Mordaunt is pure Brexit orthodoxy and "global Britain". Nothing meaningful on the NIP. Not that Boris can lay claim to anything better.
I don't think it's reasonable to expect her to lay out a full legislative programme at this point.
It seems likely that it wasn't the rebels who forced the Confidence vote. Once there seemed a large number of letters and a likelihood that 54 would be reached at some point, then Boris supporters would send in letters themselves to ensure the vote took place before the by-elections.
PMQs in half an hour are going to be a nightmare for Boris, and I expect him to make it worse by attacking everything and everyone as it is never his fault
I thought the Northern Ireland bill was going to be published today, but there doesn't seem to be any talk about it. Is that not happening?
Perhaps instead of fantasising about driverless trains and how a digital railway can fix infrastructure problems without construction, they might instead go and study why our railway system is so absurdly expensive.
It didn't used to be like this pre-privatisation. So its the change in structure - not ownership - which has driven this. A myriad of contracts and performance clauses and penalties. A "build it to withstand a direct nuclear strike and you are legally liable for it not getting nuked for the next 40 years" clause that exploded HS2 construction costs. Rolling stock that costs multiple times its real cost because in today's DfT dictated railway there is no guarantee your rolling stock will be used for more than a few years (yet another nearly new fleet just being parked up as we speak).
Instead of lazy war with the workers tropes, they should go to Germany. Italy. The Netherlands. See how they manage to do everything better for a lot less costs. Then do that.
Or we could go back to pre-privatisation levels of usage of the railways. There was a long-term downwards trend in railway usage until the 1990s and post-privatisation it has more than doubled (pre-pandemic).
Abolish all railways subsidies and allow railways to operate on whatever people are prepared to pay for which will be a fraction of the volume, just as it used to be before fuel duty started getting ramped up to insane levels to push people onto rails instead.
We don't get subsidised to drive a car, we get heavily taxed, there is no reason to subsidise railways, let people choose whatever means of transport suits them personally and let that be that on a level playing field.
A quick dive into the costs of running the road network in the UK:
In direct expenditure terms, sure: the main tax drivers pay is on fuel & that raised about £26billion in 2021. Vehicle exise duty raised just under £7billion. At the same time, about £12billion was spent on road maintenance that year (source for the first is UK gov website, the latter comes from statistica.) So on the face of it, drivers are paying £33billion for £12billion of services.
So including accident costs drives the cost of the road network to £22billion, even if we ignore the personal cost of the injuries sustained & only care about the economic impact (& that was in a pandemic year: the cost in 2018 was £13billion.)
Are there other externalities we’re not considering? Obviously there’s the cost of pollution which we know has major impacts on death rates in cities due to asthma & other diseases. Noise pollution is a significant cost, although it’s difficult to measure directly. Direct asthma treatment costs the NHS about a £billion / year. Total economic costs are probably at least double that. Hard to know what portion is caused by the road network, but it must be sizable.
Congestion costs are very significant economically - simply by blocking up the road network drivers cost the UK billions a year. Recent estimates seem to be in the £7billion a year region ( https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-news/94871/traffic-jams-costs-in-the-uk ), although I image that’s a crude number - probably just counting lost hours vs incomes. Still, that is almost totally wasted time, so...
So looking at the numbers, based solely on the externalities that can be directly accounted for (accidents, congestion), drivers are barely paying their way - they paid £33billion in return for £29billion of costs. Adding in reasonable estimates for other externalities (eg, asthma costs the NHS £1billion / year, knock on economic costs are probably twice that, maybe the road network is responsible for a third of that? & so on for all the others) suggests that drivers might be just about paying ther way?
The moment we include any accounting for the pain & suffering imposed on people due to road accidents the cost argument is blown out of the water of course. The UK government statistics include estimates for these costs based on standard economic approaches to estimating them based on revealed preferences.
(If I’ve missed any obvious externalities of driving that we can account for do point them out!)
Some of that is ridiculous or out of date.
Electric cars don't produce emissions or cause asthma so looking at the future that is an utterly preposterous thing to include.
But not as preposterous as including "congestion" as a "cost". Congestion isn't a cost, its something the drivers experience themselves. Yes sitting in traffic is wasted time, but so is standing at the station or the bus stop waiting for your train or bus to arrive. Would you include that as a "cost" to the UK in the same way you're trying to pretend that its a cost for drivers? Its not a cost, its a choice as to how people are spending their time.
My wife takes two busses to get work because she doesn't drive, one into the town centre, then one out again to her work, it takes her an hour to get to work. If I drive her route it takes me 12 minutes if the road is clear, or about 15 minutes if the road is congested. Which is the bigger "cost" of wasted time, the potential 3 minutes of me stuck in traffic, or the extra three quarters of an hour her journey takes using public transport?
Electric cars can still cause pollution wherever the electricity is generated.
If you're gaining 45 minutes plus by driving compared to going on a bus, you personally are avoiding a huge "cost" of wasted time. In which case, you should presumably be willing to pay a premium for that option, including in terms of what you pay the government.
Any pollution that electricity is costing us should be charged equitably on all electricity, not just drivers.
If you're gaining 45 minutes + by driving then how can you count "congestion" as a cost because of the wasted time. The time "wasted" is negative 45 minutes, while the time "wasted" for much of the country of travelling by car instead of rail can be an hour or more.
Which suggests that £5billion of the £7billion cost occurs in London, which of course has a (mostly) great public transport network, at least compared to the rest of the country.
They say: “The lost revenue is down to wasted fuel, the extra cost of transporting goods through congested areas, and lost productivity due to workers being sat in jams.”
which instantly demonstrates how hard accounting for this stuff appropriately is: If you want to know the answer to “are drivers paying their way?” then you can’t use that £7bllion figure directly, you have to take off the fuel costs (because drivers are paying those directly). The other costs are externalities of congestion that you want to include, because drivers aren’t paying for those themselves. This figure doesn’t try to include any accounting for the “human cost” of congestion of course.
(It does appear that the authors have considered your point however BR: this number seems to be an estimate of the real economic costs, not intangibles.)
"Workers being sat in jams" has to be equivalent to "workers sat in bus stops/train stations waiting for exchanges" though, in which case again for the overwhelming majority of the country it would be a net negative cost, but that hasn't been calculated, because that's not what the calculation is there for.
The logical thing to do then if you're counting wasted time as a cost to be taxed would be to tax fuel and subsidise public transport in London, but to subsidise fuel and tax public transport in the rest of the nation. It wouldn't be reasonable to tax drivers in the North West due to Londoners wasting time if they use cars now, would it?
Somehow I am sceptical that is what you're suggesting though, is it?
"Workers being sat in jams" and "workers sat in bus stops/train stations waiting for exchanges" are different. The former is an externality caused by you (and others) driving private cars, which causes those jams and their negative affects on others. The latter is just how a system works, in the same sense that a car takes a finite amount of time to get you somewhere because that's how it works.
But perhaps what you can argue is that time saved by private car journeys (versus alternatives) is a positive externality, a plus to productivity etc. Of course, with more investment, public transport would be quicker.
Common sense amongst the Conservative members to see Rishi Sunak as the stand out candidate for next leader. Hunt the only other credible candidate but a Remainer and a wet.
I need help. I'm addicted to oatcakes (Orkney variety). Went trudging through the rain to replenish the depleted stock before elevenses.
Anyway, on topic: the header says What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride. Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
Not marmalade, but soft blue cheese. I'm so addicted that I muse about the ratio of the lengths of the hypotenuse between straight and round, calculating the extra area the round one gives me.
Could be terror, could be a terrible accident. Reasons to think it is terror: it’s right next to a church and it is - apparently - the scene of a previous lethal terror attack, by a truck, on the Berlin Christmas Market in 2016
PMQs in half an hour are going to be a nightmare for Boris, and I expect him to make it worse by attacking everything and everyone as it is never his fault
I thought the Northern Ireland bill was going to be published today, but there doesn't seem to be any talk about it. Is that not happening?
I expect the 148 will sabotage it
He is powerless and frankly pointless
I hope the 148 just don’t attend: empty benches behind him would send the most powerful of messsges.
Perhaps instead of fantasising about driverless trains and how a digital railway can fix infrastructure problems without construction, they might instead go and study why our railway system is so absurdly expensive.
It didn't used to be like this pre-privatisation. So its the change in structure - not ownership - which has driven this. A myriad of contracts and performance clauses and penalties. A "build it to withstand a direct nuclear strike and you are legally liable for it not getting nuked for the next 40 years" clause that exploded HS2 construction costs. Rolling stock that costs multiple times its real cost because in today's DfT dictated railway there is no guarantee your rolling stock will be used for more than a few years (yet another nearly new fleet just being parked up as we speak).
Instead of lazy war with the workers tropes, they should go to Germany. Italy. The Netherlands. See how they manage to do everything better for a lot less costs. Then do that.
Or we could go back to pre-privatisation levels of usage of the railways. There was a long-term downwards trend in railway usage until the 1990s and post-privatisation it has more than doubled (pre-pandemic).
Abolish all railways subsidies and allow railways to operate on whatever people are prepared to pay for which will be a fraction of the volume, just as it used to be before fuel duty started getting ramped up to insane levels to push people onto rails instead.
We don't get subsidised to drive a car, we get heavily taxed, there is no reason to subsidise railways, let people choose whatever means of transport suits them personally and let that be that on a level playing field.
A quick dive into the costs of running the road network in the UK:
In direct expenditure terms, sure: the main tax drivers pay is on fuel & that raised about £26billion in 2021. Vehicle exise duty raised just under £7billion. At the same time, about £12billion was spent on road maintenance that year (source for the first is UK gov website, the latter comes from statistica.) So on the face of it, drivers are paying £33billion for £12billion of services.
So including accident costs drives the cost of the road network to £22billion, even if we ignore the personal cost of the injuries sustained & only care about the economic impact (& that was in a pandemic year: the cost in 2018 was £13billion.)
Are there other externalities we’re not considering? Obviously there’s the cost of pollution which we know has major impacts on death rates in cities due to asthma & other diseases. Noise pollution is a significant cost, although it’s difficult to measure directly. Direct asthma treatment costs the NHS about a £billion / year. Total economic costs are probably at least double that. Hard to know what portion is caused by the road network, but it must be sizable.
Congestion costs are very significant economically - simply by blocking up the road network drivers cost the UK billions a year. Recent estimates seem to be in the £7billion a year region ( https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-news/94871/traffic-jams-costs-in-the-uk ), although I image that’s a crude number - probably just counting lost hours vs incomes. Still, that is almost totally wasted time, so...
So looking at the numbers, based solely on the externalities that can be directly accounted for (accidents, congestion), drivers are barely paying their way - they paid £33billion in return for £29billion of costs. Adding in reasonable estimates for other externalities (eg, asthma costs the NHS £1billion / year, knock on economic costs are probably twice that, maybe the road network is responsible for a third of that? & so on for all the others) suggests that drivers might be just about paying ther way?
The moment we include any accounting for the pain & suffering imposed on people due to road accidents the cost argument is blown out of the water of course. The UK government statistics include estimates for these costs based on standard economic approaches to estimating them based on revealed preferences.
(If I’ve missed any obvious externalities of driving that we can account for do point them out!)
Some of that is ridiculous or out of date.
Electric cars don't produce emissions or cause asthma so looking at the future that is an utterly preposterous thing to include.
But not as preposterous as including "congestion" as a "cost". Congestion isn't a cost, its something the drivers experience themselves. Yes sitting in traffic is wasted time, but so is standing at the station or the bus stop waiting for your train or bus to arrive. Would you include that as a "cost" to the UK in the same way you're trying to pretend that its a cost for drivers? Its not a cost, its a choice as to how people are spending their time.
My wife takes two busses to get work because she doesn't drive, one into the town centre, then one out again to her work, it takes her an hour to get to work. If I drive her route it takes me 12 minutes if the road is clear, or about 15 minutes if the road is congested. Which is the bigger "cost" of wasted time, the potential 3 minutes of me stuck in traffic, or the extra three quarters of an hour her journey takes using public transport?
Electric cars can still cause pollution wherever the electricity is generated.
If you're gaining 45 minutes plus by driving compared to going on a bus, you personally are avoiding a huge "cost" of wasted time. In which case, you should presumably be willing to pay a premium for that option, including in terms of what you pay the government.
Any pollution that electricity is costing us should be charged equitably on all electricity, not just drivers.
If you're gaining 45 minutes + by driving then how can you count "congestion" as a cost because of the wasted time. The time "wasted" is negative 45 minutes, while the time "wasted" for much of the country of travelling by car instead of rail can be an hour or more.
Which suggests that £5billion of the £7billion cost occurs in London, which of course has a (mostly) great public transport network, at least compared to the rest of the country.
They say: “The lost revenue is down to wasted fuel, the extra cost of transporting goods through congested areas, and lost productivity due to workers being sat in jams.”
which instantly demonstrates how hard accounting for this stuff appropriately is: If you want to know the answer to “are drivers paying their way?” then you can’t use that £7bllion figure directly, you have to take off the fuel costs (because drivers are paying those directly). The other costs are externalities of congestion that you want to include, because drivers aren’t paying for those themselves. This figure doesn’t try to include any accounting for the “human cost” of congestion of course.
(It does appear that the authors have considered your point however BR: this number seems to be an estimate of the real economic costs, not intangibles.)
"Workers being sat in jams" has to be equivalent to "workers sat in bus stops/train stations waiting for exchanges" though, in which case again for the overwhelming majority of the country it would be a net negative cost, but that hasn't been calculated, because that's not what the calculation is there for.
The logical thing to do then if you're counting wasted time as a cost to be taxed would be to tax fuel and subsidise public transport in London, but to subsidise fuel and tax public transport in the rest of the nation. It wouldn't be reasonable to tax drivers in the North West due to Londoners wasting time if they use cars now, would it?
Somehow I am sceptical that is what you're suggesting though, is it?
This is exactly what I mean about my confusing driver cost vs national economic cost messing up the discussion!
From a “do car drivers pay for the costs they impose on the nation, including externalities” perspective, congestion is a cost that everyone has to pay for - every hour a lorry driver sits in a queue is an unproductive hour when the goods they carry cannot be used for their indented purpose after all, driving up costs for everyone else. This cost is mostly imposed by car drivers of one sort or another & (at least according to the article quoted) is most stringent in London, for a variety of reasons. From a personal payments POV, congestion is just part of the 'do I make this trip or not' value vs cost trade-off that we all make all the time.
(This is an example of another problem when talking about national scale economics - the fallacy of composition. Treating things as individual choices doesn’t work when we’re talking about an entire country, where the actual system under discussion is itself a choice, but not one that any individual driver can make.)
To answer your direct question: taxing fuel is not going to be an effective way to tax congestion; fuel taxes are an extremely blunt tool for this purpose. Economically, the “right” thing to do when it comes to congestion is dynamic road pricing, although that has unresolved implementation issues that have so far made it unworkable.
It does seem that rural public transport subsidies are extremely ineffective.
Common sense amongst the Conservative members to see Rishi Sunak as the stand out candidate for next leader. Hunt the only other credible candidate but a Remainer and a wet.
Could be terror, could be a terrible accident. Reasons to think it is terror: it’s right next to a church and it is - apparently - the scene of a previous lethal terror attack, by a truck, on the Berlin Christmas Market in 2016
The ability of the truly bad driver to lose control of the vehicle in a absolutely startling manner should not be underestimated.
From what Barrowman says, the car mounted the pavement more than once. Could be unplanned terrorism or just a driver taken ill. The driver is apparently in custody so we should learn more soon.
I need help. I'm addicted to oatcakes (Orkney variety). Went trudging through the rain to replenish the depleted stock before elevenses.
Anyway, on topic: the header says What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride. Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
Not marmalade, but soft blue cheese. I'm so addicted that I muse about the ratio of the lengths of the hypotenuse between straight and round, calculating the extra area the round one gives me.
Which cheese?
I’d go for a ripe Colston Bassett Stilton with an oatcake, or maybe a softer blue like Cashel or Blacksticks. Not Roquefort - too much salt with the salty oatcake
I would like him to see off Boris, but not win, a la Hezza, allowing the good ship Penny to sail to victory.
I'm not the target audience so what the fuck do I know but I fail to see the political appeal of the chunky tory milf. The last three years of her political career have been managed decline. How the fuck do you get to potential PM from there? She flashed her Beetle Bonnet on that diving program but there has to be more to it.
I don't really see anything substantive in your critique to be honest. The other day your main line of attack was that she looked like Boris in a dress. If that's true, perhaps we should ask him to wear one more often. As for her career, being able to serve under Boris, but not being part of his core team, is as good a recommendation as you can make for anyone of the runners and riders. In Boris's Government, promotion is no longer a sign of ability as you know.
I think she's the best candidate because she's 1. Bright. 2. Has clear vision within the role - ie., doesn't want the job 'because I think I'd be quite good at it' a la Cameron/Boris. Of course it helps that her views seem to be fairly aligned to mine, but not completely - she's way more Atlantacist than I'd be. But at least she wants to do something. 3. As bonuses, she's also a very good commons performer, attractive/telegenic, and seems a very caring person. I don't really see what more we can ask for at this point.
Whoever wins, if Boris goes, is really going to need a strategy to manage the economy and cost of living on the one hand, and the rapidly degrading state of some of our public services (particularly the NHS but also education) on the other. She seems to be all about tax cuts. That does at least give her an ideology, but is it enough. You need to show how tax cuts will a. be affordable, b. allow us to invest where investment is needed.
They will also need to be able to think creatively and pragmatically about our relationship with the EU. So far all I get from Mordaunt is pure Brexit orthodoxy and "global Britain". Nothing meaningful on the NIP. Not that Boris can lay claim to anything better.
I don't think it's reasonable to expect her to lay out a full legislative programme at this point.
Well I agree with that, yes. But this is why traditionally we had leaders who had run a big department of state. We could see a track record and discern whether they had the depth and sophistication to deal with difficult trade offs. For example we knew from Boris' experience as Mayor of London and Foreign Secretary that he was a mendacious narcissist with no track record of actual achievement (they voted him in anyway of course). The issue with someone who's a blank canvas is you're really buying off-plan.
I need help. I'm addicted to oatcakes (Orkney variety). Went trudging through the rain to replenish the depleted stock before elevenses.
Anyway, on topic: the header says What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride. Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
Not marmalade, but soft blue cheese. I'm so addicted that I muse about the ratio of the lengths of the hypotenuse between straight and round, calculating the extra area the round one gives me.
Which cheese?
I’d go for a ripe Colston Bassett Stilton with an oatcake, or maybe a softer blue like Cashel or Blacksticks. Not Roquefort - too much salt with the salty oatcake
St Agur does very nicely. I have tried the English varieties you mention too.
I need help. I'm addicted to oatcakes (Orkney variety). Went trudging through the rain to replenish the depleted stock before elevenses.
Anyway, on topic: the header says What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride. Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
Not marmalade, but soft blue cheese. I'm so addicted that I muse about the ratio of the lengths of the hypotenuse between straight and round, calculating the extra area the round one gives me.
ratio is 1: 1.57 ( or 2:π), size-invariant. Of course, if you buy them by mass anyway ...
Common sense amongst the Conservative members to see Rishi Sunak as the stand out candidate for next leader. Hunt the only other credible candidate but a Remainer and a wet.
Eh? Wallace leads with Tory members for next Tory leader on that poll followed by Truss and Hunt.
I need help. I'm addicted to oatcakes (Orkney variety). Went trudging through the rain to replenish the depleted stock before elevenses.
Anyway, on topic: the header says What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride. Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
Not marmalade, but soft blue cheese. I'm so addicted that I muse about the ratio of the lengths of the hypotenuse between straight and round, calculating the extra area the round one gives me.
Which cheese?
I’d go for a ripe Colston Bassett Stilton with an oatcake, or maybe a softer blue like Cashel or Blacksticks. Not Roquefort - too much salt with the salty oatcake
Not all oatcakes are salty - the thicker ones eg Cromarty or Stockans seem better in this respect.
I would like him to see off Boris, but not win, a la Hezza, allowing the good ship Penny to sail to victory.
I'm not the target audience so what the fuck do I know but I fail to see the political appeal of the chunky tory milf. The last three years of her political career have been managed decline. How the fuck do you get to potential PM from there? She flashed her Beetle Bonnet on that diving program but there has to be more to it.
I don't really see anything substantive in your critique to be honest. The other day your main line of attack was that she looked like Boris in a dress. If that's true, perhaps we should ask him to wear one more often. As for her career, being able to serve under Boris, but not being part of his core team, is as good a recommendation as you can make for anyone of the runners and riders. In Boris's Government, promotion is no longer a sign of ability as you know.
I think she's the best candidate because she's 1. Bright. 2. Has clear vision within the role - ie., doesn't want the job 'because I think I'd be quite good at it' a la Cameron/Boris. Of course it helps that her views seem to be fairly aligned to mine, but not completely - she's way more Atlantacist than I'd be. But at least she wants to do something. 3. As bonuses, she's also a very good commons performer, attractive/telegenic, and seems a very caring person. I don't really see what more we can ask for at this point.
Whoever wins, if Boris goes, is really going to need a strategy to manage the economy and cost of living on the one hand, and the rapidly degrading state of some of our public services (particularly the NHS but also education) on the other. She seems to be all about tax cuts. That does at least give her an ideology, but is it enough. You need to show how tax cuts will a. be affordable, b. allow us to invest where investment is needed.
They will also need to be able to think creatively and pragmatically about our relationship with the EU. So far all I get from Mordaunt is pure Brexit orthodoxy and "global Britain". Nothing meaningful on the NIP. Not that Boris can lay claim to anything better.
I don't think it's reasonable to expect her to lay out a full legislative programme at this point.
Well I agree with that, yes. But this is why traditionally we had leaders who had run a big department of state. We could see a track record and discern whether they had the depth and sophistication to deal with difficult trade offs. For example we knew from Boris' experience as Mayor of London and Foreign Secretary that he was a mendacious narcissist with no track record of actual achievement (they voted him in anyway of course). The issue with someone who's a blank canvas is you're really buying off-plan.
Well now it's topsy turvy. We know from Truss, Sunak and Raab's tenure in high office that they have no depth and precious little sophistication.
Could be terror, could be a terrible accident. Reasons to think it is terror: it’s right next to a church and it is - apparently - the scene of a previous lethal terror attack, by a truck, on the Berlin Christmas Market in 2016
The ability of the truly bad driver to lose control of the vehicle in a absolutely startling manner should not be underestimated.
From what Barrowman says, the car mounted the pavement more than once. Could be unplanned terrorism or just a driver taken ill. The driver is apparently in custody so we should learn more soon.
Also reports that the car seemed to be “targeting” pedestrians. But that might be an optical illusion: any car that mounts a pavement, for any reason, will look like its “targeting pedestrians”
And a Clio IS a strange choice if you want to cause multiple deaths
Perhaps instead of fantasising about driverless trains and how a digital railway can fix infrastructure problems without construction, they might instead go and study why our railway system is so absurdly expensive.
It didn't used to be like this pre-privatisation. So its the change in structure - not ownership - which has driven this. A myriad of contracts and performance clauses and penalties. A "build it to withstand a direct nuclear strike and you are legally liable for it not getting nuked for the next 40 years" clause that exploded HS2 construction costs. Rolling stock that costs multiple times its real cost because in today's DfT dictated railway there is no guarantee your rolling stock will be used for more than a few years (yet another nearly new fleet just being parked up as we speak).
Instead of lazy war with the workers tropes, they should go to Germany. Italy. The Netherlands. See how they manage to do everything better for a lot less costs. Then do that.
Or we could go back to pre-privatisation levels of usage of the railways. There was a long-term downwards trend in railway usage until the 1990s and post-privatisation it has more than doubled (pre-pandemic).
Abolish all railways subsidies and allow railways to operate on whatever people are prepared to pay for which will be a fraction of the volume, just as it used to be before fuel duty started getting ramped up to insane levels to push people onto rails instead.
We don't get subsidised to drive a car, we get heavily taxed, there is no reason to subsidise railways, let people choose whatever means of transport suits them personally and let that be that on a level playing field.
A quick dive into the costs of running the road network in the UK:
In direct expenditure terms, sure: the main tax drivers pay is on fuel & that raised about £26billion in 2021. Vehicle exise duty raised just under £7billion. At the same time, about £12billion was spent on road maintenance that year (source for the first is UK gov website, the latter comes from statistica.) So on the face of it, drivers are paying £33billion for £12billion of services.
So including accident costs drives the cost of the road network to £22billion, even if we ignore the personal cost of the injuries sustained & only care about the economic impact (& that was in a pandemic year: the cost in 2018 was £13billion.)
Are there other externalities we’re not considering? Obviously there’s the cost of pollution which we know has major impacts on death rates in cities due to asthma & other diseases. Noise pollution is a significant cost, although it’s difficult to measure directly. Direct asthma treatment costs the NHS about a £billion / year. Total economic costs are probably at least double that. Hard to know what portion is caused by the road network, but it must be sizable.
Congestion costs are very significant economically - simply by blocking up the road network drivers cost the UK billions a year. Recent estimates seem to be in the £7billion a year region ( https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-news/94871/traffic-jams-costs-in-the-uk ), although I image that’s a crude number - probably just counting lost hours vs incomes. Still, that is almost totally wasted time, so...
So looking at the numbers, based solely on the externalities that can be directly accounted for (accidents, congestion), drivers are barely paying their way - they paid £33billion in return for £29billion of costs. Adding in reasonable estimates for other externalities (eg, asthma costs the NHS £1billion / year, knock on economic costs are probably twice that, maybe the road network is responsible for a third of that? & so on for all the others) suggests that drivers might be just about paying ther way?
The moment we include any accounting for the pain & suffering imposed on people due to road accidents the cost argument is blown out of the water of course. The UK government statistics include estimates for these costs based on standard economic approaches to estimating them based on revealed preferences.
(If I’ve missed any obvious externalities of driving that we can account for do point them out!)
Some of that is ridiculous or out of date.
Electric cars don't produce emissions or cause asthma so looking at the future that is an utterly preposterous thing to include.
But not as preposterous as including "congestion" as a "cost". Congestion isn't a cost, its something the drivers experience themselves. Yes sitting in traffic is wasted time, but so is standing at the station or the bus stop waiting for your train or bus to arrive. Would you include that as a "cost" to the UK in the same way you're trying to pretend that its a cost for drivers? Its not a cost, its a choice as to how people are spending their time.
My wife takes two busses to get work because she doesn't drive, one into the town centre, then one out again to her work, it takes her an hour to get to work. If I drive her route it takes me 12 minutes if the road is clear, or about 15 minutes if the road is congested. Which is the bigger "cost" of wasted time, the potential 3 minutes of me stuck in traffic, or the extra three quarters of an hour her journey takes using public transport?
Electric cars can still cause pollution wherever the electricity is generated.
If you're gaining 45 minutes plus by driving compared to going on a bus, you personally are avoiding a huge "cost" of wasted time. In which case, you should presumably be willing to pay a premium for that option, including in terms of what you pay the government.
Any pollution that electricity is costing us should be charged equitably on all electricity, not just drivers.
If you're gaining 45 minutes + by driving then how can you count "congestion" as a cost because of the wasted time. The time "wasted" is negative 45 minutes, while the time "wasted" for much of the country of travelling by car instead of rail can be an hour or more.
Sorry for not being clearer: I'm making a different point. I'm turning the cost/benefit analysis on its head.
If I provide you with a service that saves you 45+ minutes twice a day, then the service I am providing is very valuable to you. You would be expected to be willing to pay a considerable amount for this service.
If I provide you a service that saves you, say, £1000 per month, which costs me £100 per month to provide, what should I charge you? Capitalism says I should charge you slightly less than £1000 per month because that's what you'd be willing to pay.
Well, the nation is providing you a service that saves you 45+ minutes twice a day, so it makes sense for the nation to "charge" you a lot of money for this service, irrespective of what it costs the nation to provide it.
Cue libertarian head explosions as questions of who owns what & who gets to charge for access to the things they own intersect in wildly unpredicatable ways
Clearly in this case the Crown owns the road network & gets to charge what the market will bear for access to it!
Perhaps instead of fantasising about driverless trains and how a digital railway can fix infrastructure problems without construction, they might instead go and study why our railway system is so absurdly expensive.
It didn't used to be like this pre-privatisation. So its the change in structure - not ownership - which has driven this. A myriad of contracts and performance clauses and penalties. A "build it to withstand a direct nuclear strike and you are legally liable for it not getting nuked for the next 40 years" clause that exploded HS2 construction costs. Rolling stock that costs multiple times its real cost because in today's DfT dictated railway there is no guarantee your rolling stock will be used for more than a few years (yet another nearly new fleet just being parked up as we speak).
Instead of lazy war with the workers tropes, they should go to Germany. Italy. The Netherlands. See how they manage to do everything better for a lot less costs. Then do that.
Or we could go back to pre-privatisation levels of usage of the railways. There was a long-term downwards trend in railway usage until the 1990s and post-privatisation it has more than doubled (pre-pandemic).
Abolish all railways subsidies and allow railways to operate on whatever people are prepared to pay for which will be a fraction of the volume, just as it used to be before fuel duty started getting ramped up to insane levels to push people onto rails instead.
We don't get subsidised to drive a car, we get heavily taxed, there is no reason to subsidise railways, let people choose whatever means of transport suits them personally and let that be that on a level playing field.
A quick dive into the costs of running the road network in the UK:
In direct expenditure terms, sure: the main tax drivers pay is on fuel & that raised about £26billion in 2021. Vehicle exise duty raised just under £7billion. At the same time, about £12billion was spent on road maintenance that year (source for the first is UK gov website, the latter comes from statistica.) So on the face of it, drivers are paying £33billion for £12billion of services.
So including accident costs drives the cost of the road network to £22billion, even if we ignore the personal cost of the injuries sustained & only care about the economic impact (& that was in a pandemic year: the cost in 2018 was £13billion.)
Are there other externalities we’re not considering? Obviously there’s the cost of pollution which we know has major impacts on death rates in cities due to asthma & other diseases. Noise pollution is a significant cost, although it’s difficult to measure directly. Direct asthma treatment costs the NHS about a £billion / year. Total economic costs are probably at least double that. Hard to know what portion is caused by the road network, but it must be sizable.
Congestion costs are very significant economically - simply by blocking up the road network drivers cost the UK billions a year. Recent estimates seem to be in the £7billion a year region ( https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-news/94871/traffic-jams-costs-in-the-uk ), although I image that’s a crude number - probably just counting lost hours vs incomes. Still, that is almost totally wasted time, so...
So looking at the numbers, based solely on the externalities that can be directly accounted for (accidents, congestion), drivers are barely paying their way - they paid £33billion in return for £29billion of costs. Adding in reasonable estimates for other externalities (eg, asthma costs the NHS £1billion / year, knock on economic costs are probably twice that, maybe the road network is responsible for a third of that? & so on for all the others) suggests that drivers might be just about paying ther way?
The moment we include any accounting for the pain & suffering imposed on people due to road accidents the cost argument is blown out of the water of course. The UK government statistics include estimates for these costs based on standard economic approaches to estimating them based on revealed preferences.
(If I’ve missed any obvious externalities of driving that we can account for do point them out!)
Some of that is ridiculous or out of date.
Electric cars don't produce emissions or cause asthma so looking at the future that is an utterly preposterous thing to include.
But not as preposterous as including "congestion" as a "cost". Congestion isn't a cost, its something the drivers experience themselves. Yes sitting in traffic is wasted time, but so is standing at the station or the bus stop waiting for your train or bus to arrive. Would you include that as a "cost" to the UK in the same way you're trying to pretend that its a cost for drivers? Its not a cost, its a choice as to how people are spending their time.
My wife takes two busses to get work because she doesn't drive, one into the town centre, then one out again to her work, it takes her an hour to get to work. If I drive her route it takes me 12 minutes if the road is clear, or about 15 minutes if the road is congested. Which is the bigger "cost" of wasted time, the potential 3 minutes of me stuck in traffic, or the extra three quarters of an hour her journey takes using public transport?
Electric cars can still cause pollution wherever the electricity is generated.
If you're gaining 45 minutes plus by driving compared to going on a bus, you personally are avoiding a huge "cost" of wasted time. In which case, you should presumably be willing to pay a premium for that option, including in terms of what you pay the government.
Any pollution that electricity is costing us should be charged equitably on all electricity, not just drivers.
If you're gaining 45 minutes + by driving then how can you count "congestion" as a cost because of the wasted time. The time "wasted" is negative 45 minutes, while the time "wasted" for much of the country of travelling by car instead of rail can be an hour or more.
Which suggests that £5billion of the £7billion cost occurs in London, which of course has a (mostly) great public transport network, at least compared to the rest of the country.
They say: “The lost revenue is down to wasted fuel, the extra cost of transporting goods through congested areas, and lost productivity due to workers being sat in jams.”
which instantly demonstrates how hard accounting for this stuff appropriately is: If you want to know the answer to “are drivers paying their way?” then you can’t use that £7bllion figure directly, you have to take off the fuel costs (because drivers are paying those directly). The other costs are externalities of congestion that you want to include, because drivers aren’t paying for those themselves. This figure doesn’t try to include any accounting for the “human cost” of congestion of course.
(It does appear that the authors have considered your point however BR: this number seems to be an estimate of the real economic costs, not intangibles.)
"Workers being sat in jams" has to be equivalent to "workers sat in bus stops/train stations waiting for exchanges" though, in which case again for the overwhelming majority of the country it would be a net negative cost, but that hasn't been calculated, because that's not what the calculation is there for.
The logical thing to do then if you're counting wasted time as a cost to be taxed would be to tax fuel and subsidise public transport in London, but to subsidise fuel and tax public transport in the rest of the nation. It wouldn't be reasonable to tax drivers in the North West due to Londoners wasting time if they use cars now, would it?
Somehow I am sceptical that is what you're suggesting though, is it?
"Workers being sat in jams" and "workers sat in bus stops/train stations waiting for exchanges" are different. The former is an externality caused by you (and others) driving private cars, which causes those jams and their negative affects on others. The latter is just how a system works, in the same sense that a car takes a finite amount of time to get you somewhere because that's how it works.
But perhaps what you can argue is that time saved by private car journeys (versus alternatives) is a positive externality, a plus to productivity etc. Of course, with more investment, public transport would be quicker.
Proportionately public transport already gets far more money than alternative transports, yet it is still rejected by almost all the country and always moaned about by the tiny minority who use it.
Going off the higher estimate of £17bn per annum for the road network, proportionately the entire rail network should get less than £2bn spent on it from taxpayers money. That's to cover the entire network, maintenance, investment, electrification and subsidies, everything.
Perhaps public transport is just not good value for money, even if it is liked by people who think that Central London is the only place that matters?
PMQs in half an hour are going to be a nightmare for Boris, and I expect him to make it worse by attacking everything and everyone as it is never his fault
I thought the Northern Ireland bill was going to be published today, but there doesn't seem to be any talk about it. Is that not happening?
I expect the 148 will sabotage it
He is powerless and frankly pointless
Only if they're willing to break cover. He might withdraw the whip, collapse the Government and take his chances with the public. Whether he has the authority, without the remaining 'loyalists' then toppling him... It's pretty high risk, high stakes stuff.
I need help. I'm addicted to oatcakes (Orkney variety). Went trudging through the rain to replenish the depleted stock before elevenses.
Anyway, on topic: the header says What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride. Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
Not marmalade, but soft blue cheese. I'm so addicted that I muse about the ratio of the lengths of the hypotenuse between straight and round, calculating the extra area the round one gives me.
Which cheese?
I’d go for a ripe Colston Bassett Stilton with an oatcake, or maybe a softer blue like Cashel or Blacksticks. Not Roquefort - too much salt with the salty oatcake
St Agur does very nicely. I have tried the English varieties you mention too.
A well aired, room temp St Agur is delicious. Addictive, even
I need help. I'm addicted to oatcakes (Orkney variety). Went trudging through the rain to replenish the depleted stock before elevenses.
Anyway, on topic: the header says What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride. Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
Not marmalade, but soft blue cheese. I'm so addicted that I muse about the ratio of the lengths of the hypotenuse between straight and round, calculating the extra area the round one gives me.
Which cheese?
I’d go for a ripe Colston Bassett Stilton with an oatcake, or maybe a softer blue like Cashel or Blacksticks. Not Roquefort - too much salt with the salty oatcake
St Agur does very nicely. I have tried the English varieties you mention too.
I think Cashel is an Irish cheese. I like all the cheeses mentioned including St Agur.
I need help. I'm addicted to oatcakes (Orkney variety). Went trudging through the rain to replenish the depleted stock before elevenses.
Anyway, on topic: the header says What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride. Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
Not marmalade, but soft blue cheese. I'm so addicted that I muse about the ratio of the lengths of the hypotenuse between straight and round, calculating the extra area the round one gives me.
ratio is 1: 1.57 ( or 2:π), size-invariant. Of course, if you buy them by mass anyway ...
Yeah I got the answer, and it slightly surprised me how much more you get. I don't understand your mass buying point.
I need help. I'm addicted to oatcakes (Orkney variety). Went trudging through the rain to replenish the depleted stock before elevenses.
Anyway, on topic: the header says What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride. Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
Not marmalade, but soft blue cheese. I'm so addicted that I muse about the ratio of the lengths of the hypotenuse between straight and round, calculating the extra area the round one gives me.
Which cheese?
I’d go for a ripe Colston Bassett Stilton with an oatcake, or maybe a softer blue like Cashel or Blacksticks. Not Roquefort - too much salt with the salty oatcake
Not all oatcakes are salty - the thicker ones eg Cromarty or Stockans seem better in this respect.
Nairns do a Fruit&Seed Oatcake which is perfect for dipping in your tea. Bit sweeter than an ordinary oatcake, but not as much as a sweet biscuit like a digestive. Although a digestive is a fine tea dunking choice if that’s your preference.
Common sense amongst the Conservative members to see Rishi Sunak as the stand out candidate for next leader. Hunt the only other credible candidate but a Remainer and a wet.
Eh? Wallace leads with Tory members followed by Truss and Hunt.
Sunak is 5th tied with Gove and behind Mordaunt
So what, that means nothing at this stage before a vacancy and before candidates have declared their intention to standard and gone through the hustings
You live your life far too much on irrelevant polls
I need help. I'm addicted to oatcakes (Orkney variety). Went trudging through the rain to replenish the depleted stock before elevenses.
Anyway, on topic: the header says What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride. Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
Not marmalade, but soft blue cheese. I'm so addicted that I muse about the ratio of the lengths of the hypotenuse between straight and round, calculating the extra area the round one gives me.
Which cheese?
I’d go for a ripe Colston Bassett Stilton with an oatcake, or maybe a softer blue like Cashel or Blacksticks. Not Roquefort - too much salt with the salty oatcake
Not all oatcakes are salty - the thicker ones eg Cromarty or Stockans seem better in this respect.
Nairns do a Fruit&Seed Oatcake which is perfect for dipping in your tea. Bit sweeter than an ordinary oatcake, but not as much as a sweet biscuit like a digestive. Although a digestive is a fine tea dunking choice if that’s your preference.
Could be terror, could be a terrible accident. Reasons to think it is terror: it’s right next to a church and it is - apparently - the scene of a previous lethal terror attack, by a truck, on the Berlin Christmas Market in 2016
The ability of the truly bad driver to lose control of the vehicle in a absolutely startling manner should not be underestimated.
From what Barrowman says, the car mounted the pavement more than once. Could be unplanned terrorism or just a driver taken ill. The driver is apparently in custody so we should learn more soon.
Also reports that the car seemed to be “targeting” pedestrians. But that might be an optical illusion: any car that mounts a pavement, for any reason, will look like its “targeting pedestrians”
And a Clio IS a strange choice if you want to cause multiple deaths
Common sense amongst the Conservative members to see Rishi Sunak as the stand out candidate for next leader. Hunt the only other credible candidate but a Remainer and a wet.
Eh? Wallace leads with Tory members followed by Truss and Hunt.
Sunak is 5th tied with Gove and behind Mordaunt
So what, that means nothing at this stage before a vacancy and before candidates have declared their intention to standard and gone through the hustings
You live your life far too much on irrelevant polls
I was replying to you posting an 'irrelevant poll' which did not even include Tory members unlike my poll who are the only people who get a say in the Tory leadership other than Tory MPs.
I need help. I'm addicted to oatcakes (Orkney variety). Went trudging through the rain to replenish the depleted stock before elevenses.
Anyway, on topic: the header says What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride. Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
Not marmalade, but soft blue cheese. I'm so addicted that I muse about the ratio of the lengths of the hypotenuse between straight and round, calculating the extra area the round one gives me.
Which cheese?
I’d go for a ripe Colston Bassett Stilton with an oatcake, or maybe a softer blue like Cashel or Blacksticks. Not Roquefort - too much salt with the salty oatcake
St Agur does very nicely. I have tried the English varieties you mention too.
I think Cashel is an Irish cheese. I like all the cheeses mentioned including St Agur.
Common sense amongst the Conservative members to see Rishi Sunak as the stand out candidate for next leader. Hunt the only other credible candidate but a Remainer and a wet.
Eh? Wallace leads with Tory members followed by Truss and Hunt.
Sunak is 5th tied with Gove and behind Mordaunt
So what, that means nothing at this stage before a vacancy and before candidates have declared their intention to standard and gone through the hustings
You live your life far too much on irrelevant polls
I was replying to you posting an 'irrelevant poll' which did not even include Tory members unlike my poll who are the only people who get a say in the Tory leadership other than Tory MPs
It is not irrelevant if it is the public perception
Could be terror, could be a terrible accident. Reasons to think it is terror: it’s right next to a church and it is - apparently - the scene of a previous lethal terror attack, by a truck, on the Berlin Christmas Market in 2016
The ability of the truly bad driver to lose control of the vehicle in a absolutely startling manner should not be underestimated.
From what Barrowman says, the car mounted the pavement more than once. Could be unplanned terrorism or just a driver taken ill. The driver is apparently in custody so we should learn more soon.
Also reports that the car seemed to be “targeting” pedestrians. But that might be an optical illusion: any car that mounts a pavement, for any reason, will look like its “targeting pedestrians”
And a Clio IS a strange choice if you want to cause multiple deaths
I need help. I'm addicted to oatcakes (Orkney variety). Went trudging through the rain to replenish the depleted stock before elevenses.
Anyway, on topic: the header says What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride. Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
Not marmalade, but soft blue cheese. I'm so addicted that I muse about the ratio of the lengths of the hypotenuse between straight and round, calculating the extra area the round one gives me.
ratio is 1: 1.57 ( or 2:π), size-invariant. Of course, if you buy them by mass anyway ...
Yeah I got the answer, and it slightly surprised me how much more you get. I don't understand your mass buying point.
If you buy them by weight you get the same amount of oatcake never mind the shape ...
I need help. I'm addicted to oatcakes (Orkney variety). Went trudging through the rain to replenish the depleted stock before elevenses.
Anyway, on topic: the header says What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride. Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
Not marmalade, but soft blue cheese. I'm so addicted that I muse about the ratio of the lengths of the hypotenuse between straight and round, calculating the extra area the round one gives me.
Which cheese?
I’d go for a ripe Colston Bassett Stilton with an oatcake, or maybe a softer blue like Cashel or Blacksticks. Not Roquefort - too much salt with the salty oatcake
Not all oatcakes are salty - the thicker ones eg Cromarty or Stockans seem better in this respect.
Nairns do a Fruit&Seed Oatcake which is perfect for dipping in your tea. Bit sweeter than an ordinary oatcake, but not as much as a sweet biscuit like a digestive. Although a digestive is a fine tea dunking choice if that’s your preference.
And a chocolate one!
Army compo rations ca 1975 had tins of thick somewhat sweetish oatcakes that were in between digestives and oatcakes - could be used as is with the tinned margatine and jam, and tinned cheese for that matter, or broken down into porridge if one had more time and energy. I Liked them very much but never saw them on commercial sale in or out of tins.
I need help. I'm addicted to oatcakes (Orkney variety). Went trudging through the rain to replenish the depleted stock before elevenses.
Anyway, on topic: the header says What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride. Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
Not marmalade, but soft blue cheese. I'm so addicted that I muse about the ratio of the lengths of the hypotenuse between straight and round, calculating the extra area the round one gives me.
Which cheese?
I’d go for a ripe Colston Bassett Stilton with an oatcake, or maybe a softer blue like Cashel or Blacksticks. Not Roquefort - too much salt with the salty oatcake
St Agur does very nicely. I have tried the English varieties you mention too.
I think Cashel is an Irish cheese. I like all the cheeses mentioned including St Agur.
I’d edit to I like all the cheeses. Totally Ben Gunn on that point.
Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.
Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?
May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.
They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick. But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
OTOH a somewhat more ominous take on Berlin from Der Spiegel
In #Berlin -Charlottenburg, a car is driven into a group of people. Five people are fighting for their lives and three others are seriously injured. The police are questioning the suspected driver. It is unclear whether it was an accident. The info: #Tauenzienstrasse
Okelies ... 2 days on and the dust is settling on the events of Monday.
It's obvious to just about everyone that the Conservatives have screwed up. They've managed to wound Johnson badly but not remove him: the worst of all possible worlds from their point of view.
It's great for the Opposition but for a party renowned for its ruthlessness they sure as heck have stuffed this one up. To paraphrase that brilliant speech by Peter Cooke: 'you couldn't even organise a simple kill without cocking the whole thing up.'
Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.
Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?
May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.
They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick. But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.
But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.
Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.
Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.
The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
OTOH a somewhat more ominous take on Berlin from Der Spiegel
In #Berlin -Charlottenburg, a car is driven into a group of people. Five people are fighting for their lives and three others are seriously injured. The police are questioning the suspected driver. It is unclear whether it was an accident. The info: #Tauenzienstrasse
German media are generally extremely wary of even hinting at terror. So my guess is, they think it is terror
End of the worlder guesses that incident is terror rather than an accident. Shocked I tell you, thought you were a banker for waiting, a couple of hours, for some actual evidence and clarity before guessing.
Mr. Pete, one does wonder what was going through Labour's collective head on that.
Did they think if May got ousted the Conservatives would do anything but move in a more sceptical direction?
May's deal was the most pro-EU one they were going to get.
They thought they could overturn the result of the referendum
They were hoping the Tories would come to their senses and support a softer Brexit of the kind now being advocated by noted Remoaner Daniel Hannan. Unfortunately the Tories whipped their MPs to vote those options down, replaced May with psychopathic liar Boris Johnson, and came up with a plan even dafter than May's, which they are now trying to unpick. But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
Dan Hannan always advocated the sort of soft Brexit I wanted. He has not changed his view on that.
But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.
Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.
Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.
The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
The Labour Party voted for compromise, the Tories whipped their MPs to oppose it. Those are the facts.
Not Starmer's best, but it will make very little difference , as the focus is all on Tory internal issues at the moment.
On Daniel Hannan, he has a history of some of the most inconsistent positions in British politics, but also with significant ramifications of that, because he was instrumental in the setting-up of Vote Leave. He hailed Boris Johnson's Brexit deal as a "brilliant deal".
Not Starmer's best, but it will make little difference or be noticed much, because the focus is all on Tory internal issues at the moment.
On Hannan, he has a history of some of the most inconsistent positions in British politics. He hailed Boris Johnson's very own Brexit deal as a "brilliant deal".
Indeed: I presume few people watch PMQs. I doubt the braying and Johnson’s smirking appeal to many. Yet it’s a better system than, say, the US, where the President can hide away from questions and criticism.
OTOH a somewhat more ominous take on Berlin from Der Spiegel
In #Berlin -Charlottenburg, a car is driven into a group of people. Five people are fighting for their lives and three others are seriously injured. The police are questioning the suspected driver. It is unclear whether it was an accident. The info: #Tauenzienstrasse
German media are generally extremely wary of even hinting at terror. So my guess is, they think it is terror
End of the worlder guesses that incident is terror rather than an accident. Shocked I tell you, thought you were a banker for waiting, a couple of hours, for some actual evidence and clarity before guessing.
We had all this breathless onanism from Leon the moment trouble erupted in Paris, accompanied by an instantaneous judgement and vile attack on Liverpool fans.
And on that subject, I'm sure if we want to get so-called Breaking News we can all do so on Sky and twitter.
A world, and a forum, of more considered opinion from wise heads is a good thing.
Perhaps instead of fantasising about driverless trains and how a digital railway can fix infrastructure problems without construction, they might instead go and study why our railway system is so absurdly expensive.
It didn't used to be like this pre-privatisation. So its the change in structure - not ownership - which has driven this. A myriad of contracts and performance clauses and penalties. A "build it to withstand a direct nuclear strike and you are legally liable for it not getting nuked for the next 40 years" clause that exploded HS2 construction costs. Rolling stock that costs multiple times its real cost because in today's DfT dictated railway there is no guarantee your rolling stock will be used for more than a few years (yet another nearly new fleet just being parked up as we speak).
Instead of lazy war with the workers tropes, they should go to Germany. Italy. The Netherlands. See how they manage to do everything better for a lot less costs. Then do that.
Or we could go back to pre-privatisation levels of usage of the railways. There was a long-term downwards trend in railway usage until the 1990s and post-privatisation it has more than doubled (pre-pandemic).
Abolish all railways subsidies and allow railways to operate on whatever people are prepared to pay for which will be a fraction of the volume, just as it used to be before fuel duty started getting ramped up to insane levels to push people onto rails instead.
We don't get subsidised to drive a car, we get heavily taxed, there is no reason to subsidise railways, let people choose whatever means of transport suits them personally and let that be that on a level playing field.
A quick dive into the costs of running the road network in the UK:
In direct expenditure terms, sure: the main tax drivers pay is on fuel & that raised about £26billion in 2021. Vehicle exise duty raised just under £7billion. At the same time, about £12billion was spent on road maintenance that year (source for the first is UK gov website, the latter comes from statistica.) So on the face of it, drivers are paying £33billion for £12billion of services.
So including accident costs drives the cost of the road network to £22billion, even if we ignore the personal cost of the injuries sustained & only care about the economic impact (& that was in a pandemic year: the cost in 2018 was £13billion.)
Are there other externalities we’re not considering? Obviously there’s the cost of pollution which we know has major impacts on death rates in cities due to asthma & other diseases. Noise pollution is a significant cost, although it’s difficult to measure directly. Direct asthma treatment costs the NHS about a £billion / year. Total economic costs are probably at least double that. Hard to know what portion is caused by the road network, but it must be sizable.
Congestion costs are very significant economically - simply by blocking up the road network drivers cost the UK billions a year. Recent estimates seem to be in the £7billion a year region ( https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-news/94871/traffic-jams-costs-in-the-uk ), although I image that’s a crude number - probably just counting lost hours vs incomes. Still, that is almost totally wasted time, so...
So looking at the numbers, based solely on the externalities that can be directly accounted for (accidents, congestion), drivers are barely paying their way - they paid £33billion in return for £29billion of costs. Adding in reasonable estimates for other externalities (eg, asthma costs the NHS £1billion / year, knock on economic costs are probably twice that, maybe the road network is responsible for a third of that? & so on for all the others) suggests that drivers might be just about paying ther way?
The moment we include any accounting for the pain & suffering imposed on people due to road accidents the cost argument is blown out of the water of course. The UK government statistics include estimates for these costs based on standard economic approaches to estimating them based on revealed preferences.
(If I’ve missed any obvious externalities of driving that we can account for do point them out!)
Some of that is ridiculous or out of date.
Electric cars don't produce emissions or cause asthma so looking at the future that is an utterly preposterous thing to include.
But not as preposterous as including "congestion" as a "cost". Congestion isn't a cost, its something the drivers experience themselves. Yes sitting in traffic is wasted time, but so is standing at the station or the bus stop waiting for your train or bus to arrive. Would you include that as a "cost" to the UK in the same way you're trying to pretend that its a cost for drivers? Its not a cost, its a choice as to how people are spending their time.
My wife takes two busses to get work because she doesn't drive, one into the town centre, then one out again to her work, it takes her an hour to get to work. If I drive her route it takes me 12 minutes if the road is clear, or about 15 minutes if the road is congested. Which is the bigger "cost" of wasted time, the potential 3 minutes of me stuck in traffic, or the extra three quarters of an hour her journey takes using public transport?
Electric cars can still cause pollution wherever the electricity is generated.
If you're gaining 45 minutes plus by driving compared to going on a bus, you personally are avoiding a huge "cost" of wasted time. In which case, you should presumably be willing to pay a premium for that option, including in terms of what you pay the government.
Any pollution that electricity is costing us should be charged equitably on all electricity, not just drivers.
If you're gaining 45 minutes + by driving then how can you count "congestion" as a cost because of the wasted time. The time "wasted" is negative 45 minutes, while the time "wasted" for much of the country of travelling by car instead of rail can be an hour or more.
Which suggests that £5billion of the £7billion cost occurs in London, which of course has a (mostly) great public transport network, at least compared to the rest of the country.
They say: “The lost revenue is down to wasted fuel, the extra cost of transporting goods through congested areas, and lost productivity due to workers being sat in jams.”
which instantly demonstrates how hard accounting for this stuff appropriately is: If you want to know the answer to “are drivers paying their way?” then you can’t use that £7bllion figure directly, you have to take off the fuel costs (because drivers are paying those directly). The other costs are externalities of congestion that you want to include, because drivers aren’t paying for those themselves. This figure doesn’t try to include any accounting for the “human cost” of congestion of course.
(It does appear that the authors have considered your point however BR: this number seems to be an estimate of the real economic costs, not intangibles.)
"Workers being sat in jams" has to be equivalent to "workers sat in bus stops/train stations waiting for exchanges" though, in which case again for the overwhelming majority of the country it would be a net negative cost, but that hasn't been calculated, because that's not what the calculation is there for.
The logical thing to do then if you're counting wasted time as a cost to be taxed would be to tax fuel and subsidise public transport in London, but to subsidise fuel and tax public transport in the rest of the nation. It wouldn't be reasonable to tax drivers in the North West due to Londoners wasting time if they use cars now, would it?
Somehow I am sceptical that is what you're suggesting though, is it?
"Workers being sat in jams" and "workers sat in bus stops/train stations waiting for exchanges" are different. The former is an externality caused by you (and others) driving private cars, which causes those jams and their negative affects on others. The latter is just how a system works, in the same sense that a car takes a finite amount of time to get you somewhere because that's how it works.
But perhaps what you can argue is that time saved by private car journeys (versus alternatives) is a positive externality, a plus to productivity etc. Of course, with more investment, public transport would be quicker.
Proportionately public transport already gets far more money than alternative transports, yet it is still rejected by almost all the country and always moaned about by the tiny minority who use it.
Going off the higher estimate of £17bn per annum for the road network, proportionately the entire rail network should get less than £2bn spent on it from taxpayers money. That's to cover the entire network, maintenance, investment, electrification and subsidies, everything.
Perhaps public transport is just not good value for money, even if it is liked by people who think that Central London is the only place that matters?
Well, the national rail network received £3billion from the UK government in 2014/15 according to the DfT, including the price of all the track access charges that went to Network Rail. Seems close!
(IIRC New road-building in the UK has mostly ground to a halt, so that £17billion is mostly maintenance, but I haven‘t gone back to the original document to check.)
On fuel, a reduction in VAT to 5% would be a better move for the treasury than a big duty cut. Certain people and companies can get the VAT back, absolutely no-one reclaims duty. It'd be the equivalent of a 27p duty cut and would send the green lobby bananas creating the perfect opponents for the government as an added bonus
If it gets much worse I think the government is going to have t
A difference I noticed in Denmark where my son lives is the number of driverless trains. Scandinavia isn't renowned for right-wing excesses, but they don't regard this as abnormal.
Unions exist to boost the pay of workers. The leaders may be left-wing sometimes, but they know which side their bread is buttered. Keep the numbers up and the pay rises coming and they can support North Korea if they like.
I think the sad truth is the network is going to need to be largely automated in the longer term - just as firemen, loco cleaners and signalmen went so will many drivers. This will need to be together with remote condition monitoring of assets using AI and more automated asset maintenance.
Staffing costs are phenomenally expensive.
Less than you’d think. A nine-coach IET needs one driver and (depending on union agreements) possibly one guard. Most of the southern commuter fleet just needs one driver. Even a ten-coach Voyager, among the most expensive type of train to operate, needs one driver and two guards.
There is some fat to be trimmed - I can’t see ticket offices surviving for long in all but the biggest stations. But train and station staff costs aren’t what are killing the railway.
The real problem is infrastructure. Track renewals and even the most modest enhancements are phenomenally expensive. A new basic station costs £14m absolute minimum. £14m!! For a concrete platform, an expanse of tarmac car park, and a little station building. It’s insane. The Northumberland Line reopening is costing £166m just to run slow passenger trains on existing tracks.
Someone pointed out to me that the track bed between Northallerton and York needs to be repaired as its end of life (not surprising as it's been in use for 100+ years and trains are way heavier than they used to be).
The cost is definitely Oh Boy...
One thing a certain billionaire is right about - unless we get a handle on reducing infrastructure costs, we are going to have less and less infrastructure. Not more.
Railways at a zillion pounds a mile are not sustainable.
HS2 is so costly because it was engineered to be cost safe by gold plating the design and doing everything including all risks upfront in a waterfall method.
The Elizabeth line is expensive because it's not completely new so needed to integrate with existing systems (never a great idea in the first place even worse when they are multiple existing systems).
Basically we are crap at doing these type of projects and the Treasury makes it worse by not accepting the risk of cost overruns and then scrapping stuff for no good reason. HS2E has cost over £1bn in waterfall development costs that will now need to be redone because of the delays..
Sorry, you’ve triggered me now: that’s nonsense; the UK is superb at delivering mega projects.
Our olympics was on time and on budget and left a fantastic legacy, contrast to Montreal, Athens or Sydney.
Terminal 5 was on time and on budget, except the baggage system failed on day one (it was fixed 48 hours later) and no one ever forgot it. It’s a superb experience now.
Crossrail was late but it was the largest and most complex rail project in Europe - ever - with a hugely aggressive delivery timeframe. It is now open will deliver all the benefits in its original business case. It has a strong international brand and is now selling its expertise worldwide, through Crossrail international.
Contrast with Berlin Brandenburg airport which had to be rebuilt and redesigned several times because they got it wrong. Or the plethora of abandoned projects and white elephants around the world that never deliver.
The UK is good at mega projects- very good - it’s just our expectations are that absolutely everything goes perfectly, all the time, and we have a huge woe is me whinge whenever it doesn’t because moaning is our national sport.
Perhaps instead of fantasising about driverless trains and how a digital railway can fix infrastructure problems without construction, they might instead go and study why our railway system is so absurdly expensive.
It didn't used to be like this pre-privatisation. So its the change in structure - not ownership - which has driven this. A myriad of contracts and performance clauses and penalties. A "build it to withstand a direct nuclear strike and you are legally liable for it not getting nuked for the next 40 years" clause that exploded HS2 construction costs. Rolling stock that costs multiple times its real cost because in today's DfT dictated railway there is no guarantee your rolling stock will be used for more than a few years (yet another nearly new fleet just being parked up as we speak).
Instead of lazy war with the workers tropes, they should go to Germany. Italy. The Netherlands. See how they manage to do everything better for a lot less costs. Then do that.
Or we could go back to pre-privatisation levels of usage of the railways. There was a long-term downwards trend in railway usage until the 1990s and post-privatisation it has more than doubled (pre-pandemic).
Abolish all railways subsidies and allow railways to operate on whatever people are prepared to pay for which will be a fraction of the volume, just as it used to be before fuel duty started getting ramped up to insane levels to push people onto rails instead.
We don't get subsidised to drive a car, we get heavily taxed, there is no reason to subsidise railways, let people choose whatever means of transport suits them personally and let that be that on a level playing field.
A quick dive into the costs of running the road network in the UK:
In direct expenditure terms, sure: the main tax drivers pay is on fuel & that raised about £26billion in 2021. Vehicle exise duty raised just under £7billion. At the same time, about £12billion was spent on road maintenance that year (source for the first is UK gov website, the latter comes from statistica.) So on the face of it, drivers are paying £33billion for £12billion of services.
So including accident costs drives the cost of the road network to £22billion, even if we ignore the personal cost of the injuries sustained & only care about the economic impact (& that was in a pandemic year: the cost in 2018 was £13billion.)
Are there other externalities we’re not considering? Obviously there’s the cost of pollution which we know has major impacts on death rates in cities due to asthma & other diseases. Noise pollution is a significant cost, although it’s difficult to measure directly. Direct asthma treatment costs the NHS about a £billion / year. Total economic costs are probably at least double that. Hard to know what portion is caused by the road network, but it must be sizable.
Congestion costs are very significant economically - simply by blocking up the road network drivers cost the UK billions a year. Recent estimates seem to be in the £7billion a year region ( https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-news/94871/traffic-jams-costs-in-the-uk ), although I image that’s a crude number - probably just counting lost hours vs incomes. Still, that is almost totally wasted time, so...
So looking at the numbers, based solely on the externalities that can be directly accounted for (accidents, congestion), drivers are barely paying their way - they paid £33billion in return for £29billion of costs. Adding in reasonable estimates for other externalities (eg, asthma costs the NHS £1billion / year, knock on economic costs are probably twice that, maybe the road network is responsible for a third of that? & so on for all the others) suggests that drivers might be just about paying ther way?
The moment we include any accounting for the pain & suffering imposed on people due to road accidents the cost argument is blown out of the water of course. The UK government statistics include estimates for these costs based on standard economic approaches to estimating them based on revealed preferences.
(If I’ve missed any obvious externalities of driving that we can account for do point them out!)
Some of that is ridiculous or out of date.
Electric cars don't produce emissions or cause asthma so looking at the future that is an utterly preposterous thing to include.
But not as preposterous as including "congestion" as a "cost". Congestion isn't a cost, its something the drivers experience themselves. Yes sitting in traffic is wasted time, but so is standing at the station or the bus stop waiting for your train or bus to arrive. Would you include that as a "cost" to the UK in the same way you're trying to pretend that its a cost for drivers? Its not a cost, its a choice as to how people are spending their time.
My wife takes two busses to get work because she doesn't drive, one into the town centre, then one out again to her work, it takes her an hour to get to work. If I drive her route it takes me 12 minutes if the road is clear, or about 15 minutes if the road is congested. Which is the bigger "cost" of wasted time, the potential 3 minutes of me stuck in traffic, or the extra three quarters of an hour her journey takes using public transport?
Electric cars can still cause pollution wherever the electricity is generated.
If you're gaining 45 minutes plus by driving compared to going on a bus, you personally are avoiding a huge "cost" of wasted time. In which case, you should presumably be willing to pay a premium for that option, including in terms of what you pay the government.
Any pollution that electricity is costing us should be charged equitably on all electricity, not just drivers.
If you're gaining 45 minutes + by driving then how can you count "congestion" as a cost because of the wasted time. The time "wasted" is negative 45 minutes, while the time "wasted" for much of the country of travelling by car instead of rail can be an hour or more.
Which suggests that £5billion of the £7billion cost occurs in London, which of course has a (mostly) great public transport network, at least compared to the rest of the country.
They say: “The lost revenue is down to wasted fuel, the extra cost of transporting goods through congested areas, and lost productivity due to workers being sat in jams.”
which instantly demonstrates how hard accounting for this stuff appropriately is: If you want to know the answer to “are drivers paying their way?” then you can’t use that £7bllion figure directly, you have to take off the fuel costs (because drivers are paying those directly). The other costs are externalities of congestion that you want to include, because drivers aren’t paying for those themselves. This figure doesn’t try to include any accounting for the “human cost” of congestion of course.
(It does appear that the authors have considered your point however BR: this number seems to be an estimate of the real economic costs, not intangibles.)
"Workers being sat in jams" has to be equivalent to "workers sat in bus stops/train stations waiting for exchanges" though, in which case again for the overwhelming majority of the country it would be a net negative cost, but that hasn't been calculated, because that's not what the calculation is there for.
The logical thing to do then if you're counting wasted time as a cost to be taxed would be to tax fuel and subsidise public transport in London, but to subsidise fuel and tax public transport in the rest of the nation. It wouldn't be reasonable to tax drivers in the North West due to Londoners wasting time if they use cars now, would it?
Somehow I am sceptical that is what you're suggesting though, is it?
"Workers being sat in jams" and "workers sat in bus stops/train stations waiting for exchanges" are different. The former is an externality caused by you (and others) driving private cars, which causes those jams and their negative affects on others. The latter is just how a system works, in the same sense that a car takes a finite amount of time to get you somewhere because that's how it works.
But perhaps what you can argue is that time saved by private car journeys (versus alternatives) is a positive externality, a plus to productivity etc. Of course, with more investment, public transport would be quicker.
Proportionately public transport already gets far more money than alternative transports, yet it is still rejected by almost all the country and always moaned about by the tiny minority who use it.
Going off the higher estimate of £17bn per annum for the road network, proportionately the entire rail network should get less than £2bn spent on it from taxpayers money. That's to cover the entire network, maintenance, investment, electrification and subsidies, everything.
Perhaps public transport is just not good value for money, even if it is liked by people who think that Central London is the only place that matters?
Well, the national rail network received £3billion from the UK government in 2014/15 according to the DfT, including the price of all the track access charges that went to Network Rail. Seems close!
(IIRC New road-building in the UK has mostly ground to a halt, so that £17billion is mostly maintenance, but I haven‘t gone back to the original document to check.)
The figure was £5.1bn in 2019-20 so proportionately the road figure should be increased to £46bn, an increase of £29bn to the road budget would pay for a lot of new road building and levelling up.
On fuel, a reduction in VAT to 5% would be a better move for the treasury than a big duty cut. Certain people and companies can get the VAT back, absolutely no-one reclaims duty. It'd be the equivalent of a 27p duty cut and would send the green lobby bananas creating the perfect opponents for the government as an added bonus
If it gets much worse I think the government is going to have t
A difference I noticed in Denmark where my son lives is the number of driverless trains. Scandinavia isn't renowned for right-wing excesses, but they don't regard this as abnormal.
Unions exist to boost the pay of workers. The leaders may be left-wing sometimes, but they know which side their bread is buttered. Keep the numbers up and the pay rises coming and they can support North Korea if they like.
I think the sad truth is the network is going to need to be largely automated in the longer term - just as firemen, loco cleaners and signalmen went so will many drivers. This will need to be together with remote condition monitoring of assets using AI and more automated asset maintenance.
Staffing costs are phenomenally expensive.
Less than you’d think. A nine-coach IET needs one driver and (depending on union agreements) possibly one guard. Most of the southern commuter fleet just needs one driver. Even a ten-coach Voyager, among the most expensive type of train to operate, needs one driver and two guards.
There is some fat to be trimmed - I can’t see ticket offices surviving for long in all but the biggest stations. But train and station staff costs aren’t what are killing the railway.
The real problem is infrastructure. Track renewals and even the most modest enhancements are phenomenally expensive. A new basic station costs £14m absolute minimum. £14m!! For a concrete platform, an expanse of tarmac car park, and a little station building. It’s insane. The Northumberland Line reopening is costing £166m just to run slow passenger trains on existing tracks.
Someone pointed out to me that the track bed between Northallerton and York needs to be repaired as its end of life (not surprising as it's been in use for 100+ years and trains are way heavier than they used to be).
The cost is definitely Oh Boy...
One thing a certain billionaire is right about - unless we get a handle on reducing infrastructure costs, we are going to have less and less infrastructure. Not more.
Railways at a zillion pounds a mile are not sustainable.
HS2 is so costly because it was engineered to be cost safe by gold plating the design and doing everything including all risks upfront in a waterfall method.
The Elizabeth line is expensive because it's not completely new so needed to integrate with existing systems (never a great idea in the first place even worse when they are multiple existing systems).
Basically we are crap at doing these type of projects and the Treasury makes it worse by not accepting the risk of cost overruns and then scrapping stuff for no good reason. HS2E has cost over £1bn in waterfall development costs that will now need to be redone because of the delays..
Sorry, you’ve triggered me now: that’s nonsense; the UK is superb at delivering mega projects.
Our olympics was on time and on budget and left a fantastic legacy, contrast to Montreal, Athens or Sydney.
Terminal 5 was on time and on budget, except the baggage system failed on day one (it was fixed 48 hours later) and no one ever forgot it. It’s a superb experience now.
Crossrail was late but it was the largest and most complex rail project in Europe - ever - with a hugely aggressive delivery timeframe. It is now open will deliver all the benefits in its original business case. It has a strong international brand and is now selling its expertise worldwide, through Crossrail international.
Contrast with Berlin Brandenburg airport which had to be rebuilt and redesigned several times because they got it wrong. Or the plethora of abandoned projects and white elephants around the world that never deliver.
The UK is good at mega projects- very good - it’s just our expectations are that absolutely everything goes perfectly, all the time, and we have a huge woe is me whinge whenever it doesn’t because moaning is our national sport.
On fuel, a reduction in VAT to 5% would be a better move for the treasury than a big duty cut. Certain people and companies can get the VAT back, absolutely no-one reclaims duty. It'd be the equivalent of a 27p duty cut and would send the green lobby bananas creating the perfect opponents for the government as an added bonus
If it gets much worse I think the government is going to have t
A difference I noticed in Denmark where my son lives is the number of driverless trains. Scandinavia isn't renowned for right-wing excesses, but they don't regard this as abnormal.
Unions exist to boost the pay of workers. The leaders may be left-wing sometimes, but they know which side their bread is buttered. Keep the numbers up and the pay rises coming and they can support North Korea if they like.
I think the sad truth is the network is going to need to be largely automated in the longer term - just as firemen, loco cleaners and signalmen went so will many drivers. This will need to be together with remote condition monitoring of assets using AI and more automated asset maintenance.
Staffing costs are phenomenally expensive.
Less than you’d think. A nine-coach IET needs one driver and (depending on union agreements) possibly one guard. Most of the southern commuter fleet just needs one driver. Even a ten-coach Voyager, among the most expensive type of train to operate, needs one driver and two guards.
There is some fat to be trimmed - I can’t see ticket offices surviving for long in all but the biggest stations. But train and station staff costs aren’t what are killing the railway.
The real problem is infrastructure. Track renewals and even the most modest enhancements are phenomenally expensive. A new basic station costs £14m absolute minimum. £14m!! For a concrete platform, an expanse of tarmac car park, and a little station building. It’s insane. The Northumberland Line reopening is costing £166m just to run slow passenger trains on existing tracks.
Someone pointed out to me that the track bed between Northallerton and York needs to be repaired as its end of life (not surprising as it's been in use for 100+ years and trains are way heavier than they used to be).
The cost is definitely Oh Boy...
One thing a certain billionaire is right about - unless we get a handle on reducing infrastructure costs, we are going to have less and less infrastructure. Not more.
Railways at a zillion pounds a mile are not sustainable.
HS2 is so costly because it was engineered to be cost safe by gold plating the design and doing everything including all risks upfront in a waterfall method.
The Elizabeth line is expensive because it's not completely new so needed to integrate with existing systems (never a great idea in the first place even worse when they are multiple existing systems).
Basically we are crap at doing these type of projects and the Treasury makes it worse by not accepting the risk of cost overruns and then scrapping stuff for no good reason. HS2E has cost over £1bn in waterfall development costs that will now need to be redone because of the delays..
Sorry, you’ve triggered me now: that’s nonsense; the UK is superb at delivering mega projects.
Our olympics was on time and on budget and left a fantastic legacy, contrast to Montreal, Athens or Sydney.
Terminal 5 was on time and on budget, except the baggage system failed on day one (it was fixed 48 hours later) and no one ever forgot it. It’s a superb experience now.
Crossrail was late but it was the largest and most complex rail project in Europe - ever - with a hugely aggressive delivery timeframe. It is now open will deliver all the benefits in its original business case. It has a strong international brand and is now selling its expertise worldwide, through Crossrail international.
Contrast with Berlin Brandenburg airport which had to be rebuilt and redesigned several times because they got it wrong. Or the plethora of abandoned projects and white elephants around the world that never deliver.
The UK is good at mega projects- very good - it’s just our expectations are that absolutely everything goes perfectly, all the time, and we have a huge woe is me whinge whenever it doesn’t because moaning is our national sport.
OTOH a somewhat more ominous take on Berlin from Der Spiegel
In #Berlin -Charlottenburg, a car is driven into a group of people. Five people are fighting for their lives and three others are seriously injured. The police are questioning the suspected driver. It is unclear whether it was an accident. The info: #Tauenzienstrasse
German media are generally extremely wary of even hinting at terror. So my guess is, they think it is terror
End of the worlder guesses that incident is terror rather than an accident. Shocked I tell you, thought you were a banker for waiting, a couple of hours, for some actual evidence and clarity before guessing.
We had all this breathless onanism from Leon the moment trouble erupted in Paris, accompanied by an instantaneous judgement and vile attack on Liverpool fans.
And on that subject, I'm sure if we want to get so-called Breaking News we can all do so on Sky and twitter.
A world, and a forum, of more considered opinion from wise heads is a good thing.
It's terrible when one gets so old that even onanism makes one breathless.
OTOH a somewhat more ominous take on Berlin from Der Spiegel
In #Berlin -Charlottenburg, a car is driven into a group of people. Five people are fighting for their lives and three others are seriously injured. The police are questioning the suspected driver. It is unclear whether it was an accident. The info: #Tauenzienstrasse
German media are generally extremely wary of even hinting at terror. So my guess is, they think it is terror
End of the worlder guesses that incident is terror rather than an accident. Shocked I tell you, thought you were a banker for waiting, a couple of hours, for some actual evidence and clarity before guessing.
Remember the Glasgow bin lorry deaths? There were people on here absolutely convinced it was Islamic terrorism.
Britain Elects has posted the 'i'll wait for Survation' mugs indicating a poll with interestung resukts incoming. Unclear if constituency/by or national but the last GB poll from them was 42 to 33 late April........
OTOH a somewhat more ominous take on Berlin from Der Spiegel
In #Berlin -Charlottenburg, a car is driven into a group of people. Five people are fighting for their lives and three others are seriously injured. The police are questioning the suspected driver. It is unclear whether it was an accident. The info: #Tauenzienstrasse
German media are generally extremely wary of even hinting at terror. So my guess is, they think it is terror
End of the worlder guesses that incident is terror rather than an accident. Shocked I tell you, thought you were a banker for waiting, a couple of hours, for some actual evidence and clarity before guessing.
lol. When has PB ever “waited for two hours” on a big breaking story? We react fast because we’re news junkies, amongst other things. No one comes on this site for great thoughts composed six weeks after the events. Dork
As for the Berlin attack, here is more evidence. The police are now - per Twitter - saying the driver is a 29 year old Armenian German.
However this photo is doing the rounds and looks authentic (it might not be), and the guy does look “quite Armenian” but he’s had a rough life if he’s 29
Other reports say the car was doing 150kph, and that the driver tried to escape but was caught by by standers. Also he was apparently “shocked”. That of course might be shock at anything: this terrible accident, the fact he’s still alive….
..unlike a whole clutch of other current economic data, which indicate that Britain is doing worse than all its nearest, peer competitors on several fronts.
OTOH a somewhat more ominous take on Berlin from Der Spiegel
In #Berlin -Charlottenburg, a car is driven into a group of people. Five people are fighting for their lives and three others are seriously injured. The police are questioning the suspected driver. It is unclear whether it was an accident. The info: #Tauenzienstrasse
German media are generally extremely wary of even hinting at terror. So my guess is, they think it is terror
End of the worlder guesses that incident is terror rather than an accident. Shocked I tell you, thought you were a banker for waiting, a couple of hours, for some actual evidence and clarity before guessing.
lol. When has PB ever “waited for two hours” on a big breaking story? We react fast because we’re news junkies, amongst other things. No one comes on this site for great thoughts composed six weeks after the events. Dork
As for the Berlin attack, here is more evidence. The police are now - per Twitter - saying the driver is a 29 year old Armenian German.
However this photo is doing the rounds and looks authentic (it might not be), and the guy does look “quite Armenian” but he’s had a rough life if he’s 29
Other reports say the car was doing 150kph, and that the driver tried to escape but was caught by by standers. Also he was apparently “shocked”. That of course might be shock at anything: this terrible accident, the fact he’s still alive….
BiB: Half the time we seem to be discussing thoughts composed six years after the event.
OTOH a somewhat more ominous take on Berlin from Der Spiegel
In #Berlin -Charlottenburg, a car is driven into a group of people. Five people are fighting for their lives and three others are seriously injured. The police are questioning the suspected driver. It is unclear whether it was an accident. The info: #Tauenzienstrasse
German media are generally extremely wary of even hinting at terror. So my guess is, they think it is terror
End of the worlder guesses that incident is terror rather than an accident. Shocked I tell you, thought you were a banker for waiting, a couple of hours, for some actual evidence and clarity before guessing.
Remember the Glasgow bin lorry deaths? There were people on here absolutely convinced it was Islamic terrorism.
OTOH a somewhat more ominous take on Berlin from Der Spiegel
In #Berlin -Charlottenburg, a car is driven into a group of people. Five people are fighting for their lives and three others are seriously injured. The police are questioning the suspected driver. It is unclear whether it was an accident. The info: #Tauenzienstrasse
German media are generally extremely wary of even hinting at terror. So my guess is, they think it is terror
End of the worlder guesses that incident is terror rather than an accident. Shocked I tell you, thought you were a banker for waiting, a couple of hours, for some actual evidence and clarity before guessing.
Remember the Glasgow bin lorry deaths? There were people on here absolutely convinced it was Islamic terrorism.
Same with the stabbings in Birmingham City Centre.
Britain Elects has posted the 'i'll wait for Survation' mugs indicating a poll with interestung resukts incoming. Unclear if constituency/by or national but the last GB poll from them was 42 to 33 late April........
Drumming up "follows" for their twitter feed.
Yes, Survation have retweeted it confirming they have a poll and drumming up their own follows. Fieldwork will likely be pre Vonc
Perhaps instead of fantasising about driverless trains and how a digital railway can fix infrastructure problems without construction, they might instead go and study why our railway system is so absurdly expensive.
It didn't used to be like this pre-privatisation. So its the change in structure - not ownership - which has driven this. A myriad of contracts and performance clauses and penalties. A "build it to withstand a direct nuclear strike and you are legally liable for it not getting nuked for the next 40 years" clause that exploded HS2 construction costs. Rolling stock that costs multiple times its real cost because in today's DfT dictated railway there is no guarantee your rolling stock will be used for more than a few years (yet another nearly new fleet just being parked up as we speak).
Instead of lazy war with the workers tropes, they should go to Germany. Italy. The Netherlands. See how they manage to do everything better for a lot less costs. Then do that.
Or we could go back to pre-privatisation levels of usage of the railways. There was a long-term downwards trend in railway usage until the 1990s and post-privatisation it has more than doubled (pre-pandemic).
Abolish all railways subsidies and allow railways to operate on whatever people are prepared to pay for which will be a fraction of the volume, just as it used to be before fuel duty started getting ramped up to insane levels to push people onto rails instead.
We don't get subsidised to drive a car, we get heavily taxed, there is no reason to subsidise railways, let people choose whatever means of transport suits them personally and let that be that on a level playing field.
A quick dive into the costs of running the road network in the UK:
In direct expenditure terms, sure: the main tax drivers pay is on fuel & that raised about £26billion in 2021. Vehicle exise duty raised just under £7billion. At the same time, about £12billion was spent on road maintenance that year (source for the first is UK gov website, the latter comes from statistica.) So on the face of it, drivers are paying £33billion for £12billion of services.
So including accident costs drives the cost of the road network to £22billion, even if we ignore the personal cost of the injuries sustained & only care about the economic impact (& that was in a pandemic year: the cost in 2018 was £13billion.)
Are there other externalities we’re not considering? Obviously there’s the cost of pollution which we know has major impacts on death rates in cities due to asthma & other diseases. Noise pollution is a significant cost, although it’s difficult to measure directly. Direct asthma treatment costs the NHS about a £billion / year. Total economic costs are probably at least double that. Hard to know what portion is caused by the road network, but it must be sizable.
Congestion costs are very significant economically - simply by blocking up the road network drivers cost the UK billions a year. Recent estimates seem to be in the £7billion a year region ( https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-news/94871/traffic-jams-costs-in-the-uk ), although I image that’s a crude number - probably just counting lost hours vs incomes. Still, that is almost totally wasted time, so...
So looking at the numbers, based solely on the externalities that can be directly accounted for (accidents, congestion), drivers are barely paying their way - they paid £33billion in return for £29billion of costs. Adding in reasonable estimates for other externalities (eg, asthma costs the NHS £1billion / year, knock on economic costs are probably twice that, maybe the road network is responsible for a third of that? & so on for all the others) suggests that drivers might be just about paying ther way?
The moment we include any accounting for the pain & suffering imposed on people due to road accidents the cost argument is blown out of the water of course. The UK government statistics include estimates for these costs based on standard economic approaches to estimating them based on revealed preferences.
(If I’ve missed any obvious externalities of driving that we can account for do point them out!)
Some of that is ridiculous or out of date.
Electric cars don't produce emissions or cause asthma so looking at the future that is an utterly preposterous thing to include.
But not as preposterous as including "congestion" as a "cost". Congestion isn't a cost, its something the drivers experience themselves. Yes sitting in traffic is wasted time, but so is standing at the station or the bus stop waiting for your train or bus to arrive. Would you include that as a "cost" to the UK in the same way you're trying to pretend that its a cost for drivers? Its not a cost, its a choice as to how people are spending their time.
My wife takes two busses to get work because she doesn't drive, one into the town centre, then one out again to her work, it takes her an hour to get to work. If I drive her route it takes me 12 minutes if the road is clear, or about 15 minutes if the road is congested. Which is the bigger "cost" of wasted time, the potential 3 minutes of me stuck in traffic, or the extra three quarters of an hour her journey takes using public transport?
Electric cars can still cause pollution wherever the electricity is generated.
If you're gaining 45 minutes plus by driving compared to going on a bus, you personally are avoiding a huge "cost" of wasted time. In which case, you should presumably be willing to pay a premium for that option, including in terms of what you pay the government.
Any pollution that electricity is costing us should be charged equitably on all electricity, not just drivers.
If you're gaining 45 minutes + by driving then how can you count "congestion" as a cost because of the wasted time. The time "wasted" is negative 45 minutes, while the time "wasted" for much of the country of travelling by car instead of rail can be an hour or more.
Which suggests that £5billion of the £7billion cost occurs in London, which of course has a (mostly) great public transport network, at least compared to the rest of the country.
They say: “The lost revenue is down to wasted fuel, the extra cost of transporting goods through congested areas, and lost productivity due to workers being sat in jams.”
which instantly demonstrates how hard accounting for this stuff appropriately is: If you want to know the answer to “are drivers paying their way?” then you can’t use that £7bllion figure directly, you have to take off the fuel costs (because drivers are paying those directly). The other costs are externalities of congestion that you want to include, because drivers aren’t paying for those themselves. This figure doesn’t try to include any accounting for the “human cost” of congestion of course.
(It does appear that the authors have considered your point however BR: this number seems to be an estimate of the real economic costs, not intangibles.)
"Workers being sat in jams" has to be equivalent to "workers sat in bus stops/train stations waiting for exchanges" though, in which case again for the overwhelming majority of the country it would be a net negative cost, but that hasn't been calculated, because that's not what the calculation is there for.
The logical thing to do then if you're counting wasted time as a cost to be taxed would be to tax fuel and subsidise public transport in London, but to subsidise fuel and tax public transport in the rest of the nation. It wouldn't be reasonable to tax drivers in the North West due to Londoners wasting time if they use cars now, would it?
Somehow I am sceptical that is what you're suggesting though, is it?
"Workers being sat in jams" and "workers sat in bus stops/train stations waiting for exchanges" are different. The former is an externality caused by you (and others) driving private cars, which causes those jams and their negative affects on others. The latter is just how a system works, in the same sense that a car takes a finite amount of time to get you somewhere because that's how it works.
But perhaps what you can argue is that time saved by private car journeys (versus alternatives) is a positive externality, a plus to productivity etc. Of course, with more investment, public transport would be quicker.
Proportionately public transport already gets far more money than alternative transports, yet it is still rejected by almost all the country and always moaned about by the tiny minority who use it.
Going off the higher estimate of £17bn per annum for the road network, proportionately the entire rail network should get less than £2bn spent on it from taxpayers money. That's to cover the entire network, maintenance, investment, electrification and subsidies, everything.
Perhaps public transport is just not good value for money, even if it is liked by people who think that Central London is the only place that matters?
Well, the national rail network received £3billion from the UK government in 2014/15 according to the DfT, including the price of all the track access charges that went to Network Rail. Seems close!
(IIRC New road-building in the UK has mostly ground to a halt, so that £17billion is mostly maintenance, but I haven‘t gone back to the original document to check.)
The figure was £5.1bn in 2019-20 so proportionately the road figure should be increased to £46bn, an increase of £29bn to the road budget would pay for a lot of new road building and levelling up.
NB I think that’s just National Rail, not TfL costs though. TfL is it’s own furball altogether.
But there we run into the obvious question of: what happens to the most productive money generating machine in the UK (ie, London) if you stop subsidising it’s public transport? London’s roads cause the majority of the congestion costs to the UK as it is already! Shifting the marginal worker onto the roads doesn’t sound like it’s going to work out positively.
Starmer is struggling here and being openly laughed at
It staggers me how people think SKS is any good. Despite everything I still think BJ will win a majoirty if SKS remains LOTO. Labour need him to get a FPN.
There's a Conservative MP arrested on rape charges, but we're told he's innocent until proven guilty. Doesn't the same apply here?
Personally, I think if you get as far as an arrest or trial, it's appropriate for such a person to step back, or be made to step back, while such matters are ongoing.
Arrest only is tricky. Its a legal nicety to allow the police to question.
On fuel, a reduction in VAT to 5% would be a better move for the treasury than a big duty cut. Certain people and companies can get the VAT back, absolutely no-one reclaims duty. It'd be the equivalent of a 27p duty cut and would send the green lobby bananas creating the perfect opponents for the government as an added bonus
If it gets much worse I think the government is going to have t
A difference I noticed in Denmark where my son lives is the number of driverless trains. Scandinavia isn't renowned for right-wing excesses, but they don't regard this as abnormal.
Unions exist to boost the pay of workers. The leaders may be left-wing sometimes, but they know which side their bread is buttered. Keep the numbers up and the pay rises coming and they can support North Korea if they like.
I think the sad truth is the network is going to need to be largely automated in the longer term - just as firemen, loco cleaners and signalmen went so will many drivers. This will need to be together with remote condition monitoring of assets using AI and more automated asset maintenance.
Staffing costs are phenomenally expensive.
Less than you’d think. A nine-coach IET needs one driver and (depending on union agreements) possibly one guard. Most of the southern commuter fleet just needs one driver. Even a ten-coach Voyager, among the most expensive type of train to operate, needs one driver and two guards.
There is some fat to be trimmed - I can’t see ticket offices surviving for long in all but the biggest stations. But train and station staff costs aren’t what are killing the railway.
The real problem is infrastructure. Track renewals and even the most modest enhancements are phenomenally expensive. A new basic station costs £14m absolute minimum. £14m!! For a concrete platform, an expanse of tarmac car park, and a little station building. It’s insane. The Northumberland Line reopening is costing £166m just to run slow passenger trains on existing tracks.
Someone pointed out to me that the track bed between Northallerton and York needs to be repaired as its end of life (not surprising as it's been in use for 100+ years and trains are way heavier than they used to be).
The cost is definitely Oh Boy...
One thing a certain billionaire is right about - unless we get a handle on reducing infrastructure costs, we are going to have less and less infrastructure. Not more.
Railways at a zillion pounds a mile are not sustainable.
HS2 is so costly because it was engineered to be cost safe by gold plating the design and doing everything including all risks upfront in a waterfall method.
The Elizabeth line is expensive because it's not completely new so needed to integrate with existing systems (never a great idea in the first place even worse when they are multiple existing systems).
Basically we are crap at doing these type of projects and the Treasury makes it worse by not accepting the risk of cost overruns and then scrapping stuff for no good reason. HS2E has cost over £1bn in waterfall development costs that will now need to be redone because of the delays..
Sorry, you’ve triggered me now: that’s nonsense; the UK is superb at delivering mega projects.
Our olympics was on time and on budget and left a fantastic legacy, contrast to Montreal, Athens or Sydney.
Terminal 5 was on time and on budget, except the baggage system failed on day one (it was fixed 48 hours later) and no one ever forgot it. It’s a superb experience now.
Crossrail was late but it was the largest and most complex rail project in Europe - ever - with a hugely aggressive delivery timeframe. It is now open will deliver all the benefits in its original business case. It has a strong international brand and is now selling its expertise worldwide, through Crossrail international.
Contrast with Berlin Brandenburg airport which had to be rebuilt and redesigned several times because they got it wrong. Or the plethora of abandoned projects and white elephants around the world that never deliver.
The UK is good at mega projects- very good - it’s just our expectations are that absolutely everything goes perfectly, all the time, and we have a huge woe is me whinge whenever it doesn’t because moaning is our national sport.
Superb post.
My issue is cost. It seems to me that the estimated costs for large projects are never correct - they always, ALWAYS, end up costing more.
Where is the blame for this? Are governments lying upfront. knowing that the extra will need to be paid? Are the quotes deliberately low, knowing that the extra will need to be paid?
Starmer is struggling here and being openly laughed at
It staggers me how people think SKS is any good. Despite everything I still think BJ will win a majoirty if SKS remains LOTO. Labour need him to get a FPN.
He has a serisl issue with open goals The Ronnie Rosenthal of LOTOs
Comments
Anyway, on topic: the header says
What we do have now is an organised opposition within the Tory party and Hunt is not going to give him an easy ride.
Is that so? The organised opposition, that is.
"I'm not the target audience so what the fuck do I know but I fail to see the political appeal of the chunky tory milf. The last three years of her political career have been managed decline. How the fuck do you get to potential PM from there? She flashed her Beetle Bonnet on that diving program but there has to be more to it."
Harsh but fair. However I'm all in favour of politicians using their sex if they can. They're usually no use nor ornament, so if they are ornamental, go ahead.
Labour have the Ginger Minger in the wings.
I like the Cromarty Bakery ones. These might be worth getting on the net ... https://thestorehouse.scot/product/3091/
Just possibly could see him suspended!
They will also need to be able to think creatively and pragmatically about our relationship with the EU. So far all I get from Mordaunt is pure Brexit orthodoxy and "global Britain". Nothing meaningful on the NIP. Not that Boris can lay claim to anything better.
https://twitter.com/JohnBarrowman
Amongst Tory members who actually get a vote Sunak is now only 5th behind Wallace, Truss, Hunt and Mordaunt
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1533813354455785473?s=20&t=zsci2FxAuAKIL1DIWZoASA
https://twitter.com/hilarybennmp/status/1534467492449599489
If I provide you with a service that saves you 45+ minutes twice a day, then the service I am providing is very valuable to you. You would be expected to be willing to pay a considerable amount for this service.
If I provide you a service that saves you, say, £1000 per month, which costs me £100 per month to provide, what should I charge you? Capitalism says I should charge you slightly less than £1000 per month because that's what you'd be willing to pay.
Well, the nation is providing you a service that saves you 45+ minutes twice a day, so it makes sense for the nation to "charge" you a lot of money for this service, irrespective of what it costs the nation to provide it.
I know this tho, the crash happened right by my favourite currywurst stall. I used to love going there. You can see it in this pic, under the trees
https://twitter.com/patriceberlin/status/1534483274667642885?s=21&t=oYfnNEbHqBx9m6RBj0A3vQ
1. I was vindicated by Gray
2. I've said sorry
3. More Tory MPs back me now than when they first elected me
4. Starmer is a commienazi who wants to block the reintroduction of the bushel which will transform our farming communities
He is powerless and frankly pointless
But perhaps what you can argue is that time saved by private car journeys (versus alternatives) is a positive externality, a plus to productivity etc. Of course, with more investment, public transport would be quicker.
I'm so addicted that I muse about the ratio of the lengths of the hypotenuse between straight and round, calculating the extra area the round one gives me.
From a “do car drivers pay for the costs they impose on the nation, including externalities” perspective, congestion is a cost that everyone has to pay for - every hour a lorry driver sits in a queue is an unproductive hour when the goods they carry cannot be used for their indented purpose after all, driving up costs for everyone else. This cost is mostly imposed by car drivers of one sort or another & (at least according to the article quoted) is most stringent in London, for a variety of reasons. From a personal payments POV, congestion is just part of the 'do I make this trip or not' value vs cost trade-off that we all make all the time.
(This is an example of another problem when talking about national scale economics - the fallacy of composition. Treating things as individual choices doesn’t work when we’re talking about an entire country, where the actual system under discussion is itself a choice, but not one that any individual driver can make.)
To answer your direct question: taxing fuel is not going to be an effective way to tax congestion; fuel taxes are an extremely blunt tool for this purpose. Economically, the “right” thing to do when it comes to congestion is dynamic road pricing, although that has unresolved implementation issues that have so far made it unworkable.
It does seem that rural public transport subsidies are extremely ineffective.
I’d go for a ripe Colston Bassett Stilton with an oatcake, or maybe a softer blue like Cashel or Blacksticks. Not Roquefort - too much salt with the salty oatcake
Sunak is 5th tied with Gove and behind Mordaunt
And a Clio IS a strange choice if you want to cause multiple deaths
Clearly in this case the Crown owns the road network & gets to charge what the market will bear for access to it!
Going off the higher estimate of £17bn per annum for the road network, proportionately the entire rail network should get less than £2bn spent on it from taxpayers money. That's to cover the entire network, maintenance, investment, electrification and subsidies, everything.
Perhaps public transport is just not good value for money, even if it is liked by people who think that Central London is the only place that matters?
You live your life far too much on irrelevant polls
Half of the point of this site is polls
Totally Ben Gunn on that point.
But yes, clearly all of this is the fault of the Labour Party.
In #Berlin -Charlottenburg, a car is driven into a group of people. Five people are fighting for their lives and three others are seriously injured. The police are questioning the suspected driver. It is unclear whether it was an accident. The info: #Tauenzienstrasse
https://twitter.com/derspiegel/status/1534490490237747201?s=21&t=3IugyRdVLG6HCrPUL8sZ3A
German media are generally extremely wary of even hinting at terror. So my guess is, they think it is terror
It's obvious to just about everyone that the Conservatives have screwed up. They've managed to wound Johnson badly but not remove him: the worst of all possible worlds from their point of view.
It's great for the Opposition but for a party renowned for its ruthlessness they sure as heck have stuffed this one up. To paraphrase that brilliant speech by Peter Cooke: 'you couldn't even organise a simple kill without cocking the whole thing up.'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyos-M48B8U
But yes it is amusing and a little sad that it was the actions of the irreconciled Remain fanatics that allowed the narrative, and the type of Brexit, to be driven by the hard Brexiteers.
Were they primarily or even largely responsible for where we are now? No.
Did they help contribute to it and could they have helped to prevent it if they had not been so hell bent on reversing the referendum? Undoubtedly yes.
The type of Brexit we ended up with was born of hardliners on both sides. They both made sure there could be no compromise.
On Daniel Hannan, he has a history of some of the most inconsistent positions in British politics, but also with significant ramifications of that, because he was instrumental in the setting-up of Vote Leave. He hailed Boris Johnson's Brexit deal as a "brilliant deal".
The strategy is perfect, attack the Tory’s and Tory record, not Boris.
In 2017 they suppressed a poll showing Corbyn won a debate after pressure from the Tories over their hung parliament MRP.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1534444485907779584.html
And on that subject, I'm sure if we want to get so-called Breaking News we can all do so on Sky and twitter.
A world, and a forum, of more considered opinion from wise heads is a good thing.
(IIRC New road-building in the UK has mostly ground to a halt, so that £17billion is mostly maintenance, but I haven‘t gone back to the original document to check.)
(Figures from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/513257/cost-of-running-the-railway.xls )
Our olympics was on time and on budget and left a fantastic legacy, contrast to Montreal, Athens or Sydney.
Terminal 5 was on time and on budget, except the baggage system failed on day one (it was fixed 48 hours later) and no one ever forgot it. It’s a superb experience now.
Crossrail was late but it was the largest and most complex rail project in Europe - ever - with a hugely aggressive delivery timeframe. It is now open will deliver all the benefits in its original business case. It has a strong international brand and is now selling its expertise worldwide, through Crossrail international.
Contrast with Berlin Brandenburg airport which had to be rebuilt and redesigned several times because they got it wrong. Or the plethora of abandoned projects and white elephants around the world that never deliver.
The UK is good at mega projects- very good - it’s just our expectations are that absolutely everything goes perfectly, all the time, and we have a huge woe is me whinge whenever it doesn’t because moaning is our national sport.
And parliament is brilliant.
https://twitter.com/julianHjessop/status/1534461026535628800
As for the Berlin attack, here is more evidence. The police are now - per Twitter - saying the driver is a 29 year old Armenian German.
However this photo is doing the rounds and looks authentic (it might not be), and the guy does look “quite Armenian” but he’s had a rough life if he’s 29
https://twitter.com/ichwilldasnich2/status/1534496063633096704?s=21&t=3IugyRdVLG6HCrPUL8sZ3A
Other reports say the car was doing 150kph, and that the driver tried to escape but was caught by by standers. Also he was apparently “shocked”. That of course might be shock at anything: this terrible accident, the fact he’s still alive….
https://twitter.com/Roger_Xanth_Day/status/1534500082992791552?s=20&t=rXLjGmBVoBEsyeYjIzApXw
Fieldwork will likely be pre Vonc
But there we run into the obvious question of: what happens to the most productive money generating machine in the UK (ie, London) if you stop subsidising it’s public transport? London’s roads cause the majority of the congestion costs to the UK as it is already! Shifting the marginal worker onto the roads doesn’t sound like it’s going to work out positively.
Pollster wars! YG go with 'fuck off, Chris'
My issue is cost. It seems to me that the estimated costs for large projects are never correct - they always, ALWAYS, end up costing more.
Where is the blame for this? Are governments lying upfront. knowing that the extra will need to be paid? Are the quotes deliberately low, knowing that the extra will need to be paid?
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/d8zsb99eyd/TimesResults_FINAL CALL_GB_June2017_W.pdf
In 2019 they also got the Tory voteshare correct, 43% but they overestimated Labour that time who they had on 34%
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/12/10/final-2019-general-election-mrp-model-small-
The Ronnie Rosenthal of LOTOs