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?
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
He is astoundingly bad, if he can't dominate the HOC today after whats happened he should not be in politics, yet alone the LOTO.
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.
Nice account of the UK's longest rail bridge, currently under construction just outside London. Must be just a bit longer than the Tay rail bridge, I guess - I always thought that was close to 2 miles.
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?
Often it’s just because projects get delayed - whether by planning issues, inter-project dependencies or just govenments getting cold feet & slow rolling them - and delays drive up costs. Inflation means that things cost more than the original estimates on multi-year projects, you have to keep a pile of expensive consultants on payroll otherwise the project falls apart, you have to re-recruit staff when you re-start stalled projects etc etc etc. It’s much cheaper to decide you’re going to do something & just get on with it, but politics intervenes & here we are.
It could be worse - in the US this process has reached ridiculous extremes to the point where they appear to pay more than twice the cost anyone else does for large infrastructure projects.
Actually shows the driver being arrested, quite clearly. If it is the driver. He could be “Armenian”? …. Although he could be anything really. But he’s definitely NOT 29
Warning: brief gory bit in the middle. Nothing terrible, but sobering
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.
I think he has grown from the invisible man a couple of years ago, to someone I can now imagine as a Prime Minister. All his recent PMQs performances have been confident and effective. Today Labour got the strategy perfect - they need to make it all about domestic policy, not the Westminster soap opera by painting Tory policy decisions as unpopular with voters concerned about these bread and butter issues. This was a clear win for Starmer today, as they all probably will be now if he keeps this up.
You can’t just watch your opponents drown in their awful record, you have to tie them to that awful record to ensure they sink.
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….
You misunderstand. I am genuinely impressed. You may be right or wrong, but you will not be one of those liberal wets who rely on namby pamby things like evidence, and why should you, when you already have your instinctive gut view?
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.
Um I covered 2 mega projects 1 of which overran and cost more because of reasons that are obvious to those who do tech
And HS2 that is blooming expensive because the Treasury insisted on everything being gold plated up front rather than accepting any risk at the backend...
T5 was a private project, Olympics was completely outsourced - so if we privatise it you don't have a problem, if we leave engineers to it we don't have a problem - the problems come with the Treasury insists on things being done in a particular way...
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.
No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.
Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred
Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed. Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it. Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.
Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.
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….
You misunderstand. I am genuinely impressed. You may be right or wrong, but you will not be one of those liberal wets who rely on namby pamby things like evidence, and why should you, when you already have your instinctive gut view?
If you can find a single comment in this thread where I definitively say “this is a terror incident” then I’ll buy you a tiny tiny apartment in Mariupol. Otherwise, do shut up, it’s boring
Not watched PMQs but Starmer's strategy of focussing on issues of substance at PMQs is correct. The occasional question regarding the PMs character can be used - but sparingly.
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.
No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.
Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred
Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed. Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it. Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.
Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.
Was in a meeting so watching PMQs on catchup. Some people above thing BJ did well? Ranting so incoherently that he can barely get the words out whilst bragging about how amazing everything is - an odd way to both show contrition and to show that he understands the daily shit that most of us are having to deal with.
Boosterism only works when there is something to boost.
Was in a meeting so watching PMQs on catchup. Some people above thing BJ did well? Ranting so incoherently that he can barely get the words out whilst bragging about how amazing everything is - an odd way to both show contrition and to show that he understands the daily shit that most of us are having to deal with.
Boosterism only works when there is something to boost.
I agree this was an odd one - comments on here suggested Keir didn't do that well. I then watched it and thought it was pretty good. Particularly the well made point about "pretending x, y, z didn't work, pretending to build 40 hospitals won;t work". Goes to the heart of the empty space at the centre of Johnson's leadership.
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.
No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.
Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred
Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed. Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it. Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.
Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.
So much for Labour supporting compromise.
Yup.
I thought at the time that the proposals should have been done by some kind of ordered voting system to stop hardliners on both sides preventing any kind of compromise.
If the point was to find the least worst out of the available options in order to persuade Parliament to vote something through, then voting for them each individually was the worst possible approach. Single votes didn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know, they just confirmed that Parliament didn’t like any of the available options!
Just possibly, if we’d done a preference vote, we might have discovered that there was a least worst option that a majority of Parliament might be prepared to accept if it was put before them as a bill to be passed.
Even then it might not have worked out, but at least we would have tried.
Petrol up to average of £1.80. Over £2 in one place in Sunderland. Largest daily increase for 17 years.
Anyone know what's driving the current price rises? The jump to £1.50/£1.60 was obviously the effect of the oil price jumping in March, but it's not really risen a lot more since - maybe another 5$/barrel which isn't anything like the 20p/l that's just gone on pump prices in the last month?
Was in a meeting so watching PMQs on catchup. Some people above thing BJ did well? Ranting so incoherently that he can barely get the words out whilst bragging about how amazing everything is - an odd way to both show contrition and to show that he understands the daily shit that most of us are having to deal with.
Boosterism only works when there is something to boost.
I agree this was an odd one - comments on here suggested Keir didn't do that well. I then watched it and thought it was pretty good. Particularly the well made point about "pretending x, y, z didn't work, pretending to build 40 hospitals won;t work". Goes to the heart of the empty space at the centre of Johnson's leadership.
Johnson spent several questions ranting semi-incoherently about how blooming marvellous the NHS is under his watch with all these brilliant new doctors and nurses and hospitals and its all down to him. And then the Starmer slammer - bloke has to crowdfund an operation due to the 2 year wait, and another bloke whose mum dies wilst waiting hours for an ambulance.
How does Johnson respond? By continuing to rant semi-incoherently about how blooming marvellous the NHS is under his watch. Don't understand how this helps ameliorate all those people in the real world who see a country in chaos. Two fifths of Tory MPs having no confidence does not suddenly absolve him of all issues to deal with.
Not watched PMQs but Starmer's strategy of focussing on issues of substance at PMQs is correct. The occasional question regarding the PMs character can be used - but sparingly.
Absolutely right. They need to plant the understanding in voters minds that they are the change from an awful Tory record across all domestic policy. If Starmer had focused on Boris today it would have been so stupid. If Labour make it all about Boris, the Tory’s change from Boris leaving Labour back to square one.
Labour’s summer campaigning has to be on the failure of 13 years of Tory rule, all the PMQs need to focus on Labour as the change option to Tory policy failure, as they done today.
There are no open goals or knock out blows in politics, just a long hard slog for hearts and minds, where you mustn’t get sucked in by the showbiz stuff you need your strategy right. 🙂
Petrol up to average of £1.80. Over £2 in one place in Sunderland. Largest daily increase for 17 years.
Anyone know what's driving the current price rises? The jump to £1.50/£1.60 was obviously the effect of the oil price jumping in March, but it's not really risen a lot more since - maybe another 5$/barrel which isn't anything like the 20p/l that's just gone on pump prices in the last month?
Closed down refinery capacity during Covid according to Twitter.
18-24s voting overwhelmingly for Melenchon's left alliance in France's legislative elections first round on Sunday but Macron's party still clearly ahead with over 70s
“UPDATE: In this video the suspect is being detained, while the camera man confronts him with the fact that at least one person has died. The suspect seems confused. WARNING: May contain shocking footage for some! #Berlin #Germany #Car #Attack #Attack”
Petrol up to average of £1.80. Over £2 in one place in Sunderland. Largest daily increase for 17 years.
Get it right, we are supposed to use gallons now. that is £8.10 and £9.00, respectively. Petrol pump attendant was my weekend/summer job when I was a teenager in the 70s. People complained when it went from 72p to 74p a gallon.
Petrol up to average of £1.80. Over £2 in one place in Sunderland. Largest daily increase for 17 years.
Anyone know what's driving the current price rises? The jump to £1.50/£1.60 was obviously the effect of the oil price jumping in March, but it's not really risen a lot more since - maybe another 5$/barrel which isn't anything like the 20p/l that's just gone on pump prices in the last month?
Closed down refinery capacity during Covid according to Twitter.
Note that we have never had sufficient capacity anyway - we have to import refined diesel and the cost of import is higher thanks to the joyful combination of increased Brexit costs and increased global shipping costs.
Not watched PMQs but Starmer's strategy of focussing on issues of substance at PMQs is correct. The occasional question regarding the PMs character can be used - but sparingly.
Yes that is what the polling is showing. Onto CoL which is even weaker ground for the Tories
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.
Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
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.
Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
If a car has been driven into pedestrians and you're frantically scouring Twitter to work out whether this is good or bad news, have a little lie down.
Petrol up to average of £1.80. Over £2 in one place in Sunderland. Largest daily increase for 17 years.
Get it right, we are supposed to use gallons now. that is £8.10 and £9.00, respectively. Petrol pump attendant was my weekend/summer job when I was a teenager in the 70s. People complained when it went from 72p to 74p a gallon.
There used to be a theory on PB that no government could survive prices going over £1...
I didn't watch either. But. Do Labour want the PM strengthened or weakened at this moment?
Excellent point. PB Tories moaning like hell Starmer didn’t knock Boris out for them. The Tories should have done that themselves! No point blaming others who have their own self serving game to play.
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?
People price things they know and for them going right first time.
They don’t price things they don’t know, and over a 5-10+ year megaproject there’s lots in that space - same as there is in predicting the markets or politics for any business.
So instead they allow a contingency - optimism bias always creeps in there because if you don’t know enough about it you’ll tend to think it’s not a big deal and you won’t allow too much float either as people don’t like to “plan for failure”. It doesn’t drive the project to perform. If it is put in, and people can’t explain what it’s for, HMT like to take it out again at the stage when the final funding package is announced.
Basically, much of the budget and timeframe for a complex megaproject is an educated guess and we need to get much more comfortable with windows and ranges rather than exact dates and figures.
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.
Um I covered 2 mega projects 1 of which overran and cost more because of reasons that are obvious to those who do tech
And HS2 that is blooming expensive because the Treasury insisted on everything being gold plated up front rather than accepting any risk at the backend...
T5 was a private project, Olympics was completely outsourced - so if we privatise it you don't have a problem, if we leave engineers to it we don't have a problem - the problems come with the Treasury insists on things being done in a particular way...
Um.. you do know I’ve spent my whole career in megaprojects, and worked on T2, T5, the Olympics, and Crossrail, right?
I won’t embarrass you further by commenting on the rest of your post.
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.
Maybe we are just rubbish at working in advance how much they will cost and when they will be finished?
It is pretty bad that a leading Tory politician threatened to “close down” a private polling company if their polling proved to be wrong. Which is what appears to have happened.
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.
Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
Yes he was in favour of free movement. It is one of the reasons that they tried to keep him off the stage most of the time as he wasn't on message.
And he was not proven sorely mistaken. His vision was EFTA/EEA membership or something mirroring it and was entirely achievable if there had been more willingness to compromise on all sides in the British camp.
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.
Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
He was willing to accept Free Movement
What about the Custom Union thing? This Dan beginning to sound like a Brexit campaigner not in favour of Brexit
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.
Um I covered 2 mega projects 1 of which overran and cost more because of reasons that are obvious to those who do tech
And HS2 that is blooming expensive because the Treasury insisted on everything being gold plated up front rather than accepting any risk at the backend...
T5 was a private project, Olympics was completely outsourced - so if we privatise it you don't have a problem, if we leave engineers to it we don't have a problem - the problems come with the Treasury insists on things being done in a particular way...
Um.. you do know I’ve spent my whole career in megaprojects, and worked on T2, T5, the Olympics, and Crossrail, right?
I won’t embarrass you further by commenting on the rest of your post.
Yet my sole point was about the Treasury's attitude to such projects - a point that you made in your previous reply "people can’t explain what it’s for, HMT like to take it out again at the stage when the final funding package is announced."
If the point was to find the least worst out of the available options in order to persuade Parliament to vote something through, then voting for them each individually was the worst possible approach. Single votes didn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know, they just confirmed that Parliament didn’t like any of the available options!
Yes, I thought at the time that Parliamentary procedure's daft insistence that everything must be formulated as a set of yes/no questions was incredibly unhelpful.
Do any other countries use systems that aren't straight yes/no voting in their parliament/senate/etc? Has anybody ever proposed sensible reforms in this area?
The PM's boast of "fastest growing economy in G7". Repeated again at PMQ'S, has led to 20 minutes on WATO on the state of the economy. I'm not sure that's a bad result for Starmer.
18-24s voting overwhelmingly for Melenchon's left alliance in France's legislative elections first round on Sunday but Macron's party still clearly ahead with over 70s
The left has been on course for a clear lead in the first ballot ever since Melanchon set up the alliance, but the second-round prediction at first showed Macron's party streets ahead on seats, because as the centre party they got most of the transfers. That is now less clear, suggesting that Melanchon is succeeding in making his alliance more transfer-friendly (by contrast Le Pen's FN and even more Zemmour's rec are out on the margins in the seat predictions).
“UPDATE: In this video the suspect is being detained, while the camera man confronts him with the fact that at least one person has died. The suspect seems confused. WARNING: May contain shocking footage for some! #Berlin #Germany #Car #Attack #Attack”
I didn't watch either. But. Do Labour want the PM strengthened or weakened at this moment?
Excellent point. PB Tories moaning like hell Starmer didn’t knock Boris out for them. The Tories should have done that themselves! No point blaming others who have their own self serving game to play.
Starmer asked the right questions but wasn't a compelling speaker. Though some of the gags (e.g. 24 hours in A+E) might clip well for the evening news.
Johnson's answers were garbage, but garbage delivered with oomph and brio.
You pays your money and you takes your choice.
(None of this matters at all if the economy really tanks.)
“The driver is said to have first driven into a group of people and then into a shop window in #Tauentzienstraße . He was held by passers-by and handed over to the emergency services. It is a 29 year old German-Armenian living in Berlin. #b0806 #Charlottenburg”
Extraordinary. And depressing. Nothing will happen to this man. Imagine if it was some white guy threatening Muslims…
"Birmingham will not tolerate the disrespect of our prophet (pbuh). There will outcomes from your actions. You will have repercussions for your actions. We have been trained from birth that we must defend the honour of our prophet & we will lay our life on the line." #chilling
Where the Hell dio you find these repulsive ultra right websites? More hatred on here than 'Stormfront'
The guy's comments are chilling. "We have been trained from birth" - gosh.
He's a nutter no one has ever heard of. You can find nutters everywhere. Yesterday A British Nazi was jailed for 8 years. What kind of a headbanger on holiday in Georgia finds hate sites that look for stories about a Muslim who talks a load of crap in Birmingham?
Can't we crowd fund a couple of hookers so he can leave these hate sites alone and enjoy his holiday and let PB carry on talking about politics?
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.
Um I covered 2 mega projects 1 of which overran and cost more because of reasons that are obvious to those who do tech
And HS2 that is blooming expensive because the Treasury insisted on everything being gold plated up front rather than accepting any risk at the backend...
T5 was a private project, Olympics was completely outsourced - so if we privatise it you don't have a problem, if we leave engineers to it we don't have a problem - the problems come with the Treasury insists on things being done in a particular way...
Um.. you do know I’ve spent my whole career in megaprojects, and worked on T2, T5, the Olympics, and Crossrail, right?
I won’t embarrass you further by commenting on the rest of your post.
Where's my Bond Street station? Where's my direct connection from Stratford to Whitechapel? Where's my direct connection from Paddington low level towards Acton and beyond?
Not watched PMQs but Starmer's strategy of focussing on issues of substance at PMQs is correct. The occasional question regarding the PMs character can be used - but sparingly.
Absolutely right. They need to plant the understanding in voters minds that they are the change from an awful Tory record across all domestic policy. If Starmer had focused on Boris today it would have been so stupid. If Labour make it all about Boris, the Tory’s change from Boris leaving Labour back to square one.
Labour’s summer campaigning has to be on the failure of 13 years of Tory rule, all the PMQs need to focus on Labour as the change option to Tory policy failure, as they done today.
There are no open goals or knock out blows in politics, just a long hard slog for hearts and minds, where you mustn’t get sucked in by the showbiz stuff you need your strategy right. 🙂
Agreed. The Guardian picked up an interesting point about Boris's rebuttal - he said he had opponents on all sides because he's achieving great things - which implies that he's running against the Old Tory party as much as the opposition. That's classic populism, but subtly different from saying he's the one who will lead all the Tories to victory.
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.
No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.
Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred
Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed. Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it. Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.
Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.
So much for Labour supporting compromise.
Yup.
I thought at the time that the proposals should have been done by some kind of ordered voting system to stop hardliners on both sides preventing any kind of compromise.
If the point was to find the least worst out of the available options in order to persuade Parliament to vote something through, then voting for them each individually was the worst possible approach. Single votes didn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know, they just confirmed that Parliament didn’t like any of the available options!
Just possibly, if we’d done a preference vote, we might have discovered that there was a least worst option that a majority of Parliament might be prepared to accept if it was put before them as a bill to be passed.
Even then it might not have worked out, but at least we would have tried.
I don't think it was, because MPs could vote for more than one. The idea was to produce at least one option that was acceptable. If MPs only voted for "good" and voted against "acceptable" they were doing it wrong.
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.
Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
He was willing to accept Free Movement
What about the Custom Union thing? This Dan beginning to sound like a Brexit campaigner not in favour of Brexit
Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.
Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
“UPDATE: In this video the suspect is being detained, while the camera man confronts him with the fact that at least one person has died. The suspect seems confused. WARNING: May contain shocking footage for some! #Berlin #Germany #Car #Attack #Attack”
The one thing this has done is show exactly what Twitter is any good for. Perhaps the only thing.
At an incident, there is always someone on the spot who posts near-live footage.
Political manifestos and views on trans - not so much.
Twitter is good for many things - the above included, so long as you are extremely selective in whom you follow.
BTW, reading a book which might be of interest to you: "A Morning in June", Lt. JW Evans' account of the defence of Outpost Harry, toward the end of the Korean War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outpost_Harry
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
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.
Um I covered 2 mega projects 1 of which overran and cost more because of reasons that are obvious to those who do tech
And HS2 that is blooming expensive because the Treasury insisted on everything being gold plated up front rather than accepting any risk at the backend...
T5 was a private project, Olympics was completely outsourced - so if we privatise it you don't have a problem, if we leave engineers to it we don't have a problem - the problems come with the Treasury insists on things being done in a particular way...
Um.. you do know I’ve spent my whole career in megaprojects, and worked on T2, T5, the Olympics, and Crossrail, right?
I won’t embarrass you further by commenting on the rest of your post.
Yet my sole point was about the Treasury's attitude to such projects - a point that you made in your previous reply "people can’t explain what it’s for, HMT like to take it out again at the stage when the final funding package is announced."
Maybe I misread the tone of your post but it read like you were looking to lecture me on something I know quite a bit about.
I agree on HMT attitude and it's a function of HMG. Government always want zero risk and political certainty, and the HMT always want to cut costs, so absent a change in political leadership from No.10 on such matters I can't see things changing.
Boris is still talking about "decarbonising the grid" by 2035, when we'll be lucky to even have Sizewell C online by 2037, and all the other nuclear plants are just in a strategy at the moment and haven't even been confirmed yet.
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.
Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
He was willing to accept Free Movement
What about the Custom Union thing? This Dan beginning to sound like a Brexit campaigner not in favour of Brexit
Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.
Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
So about that customs union that exists between the EU and Turkey...
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.
No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.
Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred
Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed. Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it. Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.
Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.
So much for Labour supporting compromise.
Richard, at the time I would also have voted for EURef2. I do not believe that a second EURef would have been anti democratic on the basis that Brexit meant 17m things to 17m people. My view then as now was we were perfectly entitled to change our minds until the moment we left.
I agree now that with hindsight an EEA with freedom of movement compromise in the light of Johnson's "oven ready" catastrophe would have been preferable. I don't ever recall in reality EEA ever being a live option, although I may be wrong
Anyway we have left, we should never rejoin, for both ours and the EU's sanity. We are where we are. Johnson has suggested today he intends to remain PM ad infinitum, so it is up to Johnson to make the policy that took him into Downing Street work for all of us, and not just for Johnson. EEA with freedom of movement would now be fantastic, but Johnson has bigger and better ideas I am sure. If he plans to be PM for the next twenty years it better work!
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.
No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.
Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred
Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed. Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it. Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.
Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.
So much for Labour supporting compromise.
Yup.
I thought at the time that the proposals should have been done by some kind of ordered voting system to stop hardliners on both sides preventing any kind of compromise.
If the point was to find the least worst out of the available options in order to persuade Parliament to vote something through, then voting for them each individually was the worst possible approach. Single votes didn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know, they just confirmed that Parliament didn’t like any of the available options!
Just possibly, if we’d done a preference vote, we might have discovered that there was a least worst option that a majority of Parliament might be prepared to accept if it was put before them as a bill to be passed.
Even then it might not have worked out, but at least we would have tried.
I don't think it was, because MPs could vote for more than one. The idea was to produce at least one option that was acceptable. If MPs only voted for "good" and voted against "acceptable" they were doing it wrong.
That is exactly what they were doing. Or at least a good proportion were. There were large groups on either side who saw the most important thing being to prevent anything that was not their pure end game. So those who wanted to reverse the referendum result voted down everything that would have meant Brexit but on reasonable terms whilst those who wanted a hard Brexit voted down everything that was not No Deal.
The group in the middle who genuinely wanted to make it work were too small to command a majority.
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.
No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.
Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred
Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed. Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it. Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.
Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.
So much for Labour supporting compromise.
Yup.
I thought at the time that the proposals should have been done by some kind of ordered voting system to stop hardliners on both sides preventing any kind of compromise.
If the point was to find the least worst out of the available options in order to persuade Parliament to vote something through, then voting for them each individually was the worst possible approach. Single votes didn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know, they just confirmed that Parliament didn’t like any of the available options!
Just possibly, if we’d done a preference vote, we might have discovered that there was a least worst option that a majority of Parliament might be prepared to accept if it was put before them as a bill to be passed.
Even then it might not have worked out, but at least we would have tried.
I don't think it was, because MPs could vote for more than one. The idea was to produce at least one option that was acceptable. If MPs only voted for "good" and voted against "acceptable" they were doing it wrong.
It's not a dumb system- it reminds me of a Papal Conclave. What was dumb was expecting sufficient convergence after two cycles. But by then fevers were so high that it couldn't be allowed to play out fully.
(The other benefit Cardinals have is voting in secret. Not good for democracy, but probably good for getting a good answer.)
Some good questions from backbenchers. Johnson comes across much better when he does polite concern than when he smirks.
He has this habit of thanking the questioner very much for the question no matter how difficult
I once interviewed a candidate who started EVERY answer with "That's a very interesting point, [name of questioner]." It was nice at first, but gradually maddening.
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.
Um I covered 2 mega projects 1 of which overran and cost more because of reasons that are obvious to those who do tech
And HS2 that is blooming expensive because the Treasury insisted on everything being gold plated up front rather than accepting any risk at the backend...
T5 was a private project, Olympics was completely outsourced - so if we privatise it you don't have a problem, if we leave engineers to it we don't have a problem - the problems come with the Treasury insists on things being done in a particular way...
Um.. you do know I’ve spent my whole career in megaprojects, and worked on T2, T5, the Olympics, and Crossrail, right?
I won’t embarrass you further by commenting on the rest of your post.
Where's my Bond Street station? Autumn 2022 Where's my direct connection from Stratford to Whitechapel? May 2023 (subject to integration testing & trials) Where's my direct connection from Paddington low level towards Acton and beyond? (subject to integration testing & trials)
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.
No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.
Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred
Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed. Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it. Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.
Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.
So much for Labour supporting compromise.
This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.
The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.
For the first round of indicative votes:
Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.
Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.
Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.
The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.
The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.
George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.
Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.
Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
So was I and many others - I wanted the UK to lead a re-invigorated EFTA which would be a free trade bloc on friendly terms with but as a political and economic counterpoint to the EU.
I don't think the EFTA countries were interested but did we pursue it in any way? In terms of Freedom of Movement, we'd have to allow FoM for the citizens of any EFTA country but can do what we like in terms of the EU.
I can appreciate the caution behind our possible re-joining from Norway, Iceland and Switzerland but let's offer some money, a home and some real influence to make EFTA attractive again.
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.
Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
He was willing to accept Free Movement
What about the Custom Union thing? This Dan beginning to sound like a Brexit campaigner not in favour of Brexit
Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.
Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
So about that customs union that exists between the EU and Turkey...
It basically means that Turkey has no say over EU trade deals but any trade deals the EU makes gives the third parties tariff free access to Turkish markets but does not allow the same deal for Turkey into the third party markets.
So when the EU was looking at completing a trade deal with the US it would have given the US tariff free access to Turkish markets but would not have allowed Turkey access to US markets.
It is the difference between The Customs Union and a customs union.
Some good questions from backbenchers. Johnson comes across much better when he does polite concern than when he smirks.
He has this habit of thanking the questioner very much for the question no matter how difficult
I once interviewed a candidate who started EVERY answer with "That's a very interesting point, [name of questioner]." It was nice at first, but gradually maddening.
"That's an excellent question, and I am looking forward to answering it after I have bought myself some time to think about how to respond."
Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.
Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
So was I and many others - I wanted the UK to lead a re-invigorated EFTA which would be a free trade bloc on friendly terms with but as a political and economic counterpoint to the EU.
I don't think the EFTA countries were interested but did we pursue it in any way? In terms of Freedom of Movement, we'd have to allow FoM for the citizens of any EFTA country but can do what we like in terms of the EU.
I can appreciate the caution behind our possible re-joining from Norway, Iceland and Switzerland but let's offer some money, a home and some real influence to make EFTA attractive again.
It is what I have argued for since long before the referendum. It has been a pretty lonely campaign
“UPDATE: In this video the suspect is being detained, while the camera man confronts him with the fact that at least one person has died. The suspect seems confused. WARNING: May contain shocking footage for some! #Berlin #Germany #Car #Attack #Attack”
The one thing this has done is show exactly what Twitter is any good for. Perhaps the only thing.
At an incident, there is always someone on the spot who posts near-live footage.
Political manifestos and views on trans - not so much.
Twitter is good for many things - the above included, so long as you are extremely selective in whom you follow.
BTW, reading a book which might be of interest to you: "A Morning in June", Lt. JW Evans' account of the defence of Outpost Harry, toward the end of the Korean War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outpost_Harry
Plainly written, and very good indeed.
Sounds great I'm putting it on the list (soz just making my way - slowly - through The Mirror & The Light right now)...
A cursory glance through the wiki reminded me of the Glosters at Imjin River...
I had a CSgt at RMAS who was a Gloster and he told me that their back badge was gained in Korea as the fighting was so intense that they were standing back to back with each other and needed to know who was friend and foe but wiki tells me it was awarded 150yrs earlier.
Edit: looks like it is in the mould of the We Were Soldiers, Once, and Young" type of book. Which was amazing.
Interesting account by Chris Curtis from the 2017 election.
https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1534451799511408641 ...Despite it being entirely predictable, everybody panicked at the backlash to the MRP. Nadhim Zahawi called up the CEO and said he would call for his resignation if he was wrong. It became pretty clear we would all be out of a job if we were wrong now....
18-24s voting overwhelmingly for Melenchon's left alliance in France's legislative elections first round on Sunday but Macron's party still clearly ahead with over 70s
This is an interesting breakdown - I recall polling from the presidential elections also indicating that Le Pen also had more support from younger voters.
Unlike most large European countries France has a healthy birthrate by European standards; it is not an aging society like Germany or Italy.
Opinions can of course always change, but with the traditional parties having collapsed and a significant demographic of radically-inclined younger voters, it is not impossible for France in the future to elect an extremist government, whether of the right or left. Either a French Fidesz or a French SYRIZA.
Interesting account by Chris Curtis from the 2017 election.
https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1534451799511408641 ...Despite it being entirely predictable, everybody panicked at the backlash to the MRP. Nadhim Zahawi called up the CEO and said he would call for his resignation if he was wrong. It became pretty clear we would all be out of a job if we were wrong now....
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.
Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
He was willing to accept Free Movement
What about the Custom Union thing? This Dan beginning to sound like a Brexit campaigner not in favour of Brexit
Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.
Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
So about that customs union that exists between the EU and Turkey...
who says it's "disastrous"? We know Turkey has generally been in favour of having an increased say, but trade is up and that's a good thing.
Extraordinary. And depressing. Nothing will happen to this man. Imagine if it was some white guy threatening Muslims…
"Birmingham will not tolerate the disrespect of our prophet (pbuh). There will outcomes from your actions. You will have repercussions for your actions. We have been trained from birth that we must defend the honour of our prophet & we will lay our life on the line." #chilling
Where the Hell dio you find these repulsive ultra right websites? More hatred on here than 'Stormfront'
The guy's comments are chilling. "We have been trained from birth" - gosh.
He's a nutter no one has ever heard of. You can find nutters everywhere. Yesterday A British Nazi was jailed for 8 years. What kind of a headbanger on holiday in Georgia finds hate sites that look for stories about a Muslim who talks a load of crap in Birmingham?
Can't we crowd fund a couple of hookers so he can leave these hate sites alone and enjoy his holiday and let PB carry on talking about politics?
What is this “far-right hate site” of which you speak? Is it Twitter, where I saw this? Or is it Muslims Agains Anti-Semitism, which wrote the tweet I read?
As for the guy in question, he is far from a “nobody no one has ever heard of”. He’s the exact same guy who roused the Muslim mob against that poor teacher in Batley and Spen, a man who is now in hiding, a year later, with his family, in fear of his life
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
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.
Um I covered 2 mega projects 1 of which overran and cost more because of reasons that are obvious to those who do tech
And HS2 that is blooming expensive because the Treasury insisted on everything being gold plated up front rather than accepting any risk at the backend...
T5 was a private project, Olympics was completely outsourced - so if we privatise it you don't have a problem, if we leave engineers to it we don't have a problem - the problems come with the Treasury insists on things being done in a particular way...
Um.. you do know I’ve spent my whole career in megaprojects, and worked on T2, T5, the Olympics, and Crossrail, right?
I won’t embarrass you further by commenting on the rest of your post.
Yet my sole point was about the Treasury's attitude to such projects - a point that you made in your previous reply "people can’t explain what it’s for, HMT like to take it out again at the stage when the final funding package is announced."
Maybe I misread the tone of your post but it read like you were looking to lecture me on something I know quite a bit about.
I agree on HMT attitude and it's a function of HMG. Government always want zero risk and political certainty, and the HMT always want to cut costs, so absent a change in political leadership from No.10 on such matters I can't see things changing.
Boris is still talking about "decarbonising the grid" by 2035, when we'll be lucky to even have Sizewell C online by 2037, and all the other nuclear plants are just in a strategy at the moment and haven't even been confirmed yet.
I think you took the tone as a dig at yourself when it really wasn't - the issue is that most projects can be done well if you leave the experts to it but will fall apart rapidly if people continually interfere. Heck there are project methodologies designed around things changing but they all have the same rules - you don't interfere with what is being done you interfere with the priority of items still to be done.
Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.
Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
So was I and many others - I wanted the UK to lead a re-invigorated EFTA which would be a free trade bloc on friendly terms with but as a political and economic counterpoint to the EU.
I don't think the EFTA countries were interested but did we pursue it in any way? In terms of Freedom of Movement, we'd have to allow FoM for the citizens of any EFTA country but can do what we like in terms of the EU.
I can appreciate the caution behind our possible re-joining from Norway, Iceland and Switzerland but let's offer some money, a home and some real influence to make EFTA attractive again.
It is what I have argued for since long before the referendum. It has been a pretty lonely campaign
The problem was EFTA would have been an excellent compromise but no one was in any mood to compromise then and arguably now.
18-24s voting overwhelmingly for Melenchon's left alliance in France's legislative elections first round on Sunday but Macron's party still clearly ahead with over 70s
The left has been on course for a clear lead in the first ballot ever since Melanchon set up the alliance, but the second-round prediction at first showed Macron's party streets ahead on seats, because as the centre party they got most of the transfers. That is now less clear, suggesting that Melanchon is succeeding in making his alliance more transfer-friendly (by contrast Le Pen's FN and even more Zemmour's rec are out on the margins in the seat predictions).
Yes, looks like Macron's party will narrowly win most seats but may lose its majority and Melenchon's block will replace the Les Republicains led block as the main opposition in the National Assembly. Le Pen's party will make gains but still not enough in the transfers to reach the top 2 in the second round
“UPDATE: In this video the suspect is being detained, while the camera man confronts him with the fact that at least one person has died. The suspect seems confused. WARNING: May contain shocking footage for some! #Berlin #Germany #Car #Attack #Attack”
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.
No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.
Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred
Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed. Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it. Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.
Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.
So much for Labour supporting compromise.
This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.
The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.
For the first round of indicative votes:
Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.
Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.
Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.
The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.
The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.
George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.
Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.
The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.
Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.
These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.
Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.
Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.
Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
So was I and many others - I wanted the UK to lead a re-invigorated EFTA which would be a free trade bloc on friendly terms with but as a political and economic counterpoint to the EU.
I don't think the EFTA countries were interested but did we pursue it in any way? In terms of Freedom of Movement, we'd have to allow FoM for the citizens of any EFTA country but can do what we like in terms of the EU.
I can appreciate the caution behind our possible re-joining from Norway, Iceland and Switzerland but let's offer some money, a home and some real influence to make EFTA attractive again.
It is what I have argued for since long before the referendum. It has been a pretty lonely campaign
Not really - it's the same end point I was hoping for. As we didn't have the Euro we were already half way house rather than a full EU member which meant it was better all round for us to take steps away to let those who have the Euro to get on with it.
Then Cameron decided to have his EU discussions before rather than after the referendum removing whole sets of compromise options before the decision was made.
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.
Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
He was willing to accept Free Movement
What about the Custom Union thing? This Dan beginning to sound like a Brexit campaigner not in favour of Brexit
Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.
Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
So about that customs union that exists between the EU and Turkey...
It basically means that Turkey has no say over EU trade deals but any trade deals the EU makes gives the third parties tariff free access to Turkish markets but does not allow the same deal for Turkey into the third party markets.
So when the EU was looking at completing a trade deal with the US it would have given the US tariff free access to Turkish markets but would not have allowed Turkey access to US markets.
It is the difference between The Customs Union and a customs union.
But a UK holding all the cards wouldn't have had to swallow those terms, right? Besides, asymmetry aside, hasn't it been good for Turkey? There's always a sense I get from this sort of thing of making the perfect the enemy of the good. It's one thing to point to imperfections, but quite another to say "disastrous". The reality seems to be it's good for Turkey.
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.
Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
He was willing to accept Free Movement
What about the Custom Union thing? This Dan beginning to sound like a Brexit campaigner not in favour of Brexit
Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.
Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
So about that customs union that exists between the EU and Turkey...
It basically means that Turkey has no say over EU trade deals but any trade deals the EU makes gives the third parties tariff free access to Turkish markets but does not allow the same deal for Turkey into the third party markets.
So when the EU was looking at completing a trade deal with the US it would have given the US tariff free access to Turkish markets but would not have allowed Turkey access to US markets.
It is the difference between The Customs Union and a customs union.
But a UK holding all the cards wouldn't have had to swallow those terms, right? Besides, asymmetry aside, hasn't it been good for Turkey? There's always a sense I get from this sort of thing of making the perfect the enemy of the good. It's one thing to point to imperfections, but quite another to say "disastrous". The reality seems to be it's good for Turkey.
The Turks don't seem to think so. As I said there is a big movement to pull out of it which on the face of it seems crazy. But there is still the faint hope that it will lead to something better.
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.
Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
He was willing to accept Free Movement
What about the Custom Union thing? This Dan beginning to sound like a Brexit campaigner not in favour of Brexit
Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.
Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
So about that customs union that exists between the EU and Turkey...
It basically means that Turkey has no say over EU trade deals but any trade deals the EU makes gives the third parties tariff free access to Turkish markets but does not allow the same deal for Turkey into the third party markets.
So when the EU was looking at completing a trade deal with the US it would have given the US tariff free access to Turkish markets but would not have allowed Turkey access to US markets.
It is the difference between The Customs Union and a customs union.
But a UK holding all the cards wouldn't have had to swallow those terms, right? Besides, asymmetry aside, hasn't it been good for Turkey? There's always a sense I get from this sort of thing of making the perfect the enemy of the good. It's one thing to point to imperfections, but quite another to say "disastrous". The reality seems to be it's good for Turkey.
The Turks don't seem to think so. As I said there is a big movement to pull out of it which on the face of it seems crazy. But there is still the faint hope that it will lead to something better.
Petrol up to average of £1.80. Over £2 in one place in Sunderland. Largest daily increase for 17 years.
Anyone know what's driving the current price rises? The jump to £1.50/£1.60 was obviously the effect of the oil price jumping in March, but it's not really risen a lot more since - maybe another 5$/barrel which isn't anything like the 20p/l that's just gone on pump prices in the last month?
Closed down refinery capacity during Covid according to Twitter.
Also brent crude is near ATH in terms of GBP - sterling has never been this weak with high 'raw' USD oil prices before.
"It was not just Boris Johnson who received a bloody nose in the 1922 committee room, but the whole company of pseudo-Conservatives whose political lives now hang by as weak a thread as their leader’s."
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.
Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
He was willing to accept Free Movement
What about the Custom Union thing? This Dan beginning to sound like a Brexit campaigner not in favour of Brexit
Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.
Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
So about that customs union that exists between the EU and Turkey...
It basically means that Turkey has no say over EU trade deals but any trade deals the EU makes gives the third parties tariff free access to Turkish markets but does not allow the same deal for Turkey into the third party markets.
So when the EU was looking at completing a trade deal with the US it would have given the US tariff free access to Turkish markets but would not have allowed Turkey access to US markets.
It is the difference between The Customs Union and a customs union.
But a UK holding all the cards wouldn't have had to swallow those terms, right? Besides, asymmetry aside, hasn't it been good for Turkey? There's always a sense I get from this sort of thing of making the perfect the enemy of the good. It's one thing to point to imperfections, but quite another to say "disastrous". The reality seems to be it's good for Turkey.
The Turks don't seem to think so. As I said there is a big movement to pull out of it which on the face of it seems crazy. But there is still the faint hope that it will lead to something better.
Not to forget that Turkey is not a developed western nation either.
What's suitable for developing nations, and developed ones, is not necessarily the same thing.
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.
Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
He was willing to accept Free Movement
What about the Custom Union thing? This Dan beginning to sound like a Brexit campaigner not in favour of Brexit
Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.
Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
So about that customs union that exists between the EU and Turkey...
It basically means that Turkey has no say over EU trade deals but any trade deals the EU makes gives the third parties tariff free access to Turkish markets but does not allow the same deal for Turkey into the third party markets.
So when the EU was looking at completing a trade deal with the US it would have given the US tariff free access to Turkish markets but would not have allowed Turkey access to US markets.
It is the difference between The Customs Union and a customs union.
One way or another, our being located just outside the EU with so much trade with the EU means that we will be taking their rules, without any influence over them. That was obvious from the minute Brexit was first proposed.
The question is whether we can be mature enough to acknowledge this in such a way as to make our trading interactions easier and smoother once again, or continue to pretend that somehow the ‘freedom’ to make our own rules - which no-one else will follow - gives us some still entirely hypothetical advantage that will compensate for all the extra hassle, cost, delay and lost business that we have inflicted upon ourselves.
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.
No the Labour Party did not vote for compromise.
Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred
Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed. Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it. Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.
Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.
So much for Labour supporting compromise.
This is such a dishonest post, sorry. I cannot let it stand without correcting the record.
The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.
For the first round of indicative votes:
Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.
Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.
Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.
The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.
The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.
George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.
Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
Wrong. You are arguing from a point of profound ignorance.
The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.
Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.
These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.
Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.
Wrong. You can be in a customs union with the EU without being in the EU, like Turkey. Is this perfect? No. That's why we shouldn't have left. Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have? What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.
Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
So was I and many others - I wanted the UK to lead a re-invigorated EFTA which would be a free trade bloc on friendly terms with but as a political and economic counterpoint to the EU.
I don't think the EFTA countries were interested but did we pursue it in any way? In terms of Freedom of Movement, we'd have to allow FoM for the citizens of any EFTA country but can do what we like in terms of the EU.
I can appreciate the caution behind our possible re-joining from Norway, Iceland and Switzerland but let's offer some money, a home and some real influence to make EFTA attractive again.
If you’re in EFTA you have to allow Freedom of Movement from the EU
“The free movement of persons is one of the core rights guaranteed in the European Economic Area (EEA), the extended Internal Market which unites all the EU Member States and three EEA EFTA States – Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. It is perhaps the most important right for individuals, as it gives citizens of the 30 EEA countries the opportunity to live, work, establish business and study in any of these countries.”
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.
Was Hannan willing to accept free movement though? Or was he one of those cakeist Brexiteers on the libertarian-ish wing of the party who thought you could carve out free trade with the EU all by itself & were proven sorely mistaken?
He was willing to accept Free Movement
What about the Custom Union thing? This Dan beginning to sound like a Brexit campaigner not in favour of Brexit
Customs Union is not possible unless you stay in the EU. The only other version is that which the EU has with Turkey which is so disastrous for them they have been looking at withdrawing and have only stayed in because they hope is a stepping stone to full membership.
Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
So about that customs union that exists between the EU and Turkey...
It basically means that Turkey has no say over EU trade deals but any trade deals the EU makes gives the third parties tariff free access to Turkish markets but does not allow the same deal for Turkey into the third party markets.
So when the EU was looking at completing a trade deal with the US it would have given the US tariff free access to Turkish markets but would not have allowed Turkey access to US markets.
It is the difference between The Customs Union and a customs union.
But a UK holding all the cards wouldn't have had to swallow those terms, right? Besides, asymmetry aside, hasn't it been good for Turkey? There's always a sense I get from this sort of thing of making the perfect the enemy of the good. It's one thing to point to imperfections, but quite another to say "disastrous". The reality seems to be it's good for Turkey.
The Turks don't seem to think so. As I said there is a big movement to pull out of it which on the face of it seems crazy. But there is still the faint hope that it will lead to something better.
Define "big movement" though
Well it went as far as the Government and various opposition parties who were all in agreement that if the US trade deal went through they would have to withdraw.
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?
People price things they know and for them going right first time.
They don’t price things they don’t know, and over a 5-10+ year megaproject there’s lots in that space - same as there is in predicting the markets or politics for any business.
So instead they allow a contingency - optimism bias always creeps in there because if you don’t know enough about it you’ll tend to think it’s not a big deal and you won’t allow too much float either as people don’t like to “plan for failure”. It doesn’t drive the project to perform. If it is put in, and people can’t explain what it’s for, HMT like to take it out again at the stage when the final funding package is announced.
Basically, much of the budget and timeframe for a complex megaproject is an educated guess and we need to get much more comfortable with windows and ranges rather than exact dates and figures.
Inflation is also a factor because this sort of project will often be long in the planning. Then there's also the question of scope. Initial estimates of the cost of HS2 didn't include the trains, while later totals do, so how much has the cost of the project actually increased on a like-for-like basis?
Comments
https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2017/08/30/queensferry-crossing-opens-245m-below-budget/
Nice account of the UK's longest rail bridge, currently under construction just outside London. Must be just a bit longer than the Tay rail bridge, I guess - I always thought that was close to 2 miles.
It could be worse - in the US this process has reached ridiculous extremes to the point where they appear to pay more than twice the cost anyone else does for large infrastructure projects.
Actually shows the driver being arrested, quite clearly. If it is the driver. He could be “Armenian”? …. Although he could be anything really. But he’s definitely NOT 29
Warning: brief gory bit in the middle. Nothing terrible, but sobering
https://twitter.com/kisis007/status/1534501446825218048?s=21&t=VC7iUryNdqr2uLxbhyZQgA
You can’t just watch your opponents drown in their awful record, you have to tie them to that awful record to ensure they sink.
And HS2 that is blooming expensive because the Treasury insisted on everything being gold plated up front rather than accepting any risk at the backend...
T5 was a private project, Olympics was completely outsourced - so if we privatise it you don't have a problem, if we leave engineers to it we don't have a problem - the problems come with the Treasury insists on things being done in a particular way...
Unecessarily helpful headline for chunky mongrel
Looking at the breakdowns for the indicative proposals see if you can spot which one the Labour MPs preferred
Proposal H - EFTA and EEA only 4 Labour MPs supported it. If they all had it would have passed.
Proposal L - Revoke article 50 - 111 Labour MPs supported it.
Proposal M - Rerun the referendum - 198 Labour MPs supported it.
Of the other 5 proposals 2 were effectively No Deal and 3 demanded we stayed in the Customs Union which was impossible without us remaining as full members of the EU.
So much for Labour supporting compromise.
Boosterism only works when there is something to boost.
But. Do Labour want the PM strengthened or weakened at this moment?
I thought at the time that the proposals should have been done by some kind of ordered voting system to stop hardliners on both sides preventing any kind of compromise.
If the point was to find the least worst out of the available options in order to persuade Parliament to vote something through, then voting for them each individually was the worst possible approach. Single votes didn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know, they just confirmed that Parliament didn’t like any of the available options!
Just possibly, if we’d done a preference vote, we might have discovered that there was a least worst option that a majority of Parliament might be prepared to accept if it was put before them as a bill to be passed.
Even then it might not have worked out, but at least we would have tried.
Sunny day here, after rain for the garden last night.
How does Johnson respond? By continuing to rant semi-incoherently about how blooming marvellous the NHS is under his watch. Don't understand how this helps ameliorate all those people in the real world who see a country in chaos. Two fifths of Tory MPs having no confidence does not suddenly absolve him of all issues to deal with.
Labour’s summer campaigning has to be on the failure of 13 years of Tory rule, all the PMQs need to focus on Labour as the change option to Tory policy failure, as they done today.
There are no open goals or knock out blows in politics, just a long hard slog for hearts and minds, where you mustn’t get sucked in by the showbiz stuff you need your strategy right. 🙂
Voting intentions among 18-24 year-olds
NUPES-LEFT|G/EFA|S&D: 51% (+8)
RN-ID: 15% (-1)
UDC-EPP|RE: 9% (+3)
Ensemble-RE: 9% (-11)
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1534501704846217216?s=20&t=BVhaobPVE5E0m92WhNVD1A
Voting intentions among 70+ year-olds
Ensemble-RE: 40% (+2)
UDC-EPP|RE: 19% (+2)
RN-ID: 14%
NUPES-LEFT|G/EFA|S&D: 13% (-1)
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1534504290131267584?s=20&t=BVhaobPVE5E0m92WhNVD1A
Emphatic statement
“Berlin Police has told Sky News the driver of the car driven into pedestrians is a 29-year-old German-Armenian man with dual citizenship”
https://twitter.com/skynewsbreak/status/1534500171509276672?s=21&t=VC7iUryNdqr2uLxbhyZQgA
And yet:
“UPDATE: In this video the suspect is being detained, while the camera man confronts him with the fact that at least one person has died. The suspect seems confused. WARNING: May contain shocking footage for some! #Berlin #Germany #Car #Attack #Attack”
https://twitter.com/newsflash_tf/status/1534497628213346304?s=21&t=VC7iUryNdqr2uLxbhyZQgA
Can that man possibly be 29?!
Petrol pump attendant was my weekend/summer job when I was a teenager in the 70s. People complained when it went from 72p to 74p a gallon.
They don’t price things they don’t know, and over a 5-10+ year megaproject there’s lots in that space - same as there is in predicting the markets or politics for any business.
So instead they allow a contingency - optimism bias always creeps in there because if you don’t know enough about it you’ll tend to think it’s not a big deal and you won’t allow too much float either as people don’t like to “plan for failure”. It doesn’t drive the project to perform. If it is put in, and people can’t explain what it’s for, HMT like to take it out again at the stage when the final funding package is announced.
Basically, much of the budget and timeframe for a complex megaproject is an educated guess and we need to get much more comfortable with windows and ranges rather than exact dates and figures.
Surely not. I know Russia have overstretched themselves but as bad as the UK?
I won’t embarrass you further by commenting on the rest of your post.
And he was not proven sorely mistaken. His vision was EFTA/EEA membership or something mirroring it and was entirely achievable if there had been more willingness to compromise on all sides in the British camp.
Do any other countries use systems that aren't straight yes/no voting in their parliament/senate/etc? Has anybody ever proposed sensible reforms in this area?
I'm not sure that's a bad result for Starmer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2022_French_legislative_election
The left has been on course for a clear lead in the first ballot ever since Melanchon set up the alliance, but the second-round prediction at first showed Macron's party streets ahead on seats, because as the centre party they got most of the transfers. That is now less clear, suggesting that Melanchon is succeeding in making his alliance more transfer-friendly (by contrast Le Pen's FN and even more Zemmour's rec are out on the margins in the seat predictions).
At an incident, there is always someone on the spot who posts near-live footage.
Political manifestos and views on trans - not so much.
Johnson's answers were garbage, but garbage delivered with oomph and brio.
You pays your money and you takes your choice.
(None of this matters at all if the economy really tanks.)
It is a 29 year old German-Armenian living in Berlin.
#b0806 #Charlottenburg”
https://twitter.com/polizeiberlin_e/status/1534495726541103107?s=21&t=VC7iUryNdqr2uLxbhyZQgA
That’s Berlin police. Which makes the video even stranger, coz the guy in that is not 29
However an Armenian might make sense - if he was intent on slaying Turkish Berliners.
On the other hand a German media company is saying “epileptic fit”
Can't we crowd fund a couple of hookers so he can leave these hate sites alone and enjoy his holiday and let PB carry on talking about politics?
Where's my direct connection from Stratford to Whitechapel?
Where's my direct connection from Paddington low level towards Acton and beyond?
Thanks!
Hannan was in favour of EEA/EFTA membership. That does not require any form of Customs union.
BTW, reading a book which might be of interest to you: "A Morning in June", Lt. JW Evans' account of the defence of Outpost Harry, toward the end of the Korean War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outpost_Harry
Plainly written, and very good indeed.
I agree on HMT attitude and it's a function of HMG. Government always want zero risk and political certainty, and the HMT always want to cut costs, so absent a change in political leadership from No.10 on such matters I can't see things changing.
Boris is still talking about "decarbonising the grid" by 2035, when we'll be lucky to even have Sizewell C online by 2037, and all the other nuclear plants are just in a strategy at the moment and haven't even been confirmed yet.
I agree now that with hindsight an EEA with freedom of movement compromise in the light of Johnson's "oven ready" catastrophe would have been preferable. I don't ever recall in reality EEA ever being a live option, although I may be wrong
Anyway we have left, we should never rejoin, for both ours and the EU's sanity. We are where we are. Johnson has suggested today he intends to remain PM ad infinitum, so it is up to Johnson to make the policy that took him into Downing Street work for all of us, and not just for Johnson. EEA with freedom of movement would now be fantastic, but Johnson has bigger and better ideas I am sure. If he plans to be PM for the next twenty years it better work!
The group in the middle who genuinely wanted to make it work were too small to command a majority.
(The other benefit Cardinals have is voting in secret. Not good for democracy, but probably good for getting a good answer.)
The purpose of negotiating a customs union with the EU was to protect free trade the Irish border. You will note that Johnson's deal only achieved this goal by erecting trade barriers in the Irish Sea, which he is now trying to dismantle. In other words, a worthy goal that the government has failed to properly deliver.
For the first round of indicative votes:
Almost all Labour MPs voted for Ken Clarke's amendment K to negotiate a customs union as part of any deal. It was defeated by the Tories voting overwhelmingly against, with only a handful of Tories supporting it.
Almost all Labour MPs voted for Nick Boles's Common Market 2.0, ammendment D, which proposed EEA/Efta membership and a comprehensive customs arrangement. It was defeated by the Tories. Only a handful of Tory MPs supported it.
Almost all Labour MPs voted for the Labour Party's own compromise calling for close economic alignment with the EU, ammendment K. Voted down by the Tories.
The revocation amendment was supported by a minority of Labour MPs and some Tory MPs but in any case was only in case of no deal to avoid a catastrophic economic impact.
The confirmatory public vote wasn't a rerun of the referendum - it simply said the public should have a say on any Brexit deal that was negotiated. A reasonable way of breaking the parliamentary deadlock.
George Eustice's EEA/Efta deal (amendment H) received little support from any party as without anything to say on a customs union it had no solution to the Irish border. Only 65 MPs voted for it.
Yes, Labour voted for compromise. The Tories voted against.
I thought it was not good. He’s done worse than today but definitely one of his worse performances.
I don't think the EFTA countries were interested but did we pursue it in any way? In terms of Freedom of Movement, we'd have to allow FoM for the citizens of any EFTA country but can do what we like in terms of the EU.
I can appreciate the caution behind our possible re-joining from Norway, Iceland and Switzerland but let's offer some money, a home and some real influence to make EFTA attractive again.
So when the EU was looking at completing a trade deal with the US it would have given the US tariff free access to Turkish markets but would not have allowed Turkey access to US markets.
It is the difference between The Customs Union and a customs union.
A cursory glance through the wiki reminded me of the Glosters at Imjin River...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Imjin_River
I had a CSgt at RMAS who was a Gloster and he told me that their back badge was gained in Korea as the fighting was so intense that they were standing back to back with each other and needed to know who was friend and foe but wiki tells me it was awarded 150yrs earlier.
Edit: looks like it is in the mould of the We Were Soldiers, Once, and Young" type of book. Which was amazing.
Interesting account by Chris Curtis from the 2017 election.
https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1534451799511408641
...Despite it being entirely predictable, everybody panicked at the backlash to the MRP. Nadhim Zahawi called up the CEO and said he would call for his resignation if he was wrong. It became pretty clear we would all be out of a job if we were wrong now....
The poll was then spiked.
Unlike most large European countries France has a healthy birthrate by European standards; it is not an aging society like Germany or Italy.
Opinions can of course always change, but with the traditional parties having collapsed and a significant demographic of radically-inclined younger voters, it is not impossible for France in the future to elect an extremist government, whether of the right or left. Either a French Fidesz or a French SYRIZA.
As for the guy in question, he is far from a “nobody no one has ever heard of”. He’s the exact same guy who roused the Muslim mob against that poor teacher in Batley and Spen, a man who is now in hiding, a year later, with his family, in fear of his life
https://twitter.com/hartes_geld/status/1534496721895575552?s=21&t=VC7iUryNdqr2uLxbhyZQgA
He looks a bit younger here, perhaps, but 29 still seems to be pushing it close to unbelievable. Unless he eats 29 currywursts a day
Germans on Twitter are skeptical of the police report. We shall see
The Customs Union proposals were complete non starters. Membership of the Customs Union requires membership of the EU. There are strange little exceptions for some of the tiny principalities like Monaco but they were never on offer to the UK.
Nick Boles, Ken Clarkes and the Labour proposals all included Customs Union Membership. The Labour proposal was explicitly The Customs Union since it included the UK having a say in EU third party trade deals. Even though this was impossible.
These proposals were just as dishonest as you are now being in trying to misrepresent them.
Your party voted for chaos because they refused to accept the referendum result and that is exactly what they got.
Then Cameron decided to have his EU discussions before rather than after the referendum removing whole sets of compromise options before the decision was made.
Besides, asymmetry aside, hasn't it been good for Turkey? There's always a sense I get from this sort of thing of making the perfect the enemy of the good. It's one thing to point to imperfections, but quite another to say "disastrous". The reality seems to be it's good for Turkey.
✍️ Gerald Warner.
https://reaction.life/like-boris-the-tories-stand-for-nothing/
What's suitable for developing nations, and developed ones, is not necessarily the same thing.
The question is whether we can be mature enough to acknowledge this in such a way as to make our trading interactions easier and smoother once again, or continue to pretend that somehow the ‘freedom’ to make our own rules - which no-one else will follow - gives us some still entirely hypothetical advantage that will compensate for all the extra hassle, cost, delay and lost business that we have inflicted upon ourselves.
Not all the proposals called explicitly for a customs union, they were calling for a customs arrangement of some kind to deal with the Irish border question. Otherwise, how is that problem solved? Not by the current deal, which the government is currently tearing up. What solution do you have?
What compromise did Tory MPs vote for? None. Labour MPs voted for every compromise on offer, except for the one that failed to deliver a solution to the (still) main outstanding problem.
“The free movement of persons is one of the core rights guaranteed in the European Economic Area (EEA), the extended Internal Market which unites all the EU Member States and three EEA EFTA States – Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. It is perhaps the most important right for individuals, as it gives citizens of the 30 EEA countries the opportunity to live, work, establish business and study in any of these countries.”
https://www.efta.int/eea/policy-areas/persons