We already use imperial measures for many, many things in this country. As far as I know, it's no longer illegal to use them on market stalls or in butchers etc either and hasn't been for some time. Most retailers won't bother with them but as Richard says giving people more choice is hardly worth worrying about.
It's just another headline grabbing 'policy' that makes no difference (akin to the endless 'pubs will be allowed to open past 11pm for [insert holiday/sporting event here] when in fact they have been allowed to open past 11pm for more than 15 years!!)
Will they be allowed to refuse to use metric altogether under the new rules? If so, and the shop refuses to use metric, how does that provide the customer with more choice?
I don't know, and I don't think that it does. But why would a shop do that? I suspect most will use metric only or both – as they do now.
Yes, I can't imagine why a shop would do anything that might make it harder for consumers to compare prices and figure out if they are being ripped off...
@jamesjohnson252 in the chair thanks to @KekstCNC asking 2019 Tory voters in Wakefield what they think about today's politics:
Johnson: "Untrustworthy... A puppet." Starmer: “Slippery slimeball”
Listen to from 11am times.radio
I am genuinely surprised about the Starmer impression. I am not a supporter and could not bring myself to vote for him but I never got the impression he was a slippery slimeball in the (IMHO) Blair mould. If anything I just think he is rather boring and uninspiring.
The one thing that most people know about him is that he's a lawyer.
A lot people remember that he was strongly in favour of a 2nd vote, without enacting the first, as Shadow Brexit Secretary,. He wanted to demolish British democracy
Doesn’t get much slippier or slimier than that
I’ll say it again, we won’t get beyond Brexit - or beyond the toxic debate around it - until that generation of politicians closely associated with it, on both sides, are booted out of office
I think as long as the Tories are able to activate Brexit as a live issue and are positioning themseelves as 'the party of' it probably makes Hung Parliament/Labour minority their worst posdible result and Tory largest party the most likely. As such i expect them to bang that drum relentlessly into an election
Yes
Starmer was a really bad choice as leader, for this reason
OTOH it's quite possible that to get out of the EU we needed Boris, while to coherently stay the course we need a more balanced and diplomatically capable government.
Almost certainly true. I’d quite like a pragmatic PM to say, Right we’re out of the EU, we’re not going back, but we can do better than this - and then confidently put the respective choices to the British people. We are adults. We can cope
Starmer cannot do this, as I say below, because he is crippled by his previous shameful behaviour over Brexit
I really don't understand why the Tories don't just get on and replace Boris with Penny Mordaunt. Forget Jeremy Hunt and the other suits.
She's a Brexiteer. Bright and breezy with considerable oomph. Would give the grey knights a torrid time.
Obvs really.
She wears suits too. Unless just possibly you are momentarily thinking of her bathing dress, which I suppose counts as a suit, albeit a swimsuit.
Why are people getting uppity about train drivers not wanting a, god forbid, real terms pay cut?
I got 5% and I am having to reign in almost all discretionary spending.
The strike is not by the drivers - though no doubt that will come some way down the line... Much lower paid workers, who've had a pay freeze for the last couple of years.
According the the management representative yesterday, they can't negotiate, since government has yet to tell them what are their funding constraints. And of course their revenue is down by a quarter compared to pre- pandemic.
This one is very much down to government, who ought to have seen it coming. If they hadn't been so preoccupied with Big Dog's navel.
If the staff don't want to provide their labour then that's their prerogative. Nobody is forced to work for an employer they don't want to work for, anyone can resign if they aren't happy with terms and conditions.
Or they can strike, until the government decides to outlaw it. That is also their prerogative.
The point you seem to have missed is that all if this might have been prevented, has management's hands not been tied. At the moment, they can't negotiate at all.
Were you the one arguing a few days back that inflation didn't really matter ? This kind of mess is the inevitable consequence of high inflation. Groups with the power to cause disruption will use that to protect their real wages. Getting it under control is a long and painful process.
Why are management's hands tied? They have income, they have expenditure, they need to balance the two. That's what they're bloody paid to do.
If they can't balance the two, then the company should go bankrupt and close down and then everyone gets fired anyway.
Management need to do their bloody jobs.
Because they are both government controlled and government subsidised. The subsidy represents a significant part of their income - much higher thanks to the pandemic - and they are still waiting for government guidance for the future. Without which they have no basis to negotiate.
Government first needs to do its bloody job.
The pandemic is over. The Government should withdraw its subsidy entirely.
I couldn't care less what the rail staff make, they should get the fair market value for their labour. If that's £20k per annum then fine, if its £100k per annum then fine.
But every single penny of their wages should be paid from money their employers make from their customers. If the staff want more wages then either the employer needs more customers, so give good customer service etc to ensure customers keep using you, or the same amount of customers but increased revenue per customer, so either 'upsell' additional products to the same customers or in this case pass on any wages via increased fares.
The staff should get whatever the customers they're serving are prepared to pay for. Every penny should come from customers.
Shutting down the railways is perhaps the libertarian view, but I doubt you'd have the support of more than a handful of fellow eccentrics.
I don't suggest shutting down the railways, I suggest letting the market resolve prices....
Transport infrastructure, rail included, is both a public good and almost impossible to leave to the free market in any advanced economy. Rail included; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_subsidies
You're suggesting we indulge your fantasy.
The USA is a humongous continent-spanning country with a massive railway network and freight rail doesn't get a penny of taxpayer support and Amtrak receives less taxpayer support than the UK gives railways.
The government makes a profit not a loss on road transport as fuel and road tax/VED much more than cover road infrastructure, so we're self-funding too.
One morning, my taxi to take me to the train station in Charlotte was late, so I missed my train to DC. I asked when the next train was. “Tomorrow.”
One train per day!
Don’t tell me the US has good trains.
How many trains a day should there be for an interstate 399 mile journey? If that's not a frequently travelled route then yours being the last (or only) train a day is absolutely reasonable.
No reason to pay staff to run empty trains backwards and forwards, and if there is the demand then the staff can be paid.
Your route is the same distance as Liverpool to Paris, how many trains a day operate between Liverpool and Paris? Last I checked it was zero, so the USA has us beat there, it's just your expectations are unreasonable.
You praised the example of Japan earlier. Japan has a fantastic high-speed intercity Shinkansen service. There are more services than in the UK. They’re more regular. They’re cheaper. They’re quicker. And the trains are just nicer to be on. Lots and lots of people use this service. This is all possible because the Shinkansen network is on different rails to local services and there was huge Govt investment in building it.
If you build it, they will come. The Japanese government chose to make a large investment, and the country benefits in terms of improved economy, less pollution and happier people!
So, it’s not a case of saying a service is not a frequently travelled route, so there shouldn’t be any trains on it. If you invest, it will become a frequently travelled route. That will benefit the country.
The Liverpool to Paris comparison is more complicated. There isn’t a direct route, but if you change in London, there are numerous services throughout the day. There are greater challenges to a Liverpool to Paris route: namely, an international border and a sea being in the way. Still, the main reason such a route doesn’t exist is because the UK has been very slow to invest in high-speed rail services.
Your example of building a service is an investment, that is the sort of long-term structural reforms the state should be getting involved in for strategic planning.
Paying staff wages is not an investment, it is an operating expense.
The Japanese have done it right, they invest in the infrastructure while having the customers pay for the running costs. We spend decades debating any new infrastructure while politicians and unions argue over the running costs and customers get subsidised.
Our system is arse over tit. Invest in infrastructure, yes. Subsidise fares or pay staff wages, no. The state should be planning infrastructure improvements, but should have nothing to do with the RMT or fares.
Great, we are in some agreement. As we often are!
So, how do we get from here to there? (Do things differently decades ago is correct, but impractical.)
Until we’ve sorted ourselves out and made the appropriate investments in infrastructure and that has fed through in its effects — which will take a number of decades — what do we do? Because we didn’t make the investments, we have to support running costs. (Just as Japanese rail was state owned while all their investments were being made.)
1: Abolish all subsidies for rails that are at or close to capacity. These already have customers, they can pay.
2: For rails that are nowhere near capacity, find out why, do they need investment to make them usable, are they not required or wanted? Potentially subsidise quiet routes if they serve a strategic purpose.
3: Plan structural improvements like HS2 and commit the money to it, all branches of it. Where other investments are needed, make them. Connect HS1 and HS2 but outside of London (why does the interchange need to be in London?)
4: Are other connections required? Currently far too many routes just connect to London, all major cities should be linked strategically, London should not be a hub from which spokes come out.
5: Invest in motorways etc where required too.
6: Make it clear to customers and staff that they have a symbiotic relationship. Staff can only get paid if customers are present and happy. Customers must pay fair wages to staff to get the service they require. The state should not be involved in any industrial disputes, or fare rises, it should all be depoliticised.
Investment, yes. Wages, no. Wages are not investment, new track and tunnelling etc is.
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
We already use imperial measures for many, many things in this country. As far as I know, it's no longer illegal to use them on market stalls or in butchers etc either and hasn't been for some time. Most retailers won't bother with them but as Richard says giving people more choice is hardly worth worrying about.
It's just another headline grabbing 'policy' that makes no difference (akin to the endless 'pubs will be allowed to open past 11pm for [insert holiday/sporting event here] when in fact they have been allowed to open past 11pm for more than 15 years!!)
Will they be allowed to refuse to use metric altogether under the new rules? If so, and the shop refuses to use metric, how does that provide the customer with more choice?
I don't know, and I don't think that it does. But why would a shop do that? I suspect most will use metric only or both – as they do now.
Yes, I can't imagine why a shop would do anything that might make it harder for consumers to compare prices and figure out if they are being ripped off...
In the good old days of "custom and practice" certain professions charged for 16 ounces and gave 14 ounces in the pound. Think of RN ship's pursers, who were originally commercial contractors rather than administrative officers.
I'm just thinking how many folk don't know even how many ounces there are in a pound ...
@jamesjohnson252 in the chair thanks to @KekstCNC asking 2019 Tory voters in Wakefield what they think about today's politics:
Johnson: "Untrustworthy... A puppet." Starmer: “Slippery slimeball”
Listen to from 11am times.radio
I am genuinely surprised about the Starmer impression. I am not a supporter and could not bring myself to vote for him but I never got the impression he was a slippery slimeball in the (IMHO) Blair mould. If anything I just think he is rather boring and uninspiring.
The one thing that most people know about him is that he's a lawyer.
A lot people remember that he was strongly in favour of a 2nd vote, without enacting the first, as Shadow Brexit Secretary,. He wanted to demolish British democracy
Doesn’t get much slippier or slimier than that
I’ll say it again, we won’t get beyond Brexit - or beyond the toxic debate around it - until that generation of politicians closely associated with it, on both sides, are booted out of office
I think as long as the Tories are able to activate Brexit as a live issue and are positioning themseelves as 'the party of' it probably makes Hung Parliament/Labour minority their worst posdible result and Tory largest party the most likely. As such i expect them to bang that drum relentlessly into an election
Yes
Starmer was a really bad choice as leader, for this reason
OTOH it's quite possible that to get out of the EU we needed Boris, while to coherently stay the course we need a more balanced and diplomatically capable government.
Almost certainly true. I’d quite like a pragmatic PM to say, Right we’re out of the EU, we’re not going back, but we can do better than this - and then confidently put the respective choices to the British people. We are adults. We can cope
Starmer cannot do this, as I say below, because he is crippled by his previous shameful behaviour over Brexit
I really don't understand why the Tories don't just get on and replace Boris with Penny Mordaunt. Forget Jeremy Hunt and the other suits.
She's a Brexiteer. Bright and breezy with considerable oomph. Would give the grey knights a torrid time.
Obvs really.
She wears suits too. Unless just possibly you are momentarily thinking of her bathing dress, which I suppose counts as a suit, albeit a swimsuit.
Fair point. I don't think we want to encourage the political class to start wearing swimsuits in public do we? Mind fairly boggles. Penny must remain the exception.
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
I think American football and babies will forever remain imperial.
We already use imperial measures for many, many things in this country. As far as I know, it's no longer illegal to use them on market stalls or in butchers etc either and hasn't been for some time. Most retailers won't bother with them but as Richard says giving people more choice is hardly worth worrying about.
It's just another headline grabbing 'policy' that makes no difference (akin to the endless 'pubs will be allowed to open past 11pm for [insert holiday/sporting event here] when in fact they have been allowed to open past 11pm for more than 15 years!!)
Will they be allowed to refuse to use metric altogether under the new rules? If so, and the shop refuses to use metric, how does that provide the customer with more choice?
I don't know, and I don't think that it does. But why would a shop do that? I suspect most will use metric only or both – as they do now.
Yes, I can't imagine why a shop would do anything that might make it harder for consumers to compare prices and figure out if they are being ripped off...
In the good old days of "custom and practice" certain professions charged for 16 ounces and gave 14 ounces in the pound. Think of RN ship's pursers, who were originally commercial contractors rather than administrative officers.
I'm just thinking how many folk don't know even how many ounces there are in a pound ...
14 lbs in a stone is a good one to follow the 16 oz in a pound. It's probably good for the brain this sort of thing. I'm sure metrication has led to a reduction in IQs across the board. Einstein, I'm sure, was a fan of imperial measures.
What’s the PB sitrep on war in Ukraine? Our national media are starting to give us pessimism on how it’s going now and likely to end up? ☹️
There have been no changes in the frontline for two days in a row. We're increasingly close to a stalemate.
If the pace of Western supplies of equipment and ammunition can be maintained or increased then I am confident Ukraine can prevail. However, that's a big ask, and supplies to Ukraine seem to be adhoc and piecemeal. They need more consistent supplies to replace losses and equip new units.
I can't help but feel that there were some in the west who were all for supporting Ukraine so that they could fight Russia to a standstill. But now that's largely been achieved they just want the war over and think sending weapons to Ukraine merely encourages them to fight on and regain territory.
We already use imperial measures for many, many things in this country. As far as I know, it's no longer illegal to use them on market stalls or in butchers etc either and hasn't been for some time. Most retailers won't bother with them but as Richard says giving people more choice is hardly worth worrying about.
It's just another headline grabbing 'policy' that makes no difference (akin to the endless 'pubs will be allowed to open past 11pm for [insert holiday/sporting event here] when in fact they have been allowed to open past 11pm for more than 15 years!!)
Will they be allowed to refuse to use metric altogether under the new rules? If so, and the shop refuses to use metric, how does that provide the customer with more choice?
I don't know, and I don't think that it does. But why would a shop do that? I suspect most will use metric only or both – as they do now.
Yes, I can't imagine why a shop would do anything that might make it harder for consumers to compare prices and figure out if they are being ripped off...
In the good old days of "custom and practice" certain professions charged for 16 ounces and gave 14 ounces in the pound. Think of RN ship's pursers, who were originally commercial contractors rather than administrative officers.
I'm just thinking how many folk don't know even how many ounces there are in a pound ...
I know that it is either 16 or 20. Or is that pints? Or does it depend on whether we are in Britain or America? Pounds in a stone? No idea. This is all just nostalgia porn for people who want to cosplay WW2.
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
I think American football and babies will forever remain imperial.
How long do you think it would take a group of American footballers to notice a 100m long field marked up in metres? Don’t forget the 10m long chain, to measure a contentious 1st down.
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
We already use imperial measures for many, many things in this country. As far as I know, it's no longer illegal to use them on market stalls or in butchers etc either and hasn't been for some time. Most retailers won't bother with them but as Richard says giving people more choice is hardly worth worrying about.
It's just another headline grabbing 'policy' that makes no difference (akin to the endless 'pubs will be allowed to open past 11pm for [insert holiday/sporting event here] when in fact they have been allowed to open past 11pm for more than 15 years!!)
Will they be allowed to refuse to use metric altogether under the new rules? If so, and the shop refuses to use metric, how does that provide the customer with more choice?
I don't know, and I don't think that it does. But why would a shop do that? I suspect most will use metric only or both – as they do now.
Yes, I can't imagine why a shop would do anything that might make it harder for consumers to compare prices and figure out if they are being ripped off...
In the good old days of "custom and practice" certain professions charged for 16 ounces and gave 14 ounces in the pound. Think of RN ship's pursers, who were originally commercial contractors rather than administrative officers.
I'm just thinking how many folk don't know even how many ounces there are in a pound ...
14 lbs in a stone is a good one to follow the 16 oz in a pound. It's probably good for the brain this sort of thing. I'm sure metrication has led to a reduction in IQs across the board. Einstein, I'm sure, was a fan of imperial measures.
Prof Einstein was born in Wuerttemberg in 1879; it had already been incorporated into the Kaiserreich, which went metric in 1872.
One of the more bizarre headlines, and indeed stories. The Beeb says that 'Ryanair Afrikaans test: Airline stands by South African language quiz.' Apparently if you don't speak Afrikaans your S. African passport can't be genuine.
We already use imperial measures for many, many things in this country. As far as I know, it's no longer illegal to use them on market stalls or in butchers etc either and hasn't been for some time. Most retailers won't bother with them but as Richard says giving people more choice is hardly worth worrying about.
It's just another headline grabbing 'policy' that makes no difference (akin to the endless 'pubs will be allowed to open past 11pm for [insert holiday/sporting event here] when in fact they have been allowed to open past 11pm for more than 15 years!!)
Will they be allowed to refuse to use metric altogether under the new rules? If so, and the shop refuses to use metric, how does that provide the customer with more choice?
I don't know, and I don't think that it does. But why would a shop do that? I suspect most will use metric only or both – as they do now.
Yes, I can't imagine why a shop would do anything that might make it harder for consumers to compare prices and figure out if they are being ripped off...
In the good old days of "custom and practice" certain professions charged for 16 ounces and gave 14 ounces in the pound. Think of RN ship's pursers, who were originally commercial contractors rather than administrative officers.
I'm just thinking how many folk don't know even how many ounces there are in a pound ...
I know that it is either 16 or 20. Or is that pints? Or does it depend on whether we are in Britain or America? Pounds in a stone? No idea. This is all just nostalgia porn for people who want to cosplay WW2.
I have no interest in this specifically one way or another. But does everything have to be done just for economic benefit? Is it not worth repealing rules simply because they are pointless interference or serve no useful purpose?
Its the same with the debate about imperial measures. If the Government came along and said you MUST use imperial measures either solely or alongside metric then I would be right there with the strongest Remainer protesting against it. But simply saying you may use them if you like and repealing the law that prohibits their usage seems reasonable to me. Perhaps a bit pointless to most but I have always thought banning stuff for the sake of it to be pretty offensive behaviour, whether from a UK Government or the EU.
It's not just for the sake of it, though. There is a rational argument that allowing non-standard measures alongside standard ones opens the door slightly towards mischief that harms consumers. You can accept or reject that argument as you see fit, but saying it's just for the sake of it isn't right.
Metric measures were made legal in the UK in 1896. Most imperial measures were made illegal in 2000. So the system worked just fine for over a century. So yes it was changed just for the sake of it.
What if a shop refuses to sell in metric? If I ask for a kilo of bananas and the shop refuses to do that because they don't recognise metric measurements is that okay? If shops want to measure things in stones or perches or moon dust and add to their costs I don't care as long as they don't refuse to measure things in units that I can understand.
I think that is fair enough. In an era of electronic measurements it is a matter of moments to switch between imperial and metric at the customers request. Indeed every set of household scales I have ever had does exactly that.
This is all about letting people choose for themselves. I work in both imperial and metric continuously and am happy with either and both.
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
I have no interest in this specifically one way or another. But does everything have to be done just for economic benefit? Is it not worth repealing rules simply because they are pointless interference or serve no useful purpose?
Its the same with the debate about imperial measures. If the Government came along and said you MUST use imperial measures either solely or alongside metric then I would be right there with the strongest Remainer protesting against it. But simply saying you may use them if you like and repealing the law that prohibits their usage seems reasonable to me. Perhaps a bit pointless to most but I have always thought banning stuff for the sake of it to be pretty offensive behaviour, whether from a UK Government or the EU.
It's not just for the sake of it, though. There is a rational argument that allowing non-standard measures alongside standard ones opens the door slightly towards mischief that harms consumers. You can accept or reject that argument as you see fit, but saying it's just for the sake of it isn't right.
Metric measures were made legal in the UK in 1896. Most imperial measures were made illegal in 2000. So the system worked just fine for over a century. So yes it was changed just for the sake of it.
I thought that Imperial measures could still be used as a supplementary indicator.
I have no interest in this specifically one way or another. But does everything have to be done just for economic benefit? Is it not worth repealing rules simply because they are pointless interference or serve no useful purpose?
Its the same with the debate about imperial measures. If the Government came along and said you MUST use imperial measures either solely or alongside metric then I would be right there with the strongest Remainer protesting against it. But simply saying you may use them if you like and repealing the law that prohibits their usage seems reasonable to me. Perhaps a bit pointless to most but I have always thought banning stuff for the sake of it to be pretty offensive behaviour, whether from a UK Government or the EU.
It's not just for the sake of it, though. There is a rational argument that allowing non-standard measures alongside standard ones opens the door slightly towards mischief that harms consumers. You can accept or reject that argument as you see fit, but saying it's just for the sake of it isn't right.
Metric measures were made legal in the UK in 1896. Most imperial measures were made illegal in 2000. So the system worked just fine for over a century. So yes it was changed just for the sake of it.
I thought that Imperial measures could still be used as a supplementary indicator.
Why are people getting uppity about train drivers not wanting a, god forbid, real terms pay cut?
I got 5% and I am having to reign in almost all discretionary spending.
The strike is not by the drivers - though no doubt that will come some way down the line... Much lower paid workers, who've had a pay freeze for the last couple of years.
According the the management representative yesterday, they can't negotiate, since government has yet to tell them what are their funding constraints. And of course their revenue is down by a quarter compared to pre- pandemic.
This one is very much down to government, who ought to have seen it coming. If they hadn't been so preoccupied with Big Dog's navel.
If the staff don't want to provide their labour then that's their prerogative. Nobody is forced to work for an employer they don't want to work for, anyone can resign if they aren't happy with terms and conditions.
Or they can strike, until the government decides to outlaw it. That is also their prerogative.
The point you seem to have missed is that all if this might have been prevented, has management's hands not been tied. At the moment, they can't negotiate at all.
Were you the one arguing a few days back that inflation didn't really matter ? This kind of mess is the inevitable consequence of high inflation. Groups with the power to cause disruption will use that to protect their real wages. Getting it under control is a long and painful process.
Why are management's hands tied? They have income, they have expenditure, they need to balance the two. That's what they're bloody paid to do.
If they can't balance the two, then the company should go bankrupt and close down and then everyone gets fired anyway.
Management need to do their bloody jobs.
Because they are both government controlled and government subsidised. The subsidy represents a significant part of their income - much higher thanks to the pandemic - and they are still waiting for government guidance for the future. Without which they have no basis to negotiate.
Government first needs to do its bloody job.
The pandemic is over. The Government should withdraw its subsidy entirely.
I couldn't care less what the rail staff make, they should get the fair market value for their labour. If that's £20k per annum then fine, if its £100k per annum then fine.
But every single penny of their wages should be paid from money their employers make from their customers. If the staff want more wages then either the employer needs more customers, so give good customer service etc to ensure customers keep using you, or the same amount of customers but increased revenue per customer, so either 'upsell' additional products to the same customers or in this case pass on any wages via increased fares.
The staff should get whatever the customers they're serving are prepared to pay for. Every penny should come from customers.
Shutting down the railways is perhaps the libertarian view, but I doubt you'd have the support of more than a handful of fellow eccentrics.
I don't suggest shutting down the railways, I suggest letting the market resolve prices....
Transport infrastructure, rail included, is both a public good and almost impossible to leave to the free market in any advanced economy. Rail included; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_subsidies
You're suggesting we indulge your fantasy.
The USA is a humongous continent-spanning country with a massive railway network and freight rail doesn't get a penny of taxpayer support and Amtrak receives less taxpayer support than the UK gives railways.
The government makes a profit not a loss on road transport as fuel and road tax/VED much more than cover road infrastructure, so we're self-funding too.
One morning, my taxi to take me to the train station in Charlotte was late, so I missed my train to DC. I asked when the next train was. “Tomorrow.”
One train per day!
Don’t tell me the US has good trains.
How many trains a day should there be for an interstate 399 mile journey? If that's not a frequently travelled route then yours being the last (or only) train a day is absolutely reasonable.
No reason to pay staff to run empty trains backwards and forwards, and if there is the demand then the staff can be paid.
Your route is the same distance as Liverpool to Paris, how many trains a day operate between Liverpool and Paris? Last I checked it was zero, so the USA has us beat there, it's just your expectations are unreasonable.
You praised the example of Japan earlier. Japan has a fantastic high-speed intercity Shinkansen service. There are more services than in the UK. They’re more regular. They’re cheaper. They’re quicker. And the trains are just nicer to be on. Lots and lots of people use this service. This is all possible because the Shinkansen network is on different rails to local services and there was huge Govt investment in building it.
If you build it, they will come. The Japanese government chose to make a large investment, and the country benefits in terms of improved economy, less pollution and happier people!
So, it’s not a case of saying a service is not a frequently travelled route, so there shouldn’t be any trains on it. If you invest, it will become a frequently travelled route. That will benefit the country.
The Liverpool to Paris comparison is more complicated. There isn’t a direct route, but if you change in London, there are numerous services throughout the day. There are greater challenges to a Liverpool to Paris route: namely, an international border and a sea being in the way. Still, the main reason such a route doesn’t exist is because the UK has been very slow to invest in high-speed rail services.
Your example of building a service is an investment, that is the sort of long-term structural reforms the state should be getting involved in for strategic planning.
Paying staff wages is not an investment, it is an operating expense.
The Japanese have done it right, they invest in the infrastructure while having the customers pay for the running costs. We spend decades debating any new infrastructure while politicians and unions argue over the running costs and customers get subsidised.
Our system is arse over tit. Invest in infrastructure, yes. Subsidise fares or pay staff wages, no. The state should be planning infrastructure improvements, but should have nothing to do with the RMT or fares.
Great, we are in some agreement. As we often are!
So, how do we get from here to there? (Do things differently decades ago is correct, but impractical.)
Until we’ve sorted ourselves out and made the appropriate investments in infrastructure and that has fed through in its effects — which will take a number of decades — what do we do? Because we didn’t make the investments, we have to support running costs. (Just as Japanese rail was state owned while all their investments were being made.)
1: Abolish all subsidies for rails that are at or close to capacity. These already have customers, they can pay.
2: For rails that are nowhere near capacity, find out why, do they need investment to make them usable, are they not required or wanted? Potentially subsidise quiet routes if they serve a strategic purpose.
3: Plan structural improvements like HS2 and commit the money to it, all branches of it. Where other investments are needed, make them. Connect HS1 and HS2 but outside of London (why does the interchange need to be in London?)
4: Are other connections required? Currently far too many routes just connect to London, all major cities should be linked strategically, London should not be a hub from which spokes come out.
5: Invest in motorways etc where required too.
6: Make it clear to customers and staff that they have a symbiotic relationship. Staff can only get paid if customers are present and happy. Customers must pay fair wages to staff to get the service they require. The state should not be involved in any industrial disputes, or fare rises, it should all be depoliticised.
Investment, yes. Wages, no. Wages are not investment, new track and tunnelling etc is.
This is a bold strategy with much going for it.
It is a very long way from what the government (or the previous Labour administration) is doing (did).
I think to solve the problem of the impending rail strikes, we need to deal with the current situation as it is. If we can transition to your model over subsequent years, great.
We already use imperial measures for many, many things in this country. As far as I know, it's no longer illegal to use them on market stalls or in butchers etc either and hasn't been for some time. Most retailers won't bother with them but as Richard says giving people more choice is hardly worth worrying about.
It's just another headline grabbing 'policy' that makes no difference (akin to the endless 'pubs will be allowed to open past 11pm for [insert holiday/sporting event here] when in fact they have been allowed to open past 11pm for more than 15 years!!)
Will they be allowed to refuse to use metric altogether under the new rules? If so, and the shop refuses to use metric, how does that provide the customer with more choice?
I don't know, and I don't think that it does. But why would a shop do that? I suspect most will use metric only or both – as they do now.
Yes, I can't imagine why a shop would do anything that might make it harder for consumers to compare prices and figure out if they are being ripped off...
In the good old days of "custom and practice" certain professions charged for 16 ounces and gave 14 ounces in the pound. Think of RN ship's pursers, who were originally commercial contractors rather than administrative officers.
I'm just thinking how many folk don't know even how many ounces there are in a pound ...
I know that it is either 16 or 20. Or is that pints? Or does it depend on whether we are in Britain or America? Pounds in a stone? No idea. This is all just nostalgia porn for people who want to cosplay WW2.
I like some imperial measurements, and I think there are some situations where they are genuinely more useful than metric measurements, such as home-baking. Often metric measurements encourage excessive precision, where the size of the unit in the imperial system is more suited to the context.
Consider the weight of a person. Bathroom scales will measure this to a tenth of a kilo. And so one can observe that a person's weight varies by more than a kilo over the course of a day. If my weight is up or down by a kilo from one day to the next is not much of a sign of a true change in weight. There's little meaningful sense in which you can say that a person weighs 103kg rather than 102kg.
By contrast a stone, about 6.4kg, is a unit of weight which is large enough that the difference between 16 and 17 stone is significant, that you would notice in the fit of clothes.
This is the sort of example that leads me to conclude that imperial measurements are more natural and easier for people to use on a day-to-day basis, but that metric measurements are generally more suitable for scientific use.
Edit: by which I mean to say that I don't take kindly to being dismissed as a WWII cosplayer. So rude.
One of the more bizarre headlines, and indeed stories. The Beeb says that 'Ryanair Afrikaans test: Airline stands by South African language quiz.' Apparently if you don't speak Afrikaans your S. African passport can't be genuine.
The equivalent would be the Saffers introducing a Welsh language test for Brits.
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
This is interesting, downthread someone furious Nandy didn’t back the strike, upthread someone furious she did back the strike. 😆
Boris Johnson and his government back this strike becuase they are all for high wage economy, Labour have to tak to the Tories high wage for everyone approach is the smart politics.
@jamesjohnson252 in the chair thanks to @KekstCNC asking 2019 Tory voters in Wakefield what they think about today's politics:
Johnson: "Untrustworthy... A puppet." Starmer: “Slippery slimeball”
Listen to from 11am times.radio
I am genuinely surprised about the Starmer impression. I am not a supporter and could not bring myself to vote for him but I never got the impression he was a slippery slimeball in the (IMHO) Blair mould. If anything I just think he is rather boring and uninspiring.
The one thing that most people know about him is that he's a lawyer.
A lot people remember that he was strongly in favour of a 2nd vote, without enacting the first, as Shadow Brexit Secretary,. He wanted to demolish British democracy
Doesn’t get much slippier or slimier than that
I’ll say it again, we won’t get beyond Brexit - or beyond the toxic debate around it - until that generation of politicians closely associated with it, on both sides, are booted out of office
I think as long as the Tories are able to activate Brexit as a live issue and are positioning themseelves as 'the party of' it probably makes Hung Parliament/Labour minority their worst posdible result and Tory largest party the most likely. As such i expect them to bang that drum relentlessly into an election
Yes
Starmer was a really bad choice as leader, for this reason
OTOH it's quite possible that to get out of the EU we needed Boris, while to coherently stay the course we need a more balanced and diplomatically capable government.
Almost certainly true. I’d quite like a pragmatic PM to say, Right we’re out of the EU, we’re not going back, but we can do better than this - and then confidently put the respective choices to the British people. We are adults. We can cope
Starmer cannot do this, as I say below, because he is crippled by his previous shameful behaviour over Brexit
You are literally the only person in Britain for whom it has salience. I've never seen anybody else ever mention it. Not even the most fucked-in-the-head leavers on here nevermind normal people who don't follow politics obssessively.
No. There was a PBer last night who advocated a second referendum once the actual terms were known. @Leon was his name.
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
how?
60 minutes in an hour, dual carriageway/motorway speed limit is 70mph, so average speed with local roads at each end will be close to 60. A journey of 180 miles will therefore take three hours ish, plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours. No thinking needed for the calculation.
'They described Starmer as "weak", a "slippery slimeball", "a people pleaser", having "no vision" and "someone who opposes for opposition's sake'.
Apart from a 'slippery slimeball' which I do not recognise, the rest is accurate and his performance at PMQs yesterday was panned across the media
I do not know if labour recognise they have a 'Starmer' problem and while he may well be a lawyer he is not a politician and we are seeing the public express a plague on all your houses
I expect the 148 will see Boris off before GE 24 and I do think with a new leader the conservatives could actually win yet again
Of course if Durham Police intervene, which I do nor expect, a whole new political scene immediately opens
I refer this mistaken Gentleman to the post I made some moments ago 😆
On this I think we should quietly agree to disagree, but I do like the Gentleman
That Boris is still there at the election and that the Tories lose the election is totally obvious now, there are more thoughtful things to discuss - such as on what platform do the Tories regain power on anytime soon? Boris hard Brexit with **** business? Or If in the post Boris situation they repudiate the Boris era, attack the Boris era as in Conservative especially fiscally, how much of Boris Brexit deal will Tories be attacking? Do they hold the new voters Brexit Boris brought along?
To what degree has this Boris era damaged the Tory brand for years to come?
Partygate damaged Boris, as far as brexit, covid and Ukraine he has a pass mark from me
Indeed, all the evidence is partygate 'ratnered' his personal brand and a new leader facing Starmer would have a good chance of a majority
Not based on the latest focus groups. The Tory brand is damaged after they voted to keep Johnson.
Yes but the 148 will terminate his premiership in due course
It’s not happening Big G. The chance is gone.
Tories would have lost this election anyway against Starmer’s Labour even without Partygate. They weren’t really what the country wanted in 2019 - the country voted like Decembrist’s fighting in the patriotic war.
I have no interest in this specifically one way or another. But does everything have to be done just for economic benefit? Is it not worth repealing rules simply because they are pointless interference or serve no useful purpose?
Its the same with the debate about imperial measures. If the Government came along and said you MUST use imperial measures either solely or alongside metric then I would be right there with the strongest Remainer protesting against it. But simply saying you may use them if you like and repealing the law that prohibits their usage seems reasonable to me. Perhaps a bit pointless to most but I have always thought banning stuff for the sake of it to be pretty offensive behaviour, whether from a UK Government or the EU.
It's not just for the sake of it, though. There is a rational argument that allowing non-standard measures alongside standard ones opens the door slightly towards mischief that harms consumers. You can accept or reject that argument as you see fit, but saying it's just for the sake of it isn't right.
Metric measures were made legal in the UK in 1896. Most imperial measures were made illegal in 2000. So the system worked just fine for over a century. So yes it was changed just for the sake of it.
I thought that Imperial measures could still be used as a supplementary indicator.
Can you explain in what sense Imperial measures were made illegal in 2000?
Try telling that to those who were prosecuted for selling in imperial measures.
They were prosecuted for not showing metric equivalents or for having scales that couldn’t do metric equivalents. They could’ve continued using Imperial measures as long as they did that. They were being bloody minded.
@jamesjohnson252 in the chair thanks to @KekstCNC asking 2019 Tory voters in Wakefield what they think about today's politics:
Johnson: "Untrustworthy... A puppet." Starmer: “Slippery slimeball”
Listen to from 11am times.radio
I am genuinely surprised about the Starmer impression. I am not a supporter and could not bring myself to vote for him but I never got the impression he was a slippery slimeball in the (IMHO) Blair mould. If anything I just think he is rather boring and uninspiring.
The one thing that most people know about him is that he's a lawyer.
A lot people remember that he was strongly in favour of a 2nd vote, without enacting the first, as Shadow Brexit Secretary,. He wanted to demolish British democracy
Doesn’t get much slippier or slimier than that
I’ll say it again, we won’t get beyond Brexit - or beyond the toxic debate around it - until that generation of politicians closely associated with it, on both sides, are booted out of office
I think as long as the Tories are able to activate Brexit as a live issue and are positioning themseelves as 'the party of' it probably makes Hung Parliament/Labour minority their worst posdible result and Tory largest party the most likely. As such i expect them to bang that drum relentlessly into an election
Yes
Starmer was a really bad choice as leader, for this reason
OTOH it's quite possible that to get out of the EU we needed Boris, while to coherently stay the course we need a more balanced and diplomatically capable government.
Almost certainly true. I’d quite like a pragmatic PM to say, Right we’re out of the EU, we’re not going back, but we can do better than this - and then confidently put the respective choices to the British people. We are adults. We can cope
Starmer cannot do this, as I say below, because he is crippled by his previous shameful behaviour over Brexit
I really don't understand why the Tories don't just get on and replace Boris with Penny Mordaunt. Forget Jeremy Hunt and the other suits.
She's a Brexiteer. Bright and breezy with considerable oomph. Would give the grey knights a torrid time.
Obvs really.
She certainly seems to get the juices flowing in a section of the PB commentariat.
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
how?
60 minutes in an hour, dual carriageway/motorway speed limit is 70mph, so average speed with local roads at each end will be close to 60. A journey of 180 miles will therefore take three hours ish, plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours. No thinking needed for the calculation.
100kmh is around 62mph though isn't it? So 300km takes 3 hours.
We already use imperial measures for many, many things in this country. As far as I know, it's no longer illegal to use them on market stalls or in butchers etc either and hasn't been for some time. Most retailers won't bother with them but as Richard says giving people more choice is hardly worth worrying about.
It's just another headline grabbing 'policy' that makes no difference (akin to the endless 'pubs will be allowed to open past 11pm for [insert holiday/sporting event here] when in fact they have been allowed to open past 11pm for more than 15 years!!)
Will they be allowed to refuse to use metric altogether under the new rules? If so, and the shop refuses to use metric, how does that provide the customer with more choice?
I don't know, and I don't think that it does. But why would a shop do that? I suspect most will use metric only or both – as they do now.
Yes, I can't imagine why a shop would do anything that might make it harder for consumers to compare prices and figure out if they are being ripped off...
In the good old days of "custom and practice" certain professions charged for 16 ounces and gave 14 ounces in the pound. Think of RN ship's pursers, who were originally commercial contractors rather than administrative officers.
I'm just thinking how many folk don't know even how many ounces there are in a pound ...
I know that it is either 16 or 20. Or is that pints? Or does it depend on whether we are in Britain or America? Pounds in a stone? No idea. This is all just nostalgia porn for people who want to cosplay WW2.
I like some imperial measurements, and I think there are some situations where they are genuinely more useful than metric measurements, such as home-baking. Often metric measurements encourage excessive precision, where the size of the unit in the imperial system is more suited to the context.
Consider the weight of a person. Bathroom scales will measure this to a tenth of a kilo. And so one can observe that a person's weight varies by more than a kilo over the course of a day. If my weight is up or down by a kilo from one day to the next is not much of a sign of a true change in weight. There's little meaningful sense in which you can say that a person weighs 103kg rather than 102kg.
By contrast a stone, about 6.4kg, is a unit of weight which is large enough that the difference between 16 and 17 stone is significant, that you would notice in the fit of clothes.
This is the sort of example that leads me to conclude that imperial measurements are more natural and easier for people to use on a day-to-day basis, but that metric measurements are generally more suitable for scientific use.
Yes. And we should insist the metric lot say kilogram rather than kilo. And pronounce kilometres properly.
Given Birbalsingh gets lots of pupils from working class backgrounds at her free school into Oxbridge and the Russell Group I expect taken out of context
She might be about to- the sixth form at MCS was the last bit to open- I can't remember if the current batch is their first A Level cohort or second. Certainly the first batch to do A Level exams.
Also, whilst the main school takes all-comers, the sixth form describes itself thusly:
Michaela is a selective Sixth Form for high-achieving, highly-driven students.
Are you on track to do really well at GCSE, securing an average of at least grade 7 across your best seven subjects?
"selective"
Selective based on children with the drive and ambition to do better, but from a background and area that has not facilitated that in the past. It’s all about unlocking these individuals potential
What I was thinking is that those children have - on that criterion - already had that potential unlocked. "on track to do really well at GCSE, securing an average of at least grade 7 across your best seven" is already doiong well. I'm actually wondering how far this Sixth Form is predating on other schools and claiming credit for their work.
It’s a little misleading. Although the A level group is open, the majority of pupils are from the GCSE classes at Michaela. So it’s really a continuation of the process of helping them achieve in a set up where they have flourished
One of the more bizarre headlines, and indeed stories. The Beeb says that 'Ryanair Afrikaans test: Airline stands by South African language quiz.' Apparently if you don't speak Afrikaans your S. African passport can't be genuine.
The equivalent would be the Saffers introducing a Welsh language test for Brits.
It's Ryanair's idea. Apparently airlines are fined if passengers arrive with fake passports, and there's alleged to a problem with Saffer ones. So the equivalent would be a test in Anglo-Saxon
Erstwhile Remainers, or regretful Leavers, arguing the toss about percentage points of GDP and customs forms are still missing the fundamental choice on identity that was made.
We chose an identity that doesn't exist.
That is why there is perpetual angst and the matter will not rest.
What?? Britishness does notr exist? Nor Englishness?
Go jump in a lake in Brussels. No wonder you guys lost. You would lose again. The mask just keeps slipping
My wife and I have British Passports
We have always been British ("subjects" let us not forget). Although many of us liked to think of ourselves as *also* citizens of the EU and the benefits that brought. 51% of the electorate were gulled into throwing that away on our behalf with nothing better (such as EEA) to replace it in order to advance the career ego of Boris Johnson and to give right wing nutjobs like @Leon something to jerk off about when he is not watching PornHub.
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
how?
60 minutes in an hour, dual carriageway/motorway speed limit is 70mph, so average speed with local roads at each end will be close to 60. A journey of 180 miles will therefore take three hours ish, plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours. No thinking needed for the calculation.
Just make sure all your journeys are in multiples of 60 miles?
Having just returned from Europe where a typical average speed on the motorways is 120 km/h, the same approach works if you divide by two.
I have no interest in this specifically one way or another. But does everything have to be done just for economic benefit? Is it not worth repealing rules simply because they are pointless interference or serve no useful purpose?
Its the same with the debate about imperial measures. If the Government came along and said you MUST use imperial measures either solely or alongside metric then I would be right there with the strongest Remainer protesting against it. But simply saying you may use them if you like and repealing the law that prohibits their usage seems reasonable to me. Perhaps a bit pointless to most but I have always thought banning stuff for the sake of it to be pretty offensive behaviour, whether from a UK Government or the EU.
It's not just for the sake of it, though. There is a rational argument that allowing non-standard measures alongside standard ones opens the door slightly towards mischief that harms consumers. You can accept or reject that argument as you see fit, but saying it's just for the sake of it isn't right.
Metric measures were made legal in the UK in 1896. Most imperial measures were made illegal in 2000. So the system worked just fine for over a century. So yes it was changed just for the sake of it.
I thought that Imperial measures could still be used as a supplementary indicator.
Can you explain in what sense Imperial measures were made illegal in 2000?
Try telling that to those who were prosecuted for selling in imperial measures.
They were prosecuted for not showing metric equivalents or for having scales that couldn’t do metric equivalents. They could’ve continued using Imperial measures as long as they did that. They were being bloody minded.
Exactly. They were denying choice to customers. They could have continued to use imperial alongside metric but they chose not to because they were being wankers. They probably misused apostrophes too.
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
If the cost of living rises by 10%, I think it's perfectly legitimate to use whatever means at your disposal to try to secure an equivalent pay rise.
In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
how?
60 minutes in an hour, dual carriageway/motorway speed limit is 70mph, so average speed with local roads at each end will be close to 60. A journey of 180 miles will therefore take three hours ish, plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours. No thinking needed for the calculation.
Heh, that doesn't sound like it'll work around here. Not so many dual carriageways, no motorways, plenty of tractors chugging along at a sedate 60kmh
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
how?
60 minutes in an hour, dual carriageway/motorway speed limit is 70mph, so average speed with local roads at each end will be close to 60. A journey of 180 miles will therefore take three hours ish, plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours. No thinking needed for the calculation.
The calculation is exactly the same with kilometres so having it in miles isn't really advantageous.
100 km/h, average motorway speed is around 120 km/h (yes, that's slightly above the speed limit but let's be fair most people do speed a bit on the motorway), journey of 300 km will take roughly 3 hours plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours.
I don't really care what measurements we use on the roads as long as it isn't a hodge podge. The 300, 200 and 100 yard signs you see on a motorway are actually spaced 300, 200 and 100 metres from the exit due to sign spacing rules which is strange enough.
Erstwhile Remainers, or regretful Leavers, arguing the toss about percentage points of GDP and customs forms are still missing the fundamental choice on identity that was made.
We chose an identity that doesn't exist.
That is why there is perpetual angst and the matter will not rest.
What?? Britishness does notr exist? Nor Englishness?
Go jump in a lake in Brussels. No wonder you guys lost. You would lose again. The mask just keeps slipping
My wife and I have British Passports
We have always been British ("subjects" let us not forget). Although many of us liked to think of ourselves as *also* citizens of the EU and the benefits that brought. 51% of the electorate were gulled into throwing that away on our behalf with nothing better (such as EEA) to replace it in order to advance the career ego of Boris Johnson and to give right wing nutjobs like @Leon something to jerk off about when he is not watching PornHub.
There wasn't much evidence of that before the referendum. And if there were so many benefits, why wasn't the Remain campaign able to mount a positive pro-EU campaign?
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
how?
60 minutes in an hour, dual carriageway/motorway speed limit is 70mph, so average speed with local roads at each end will be close to 60. A journey of 180 miles will therefore take three hours ish, plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours. No thinking needed for the calculation.
100kmh is around 62mph though isn't it? So 300km takes 3 hours.
You know the conversion to miles per hour is completely superfluous? 300km at 100km/h takes 3 hours because 300/100 = 3.
We already use imperial measures for many, many things in this country. As far as I know, it's no longer illegal to use them on market stalls or in butchers etc either and hasn't been for some time. Most retailers won't bother with them but as Richard says giving people more choice is hardly worth worrying about.
It's just another headline grabbing 'policy' that makes no difference (akin to the endless 'pubs will be allowed to open past 11pm for [insert holiday/sporting event here] when in fact they have been allowed to open past 11pm for more than 15 years!!)
Will they be allowed to refuse to use metric altogether under the new rules? If so, and the shop refuses to use metric, how does that provide the customer with more choice?
I don't know, and I don't think that it does. But why would a shop do that? I suspect most will use metric only or both – as they do now.
Yes, I can't imagine why a shop would do anything that might make it harder for consumers to compare prices and figure out if they are being ripped off...
In the good old days of "custom and practice" certain professions charged for 16 ounces and gave 14 ounces in the pound. Think of RN ship's pursers, who were originally commercial contractors rather than administrative officers.
I'm just thinking how many folk don't know even how many ounces there are in a pound ...
14 lbs in a stone is a good one to follow the 16 oz in a pound. It's probably good for the brain this sort of thing. I'm sure metrication has led to a reduction in IQs across the board. Einstein, I'm sure, was a fan of imperial measures.
Prof Einstein was born in Wuerttemberg in 1879; it had already been incorporated into the Kaiserreich, which went metric in 1872.
Yep. And look what happened to the Kaiserreich. And AE, sensibly, didn't hang around there too long either. My point proved, I think?
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
how?
60 minutes in an hour, dual carriageway/motorway speed limit is 70mph, so average speed with local roads at each end will be close to 60. A journey of 180 miles will therefore take three hours ish, plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours. No thinking needed for the calculation.
The calculation is exactly the same with kilometres so having it in miles isn't really advantageous.
100 km/h, average motorway speed is around 120 km/h (yes, that's slightly above the speed limit but let's be fair most people do speed a bit on the motorway), journey of 300 km will take roughly 3 hours plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours.
As long as it's not raining, 130 km/h is the speed limit in much of Europe. So 120 km/h actually works pretty well. In general they're not nearly as congested as our motorways (particularly where there are tolls) and a lot more drivers go a lot faster than the speed limit than here (except perhaps in France where average speed checks are more common)
One of the more bizarre headlines, and indeed stories. The Beeb says that 'Ryanair Afrikaans test: Airline stands by South African language quiz.' Apparently if you don't speak Afrikaans your S. African passport can't be genuine.
The equivalent would be the Saffers introducing a Welsh language test for Brits.
It's Ryanair's idea. Apparently airlines are fined if passengers arrive with fake passports, and there's alleged to a problem with Saffer ones. So the equivalent would be a test in Anglo-Saxon
Alternatively, have a good look at the passports when passengers check in. It’s always been the case, that a passenger denied entry at their destination is the airline’s problem.
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
how?
60 minutes in an hour, dual carriageway/motorway speed limit is 70mph, so average speed with local roads at each end will be close to 60. A journey of 180 miles will therefore take three hours ish, plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours. No thinking needed for the calculation.
Just make sure all your journeys are in multiples of 60 miles?
Having just returned from Europe where a typical average speed on the motorways is 120 km/h, the same approach works if you divide by two.
Pretty sure people are capable of dealing with the remainder.
@jamesjohnson252 in the chair thanks to @KekstCNC asking 2019 Tory voters in Wakefield what they think about today's politics:
Johnson: "Untrustworthy... A puppet." Starmer: “Slippery slimeball”
Listen to from 11am times.radio
I am genuinely surprised about the Starmer impression. I am not a supporter and could not bring myself to vote for him but I never got the impression he was a slippery slimeball in the (IMHO) Blair mould. If anything I just think he is rather boring and uninspiring.
The one thing that most people know about him is that he's a lawyer.
A lot people remember that he was strongly in favour of a 2nd vote, without enacting the first, as Shadow Brexit Secretary,. He wanted to demolish British democracy
Doesn’t get much slippier or slimier than that
I’ll say it again, we won’t get beyond Brexit - or beyond the toxic debate around it - until that generation of politicians closely associated with it, on both sides, are booted out of office
I think as long as the Tories are able to activate Brexit as a live issue and are positioning themseelves as 'the party of' it probably makes Hung Parliament/Labour minority their worst posdible result and Tory largest party the most likely. As such i expect them to bang that drum relentlessly into an election
Yes
Starmer was a really bad choice as leader, for this reason
OTOH it's quite possible that to get out of the EU we needed Boris, while to coherently stay the course we need a more balanced and diplomatically capable government.
Almost certainly true. I’d quite like a pragmatic PM to say, Right we’re out of the EU, we’re not going back, but we can do better than this - and then confidently put the respective choices to the British people. We are adults. We can cope
Starmer cannot do this, as I say below, because he is crippled by his previous shameful behaviour over Brexit
You are literally the only person in Britain for whom it has salience. I've never seen anybody else ever mention it. Not even the most fucked-in-the-head leavers on here nevermind normal people who don't follow politics obssessively.
Not true, There was a brilliant article about it in the Spectator, by the heroic ex-PB-er @SeanT so at least six other people care
Are those the six different names under which SeanT writes on PB?
Anyway, we have left the EU. Your side; the coalition of the gullible, the Blimpish and the downright xenophobic, won their pyrrhic victory. Get over it. Banging on about it just reminds us all how gullible or mad those of you on the extreme end of the Brexit debate really are.
Given Birbalsingh gets lots of pupils from working class backgrounds at her free school into Oxbridge and the Russell Group I expect taken out of context
Bloody woke anti-gov Telegraph taking Burble out of context.
I know Katherine quite well and have immense respect for what she does at Michaela (although some of it eyebrow raising). But the children are happy and the results are fantastic.
Frankly this doesn’t sound like something she would have said. I suspect it’s the Telegraph “interpreting” her comments in their headline.
I thought that she was making some reasonable points this morning on Today, but also somewhat underplaying the importance of inequality.
I didn’t hear the interview. But if you look at the intake for Michaela (Brent) it is one of the most deprived and challenged communities in London.
What’s more depressing - which she only told me recently - was they had originally planned to open in a closed school in Lambeth. The local council didn’t want her approach to schooling in their area so they chose to sell the property to developers instead. Hence they are in a converted office block in Wembley
Erstwhile Remainers, or regretful Leavers, arguing the toss about percentage points of GDP and customs forms are still missing the fundamental choice on identity that was made.
We chose an identity that doesn't exist.
That is why there is perpetual angst and the matter will not rest.
What?? Britishness does notr exist? Nor Englishness?
Go jump in a lake in Brussels. No wonder you guys lost. You would lose again. The mask just keeps slipping
My wife and I have British Passports
We have always been British ("subjects" let us not forget). Although many of us liked to think of ourselves as *also* citizens of the EU and the benefits that brought. 51% of the electorate were gulled into throwing that away on our behalf with nothing better (such as EEA) to replace it in order to advance the career ego of Boris Johnson and to give right wing nutjobs like @Leon something to jerk off about when he is not watching PornHub.
There wasn't much evidence of that before the referendum. And if there were so many benefits, why wasn't the Remain campaign able to mount a positive pro-EU campaign?
Because Cameron insisted he knew best how to run the campaign.
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
If the cost of living rises by 10%, I think it's perfectly legitimate to use whatever means at your disposal to try to secure an equivalent pay rise.
In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
It's not rail passengers' fault either, but as ever they are the ones that the unions punish.
On super-heads and super-schools, it's interesting (and I don't think coincidental) how often they are based in London, which has seen huge improvements in educational results over the last 30 years.
While I'm not denigrating their achievements, it would be interesting to see if Birbalsingh, Wilshaw and the others could replicate their success in white working-class schools in, dare I say it, Red Wall type places. I think it would be harder. It's rare to hear about super-heads or super-schools in Stoke, Grimsby or Hull, for example; though I'm sure they exist, they don't get (or seek?) the same publicity as the London elite.
Michaela is doing just that. Barnsley (I think, from memory).
I have no interest in this specifically one way or another. But does everything have to be done just for economic benefit? Is it not worth repealing rules simply because they are pointless interference or serve no useful purpose?
Its the same with the debate about imperial measures. If the Government came along and said you MUST use imperial measures either solely or alongside metric then I would be right there with the strongest Remainer protesting against it. But simply saying you may use them if you like and repealing the law that prohibits their usage seems reasonable to me. Perhaps a bit pointless to most but I have always thought banning stuff for the sake of it to be pretty offensive behaviour, whether from a UK Government or the EU.
It's not just for the sake of it, though. There is a rational argument that allowing non-standard measures alongside standard ones opens the door slightly towards mischief that harms consumers. You can accept or reject that argument as you see fit, but saying it's just for the sake of it isn't right.
Metric measures were made legal in the UK in 1896. Most imperial measures were made illegal in 2000. So the system worked just fine for over a century. So yes it was changed just for the sake of it.
I thought that Imperial measures could still be used as a supplementary indicator.
Can you explain in what sense Imperial measures were made illegal in 2000?
Try telling that to those who were prosecuted for selling in imperial measures.
As I understand it the prosecution was for using an illegal set of scales that had only imperial measures. You can use imperial in addition to metric, but not imperial alone.
The law appears to already be in line with your stated wishes. Would be interested if you can explain how I have misunderstood this.
Two and a quarter pounds of jam weighs about a kilogram. A litre of water's a pint and three quarters.
These are 2 to be memorized if we're going to transition back to imperial. And we will need a transition period. Big bang is far too risky. Johnson no doubt wants to do that but I'd hope wiser heads will prevail.
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
how?
60 minutes in an hour, dual carriageway/motorway speed limit is 70mph, so average speed with local roads at each end will be close to 60. A journey of 180 miles will therefore take three hours ish, plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours. No thinking needed for the calculation.
The calculation is exactly the same with kilometres so having it in miles isn't really advantageous.
100 km/h, average motorway speed is around 120 km/h (yes, that's slightly above the speed limit but let's be fair most people do speed a bit on the motorway), journey of 300 km will take roughly 3 hours plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours.
I don't really care what measurements we use on the roads as long as it isn't a hodge podge. The 300, 200 and 100 yard signs you see on a motorway are actually spaced 300, 200 and 100 metres from the exit due to sign spacing rules which is strange enough.
Or just look at the predicted arrival time from your Sat Nav.
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
If the cost of living rises by 10%, I think it's perfectly legitimate to use whatever means at your disposal to try to secure an equivalent pay rise.
In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
It's not rail passengers' fault either, but as ever they are the ones that the unions punish.
So your point is we should all just shut up and accept 10% pay cuts?
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
how?
60 minutes in an hour, dual carriageway/motorway speed limit is 70mph, so average speed with local roads at each end will be close to 60. A journey of 180 miles will therefore take three hours ish, plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours. No thinking needed for the calculation.
The calculation is exactly the same with kilometres so having it in miles isn't really advantageous.
100 km/h, average motorway speed is around 120 km/h (yes, that's slightly above the speed limit but let's be fair most people do speed a bit on the motorway), journey of 300 km will take roughly 3 hours plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours.
As long as it's not raining, 130 km/h is the speed limit in much of Europe. So 120 km/h actually works pretty well. In general they're not nearly as congested as our motorways (particularly where there are tolls) and a lot more drivers go a lot faster than the speed limit than here.
Yes, one of the reasons I'd be pretty happy for the roads to go metric is it would show up how low the UK's motorway speed limit is compared to mainland Europe, so we'd hopefully get an upgrade. Although something tells me that you'd have road safety groups arguing the motorway speed limit should be 100 km/h.
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
how?
60 minutes in an hour, dual carriageway/motorway speed limit is 70mph, so average speed with local roads at each end will be close to 60. A journey of 180 miles will therefore take three hours ish, plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours. No thinking needed for the calculation.
The calculation is exactly the same with kilometres so having it in miles isn't really advantageous.
100 km/h, average motorway speed is around 120 km/h (yes, that's slightly above the speed limit but let's be fair most people do speed a bit on the motorway), journey of 300 km will take roughly 3 hours plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours.
I don't really care what measurements we use on the roads as long as it isn't a hodge podge. The 300, 200 and 100 yard signs you see on a motorway are actually spaced 300, 200 and 100 metres from the exit due to sign spacing rules which is strange enough.
Signs giving distances to junctions are all nonsense (or, to be kind, approximations) anyway.
But your first point doesn't hold water, as there aren't 100 minutes in the hour. So unless you are doing a journey in approximately a whole number of hundreds of km you need to do a calculation with the remainder.
I just use Google Maps to tell me when I'm going to arrive. It's pretty damn accurate in my experience. All this mental calculation is very impressive but it feels a bit like learning pi to 100 decimal places. I don't feel like there's any need.
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
how?
60 minutes in an hour, dual carriageway/motorway speed limit is 70mph, so average speed with local roads at each end will be close to 60. A journey of 180 miles will therefore take three hours ish, plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours. No thinking needed for the calculation.
100kmh is around 62mph though isn't it? So 300km takes 3 hours.
You know the conversion to miles per hour is completely superfluous? 300km at 100km/h takes 3 hours because 300/100 = 3.
Er yeah like duh. I was just pointing out that 100kmh is also a speed that likely approximates to the average speed of a long journey that includes motorways/dual carriageways.
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
If the cost of living rises by 10%, I think it's perfectly legitimate to use whatever means at your disposal to try to secure an equivalent pay rise.
In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
It's not rail passengers' fault either, but as ever they are the ones that the unions punish.
You have to use the tools available to you. If there was a way by which the unions could punish the bosses and the politicians without affecting the passengers, I’m sure they’d use it.
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
If the cost of living rises by 10%, I think it's perfectly legitimate to use whatever means at your disposal to try to secure an equivalent pay rise.
In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
It's not rail passengers' fault either, but as ever they are the ones that the unions punish.
So your point is we should all just shut up and accept 10% pay cuts?
I don't care what the unions do as long as they don't punish the innocent.
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
how?
60 minutes in an hour, dual carriageway/motorway speed limit is 70mph, so average speed with local roads at each end will be close to 60. A journey of 180 miles will therefore take three hours ish, plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours. No thinking needed for the calculation.
The calculation is exactly the same with kilometres so having it in miles isn't really advantageous.
100 km/h, average motorway speed is around 120 km/h (yes, that's slightly above the speed limit but let's be fair most people do speed a bit on the motorway), journey of 300 km will take roughly 3 hours plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours.
As long as it's not raining, 130 km/h is the speed limit in much of Europe. So 120 km/h actually works pretty well. In general they're not nearly as congested as our motorways (particularly where there are tolls) and a lot more drivers go a lot faster than the speed limit than here.
Yes, one of the reasons I'd be pretty happy for the roads to go metric is it would show up how low the UK's motorway speed limit is compared to mainland Europe, so we'd hopefully get an upgrade. Although something tells me that you'd have road safety groups arguing the motorway speed limit should be 100 km/h.
Except that if we had continental rules, our speed limit would be at 110 km/h much more often, owing to having more total rainfall and its annoying habit of tending to fall rather slowly.
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
If the cost of living rises by 10%, I think it's perfectly legitimate to use whatever means at your disposal to try to secure an equivalent pay rise.
In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
No-one is forced to do a job. They are not forced to use factory shops by exploitative mine owners and know that if they quit we will starve. There is no excuse for striking nowadays. It is an obsolete form of industrial relations. It is a disgrace, and it is a disgrace that someone who believes they should be a government minister should support it.
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
how?
60 minutes in an hour, dual carriageway/motorway speed limit is 70mph, so average speed with local roads at each end will be close to 60. A journey of 180 miles will therefore take three hours ish, plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours. No thinking needed for the calculation.
The calculation is exactly the same with kilometres so having it in miles isn't really advantageous.
100 km/h, average motorway speed is around 120 km/h (yes, that's slightly above the speed limit but let's be fair most people do speed a bit on the motorway), journey of 300 km will take roughly 3 hours plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours.
I don't really care what measurements we use on the roads as long as it isn't a hodge podge. The 300, 200 and 100 yard signs you see on a motorway are actually spaced 300, 200 and 100 metres from the exit due to sign spacing rules which is strange enough.
Or just look at the predicted arrival time from your Sat Nav.
I never use one, even abroad I rely on road signs and checking the map prior to travel.
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
If the cost of living rises by 10%, I think it's perfectly legitimate to use whatever means at your disposal to try to secure an equivalent pay rise.
In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
It's not rail passengers' fault either, but as ever they are the ones that the unions punish.
You have to use the tools available to you. If there was a way by which the unions could punish the bosses and the politicians without affecting the passengers, I’m sure they’d use it.
The whole point is to disrupt the passengers, to get the attention of the bosses and politicians.
Except that many of the passengers, certainly at peak times, have learned in recent years to be able to work from home when there’s problems in the world.
I just use Google Maps to tell me when I'm going to arrive. It's pretty damn accurate in my experience. All this mental calculation is very impressive but it feels a bit like learning pi to 100 decimal places. I don't feel like there's any need.
Right. But if I'm doing a journey of 140 miles and Google Maps tells me it'll take 3 hours 20 minutes, I know by inspection that's 60 minutes more than I would expect, so therefore there's something out of the ordinary to expect on the road - whether that's congestion, long periods of roadworks with painfully slow speed limits, or just much more at sub-70 speed limits than the average journey.
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
If the cost of living rises by 10%, I think it's perfectly legitimate to use whatever means at your disposal to try to secure an equivalent pay rise.
In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
It's not rail passengers' fault either, but as ever they are the ones that the unions punish.
So your point is we should all just shut up and accept 10% pay cuts?
I don't care what the unions do as long as they don't punish the innocent.
That sounds pretty entitled. Not every inconvenience in your cotton wool life is a "punishment".
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
how?
60 minutes in an hour, dual carriageway/motorway speed limit is 70mph, so average speed with local roads at each end will be close to 60. A journey of 180 miles will therefore take three hours ish, plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours. No thinking needed for the calculation.
The calculation is exactly the same with kilometres so having it in miles isn't really advantageous.
100 km/h, average motorway speed is around 120 km/h (yes, that's slightly above the speed limit but let's be fair most people do speed a bit on the motorway), journey of 300 km will take roughly 3 hours plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours.
As long as it's not raining, 130 km/h is the speed limit in much of Europe. So 120 km/h actually works pretty well. In general they're not nearly as congested as our motorways (particularly where there are tolls) and a lot more drivers go a lot faster than the speed limit than here.
Yes, one of the reasons I'd be pretty happy for the roads to go metric is it would show up how low the UK's motorway speed limit is compared to mainland Europe, so we'd hopefully get an upgrade. Although something tells me that you'd have road safety groups arguing the motorway speed limit should be 100 km/h.
Except that if we had continental rules, our speed limit would be at 110 km/h much more often, owing to having more total rainfall and its annoying habit of tending to fall rather slowly.
Just to note that France is the only country to do that, so you can't really say it's "continental rules". However, I'd imagine that the UK government would like the idea on the basis of emissions reductions.
Erstwhile Remainers, or regretful Leavers, arguing the toss about percentage points of GDP and customs forms are still missing the fundamental choice on identity that was made.
We chose an identity that doesn't exist.
That is why there is perpetual angst and the matter will not rest.
What?? Britishness does notr exist? Nor Englishness?
Go jump in a lake in Brussels. No wonder you guys lost. You would lose again. The mask just keeps slipping
My wife and I have British Passports
We have always been British ("subjects" let us not forget). Although many of us liked to think of ourselves as *also* citizens of the EU and the benefits that brought. 51% of the electorate were gulled into throwing that away on our behalf with nothing better (such as EEA) to replace it in order to advance the career ego of Boris Johnson and to give right wing nutjobs like @Leon something to jerk off about when he is not watching PornHub.
There wasn't much evidence of that before the referendum. And if there were so many benefits, why wasn't the Remain campaign able to mount a positive pro-EU campaign?
Because the negative messaging of Leave ( a negative message in itself) was greater than the negative messaging of Remain. Negative messaging resonates well with the terminally gullible. That is why it resonates so well with you clearly, and is why people who are essentially negative like you and Leon still believe in Brexit.
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
If the cost of living rises by 10%, I think it's perfectly legitimate to use whatever means at your disposal to try to secure an equivalent pay rise.
In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
It's not rail passengers' fault either, but as ever they are the ones that the unions punish.
So your point is we should all just shut up and accept 10% pay cuts?
I don't care what the unions do as long as they don't punish the innocent.
That sounds pretty entitled. Not every inconvenience in your cotton wool life is a "punishment".
Given how much rail season tickets cost, feeling entitled that the workers will turn up and do their job seems quite fair.
I just use Google Maps to tell me when I'm going to arrive. It's pretty damn accurate in my experience. All this mental calculation is very impressive but it feels a bit like learning pi to 100 decimal places. I don't feel like there's any need.
Right. But if I'm doing a journey of 140 miles and Google Maps tells me it'll take 3 hours 20 minutes, I know by inspection that's 60 minutes more than I would expect, so therefore there's something out of the ordinary to expect on the road - whether that's congestion, long periods of roadworks with painfully slow speed limits, or just much more at sub-70 speed limits than the average journey.
The time coming up in orange or red is supposed to save you having to do sums.
A few worrying signs that Erdogan may be interested in taking a leaf out of Putin's book.
"Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday warned Greece to demilitarize islands in the Aegean, saying he was “not joking” with such comments."
Yesterday he said Greece would face "catastrophic" consequences if it did not comply. All a new level of rhetoric, and somewhat concerning, although it is an advance of an election. Any action like this would obviously mean burning his bridges with NATO and a complete realignment in the region, so it still doesn't seem the most likely outcome.
I just use Google Maps to tell me when I'm going to arrive. It's pretty damn accurate in my experience. All this mental calculation is very impressive but it feels a bit like learning pi to 100 decimal places. I don't feel like there's any need.
Right. But if I'm doing a journey of 140 miles and Google Maps tells me it'll take 3 hours 20 minutes, I know by inspection that's 60 minutes more than I would expect, so therefore there's something out of the ordinary to expect on the road - whether that's congestion, long periods of roadworks with painfully slow speed limits, or just much more at sub-70 speed limits than the average journey.
The brilliant thing is Google Maps will also tell you about things like accidents, road closures, sections of slow traffic. So you not only know to expect something, but you know what and where to expect it.
Erstwhile Remainers, or regretful Leavers, arguing the toss about percentage points of GDP and customs forms are still missing the fundamental choice on identity that was made.
We chose an identity that doesn't exist.
That is why there is perpetual angst and the matter will not rest.
What?? Britishness does notr exist? Nor Englishness?
Go jump in a lake in Brussels. No wonder you guys lost. You would lose again. The mask just keeps slipping
My wife and I have British Passports
We have always been British ("subjects" let us not forget). Although many of us liked to think of ourselves as *also* citizens of the EU and the benefits that brought. 51% of the electorate were gulled into throwing that away on our behalf with nothing better (such as EEA) to replace it in order to advance the career ego of Boris Johnson and to give right wing nutjobs like @Leon something to jerk off about when he is not watching PornHub.
There wasn't much evidence of that before the referendum. And if there were so many benefits, why wasn't the Remain campaign able to mount a positive pro-EU campaign?
Because the negative messaging of Leave ( a negative message in itself) was greater than the negative messaging of Remain. Negative messaging resonates well with the terminally gullible. That is why it resonates so well with you clearly, and is why people who are essentially negative like you and Leon still believe in Brexit.
No, that dodges the question.
If there was a positive, pro-EU message available, the Remain campaign should have made it. "They are a negative campaign so we need to be a negative campaign" is just weak.
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
If the cost of living rises by 10%, I think it's perfectly legitimate to use whatever means at your disposal to try to secure an equivalent pay rise.
In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
It's not rail passengers' fault either, but as ever they are the ones that the unions punish.
So your point is we should all just shut up and accept 10% pay cuts?
I don't care what the unions do as long as they don't punish the innocent.
That sounds pretty entitled. Not every inconvenience in your cotton wool life is a "punishment".
Given how much rail season tickets cost, feeling entitled that the workers will turn up and do their job seems quite fair.
Given how much taxes are, feeling entitled that the government will turn up and do their job seems quite fair too.
Erstwhile Remainers, or regretful Leavers, arguing the toss about percentage points of GDP and customs forms are still missing the fundamental choice on identity that was made.
We chose an identity that doesn't exist.
That is why there is perpetual angst and the matter will not rest.
What?? Britishness does notr exist? Nor Englishness?
Go jump in a lake in Brussels. No wonder you guys lost. You would lose again. The mask just keeps slipping
My wife and I have British Passports
We have always been British ("subjects" let us not forget). Although many of us liked to think of ourselves as *also* citizens of the EU and the benefits that brought. 51% of the electorate were gulled into throwing that away on our behalf with nothing better (such as EEA) to replace it in order to advance the career ego of Boris Johnson and to give right wing nutjobs like @Leon something to jerk off about when he is not watching PornHub.
There wasn't much evidence of that before the referendum. And if there were so many benefits, why wasn't the Remain campaign able to mount a positive pro-EU campaign?
Because the negative messaging of Leave ( a negative message in itself) was greater than the negative messaging of Remain. Negative messaging resonates well with the terminally gullible. That is why it resonates so well with you clearly, and is why people who are essentially negative like you and Leon still believe in Brexit.
So Scottnpaste is not negative???
When has the anti Brexit cavilier ever posted anything positive?
I just use Google Maps to tell me when I'm going to arrive. It's pretty damn accurate in my experience. All this mental calculation is very impressive but it feels a bit like learning pi to 100 decimal places. I don't feel like there's any need.
Right. But if I'm doing a journey of 140 miles and Google Maps tells me it'll take 3 hours 20 minutes, I know by inspection that's 60 minutes more than I would expect, so therefore there's something out of the ordinary to expect on the road - whether that's congestion, long periods of roadworks with painfully slow speed limits, or just much more at sub-70 speed limits than the average journey.
The time coming up in orange or red is supposed to save you having to do sums.
That's been so unreliable for me that I ignore it completely on journeys I'm unfamiliar with. Not least because that just compares with what is usual/optimal (I've never been sure which) for the journey, so in the case of my last suggestion it would show up green anyway.
@jamesjohnson252 in the chair thanks to @KekstCNC asking 2019 Tory voters in Wakefield what they think about today's politics:
Johnson: "Untrustworthy... A puppet." Starmer: “Slippery slimeball”
Listen to from 11am times.radio
I am genuinely surprised about the Starmer impression. I am not a supporter and could not bring myself to vote for him but I never got the impression he was a slippery slimeball in the (IMHO) Blair mould. If anything I just think he is rather boring and uninspiring.
The one thing that most people know about him is that he's a lawyer.
A lot people remember that he was strongly in favour of a 2nd vote, without enacting the first, as Shadow Brexit Secretary,. He wanted to demolish British democracy
Doesn’t get much slippier or slimier than that
I’ll say it again, we won’t get beyond Brexit - or beyond the toxic debate around it - until that generation of politicians closely associated with it, on both sides, are booted out of office
I think as long as the Tories are able to activate Brexit as a live issue and are positioning themseelves as 'the party of' it probably makes Hung Parliament/Labour minority their worst posdible result and Tory largest party the most likely. As such i expect them to bang that drum relentlessly into an election
Yes
Starmer was a really bad choice as leader, for this reason
OTOH it's quite possible that to get out of the EU we needed Boris, while to coherently stay the course we need a more balanced and diplomatically capable government.
Almost certainly true. I’d quite like a pragmatic PM to say, Right we’re out of the EU, we’re not going back, but we can do better than this - and then confidently put the respective choices to the British people. We are adults. We can cope
Starmer cannot do this, as I say below, because he is crippled by his previous shameful behaviour over Brexit
'Previous shameful behaviour' in the political sense is no bar to a political future. There wouldn't be any left.
If a Tory government can tax, borrow and spend like socialists, perhaps Labour can run a sensible centrist Brexit.
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
If the cost of living rises by 10%, I think it's perfectly legitimate to use whatever means at your disposal to try to secure an equivalent pay rise. In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
No-one is forced to do a job. They are not forced to use factory shops by exploitative mine owners and know that if they quit we will starve. There is no excuse for striking nowadays. It is an obsolete form of industrial relations. It is a disgrace, and it is a disgrace that someone who believes they should be a government minister should support it.
I think you'll find plenty of people are forced to do a job. It's called putting food on the table and a roof over your head. Having a family to feed. The element of compulsion is called necessity.
Thought experiment. If by next year inflation is 50%, and we are running some kind of wheelbarrow Weimar republic, what amount of money is an acceptable pay increase for rail workers? 5%? 10%? 25%?
I just use Google Maps to tell me when I'm going to arrive. It's pretty damn accurate in my experience. All this mental calculation is very impressive but it feels a bit like learning pi to 100 decimal places. I don't feel like there's any need.
Right. But if I'm doing a journey of 140 miles and Google Maps tells me it'll take 3 hours 20 minutes, I know by inspection that's 60 minutes more than I would expect, so therefore there's something out of the ordinary to expect on the road - whether that's congestion, long periods of roadworks with painfully slow speed limits, or just much more at sub-70 speed limits than the average journey.
The brilliant thing is Google Maps will also tell you about things like accidents, road closures, sections of slow traffic. So you not only know to expect something, but you know what and where to expect it.
During a journey. Not so much when planning a journey.
Why are people getting uppity about train drivers not wanting a, god forbid, real terms pay cut?
I got 5% and I am having to reign in almost all discretionary spending.
The strike is not by the drivers - though no doubt that will come some way down the line... Much lower paid workers, who've had a pay freeze for the last couple of years.
According the the management representative yesterday, they can't negotiate, since government has yet to tell them what are their funding constraints. And of course their revenue is down by a quarter compared to pre- pandemic.
This one is very much down to government, who ought to have seen it coming. If they hadn't been so preoccupied with Big Dog's navel.
If the staff don't want to provide their labour then that's their prerogative. Nobody is forced to work for an employer they don't want to work for, anyone can resign if they aren't happy with terms and conditions.
Or they can strike, until the government decides to outlaw it. That is also their prerogative.
The point you seem to have missed is that all if this might have been prevented, has management's hands not been tied. At the moment, they can't negotiate at all.
Were you the one arguing a few days back that inflation didn't really matter ? This kind of mess is the inevitable consequence of high inflation. Groups with the power to cause disruption will use that to protect their real wages. Getting it under control is a long and painful process.
Why are management's hands tied? They have income, they have expenditure, they need to balance the two. That's what they're bloody paid to do.
If they can't balance the two, then the company should go bankrupt and close down and then everyone gets fired anyway.
Management need to do their bloody jobs.
Because they are both government controlled and government subsidised. The subsidy represents a significant part of their income - much higher thanks to the pandemic - and they are still waiting for government guidance for the future. Without which they have no basis to negotiate.
Government first needs to do its bloody job.
The pandemic is over. The Government should withdraw its subsidy entirely.
I couldn't care less what the rail staff make, they should get the fair market value for their labour. If that's £20k per annum then fine, if its £100k per annum then fine.
But every single penny of their wages should be paid from money their employers make from their customers. If the staff want more wages then either the employer needs more customers, so give good customer service etc to ensure customers keep using you, or the same amount of customers but increased revenue per customer, so either 'upsell' additional products to the same customers or in this case pass on any wages via increased fares.
The staff should get whatever the customers they're serving are prepared to pay for. Every penny should come from customers.
Shutting down the railways is perhaps the libertarian view, but I doubt you'd have the support of more than a handful of fellow eccentrics.
I don't suggest shutting down the railways, I suggest letting the market resolve prices....
Transport infrastructure, rail included, is both a public good and almost impossible to leave to the free market in any advanced economy. Rail included; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_subsidies
You're suggesting we indulge your fantasy.
The USA is a humongous continent-spanning country with a massive railway network and freight rail doesn't get a penny of taxpayer support and Amtrak receives less taxpayer support than the UK gives railways.
The government makes a profit not a loss on road transport as fuel and road tax/VED much more than cover road infrastructure, so we're self-funding too.
One morning, my taxi to take me to the train station in Charlotte was late, so I missed my train to DC. I asked when the next train was. “Tomorrow.”
One train per day!
Don’t tell me the US has good trains.
How many trains a day should there be for an interstate 399 mile journey? If that's not a frequently travelled route then yours being the last (or only) train a day is absolutely reasonable.
No reason to pay staff to run empty trains backwards and forwards, and if there is the demand then the staff can be paid.
Your route is the same distance as Liverpool to Paris, how many trains a day operate between Liverpool and Paris? Last I checked it was zero, so the USA has us beat there, it's just your expectations are unreasonable.
You praised the example of Japan earlier. Japan has a fantastic high-speed intercity Shinkansen service. There are more services than in the UK. They’re more regular. They’re cheaper. They’re quicker. And the trains are just nicer to be on. Lots and lots of people use this service. This is all possible because the Shinkansen network is on different rails to local services and there was huge Govt investment in building it.
If you build it, they will come. The Japanese government chose to make a large investment, and the country benefits in terms of improved economy, less pollution and happier people!
So, it’s not a case of saying a service is not a frequently travelled route, so there shouldn’t be any trains on it. If you invest, it will become a frequently travelled route. That will benefit the country.
The Liverpool to Paris comparison is more complicated. There isn’t a direct route, but if you change in London, there are numerous services throughout the day. There are greater challenges to a Liverpool to Paris route: namely, an international border and a sea being in the way. Still, the main reason such a route doesn’t exist is because the UK has been very slow to invest in high-speed rail services.
Your example of building a service is an investment, that is the sort of long-term structural reforms the state should be getting involved in for strategic planning.
Paying staff wages is not an investment, it is an operating expense.
The Japanese have done it right, they invest in the infrastructure while having the customers pay for the running costs. We spend decades debating any new infrastructure while politicians and unions argue over the running costs and customers get subsidised.
Our system is arse over tit. Invest in infrastructure, yes. Subsidise fares or pay staff wages, no. The state should be planning infrastructure improvements, but should have nothing to do with the RMT or fares.
Great, we are in some agreement. As we often are!
So, how do we get from here to there? (Do things differently decades ago is correct, but impractical.)
Until we’ve sorted ourselves out and made the appropriate investments in infrastructure and that has fed through in its effects — which will take a number of decades — what do we do? Because we didn’t make the investments, we have to support running costs. (Just as Japanese rail was state owned while all their investments were being made.)
The slight snag is that there's no current known business case to get the rail network to pay for itself by investing in infrastructure, even without covering the capital cost of the new infrastructure.
Also political input most often tends to result in shiny new stuff which comes with a hefty price tag, but little extra revenue. Case in point - Northern, under political pressure binned off all their old Pacers - simple, reliable units which could have been maintainable almost indefinitely, and for which the capx had been repaid long, long ago. They replaced them with a load of shiny new units, for which someone will be paying, plus all the associated costs (eg retraining all the drivers). The net result will almost certainly be the same loadings as if they had kept the Pacers, but a whole bunch of extra cost which probably could have been deferred for another 10-20 years yet if the system was run by properly asset sweating type capitalists...
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
If the cost of living rises by 10%, I think it's perfectly legitimate to use whatever means at your disposal to try to secure an equivalent pay rise.
In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
No-one is forced to do a job. They are not forced to use factory shops by exploitative mine owners and know that if they quit we will starve. There is no excuse for striking nowadays. It is an obsolete form of industrial relations. It is a disgrace, and it is a disgrace that someone who believes they should be a government minister should support it.
Can't you see the power disparity between workers and management?
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
If the cost of living rises by 10%, I think it's perfectly legitimate to use whatever means at your disposal to try to secure an equivalent pay rise.
In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
It's not rail passengers' fault either, but as ever they are the ones that the unions punish.
So your point is we should all just shut up and accept 10% pay cuts?
I don't care what the unions do as long as they don't punish the innocent.
That sounds pretty entitled. Not every inconvenience in your cotton wool life is a "punishment".
Given how much rail season tickets cost, feeling entitled that the workers will turn up and do their job seems quite fair.
Given how much taxes are, feeling entitled that the government will turn up and do their job seems quite fair too.
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
If the cost of living rises by 10%, I think it's perfectly legitimate to use whatever means at your disposal to try to secure an equivalent pay rise.
In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
It's not rail passengers' fault either, but as ever they are the ones that the unions punish.
So your point is we should all just shut up and accept 10% pay cuts?
I don't care what the unions do as long as they don't punish the innocent.
That sounds pretty entitled. Not every inconvenience in your cotton wool life is a "punishment".
Given how much rail season tickets cost, feeling entitled that the workers will turn up and do their job seems quite fair.
You can get a pro-rata refund if you're unable to travel though
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
If the cost of living rises by 10%, I think it's perfectly legitimate to use whatever means at your disposal to try to secure an equivalent pay rise.
In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
It's not rail passengers' fault either, but as ever they are the ones that the unions punish.
So your point is we should all just shut up and accept 10% pay cuts?
I don't care what the unions do as long as they don't punish the innocent.
That sounds pretty entitled. Not every inconvenience in your cotton wool life is a "punishment".
Given how much rail season tickets cost, feeling entitled that the workers will turn up and do their job seems quite fair.
Given how much taxes are, feeling entitled that the government will turn up and do their job seems quite fair too.
Indeed, but that's an entirely separate question.
It’s not when, as suggested in PB earlier, Government delay over deciding what money they’re putting in is part of what’s been holding back negotiations.
I just use Google Maps to tell me when I'm going to arrive. It's pretty damn accurate in my experience. All this mental calculation is very impressive but it feels a bit like learning pi to 100 decimal places. I don't feel like there's any need.
Right. But if I'm doing a journey of 140 miles and Google Maps tells me it'll take 3 hours 20 minutes, I know by inspection that's 60 minutes more than I would expect, so therefore there's something out of the ordinary to expect on the road - whether that's congestion, long periods of roadworks with painfully slow speed limits, or just much more at sub-70 speed limits than the average journey.
The brilliant thing is Google Maps will also tell you about things like accidents, road closures, sections of slow traffic. So you not only know to expect something, but you know what and where to expect it.
During a journey. Not so much when planning a journey.
Well... yes. No amount of brainy calculations or clever apps are going to predict tanker of vegetable oil overturning on the M4 westbound at Swindon before it's happened.
Probably the only really useful imperial measurement (and it's not really imperial) is Fahrenheit for people's temperatures. Above 100F – fever. Below 100F – fine. Really easy to remember.
MPH for road journeys. Much easier to estimate time from distance.
how?
60 minutes in an hour, dual carriageway/motorway speed limit is 70mph, so average speed with local roads at each end will be close to 60. A journey of 180 miles will therefore take three hours ish, plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours. No thinking needed for the calculation.
The calculation is exactly the same with kilometres so having it in miles isn't really advantageous.
100 km/h, average motorway speed is around 120 km/h (yes, that's slightly above the speed limit but let's be fair most people do speed a bit on the motorway), journey of 300 km will take roughly 3 hours plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours.
As long as it's not raining, 130 km/h is the speed limit in much of Europe. So 120 km/h actually works pretty well. In general they're not nearly as congested as our motorways (particularly where there are tolls) and a lot more drivers go a lot faster than the speed limit than here.
Yes, one of the reasons I'd be pretty happy for the roads to go metric is it would show up how low the UK's motorway speed limit is compared to mainland Europe, so we'd hopefully get an upgrade. Although something tells me that you'd have road safety groups arguing the motorway speed limit should be 100 km/h.
Except that if we had continental rules, our speed limit would be at 110 km/h much more often, owing to having more total rainfall and its annoying habit of tending to fall rather slowly.
Just to note that France is the only country to do that, so you can't really say it's "continental rules". However, I'd imagine that the UK government would like the idea on the basis of emissions reductions.
I just use Google Maps to tell me when I'm going to arrive. It's pretty damn accurate in my experience. All this mental calculation is very impressive but it feels a bit like learning pi to 100 decimal places. I don't feel like there's any need.
Right. But if I'm doing a journey of 140 miles and Google Maps tells me it'll take 3 hours 20 minutes, I know by inspection that's 60 minutes more than I would expect, so therefore there's something out of the ordinary to expect on the road - whether that's congestion, long periods of roadworks with painfully slow speed limits, or just much more at sub-70 speed limits than the average journey.
The brilliant thing is Google Maps will also tell you about things like accidents, road closures, sections of slow traffic. So you not only know to expect something, but you know what and where to expect it.
During a journey. Not so much when planning a journey.
Well... yes. No amount of brainy calculations or clever apps are going to predict tanker of vegetable oil overturning on the M4 westbound at Swindon before it's happened.
But if you’re still East of Newbury when it happens, a live traffic service gives you the chance to switch to the A4 or A34, rather than end up stuck for hours in the M4 traffic jam. It’s useful, even on regular journeys or when you know the road well.
I just use Google Maps to tell me when I'm going to arrive. It's pretty damn accurate in my experience. All this mental calculation is very impressive but it feels a bit like learning pi to 100 decimal places. I don't feel like there's any need.
Right. But if I'm doing a journey of 140 miles and Google Maps tells me it'll take 3 hours 20 minutes, I know by inspection that's 60 minutes more than I would expect, so therefore there's something out of the ordinary to expect on the road - whether that's congestion, long periods of roadworks with painfully slow speed limits, or just much more at sub-70 speed limits than the average journey.
The brilliant thing is Google Maps will also tell you about things like accidents, road closures, sections of slow traffic. So you not only know to expect something, but you know what and where to expect it.
During a journey. Not so much when planning a journey.
Google maps is generally brilliant - and the detours it sometimes comes up with during a journey are often very useful. But it can also leave you in some sticky spots, try to direct you down places your car shouldn't go, and where it doesn't have the latest data can lead you badly astray. With a good dose of common sense, using it for navigation works fine.
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
If the cost of living rises by 10%, I think it's perfectly legitimate to use whatever means at your disposal to try to secure an equivalent pay rise.
In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
It's not rail passengers' fault either, but as ever they are the ones that the unions punish.
So your point is we should all just shut up and accept 10% pay cuts?
I don't care what the unions do as long as they don't punish the innocent.
Rail passengers aren't innocent though, they're the ones whose service the staff the fares should be paying for. If wages go up, fares should go up accordingly, so passengers are absolutely connected.
You're "innocent" of the dispute if you don't use rails, if you do, you're a party to the dispute.
I just use Google Maps to tell me when I'm going to arrive. It's pretty damn accurate in my experience. All this mental calculation is very impressive but it feels a bit like learning pi to 100 decimal places. I don't feel like there's any need.
Right. But if I'm doing a journey of 140 miles and Google Maps tells me it'll take 3 hours 20 minutes, I know by inspection that's 60 minutes more than I would expect, so therefore there's something out of the ordinary to expect on the road - whether that's congestion, long periods of roadworks with painfully slow speed limits, or just much more at sub-70 speed limits than the average journey.
The brilliant thing is Google Maps will also tell you about things like accidents, road closures, sections of slow traffic. So you not only know to expect something, but you know what and where to expect it.
During a journey. Not so much when planning a journey.
Google maps is generally brilliant - and the detours it sometimes comes up with during a journey are often very useful. But it can also leave you in some sticky spots, try to direct you down places your car shouldn't go, and where it doesn't have the latest data can lead you badly astray. With a good dose of common sense, using it for navigation works fine.
I've found that in cities it tends to underestimate how difficult right turns can be in moderate traffic. I wish it would penalise them some more in the algorithm.
Erstwhile Remainers, or regretful Leavers, arguing the toss about percentage points of GDP and customs forms are still missing the fundamental choice on identity that was made.
We chose an identity that doesn't exist.
That is why there is perpetual angst and the matter will not rest.
What?? Britishness does notr exist? Nor Englishness?
Go jump in a lake in Brussels. No wonder you guys lost. You would lose again. The mask just keeps slipping
My wife and I have British Passports
We have always been British ("subjects" let us not forget). Although many of us liked to think of ourselves as *also* citizens of the EU and the benefits that brought. 51% of the electorate were gulled into throwing that away on our behalf with nothing better (such as EEA) to replace it in order to advance the career ego of Boris Johnson and to give right wing nutjobs like @Leon something to jerk off about when he is not watching PornHub.
There wasn't much evidence of that before the referendum. And if there were so many benefits, why wasn't the Remain campaign able to mount a positive pro-EU campaign?
Joni Mitchell has written the definitive text on that subject:
Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
Which is why most Brexit backers are of a certain age, and a lot of what they value is incomprehensible to most of those of us in generations below. They missed Britain Outside Europe and fought to get it back.
And also it's why the call to rejoin isn't going away, much as some would desperately like it too, and life would be much easier all round if we could collectively ignore it for a decade.
But anyone born after 1973 (maybe a bit earlier) has had a bit of their self-understanding removed from them by the events of 2016-20. Maybe not an important bit, maybe it's a cage we sit in even though the gate has been opened. (I don't think so, but it's possible.) But it's an emotionally real thing.
And the uplands are going to need to be damn well sunlit pretty soon to overcome that factor.
I just use Google Maps to tell me when I'm going to arrive. It's pretty damn accurate in my experience. All this mental calculation is very impressive but it feels a bit like learning pi to 100 decimal places. I don't feel like there's any need.
Right. But if I'm doing a journey of 140 miles and Google Maps tells me it'll take 3 hours 20 minutes, I know by inspection that's 60 minutes more than I would expect, so therefore there's something out of the ordinary to expect on the road - whether that's congestion, long periods of roadworks with painfully slow speed limits, or just much more at sub-70 speed limits than the average journey.
The brilliant thing is Google Maps will also tell you about things like accidents, road closures, sections of slow traffic. So you not only know to expect something, but you know what and where to expect it.
During a journey. Not so much when planning a journey.
Well... yes. No amount of brainy calculations or clever apps are going to predict tanker of vegetable oil overturning on the M4 westbound at Swindon before it's happened.
But if you’re still East of Newbury when it happens, a live traffic service gives you the chance to switch to the A4 or A34, rather than end up stuck for hours in the M4 traffic jam. It’s useful, even on regular journeys or when you know the road well.
Yup, I'm absolutely an advocate for using GM even on a familiar journey. I could drive to Edinburgh practically with my eyes closed, but I'll still put the phone on the cradle and start it navigating every time. A few times I've found myself crossing the Kicardine or going round via Stirling without realising that some chump has tried to drive a high vehicle over the Forth in windy weather and gotten blown over. And all those poor sods backed up halfway to Kinross trying to work out whether there's still a ferry at Queensferry would have been saved by having the same good habit.
Comments
2: For rails that are nowhere near capacity, find out why, do they need investment to make them usable, are they not required or wanted? Potentially subsidise quiet routes if they serve a strategic purpose.
3: Plan structural improvements like HS2 and commit the money to it, all branches of it. Where other investments are needed, make them. Connect HS1 and HS2 but outside of London (why does the interchange need to be in London?)
4: Are other connections required? Currently far too many routes just connect to London, all major cities should be linked strategically, London should not be a hub from which spokes come out.
5: Invest in motorways etc where required too.
6: Make it clear to customers and staff that they have a symbiotic relationship. Staff can only get paid if customers are present and happy. Customers must pay fair wages to staff to get the service they require. The state should not be involved in any industrial disputes, or fare rises, it should all be depoliticised.
Investment, yes. Wages, no. Wages are not investment, new track and tunnelling etc is.
I'm just thinking how many folk don't know even how many ounces there are in a pound ...
This is all about letting people choose for themselves. I work in both imperial and metric continuously and am happy with either and both.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/lisa-nandy-comes-out-in-support-of-largest-rail-strike-in-a-generation/ar-AAYfKlt?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=8427c0ba1c774ad6d373e14c14fb1a7c
PS. I will be voting LD for as long as The Clown remains Tory leader. This has convinced me not to lend vote to the Labour dinosaurs.
How very dare they.
It is a very long way from what the government (or the previous Labour administration) is doing (did).
I think to solve the problem of the impending rail strikes, we need to deal with the current situation as it is. If we can transition to your model over subsequent years, great.
Consider the weight of a person. Bathroom scales will measure this to a tenth of a kilo. And so one can observe that a person's weight varies by more than a kilo over the course of a day. If my weight is up or down by a kilo from one day to the next is not much of a sign of a true change in weight. There's little meaningful sense in which you can say that a person weighs 103kg rather than 102kg.
By contrast a stone, about 6.4kg, is a unit of weight which is large enough that the difference between 16 and 17 stone is significant, that you would notice in the fit of clothes.
This is the sort of example that leads me to conclude that imperial measurements are more natural and easier for people to use on a day-to-day basis, but that metric measurements are generally more suitable for scientific use.
Edit: by which I mean to say that I don't take kindly to being dismissed as a WWII cosplayer. So rude.
Boris Johnson and his government back this strike becuase they are all for high wage economy, Labour have to tak to the Tories high wage for everyone approach is the smart politics.
Tories would have lost this election anyway against Starmer’s Labour even without Partygate. They weren’t really what the country wanted in 2019 - the country voted like Decembrist’s fighting in the patriotic war.
So the equivalent would be a test in Anglo-Saxon
Having just returned from Europe where a typical average speed on the motorways is 120 km/h, the same approach works if you divide by two.
They probably misused apostrophes too.
In the case of salaried professionals, that's usually quitting your job at Corporation X and going to work at Corporation Y on a 10% better package. That is how the game is played.
In the case of workers where the pool of employers is small (or the state), the only real option other than quitting and doing something else entirely (with the step back in pay that usually entails) is collective bargaining.
It is not rail workers fault that the cost of living has gone up by 10%.
100 km/h, average motorway speed is around 120 km/h (yes, that's slightly above the speed limit but let's be fair most people do speed a bit on the motorway), journey of 300 km will take roughly 3 hours plus stops and congestion. Allow 4 hours.
I don't really care what measurements we use on the roads as long as it isn't a hodge podge. The 300, 200 and 100 yard signs you see on a motorway are actually spaced 300, 200 and 100 metres from the exit due to sign spacing rules which is strange enough.
Average speed 75mph? That would be nice.
Anyway, we have left the EU. Your side; the coalition of the gullible, the Blimpish and the downright xenophobic, won their pyrrhic victory. Get over it. Banging on about it just reminds us all how gullible or mad those of you on the extreme end of the Brexit debate really are.
What’s more depressing - which she only told me recently - was they had originally planned to open in a closed school in Lambeth. The local council didn’t want her approach to schooling in their area so they chose to sell the property to developers instead. Hence they are in a converted office block in Wembley
The law appears to already be in line with your stated wishes. Would be interested if you can explain how I have misunderstood this.
These are 2 to be memorized if we're going to transition back to imperial. And we will need a transition period. Big bang is far too risky. Johnson no doubt wants to do that but I'd hope wiser heads will prevail.
But your first point doesn't hold water, as there aren't 100 minutes in the hour. So unless you are doing a journey in approximately a whole number of hundreds of km you need to do a calculation with the remainder.
All this mental calculation is very impressive but it feels a bit like learning pi to 100 decimal places. I don't feel like there's any need.
Except that many of the passengers, certainly at peak times, have learned in recent years to be able to work from home when there’s problems in the world.
https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/driving-law/seven-in-10-drivers-would-like-lower-motorway-speed-limits-in-wet-weather/#:~:text=The RAC understands France is,a reduction of around 12mph).
"Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday warned Greece to demilitarize islands in the Aegean, saying he was “not joking” with such comments."
Yesterday he said Greece would face "catastrophic" consequences if it did not comply. All a new level of rhetoric, and somewhat concerning, although it is an advance of an election. Any action like this would obviously mean burning his bridges with NATO and a complete realignment in the region, so it still doesn't seem the most likely outcome.
If there was a positive, pro-EU message available, the Remain campaign should have made it. "They are a negative campaign so we need to be a negative campaign" is just weak.
When has the anti Brexit cavilier ever posted anything positive?
'Previous shameful behaviour' in the political sense is no bar to a political future. There wouldn't be any left.
If a Tory government can tax, borrow and spend like socialists, perhaps Labour can run a sensible centrist Brexit.
Thought experiment. If by next year inflation is 50%, and we are running some kind of wheelbarrow Weimar republic, what amount of money is an acceptable pay increase for rail workers? 5%? 10%? 25%?
Also political input most often tends to result in shiny new stuff which comes with a hefty price tag, but little extra revenue. Case in point - Northern, under political pressure binned off all their old Pacers - simple, reliable units which could have been maintainable almost indefinitely, and for which the capx had been repaid long, long ago. They replaced them with a load of shiny new units, for which someone will be paying, plus all the associated costs (eg retraining all the drivers). The net result will almost certainly be the same loadings as if they had kept the Pacers, but a whole bunch of extra cost which probably could have been deferred for another 10-20 years yet if the system was run by properly asset sweating type capitalists...
You're "innocent" of the dispute if you don't use rails, if you do, you're a party to the dispute.
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
Which is why most Brexit backers are of a certain age, and a lot of what they value is incomprehensible to most of those of us in generations below. They missed Britain Outside Europe and fought to get it back.
And also it's why the call to rejoin isn't going away, much as some would desperately like it too, and life would be much easier all round if we could collectively ignore it for a decade.
But anyone born after 1973 (maybe a bit earlier) has had a bit of their self-understanding removed from them by the events of 2016-20. Maybe not an important bit, maybe it's a cage we sit in even though the gate has been opened. (I don't think so, but it's possible.) But it's an emotionally real thing.
And the uplands are going to need to be damn well sunlit pretty soon to overcome that factor.
I could drive to Edinburgh practically with my eyes closed, but I'll still put the phone on the cradle and start it navigating every time. A few times I've found myself crossing the Kicardine or going round via Stirling without realising that some chump has tried to drive a high vehicle over the Forth in windy weather and gotten blown over. And all those poor sods backed up halfway to Kinross trying to work out whether there's still a ferry at Queensferry would have been saved by having the same good habit.
We only need to add PR and we've got the holy trinity on this thread.