Sadly I see that Paul Daniels is no longer playing comedy this side of the interplanetary curtain. Bill Wyman and Kate Bush are still here, though - must say I'm surprised to hear that alternative-Kate is a Tory.
She's never believed in the broad sunlit uplands. Just running up the hill was enough to pay the bills.
DeSantis weighed in on the race just 24 hours before the RNC’s 168 voting members are set to elect their next chair on Friday, a contest that will take place during the committee’s winter meeting at a seaside luxury resort....
“If the line stops at Ealing it will end up taking longer to get from Birmingham to central London via HS2 than the Victorian built route. Well done everyone.”
We need a revolution in which every politician of every party who has ever held office in the last 90 years is sent to live in a hut on Uist with one pot noodle and a sex starved chimp
Am I the only one who was blissfully ignorant of the political views of Rod before today? If you'd asked me to name ageing Tory rock stars it would have been Phil Collins and Kate Bush. And that's it.
Er, almost every loaded pop star over 30 is Tory
From the Spice Girls to Eric Clapton, from Led Zep to Adele
Taxes + great wealth have a way of altering your political perspective
Unfortunately for the Tories, record high taxes and a general lack of wealth for young workers looks to be sinking them. "He got on his Mike and looked for a viral Spotify track".
“If the line stops at Ealing it will end up taking longer to get from Birmingham to central London via HS2 than the Victorian built route. Well done everyone.”
Sadly I see that Paul Daniels is no longer playing comedy this side of the interplanetary curtain. Bill Wyman and Kate Bush are still here, though - I'm surprised to hear that alternative-Kate is a Tory, that I must say.
From memory I think Kate was more a Theresa May fan than a Tory one. An unusual combo I accept.
Sadly I see that Paul Daniels is no longer playing comedy this side of the interplanetary curtain. Bill Wyman and Kate Bush are still here, though - I'm surprised to hear that alternative-Kate is a Tory, that I must say.
From memory I think Kate was more a Theresa May fan than a Tory one. An unusual combo I accept.
But this isn’t a Tory failure. Our entire political class has failed us. All of them. They all need to get in the sea
Err, if HS2 is a railroad to nowhere, that is the fault of the current government. It always risked being a white elephant, but this decision confirms it.
Sadly I see that Paul Daniels is no longer playing comedy this side of the interplanetary curtain. Bill Wyman and Kate Bush are still here, though - I'm surprised to hear that alternative-Kate is a Tory, that I must say.
I remember burning all my Chris Rea vinyl when I heard he was a Tory, and lo-and- behold, wrong Chris Rea. I can't believe the fragrant Kate is a Tory, must be another Kate Bush .
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
You get an allowance of £23k, then after that, the average person's parents is more likely to have their home sold or have a lien put on it to pay their care costs.
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
That’s one thing that strikes me. You meet so many later middle aged people with no pension provision who tell you that their house is their pension. Unless they die early, this means that a lot of equity will be spent down to cover day-to-day living costs, meaning that it won’t be available for inheritance and, logically, that property prices should surely fall?
This touches on one of my pet hates. Houses should be laces to live in - homes - not investments or pension plans. I don't blame the people themselves. Successive governments have so screwed over private pensions that the housing market is one of the very few ways many people can provide for their old age. But it shouldn't be that way. Personally, in an ideal world, I want to leave my current house feet first. I have no intention of 'downsizing' nor do I see my house as an investment. I would be delighted if it halved in value as long as it meant the rest of the housing market was doing the same and younger people could actually get on the housing market*.
*Okay I realise from previous discussions that a housing crash would actually be a 'bad thing' for many people and for many reasons but you get the principle. If my house never became a single penny more valuable so that inflation ate into its value and halved it by the time I departed then that would suit me just as well.
The UK actually has more enrolled in workplace pensions than most OECD nations.
Outside London and the Home Counties house prices are much more affordable to the young anyway and less of an asset, though even there the average house price has in most years this century risen in percentage terms by more than the average wage
Not sure what you consider affordable. Just looking at cities, the average house price in most is at least 6 or 7 times average earnings at a minimum. That is not sustainable for most people.
In county Durham the average house price is only 4.74 times average salary for instance, in Barrow only 3.74 times average salary, in Port Talbot 4.42 times average salary, in Hull 4.3 times average salary, in Blackburn 4.8 times average salary, in Derby 5.08 times average salary, in Stoke 4.5 times average salary, in Hartlepool 4.58 times average salary, in Carmathenshire 5.7 times average salary, in Copeland just 2.7 times average salary.
@APStylebook We recommend avoiding general and often dehumanizing “the” labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French, the disabled, the college-educated. Instead, use wording such as people with mental illnesses. And use these descriptions only when clearly relevant.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
You get an allowance of £23k, then after that, the average person's parents is more likely to have their home sold or have a lien put on it to pay their care costs.
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
That’s one thing that strikes me. You meet so many later middle aged people with no pension provision who tell you that their house is their pension. Unless they die early, this means that a lot of equity will be spent down to cover day-to-day living costs, meaning that it won’t be available for inheritance and, logically, that property prices should surely fall?
This touches on one of my pet hates. Houses should be laces to live in - homes - not investments or pension plans. I don't blame the people themselves. Successive governments have so screwed over private pensions that the housing market is one of the very few ways many people can provide for their old age. But it shouldn't be that way. Personally, in an ideal world, I want to leave my current house feet first. I have no intention of 'downsizing' nor do I see my house as an investment. I would be delighted if it halved in value as long as it meant the rest of the housing market was doing the same and younger people could actually get on the housing market*.
*Okay I realise from previous discussions that a housing crash would actually be a 'bad thing' for many people and for many reasons but you get the principle. If my house never became a single penny more valuable so that inflation ate into its value and halved it by the time I departed then that would suit me just as well.
The UK actually has more enrolled in workplace pensions than most OECD nations.
Outside London and the Home Counties house prices are much more affordable to the young anyway and less of an asset, though even there the average house price has in most years this century risen in percentage terms by more than the average wage
Not sure what you consider affordable. Just looking at cities, the average house price in most is at least 6 or 7 times average earnings at a minimum. That is not sustainable for most people.
In county Durham the average house price is only 4.74 times average salary for instance, in Barrow only 3.74 times average salary, in Port Talbot 4.42 times average salary, in Hull in 4.3 times average salary, in Blackburn 4.8 times average salary, in Derby 5.08 times average salary, in Stoke 4.5 times average salary, in Hartlepool 4.58 times average salary, in Carmathenshire 5.7 times average salary, in Copeland just 2.7 times average salary.
There is plenty of affordable property north of Watford
How does the average salary in Copeland compare to the national average salary?
Rod Stewart also wrote The Killing of Georgie. Didn’t just sing it beautifully, also wrote it. Probably the most powerful musical protest against homophobia in existence. Because it is so simple, yet so touching
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
Rod hasn't died, has he? I thought he'd just decided to vote Labour.
For many of us, it is basically the same
THE ROD HAS GONE
Rod Stewart attended events with Blair, like most rich rock stars he is not a died in the wool Tory, he just normally votes Tory to keep his taxes low while being relativey socially liberal. If he thinks Labour has not got a socialist leader and the Tories have been in too long he will give Labour a go
But this isn’t a Tory failure. Our entire political class has failed us. All of them. They all need to get in the sea
Err, if HS2 is a railroad to nowhere, that is the fault of the current government. It always risked being a white elephant, but this decision confirms it.
There is an enormous square mile hole behind Euston Station. For HS2. Wtf are they going to do with THAT
I never agreed with HS2. It was always a foolish waste of money. Britain is too densely populated and compact to justify proper high speed trains. Simply improve the present network. Speed them Up. Build a dedicated Liverpool Newcastle line
But now we’ve spent seventy eight trillion we might as well finish the damn thing
This is the end of the Tories. For ever. Let them die in their squalor. I loathe everything about them
“If the line stops at Ealing it will end up taking longer to get from Birmingham to central London via HS2 than the Victorian built route. Well done everyone.”
As far as I remember - it takes longer now to go from Glasgow to Edinburgh by train than it did ~100 years ago. So... it's a pattern I guess. Maybe even 'best practice' as far as some consultants are concerned.
But this isn’t a Tory failure. Our entire political class has failed us. All of them. They all need to get in the sea
Err, if HS2 is a railroad to nowhere, that is the fault of the current government. It always risked being a white elephant, but this decision confirms it.
There is an enormous square mile hole behind Euston Station. For HS2. Wtf are they going to do with THAT
I never agreed with HS2. It was always a foolish waste of money. Britain is too densely populated and compact to justify proper high speed trains. Simply improve the present network. Speed them Up. Build a dedicated Liverpool Newcastle line
But now we’ve spent seventy eight trillion we might as well finish the damn thing
This is the end of the Tories. For ever. Let them die in their squalor. I loathe everything about them
Christ, they could have built a northern powerhouse high speed rail by now. Already. Liverpool to Newcastle. For about 30p
Now they are going to simply accept a £££bn loss and junk Euston. Wtf
It's one of the relatively few things that I broke ranks on - all my Labour council colleagues favoured HS2, Anna Soubry championed HS2, and it was going to have an actual stop in my constituency. But I predicted it would end up costing a multiple of the initial estimates and half of it would never get built at all. Like the Millennium Dome exhibition (which I also opposed, to Mandelson's annoyance), it was just such a classic "Big Political Project that you could see it was doomed.
Rod Stewart, horse going to the toilet, it's been all action while I've been away, I can see.
All Labour needs now is for Jim Davidson and Paul Daniels to desert the Tory fold too.
No, you can keep Jim Davidson and Paul Daniels. You're welcome to them.
Jim Davidson even went to Tory conference when IDS was leader (he and Julian Fellowes IDS' only celebrity backers), I used to see him in the bars. If he went it would be to RefUK not Labou
How apt. I'll never forget that wonderfully awful "Quiet Man" speech from Duncan-Smith, that year - a true political treasure for all eras and seasons.
Christ, they could have built a northern powerhouse high speed rail by now. Already. Liverpool to Newcastle. For about 30p
Now they are going to simply accept a £££bn loss and junk Euston. Wtf
It's one of the relatively few things that I broke ranks on - all my Labour council colleagues favoured HS2, Anna Soubry championed HS2, and it was going to have an actual stop in my constituency. But I predicted it would end up costing a multiple of the initial estimates and half of it would never get built at all. Like the Millennium Dome exhibition (which I also opposed, to Mandelson's annoyance), it was just such a classic "Big Political Project that you could see it was doomed.
Rod Stewart, horse going to the toilet, it's been all action while I've been away, I can see.
All Labour needs now is for Jim Davidson and Paul Daniels to desert the Tory fold too.
No, you can keep Jim Davidson and Paul Daniels. You're welcome to them.
Jim Davidson even went to Tory conference when IDS was leader (he and Julian Fellowes IDS' only celebrity backers), I used to see him in the bars. If he went it would be to RefUK not Labou
How apt. I'll never forget that wonderfully awful "Quiet Man" speech of IDS - a true political treasure forever.
I went in 2001 and 2002, remember Leon Brittan and Norman Tebbit made appearences
But this isn’t a Tory failure. Our entire political class has failed us. All of them. They all need to get in the sea
Err, if HS2 is a railroad to nowhere, that is the fault of the current government. It always risked being a white elephant, but this decision confirms it.
There is an enormous square mile hole behind Euston Station. For HS2. Wtf are they going to do with THAT
I never agreed with HS2. It was always a foolish waste of money. Britain is too densely populated and compact to justify proper high speed trains. Simply improve the present network. Speed them Up. Build a dedicated Liverpool Newcastle line
But now we’ve spent seventy eight trillion we might as well finish the damn thing
This is the end of the Tories. For ever. Let them die in their squalor. I loathe everything about them
Think about it logically
Houses on the route have been bought at a premium to market value. Nearby houses have received compensation payments
Large amounts flowing to Tory voters
No need to actually build the damn thing. I mean no one actually wants that!
But this isn’t a Tory failure. Our entire political class has failed us. All of them. They all need to get in the sea
Err, if HS2 is a railroad to nowhere, that is the fault of the current government. It always risked being a white elephant, but this decision confirms it.
There is an enormous square mile hole behind Euston Station. For HS2. Wtf are they going to do with THAT
I never agreed with HS2. It was always a foolish waste of money. Britain is too densely populated and compact to justify proper high speed trains. Simply improve the present network. Speed them Up. Build a dedicated Liverpool Newcastle line
But now we’ve spent seventy eight trillion we might as well finish the damn thing
This is the end of the Tories. For ever. Let them die in their squalor. I loathe everything about them
SUNK COST FALLACY KLAXON
Granted, but it is all get a bit beyond a joke - even without recent inflationary pressures I think everyone knew it would cost way way more than was claimed, and to think it might not even happen for much of what was promised is a bit frustrating, even for those who didn't back it in the first place.
All politics is relative of course; and in voting (or not) you have to put the options alongside and compare the meerkat. In 1997 putting major's Tories against Blair's Labour I had no real hesitation in voting Tory. Today, putting the Tories against SKS's Labour (and SKS is no Blair) the Tories are simply nowhere. I could not vote for them under any circumstances at the moment.
It seems to me that, oddly, all the other parties are acting as if they have nothing really to win. Tories and SNP are both acting as if there is no real hope for their near future. If there were NZ would have been out ages ago; and Nicola would not be making egregious and unforced errors. The LDs may as well not exist they are so invisible.
One of their big mistakes in 2019 was pouring a lot of money into futile national (or nationwide) campaigning, including tons of direct mail from someone who pops in here now and again. I’m sure that won’t be happening again, and would expect all their effort and resources to be ruthlessly targeted and local. If you live in one of their chosen spots, I’d hope you’d already be seeing it, but for the rest of us, yes, they’re pretty invisible.
I live in one of their targets. They've put out one leaflet in the last year. That said, they remain ace at winning by-elections.
Am I the only one who was blissfully ignorant of the political views of Rod before today? If you'd asked me to name ageing Tory rock stars it would have been Phil Collins and Kate Bush. And that's it.
Cilla was a died in the wool Tory too
Before Cilla died she may have been a dyed in the wool Tory but as far as I know she never died in the wool.
But this isn’t a Tory failure. Our entire political class has failed us. All of them. They all need to get in the sea
Err, if HS2 is a railroad to nowhere, that is the fault of the current government. It always risked being a white elephant, but this decision confirms it.
There is an enormous square mile hole behind Euston Station. For HS2. Wtf are they going to do with THAT
I never agreed with HS2. It was always a foolish waste of money. Britain is too densely populated and compact to justify proper high speed trains. Simply improve the present network. Speed them Up. Build a dedicated Liverpool Newcastle line
But now we’ve spent seventy eight trillion we might as well finish the damn thing
This is the end of the Tories. For ever. Let them die in their squalor. I loathe everything about them
Think about it logically
Houses on the route have been bought at a premium to market value. Nearby houses have received compensation payments
Large amounts flowing to Tory voters
No need to actually build the damn thing. I mean no one actually wants that!
I know you’re being facetious but there is a serious point here. HS2 was - to me, and many others - always a huge waste of time and money. A wet dream for trainspotters. The density and proximity of major population centres in England means the expense is not justified. Spend the billions on new northern rail, trams, integrated transport
But now we’ve all reluctantly accepted it is happening and they’ve gouged out huge holes in beautiful English countryside and destroyed ancient woodland and all for a vague railway that begins somewhere near Birmingham and ends in a shed near West Ealing and goes slower than a pony and trap and and and
The anger and contempt will be off the dial. Tories down to the high teens in the polls
Christ, they could have built a northern powerhouse high speed rail by now. Already. Liverpool to Newcastle. For about 30p
Now they are going to simply accept a £££bn loss and junk Euston. Wtf
It's one of the relatively few things that I broke ranks on - all my Labour council colleagues favoured HS2, Anna Soubry championed HS2, and it was going to have an actual stop in my constituency. But I predicted it would end up costing a multiple of the initial estimates and half of it would never get built at all. Like the Millennium Dome exhibition (which I also opposed, to Mandelson's annoyance), it was just such a classic "Big Political Project that you could see it was doomed.
I'm sure estimating costs for such things must be a complete nightmare, so many unforeseen things, but with the benefit of hindsight informing future decisions are they ever even close? Do we only hear about the big failures an in fact most of the time things are on budget and on time?
Because I'm so ingrained to think otherwise I nearly fell of my chair when I read about a Swiss tunnel or something that was both.
But this isn’t a Tory failure. Our entire political class has failed us. All of them. They all need to get in the sea
Err, if HS2 is a railroad to nowhere, that is the fault of the current government. It always risked being a white elephant, but this decision confirms it.
There is an enormous square mile hole behind Euston Station. For HS2. Wtf are they going to do with THAT
I never agreed with HS2. It was always a foolish waste of money. Britain is too densely populated and compact to justify proper high speed trains. Simply improve the present network. Speed them Up. Build a dedicated Liverpool Newcastle line
But now we’ve spent seventy eight trillion we might as well finish the damn thing
This is the end of the Tories. For ever. Let them die in their squalor. I loathe everything about them
Think about it logically
Houses on the route have been bought at a premium to market value. Nearby houses have received compensation payments
Large amounts flowing to Tory voters
No need to actually build the damn thing. I mean no one actually wants that!
I know you’re being facetious but there is a serious point here. HS2 was - to me, and many others - always a huge waste of time and money. A wet dream for trainspotters. The density and proximity of major population centres in England means the expense is not justified. Spend the billions on new northern rail, trams, integrated transport
But now we’ve all reluctantly accepted it is happening and they’ve gouged out huge holes in beautiful English countryside and destroyed ancient woodland and all for a vague railway that begins somewhere near Birmingham and ends in a shed near West Ealing and goes slower than a pony and trap and and and
The anger and contempt will be off the dial. Tories down to the high teens in the polls
It’s a rich metaphor for Tory failure. The high speed train that goes more slowly and gets you nowhere.
No surprises this is happening, to be honest. Rishi detests infrastructure investment.
Time to admit that Britain has essentially decided on a kind of self-euthanasia. It’s taken a look at modernity and decided it doesn’t want a bar of it.
But this isn’t a Tory failure. Our entire political class has failed us. All of them. They all need to get in the sea
Err, if HS2 is a railroad to nowhere, that is the fault of the current government. It always risked being a white elephant, but this decision confirms it.
There is an enormous square mile hole behind Euston Station. For HS2. Wtf are they going to do with THAT
I never agreed with HS2. It was always a foolish waste of money. Britain is too densely populated and compact to justify proper high speed trains. Simply improve the present network. Speed them Up. Build a dedicated Liverpool Newcastle line
But now we’ve spent seventy eight trillion we might as well finish the damn thing
This is the end of the Tories. For ever. Let them die in their squalor. I loathe everything about them
Think about it logically
Houses on the route have been bought at a premium to market value. Nearby houses have received compensation payments
Large amounts flowing to Tory voters
No need to actually build the damn thing. I mean no one actually wants that!
I know you’re being facetious but there is a serious point here. HS2 was - to me, and many others - always a huge waste of time and money. A wet dream for trainspotters. The density and proximity of major population centres in England means the expense is not justified. Spend the billions on new northern rail, trams, integrated transport
But now we’ve all reluctantly accepted it is happening and they’ve gouged out huge holes in beautiful English countryside and destroyed ancient woodland and all for a vague railway that begins somewhere near Birmingham and ends in a shed near West Ealing and goes slower than a pony and trap and and and
The anger and contempt will be off the dial. Tories down to the high teens in the polls
It’s a rich metaphor for Tory failure. The high speed train that goes more slowly and gets you nowhere.
No surprises this is happening, to be honest. Rishi detests infrastructure investment.
The entire Tory government needs to be taken to some woods in Epping and REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED
Christ, they could have built a northern powerhouse high speed rail by now. Already. Liverpool to Newcastle. For about 30p
Now they are going to simply accept a £££bn loss and junk Euston. Wtf
It's one of the relatively few things that I broke ranks on - all my Labour council colleagues favoured HS2, Anna Soubry championed HS2, and it was going to have an actual stop in my constituency. But I predicted it would end up costing a multiple of the initial estimates and half of it would never get built at all. Like the Millennium Dome exhibition (which I also opposed, to Mandelson's annoyance), it was just such a classic "Big Political Project that you could see it was doomed.
I'm sure estimating costs for such things must be a complete nightmare, so many unforeseen things, but with the benefit of hindsight informing future decisions are they ever even close? Do we only hear about the big failures an in fact most of the time things are on budget and on time?
Because I'm so ingrained to think otherwise I nearly fell of my chair when I read about a Swiss tunnel or something that was both.
The system of competitive tenders gives an incentive to be as optimistic as you can possibly get away with.
The only counter-example I can think of immediately was the huge IT project for the passport system. It arrived on time and I believe within budget, and it works perfectly. It would be interesting to hear the project managers explain how they did it.
If they're going to do this, it would have been better politically if Liz Truss had cancelled it and redeployed everyone working on it to build the Northern Powerhouse Rail.
Time to admit that Britain has essentially decided on a kind of self-euthanasia. It’s taken a look at modernity and decided it doesn’t want a bar of it.
We are a failed state. The New York Times is right
This is tacitly Rishi Sunak giving up on the Red Wall and the North and trying to win a Major/Cameron Government instead, sadly those voters all left when he supported Brexit.
I now see a scenario with them on less than 100 seats
If they're going to do this, it would have been better politically if Liz Truss had cancelled it and redeployed everyone working on it to build the Northern Powerhouse Rail.
A lot of things would have been better under Liz Truss, as the silly people here who insisted that Rishi's 'lie down and play dead' brand of government was a good idea are now realising.
Time to admit that Britain has essentially decided on a kind of self-euthanasia. It’s taken a look at modernity and decided it doesn’t want a bar of it.
We are a failed state. The New York Times is right
No we aren't. The problems of inflation and strikes we face are what most western nations are facing, as are the challenges of AI etc. Even getting more young people on the housing ladder is a problem from Australia to Ireland as is funding an ageing population
But this isn’t a Tory failure. Our entire political class has failed us. All of them. They all need to get in the sea
Err, if HS2 is a railroad to nowhere, that is the fault of the current government. It always risked being a white elephant, but this decision confirms it.
There is an enormous square mile hole behind Euston Station. For HS2. Wtf are they going to do with THAT
I never agreed with HS2. It was always a foolish waste of money. Britain is too densely populated and compact to justify proper high speed trains. Simply improve the present network. Speed them Up. Build a dedicated Liverpool Newcastle line
But now we’ve spent seventy eight trillion we might as well finish the damn thing
This is the end of the Tories. For ever. Let them die in their squalor. I loathe everything about them
Think about it logically
Houses on the route have been bought at a premium to market value. Nearby houses have received compensation payments
Large amounts flowing to Tory voters
No need to actually build the damn thing. I mean no one actually wants that!
I know you’re being facetious but there is a serious point here. HS2 was - to me, and many others - always a huge waste of time and money. A wet dream for trainspotters. The density and proximity of major population centres in England means the expense is not justified. Spend the billions on new northern rail, trams, integrated transport
But now we’ve all reluctantly accepted it is happening and they’ve gouged out huge holes in beautiful English countryside and destroyed ancient woodland and all for a vague railway that begins somewhere near Birmingham and ends in a shed near West Ealing and goes slower than a pony and trap and and and
The anger and contempt will be off the dial. Tories down to the high teens in the polls
It’s a rich metaphor for Tory failure. The high speed train that goes more slowly and gets you nowhere.
No surprises this is happening, to be honest. Rishi detests infrastructure investment.
The entire Tory government needs to be taken to some woods in Epping and REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED
This needs to happen to our entire electoral, constitutional and political system, rather than any particular individuals, I think.
We need four new parties of the left and right, PR, a new consitutional settlement incorporating a more clearly cut-down-to-size Scandinavian monarchy, Federal devo-max to keep Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales interested, and a massive national effort to move away from the ingrained, and over-financialised , structural economic and social short-termism that has been holding the country back for decades now. All this also includes understanding what has been lost in national broadcasting, our common civic culture, and concepts of the public interest.
But this isn’t a Tory failure. Our entire political class has failed us. All of them. They all need to get in the sea
Err, if HS2 is a railroad to nowhere, that is the fault of the current government. It always risked being a white elephant, but this decision confirms it.
There is an enormous square mile hole behind Euston Station. For HS2. Wtf are they going to do with THAT
I never agreed with HS2. It was always a foolish waste of money. Britain is too densely populated and compact to justify proper high speed trains. Simply improve the present network. Speed them Up. Build a dedicated Liverpool Newcastle line
But now we’ve spent seventy eight trillion we might as well finish the damn thing
This is the end of the Tories. For ever. Let them die in their squalor. I loathe everything about them
Think about it logically
Houses on the route have been bought at a premium to market value. Nearby houses have received compensation payments
Large amounts flowing to Tory voters
No need to actually build the damn thing. I mean no one actually wants that!
I know you’re being facetious but there is a serious point here. HS2 was - to me, and many others - always a huge waste of time and money. A wet dream for trainspotters. The density and proximity of major population centres in England means the expense is not justified. Spend the billions on new northern rail, trams, integrated transport
But now we’ve all reluctantly accepted it is happening and they’ve gouged out huge holes in beautiful English countryside and destroyed ancient woodland and all for a vague railway that begins somewhere near Birmingham and ends in a shed near West Ealing and goes slower than a pony and trap and and and
The anger and contempt will be off the dial. Tories down to the high teens in the polls
It’s a rich metaphor for Tory failure. The high speed train that goes more slowly and gets you nowhere.
No surprises this is happening, to be honest. Rishi detests infrastructure investment.
The entire Tory government needs to be taken to some woods in Epping and REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED
This needs to happen to our entire electoral, constitutional and political system, rather than any particular individuals, I think.
We need four new parties of the left and right, PR, a new consitutional settlement incorporating a more clearly cut-down-to-size Scandinavian monarchy, Federal devo-max to keep Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales interested, and a massive national effort to move away from the ingrained, and over-financialised , structural economic and social short-termism , that has been holding the country back for decades now.
Yes. We need a Revolution. Starmer and Co are no better. Ditto sturgeon up north
I’ve logged off PB for many reasons in my time (often unmentionable) but this is the first time I have logged off because I am so incandescently angry at the Tory government, and the wider British establishment - Labour very much included - that I fear I will get banned if I continue
He’s consistently voted for the leopard eating party and now that the leopards have decided to eat him, he’s upset about it.
In essence, like all the gammony boomers in his age cohort, he was quite happy to vote for things like Brexit simply because the costs would be borne by other people.
He’s consistently voted for the leopard eating party and now that the leopards have decided to eat him, he’s upset about it.
In essence, like all the gammony boomers in his age cohort, he was quite happy to vote for things like Brexit simply because the costs would be borne by other people.
Is HS2 anything to do with the leopards, or is it just that the whole zoo is carp?
All politics is relative of course; and in voting (or not) you have to put the options alongside and compare the meerkat. In 1997 putting major's Tories against Blair's Labour I had no real hesitation in voting Tory. Today, putting the Tories against SKS's Labour (and SKS is no Blair) the Tories are simply nowhere. I could not vote for them under any circumstances at the moment.
It seems to me that, oddly, all the other parties are acting as if they have nothing really to win. Tories and SNP are both acting as if there is no real hope for their near future. If there were NZ would have been out ages ago; and Nicola would not be making egregious and unforced errors. The LDs may as well not exist they are so invisible.
One of their big mistakes in 2019 was pouring a lot of money into futile national (or nationwide) campaigning, including tons of direct mail from someone who pops in here now and again. I’m sure that won’t be happening again, and would expect all their effort and resources to be ruthlessly targeted and local. If you live in one of their chosen spots, I’d hope you’d already be seeing it, but for the rest of us, yes, they’re pretty invisible.
I live in one of their targets. They've put out one leaflet in the last year. That said, they remain ace at winning by-elections.
But if the Lib Dems are targeting things effectively, you would not be getting anything at all, Mr Palmer. After all you are an ex Labour MP and a Labour loyalist.
The story in the Sun may well just be Treasury floating ideas. Might never happen.
That has occurred to me
This could be HS2 dudes floating an outrageous idea - which perversely forces a reluctant government to see HS2 through or risk voter/pundit explosions
PS: you don’t understand the “leopard eating” meme
He’s consistently voted for the leopard eating party and now that the leopards have decided to eat him, he’s upset about it.
In essence, like all the gammony boomers in his age cohort, he was quite happy to vote for things like Brexit simply because the costs would be borne by other people.
He isn't complaining against Brexit - that if anything was a blow against Britain's execrable political class.
He’s consistently voted for the leopard eating party and now that the leopards have decided to eat him, he’s upset about it.
In essence, like all the gammony boomers in his age cohort, he was quite happy to vote for things like Brexit simply because the costs would be borne by other people.
He isn't complaining against Brexit - that if anything was a blow against Britain's execrable political class.
Things *like* Brexit. Although proudly free-thinking, Leon has generally followed the Tories into the sewer and, now, as he gazes upon the full cloacal horror, urgently wishes to find a manhole.
He’s consistently voted for the leopard eating party and now that the leopards have decided to eat him, he’s upset about it.
In essence, like all the gammony boomers in his age cohort, he was quite happy to vote for things like Brexit simply because the costs would be borne by other people.
He isn't complaining against Brexit - that if anything was a blow against Britain's execrable political class.
Things *like* Brexit. Although proudly free-thinking, Leon has generally followed the Tories into the sewer and, now, as he gazes upon the full cloacal horror, urgently wishes to find a manhole.
Well in England, most vote for one or t'other. It's FPTP innit.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
You get an allowance of £23k, then after that, the average person's parents is more likely to have their home sold or have a lien put on it to pay their care costs.
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
That’s one thing that strikes me. You meet so many later middle aged people with no pension provision who tell you that their house is their pension. Unless they die early, this means that a lot of equity will be spent down to cover day-to-day living costs, meaning that it won’t be available for inheritance and, logically, that property prices should surely fall?
This touches on one of my pet hates. Houses should be laces to live in - homes - not investments or pension plans. I don't blame the people themselves. Successive governments have so screwed over private pensions that the housing market is one of the very few ways many people can provide for their old age. But it shouldn't be that way. Personally, in an ideal world, I want to leave my current house feet first. I have no intention of 'downsizing' nor do I see my house as an investment. I would be delighted if it halved in value as long as it meant the rest of the housing market was doing the same and younger people could actually get on the housing market*.
*Okay I realise from previous discussions that a housing crash would actually be a 'bad thing' for many people and for many reasons but you get the principle. If my house never became a single penny more valuable so that inflation ate into its value and halved it by the time I departed then that would suit me just as well.
The UK actually has more enrolled in workplace pensions than most OECD nations.
Outside London and the Home Counties house prices are much more affordable to the young anyway and less of an asset, though even there the average house price has in most years this century risen in percentage terms by more than the average wage
Not sure what you consider affordable. Just looking at cities, the average house price in most is at least 6 or 7 times average earnings at a minimum. That is not sustainable for most people.
For most workers enrolled in a workplace pension they will pay in 5% of their wages over 40 years and retire on a pittance that is less than half of their state pension and won't even be index linked. The average pension pot is I believe around 50 to 70k due to 20 years of almost zero interest rates
@APStylebook We recommend avoiding general and often dehumanizing “the” labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French, the disabled, the college-educated. Instead, use wording such as people with mental illnesses. And use these descriptions only when clearly relevant.
Are you suggesting being french is a mental illness?
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
You get an allowance of £23k, then after that, the average person's parents is more likely to have their home sold or have a lien put on it to pay their care costs.
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
That’s one thing that strikes me. You meet so many later middle aged people with no pension provision who tell you that their house is their pension. Unless they die early, this means that a lot of equity will be spent down to cover day-to-day living costs, meaning that it won’t be available for inheritance and, logically, that property prices should surely fall?
This touches on one of my pet hates. Houses should be laces to live in - homes - not investments or pension plans. I don't blame the people themselves. Successive governments have so screwed over private pensions that the housing market is one of the very few ways many people can provide for their old age. But it shouldn't be that way. Personally, in an ideal world, I want to leave my current house feet first. I have no intention of 'downsizing' nor do I see my house as an investment. I would be delighted if it halved in value as long as it meant the rest of the housing market was doing the same and younger people could actually get on the housing market*.
*Okay I realise from previous discussions that a housing crash would actually be a 'bad thing' for many people and for many reasons but you get the principle. If my house never became a single penny more valuable so that inflation ate into its value and halved it by the time I departed then that would suit me just as well.
The UK actually has more enrolled in workplace pensions than most OECD nations.
Outside London and the Home Counties house prices are much more affordable to the young anyway and less of an asset, though even there the average house price has in most years this century risen in percentage terms by more than the average wage
Not sure what you consider affordable. Just looking at cities, the average house price in most is at least 6 or 7 times average earnings at a minimum. That is not sustainable for most people.
In county Durham the average house price is only 4.74 times average salary for instance, in Barrow only 3.74 times average salary, in Port Talbot 4.42 times average salary, in Hull 4.3 times average salary, in Blackburn 4.8 times average salary, in Derby 5.08 times average salary, in Stoke 4.5 times average salary, in Hartlepool 4.58 times average salary, in Carmathenshire 5.7 times average salary, in Copeland just 2.7 times average salary.
There is plenty of affordable property north of Watford
And yet when we were first looking for houses in the 80s no bank would lend you more than 3.5 times your earnings as that was considered manageable. Not many of those out there these days.
The real world - which is a million miles from the one you inhabit - is filled with people who simply cannot afford to ever get on the property ladder.
A dude on Twitter reckons the planned new HS2 will shave 15 minutes off the central Birmingham-central London train journey
15 minutes. £60 BILLION. Half of the Chilterns ripped apart. Euston demolished. Huge holes across London. The north denied
This is the final electoral seppuku of the Conservative Party
82 minutes I think is the fastest current journey time from Euston to New Street.
Cutting that to about an hour would be quite beneficial for commuters to and from Birmingham to London
“Quite beneficial for commuters” is a phrase that justifies spending £30m. Not ninety BILLION
HS2 is fundamentally about capacity not speed. Also nobody should shed a tear for Euston, it's a rubbish station, looked even worse last time I was there when network rail had shoved cheap wood paneling all over the place.
I spent the afternoon trying to work out how to enable secure boot and TPM2.0 on my desktop. Which I achieved in the end, with a small sense of accomplishment, even though I haven’t a clue what I have actually done.
Enabled a sudden and unexpected upgrade to Windows 11 by the sound of it.
He’s consistently voted for the leopard eating party and now that the leopards have decided to eat him, he’s upset about it.
In essence, like all the gammony boomers in his age cohort, he was quite happy to vote for things like Brexit simply because the costs would be borne by other people.
He isn't complaining against Brexit - that if anything was a blow against Britain's execrable political class.
Things *like* Brexit. Although proudly free-thinking, Leon has generally followed the Tories into the sewer and, now, as he gazes upon the full cloacal horror, urgently wishes to find a manhole.
Hilarious how self proclaimed liberals support the undemocratic EU then call themselves free thinking.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
You get an allowance of £23k, then after that, the average person's parents is more likely to have their home sold or have a lien put on it to pay their care costs.
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
That’s one thing that strikes me. You meet so many later middle aged people with no pension provision who tell you that their house is their pension. Unless they die early, this means that a lot of equity will be spent down to cover day-to-day living costs, meaning that it won’t be available for inheritance and, logically, that property prices should surely fall?
This touches on one of my pet hates. Houses should be laces to live in - homes - not investments or pension plans. I don't blame the people themselves. Successive governments have so screwed over private pensions that the housing market is one of the very few ways many people can provide for their old age. But it shouldn't be that way. Personally, in an ideal world, I want to leave my current house feet first. I have no intention of 'downsizing' nor do I see my house as an investment. I would be delighted if it halved in value as long as it meant the rest of the housing market was doing the same and younger people could actually get on the housing market*.
*Okay I realise from previous discussions that a housing crash would actually be a 'bad thing' for many people and for many reasons but you get the principle. If my house never became a single penny more valuable so that inflation ate into its value and halved it by the time I departed then that would suit me just as well.
The UK actually has more enrolled in workplace pensions than most OECD nations.
Outside London and the Home Counties house prices are much more affordable to the young anyway and less of an asset, though even there the average house price has in most years this century risen in percentage terms by more than the average wage
Not sure what you consider affordable. Just looking at cities, the average house price in most is at least 6 or 7 times average earnings at a minimum. That is not sustainable for most people.
In county Durham the average house price is only 4.74 times average salary for instance, in Barrow only 3.74 times average salary, in Port Talbot 4.42 times average salary, in Hull 4.3 times average salary, in Blackburn 4.8 times average salary, in Derby 5.08 times average salary, in Stoke 4.5 times average salary, in Hartlepool 4.58 times average salary, in Carmathenshire 5.7 times average salary, in Copeland just 2.7 times average salary.
@APStylebook We recommend avoiding general and often dehumanizing “the” labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French, the disabled, the college-educated. Instead, use wording such as people with mental illnesses. And use these descriptions only when clearly relevant.
Are you suggesting being french is a mental illness?
The BBC news article on HS2 is a report, not Government policy, and HMG have stated they remain committed to completing the whole route to Manchester.
I support HS2 but it's a classic case study of what happens when you screw up the original business case - because it was scoped to be an ultra high speed line (save journey time) it hugely increased engineering and construction costs - bridges, tunnels and curve radii, "air hammer" and land purchase etc - that weren't necessary for a provide new capacity line that could operate at a fast but lower speed. The parliamentary process added on a lot of extra mitigation obligations along the route too.
It needs to be built because the infrastructure connecting major English cities and the capital is shocking, and at capacity, but boy has it been handled badly.
I thought this place had standards. (Flounces off).
The front half of an E-Type is brazed together (they designed it from back to front gradually running out money and time as they did so). Maybe he's restoring one.
The BBC news article on HS2 is a report, not Government policy, and HMG have stated they remain committed to completing the whole route to Manchester.
I support HS2 but it's a classic case study of what happens when you screw up the original business case - because it was scoped to be an ultra high speed line (save journey time) it hugely increased engineering and construction costs - bridges, tunnels and curve radii, "air hammer" and land purchase etc - that weren't necessary for a provide new capacity line that could operate at a fast but lower speed. The parliamentary process added on a lot of extra mitigation obligations along the route too.
It needs to be built because the infrastructure connecting major English cities and the capital is shocking, and at capacity, but boy has it been handled badly.
"Committed to completing the whole route to Manchester" but what about the whole route to London?
Agree on the business case. I'm not an economist, but it seems that value of time analysis seems to dominate this sort of thing. As I understand it, without going at a zillion miles per hour, there is no business case for HS2.
I thought the idea of terminating it at Old Oak Common would be what would kill it off entirely, but surely we're too far down the line to can it altogether?
It will be so bad if we end up spending an absolute fortune on a new railway line that doesn't actually go to London.
The BBC news article on HS2 is a report, not Government policy, and HMG have stated they remain committed to completing the whole route to Manchester.
I support HS2 but it's a classic case study of what happens when you screw up the original business case - because it was scoped to be an ultra high speed line (save journey time) it hugely increased engineering and construction costs - bridges, tunnels and curve radii, "air hammer" and land purchase etc - that weren't necessary for a provide new capacity line that could operate at a fast but lower speed. The parliamentary process added on a lot of extra mitigation obligations along the route too.
It needs to be built because the infrastructure connecting major English cities and the capital is shocking, and at capacity, but boy has it been handled badly.
"Committed to completing the whole route to Manchester" but what about the whole route to London?
Agree on the business case. I'm not an economist, but it seems that value of time analysis seems to dominate this sort of thing. As I understand it, without going at a zillion miles per hour, there is no business case for HS2.
I thought the idea of terminating it at Old Oak Common would be what would kill it off entirely, but surely we're too far down the line to can it altogether?
It will be so bad if we end up spending an absolute fortune on a new railway line that doesn't actually go to London.
Old Oak Common is weird as the main terminal.
By the time people have fannied around trying to get there and back from central London they may as well have hopped on a direct conventional train to the north from Euston.
Christ, they could have built a northern powerhouse high speed rail by now. Already. Liverpool to Newcastle. For about 30p
Now they are going to simply accept a £££bn loss and junk Euston. Wtf
It's one of the relatively few things that I broke ranks on - all my Labour council colleagues favoured HS2, Anna Soubry championed HS2, and it was going to have an actual stop in my constituency. But I predicted it would end up costing a multiple of the initial estimates and half of it would never get built at all. Like the Millennium Dome exhibition (which I also opposed, to Mandelson's annoyance), it was just such a classic "Big Political Project that you could see it was doomed.
I remember a presentation about the Dome, to some London-wide body of senior councillors, that I went to in the 90s. Some of the slides set out the financial projection that it would break even, and associated with this was a map showing projected paying visitor numbers from each part of the country. Even from the Scottish Highlands and north Wales they’d projected that something like a third of the population would travel to London to visit the Dome during 2000. I put my hand up and said that these numbers looked highly unlikely and asked whether they were based on any research or simply been worked backwards from whatever they needed to break even, and I got such a bad, empty answer that I concluded the latter.
A dude on Twitter reckons the planned new HS2 will shave 15 minutes off the central Birmingham-central London train journey
15 minutes. £60 BILLION. Half of the Chilterns ripped apart. Euston demolished. Huge holes across London. The north denied
This is the final electoral seppuku of the Conservative Party
82 minutes I think is the fastest current journey time from Euston to New Street.
And when did anyone think “oh let’s spend £100 billion” so I can get to london in 67 rather than 82 minutes
Utter, utter wankers
We need more capacity on the ordinary lines, which requires building a new one, and if we build a new one it may as well be high speed to try and drag our transportation into the 21st century. The shorter journeys are an add-on benefit that we may as well go for, not the driving point of the whole project.
Doubtless that’s the rationale behind the latest decision - take the capacity benefit but lose the travel advantage, at least to and from central London. I agree it’s foolish and short-sighted, but not as foolish as it would have been to launch the project solely to reduce journey times and then spend the money but not do so.
@MrHarryCole · 34s EXC: Inflation blighted HS2 in chaos with delay or scrap of it arriving at Euston.
Construction costs pain means scaling back of the project under live discussion in Whitehall.
Spent last few weeks under bonnet and it's not looking good
— The reality is that Old Oak Common station is probably a better option for most people rather than Euston
The rest of the planet is going to be throwing out its maglevs and hyperloops for those new fangled teleporters before some half-finished HS2 limps into operation linking one random part of the country to another, neither of which were intended as the start and terminus and in-between requires a replacement horse and cart.
Even Thailand is building high speed trains faster than us. Part of a Chinese-funded Beijing to Singapore adventure
It beggars belief they might scrap the Euston link. They’ve spent 3 years literally building it right outside my house. And now all that is for nothing??!
Even leaving that aside, this would be a literally insane proposal. You can’t scrap the Euston link without scrapping the lot. There are no terminus platforms at Old Oak Common - only through platforms - so train’s couldn’t stop and start there.
Which is what the DfE, their clients and their client’s patsies in the media want. Scrap HS2 and in the small minds of two of them, more money is spent on transport where it’s needed, I.e. London. For the clients, the air and road haulage industries will be safe from highly unwelcome competition.
The BBC news article on HS2 is a report, not Government policy, and HMG have stated they remain committed to completing the whole route to Manchester.
I support HS2 but it's a classic case study of what happens when you screw up the original business case - because it was scoped to be an ultra high speed line (save journey time) it hugely increased engineering and construction costs - bridges, tunnels and curve radii, "air hammer" and land purchase etc - that weren't necessary for a provide new capacity line that could operate at a fast but lower speed. The parliamentary process added on a lot of extra mitigation obligations along the route too.
It needs to be built because the infrastructure connecting major English cities and the capital is shocking, and at capacity, but boy has it been handled badly.
"Committed to completing the whole route to Manchester" but what about the whole route to London?
Agree on the business case. I'm not an economist, but it seems that value of time analysis seems to dominate this sort of thing. As I understand it, without going at a zillion miles per hour, there is no business case for HS2.
I thought the idea of terminating it at Old Oak Common would be what would kill it off entirely, but surely we're too far down the line to can it altogether?
It will be so bad if we end up spending an absolute fortune on a new railway line that doesn't actually go to London.
Old Oak Common is weird as the main terminal.
By the time people have fannied around trying to get there and back from central London they may as well have hopped on a direct conventional train to the north from Euston.
Doubt it will happen.
It has to finish at Euston otherwise the entire thing will be an OBVIOUS waste of enormous sums - along with all the demolished old houses, levelled woodlands, cratered suburbs. All the damage has already been done - and if there is no gain?
Yes yes Sunk Cost Fallacy but there is also a political/emotional cost the other way. Abandoning the only reason for the line would be a tremendous admission of national failure and ineptitude. Colossally bad for the Tories and bad for the nation too, I suggest
It would be like half building a new runway at Heathrow for £80bn and destroying all those villages and then deciding the runway should be a smaller runway in Gatwick
I can’t see it happening. My guess is this has been floated as an extreme possibility so we accept some other but significant cost cutting elsewhere. Maybe a delayed opening. More trimming in other places
A “cost-cutting” rail timetable has been blamed by passengers for “dangerous” chaos at London Bridge.
Extraordinary pictures show the concourse at the central London station crammed with thousands of passengers during the evening rush hour on Wednesday.
People described being trapped in a “crush”, with a “total lack of information”. There were reports of fights breaking out and people suffering panic attacks.
There were scores of cancellations, delays and line closures, with passengers taking to social media over the “unsafe” stampede at around 5.30pm.
Rail chiefs blamed a trespassing incident but commuters lashed out at rail firm Southeastern, saying overcrowding was a daily occurrence since it scrapped three key direct services in a new timetable last month.
Direct trains on the line between Hayes and London Cannon Street, and from London Charing Cross to both Woolwich and Maidstone East, have been axed to create “more reliable” services and save £10 million, meaning people heading to these destinations must now change at London Bridge.
All politics is relative of course; and in voting (or not) you have to put the options alongside and compare the meerkat. In 1997 putting major's Tories against Blair's Labour I had no real hesitation in voting Tory. Today, putting the Tories against SKS's Labour (and SKS is no Blair) the Tories are simply nowhere. I could not vote for them under any circumstances at the moment.
It seems to me that, oddly, all the other parties are acting as if they have nothing really to win. Tories and SNP are both acting as if there is no real hope for their near future. If there were NZ would have been out ages ago; and Nicola would not be making egregious and unforced errors. The LDs may as well not exist they are so invisible.
One of their big mistakes in 2019 was pouring a lot of money into futile national (or nationwide) campaigning, including tons of direct mail from someone who pops in here now and again. I’m sure that won’t be happening again, and would expect all their effort and resources to be ruthlessly targeted and local. If you live in one of their chosen spots, I’d hope you’d already be seeing it, but for the rest of us, yes, they’re pretty invisible.
I live in one of their targets. They've put out one leaflet in the last year. That said, they remain ace at winning by-elections.
But if the Lib Dems are targeting things effectively, you would not be getting anything at all, Mr Palmer. After all you are an ex Labour MP and a Labour loyalist.
When I first won my ward in the early 90s, for some time I’d kept a record of local Tory members, annotating the delivery routes so that those houses got missed, and as I found new ones - from canvassing, letters to the paper, or the grapevine - I went and knocked another house off the route by hand. So by the time the election came we were skipping anyone we knew to be a diehard Tory (to coin a phrase).
One of my special moments was at the count, after we’d won by over a thousand (having lost by the same four years earlier!) when one of the leading Tories came up to me and said “I don’t understand how you’ve done it?; we never saw anything from you”!
Back then it was rare to go to so much trouble, and credit to our delivers for following the instructions. Nowadays if a party isn’t doing targeted campaigning and messaging, it’s way behind the times.
@MrHarryCole · 34s EXC: Inflation blighted HS2 in chaos with delay or scrap of it arriving at Euston.
Construction costs pain means scaling back of the project under live discussion in Whitehall.
Spent last few weeks under bonnet and it's not looking good
— The reality is that Old Oak Common station is probably a better option for most people rather than Euston
The rest of the planet is going to be throwing out its maglevs and hyperloops for those new fangled teleporters before some half-finished HS2 limps into operation linking one random part of the country to another, neither of which were intended as the start and terminus and in-between requires a replacement horse and cart.
Even Thailand is building high speed trains faster than us. Part of a Chinese-funded Beijing to Singapore adventure
It beggars belief they might scrap the Euston link. They’ve spent 3 years literally building it right outside my house. And now all that is for nothing??!
Even leaving that aside, this would be a literally insane proposal. You can’t scrap the Euston link without scrapping the lot. There are no terminus platforms at Old Oak Common - only through platforms - so train’s couldn’t stop and start there.
Which is what the DfE, their clients and their client’s patsies in the media want. Scrap HS2 and in the small minds of two of them, more money is spent on transport where it’s needed, I.e. London. For the clients, the air and road haulage industries will be safe from highly unwelcome competition.
I agree entirely with your first para. Not so sure about the second
The proposal is like building Eurostar but having it finish in Morden or Tooting, not Waterloo/St Pancras
Also, how much would they even save by scrapping Euston? I’ve been watching them build it for years. Many years. Much of it around Euston Camden is completed (the new station apart). They’re about to move beyond central london to the outer london stuff
A dude on Twitter reckons the planned new HS2 will shave 15 minutes off the central Birmingham-central London train journey
15 minutes. £60 BILLION. Half of the Chilterns ripped apart. Euston demolished. Huge holes across London. The north denied
This is the final electoral seppuku of the Conservative Party
82 minutes I think is the fastest current journey time from Euston to New Street.
Cutting that to about an hour would be quite beneficial for commuters to and from Birmingham to London
“Quite beneficial for commuters” is a phrase that justifies spending £30m. Not ninety BILLION
HS2 is fundamentally about capacity not speed. Also nobody should shed a tear for Euston, it's a rubbish station, looked even worse last time I was there when network rail had shoved cheap wood paneling all over the place.
Youre right about Euston. It is awful. But I spent many a happy Friday afternoon in the Doric Arch pub next to it, waiting for a train back oop North at neighbouring Kings Cross, drinking Summer Lightning and some of the other frothy, foaming, flagons of ale they have.
A “cost-cutting” rail timetable has been blamed by passengers for “dangerous” chaos at London Bridge.
Extraordinary pictures show the concourse at the central London station crammed with thousands of passengers during the evening rush hour on Wednesday.
People described being trapped in a “crush”, with a “total lack of information”. There were reports of fights breaking out and people suffering panic attacks.
There were scores of cancellations, delays and line closures, with passengers taking to social media over the “unsafe” stampede at around 5.30pm.
Rail chiefs blamed a trespassing incident but commuters lashed out at rail firm Southeastern, saying overcrowding was a daily occurrence since it scrapped three key direct services in a new timetable last month.
Direct trains on the line between Hayes and London Cannon Street, and from London Charing Cross to both Woolwich and Maidstone East, have been axed to create “more reliable” services and save £10 million, meaning people heading to these destinations must now change at London Bridge.
A dude on Twitter reckons the planned new HS2 will shave 15 minutes off the central Birmingham-central London train journey
15 minutes. £60 BILLION. Half of the Chilterns ripped apart. Euston demolished. Huge holes across London. The north denied
This is the final electoral seppuku of the Conservative Party
82 minutes I think is the fastest current journey time from Euston to New Street.
Cutting that to about an hour would be quite beneficial for commuters to and from Birmingham to London
“Quite beneficial for commuters” is a phrase that justifies spending £30m. Not ninety BILLION
HS2 is fundamentally about capacity not speed. Also nobody should shed a tear for Euston, it's a rubbish station, looked even worse last time I was there when network rail had shoved cheap wood paneling all over the place.
Youre right about Euston. It is awful. But I spent many a happy Friday afternoon in the Doric Arch pub next to it, waiting for a train back oop North at neighbouring Kings Cross, drinking Summer Lightning and some of the other frothy, foaming, flagons of ale they have.
Euston looks shit because it is condemned. Demolitions have already begun in the area. A new station is arising. For HS2
What a slavonian clusterfuck. Does Sunak want this to be his sole notable legacy? The man who pushed the final button on the biggest infrastructure disaster in UK history
Comments
Just running up the hill was enough to pay the bills.
Now they are going to simply accept a £££bn loss and junk Euston. Wtf
DeSantis scrambles RNC race after praising Dhillon and urging ‘new blood’
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/26/desantis-scrambles-rnc-race-after-praising-dhillon-and-urging-new-blood-00079737
The contentious race for chair of the Republican National Committee just met an unexpected twist: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday calling for “new blood” at the RNC and praising the current challenger to RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, Harmeet Dhillon.
DeSantis weighed in on the race just 24 hours before the RNC’s 168 voting members are set to elect their next chair on Friday, a contest that will take place during the committee’s winter meeting at a seaside luxury resort....
“If the line stops at Ealing it will end up taking longer to get from Birmingham to central London via HS2 than the Victorian built route. Well done everyone.”
https://twitter.com/guidofawkes/status/1618743525490962432?s=46&t=Ei1CDlDsxpzkTZovn3WzmQ
We need a revolution in which every politician of every party who has ever held office in the last 90 years is sent to live in a hut on Uist with one pot noodle and a sex starved chimp
Jesus Christ spare us these fucking imbeciles
GE now
"He got on his Mike and looked for a viral Spotify track".
But this isn’t a Tory failure. Our entire political class has failed us. All of them. They all need to get in the sea
An unusual combo I accept.
In county Durham the average house price is only 4.74 times average salary for instance, in Barrow only 3.74 times average salary, in Port Talbot 4.42 times average salary, in Hull 4.3 times average salary, in Blackburn 4.8 times average salary, in Derby 5.08 times average salary, in Stoke 4.5 times average salary, in Hartlepool 4.58 times average salary, in Carmathenshire 5.7 times average salary, in Copeland just 2.7 times average salary.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/bulletins/housingaffordabilityinenglandandwales/2021#:~:text=In England in 2021, full,their workplace-based annual earnings.
There is plenty of affordable property north of Watford
https://www.twitter.com/APStylebook/status/1618658301750689792
@APStylebook
We recommend avoiding general and often dehumanizing “the” labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French, the disabled, the college-educated. Instead, use wording such as people with mental illnesses. And use these descriptions only when clearly relevant.
I never agreed with HS2. It was always a foolish waste of money. Britain is too densely populated and compact to justify proper high speed trains. Simply improve the present network. Speed them
Up. Build a dedicated Liverpool Newcastle line
But now we’ve spent seventy eight trillion we might as well finish the damn thing
This is the end of the Tories. For ever. Let them die in their squalor. I loathe everything about them
Depending who's paying them.
UK != London
Indeed, turning North London into a hole is levelling, of a sort.
Houses on the route have been bought at a premium to market value. Nearby houses have received compensation payments
Large amounts flowing to Tory voters
No need to actually build the damn thing. I mean no one actually wants that!
But now we’ve all reluctantly accepted it is happening and they’ve gouged out huge holes in beautiful English countryside and destroyed ancient woodland and all for a vague railway that begins somewhere near Birmingham and ends in a shed near West Ealing and goes slower than a pony and trap and and and
The anger and contempt will be off the dial. Tories down to the high teens in the polls
Because I'm so ingrained to think otherwise I nearly fell of my chair when I read about a Swiss tunnel or something that was both.
The high speed train that goes more slowly and gets you nowhere.
No surprises this is happening, to be honest.
Rishi detests infrastructure investment.
The only counter-example I can think of immediately was the huge IT project for the passport system. It arrived on time and I believe within budget, and it works perfectly. It would be interesting to hear the project managers explain how they did it.
15 minutes. £60 BILLION. Half of the Chilterns ripped apart. Euston demolished. Huge holes across London. The north denied
This is the final electoral seppuku of the Conservative Party
I now see a scenario with them on less than 100 seats
We need four new parties of the left and right, PR, a new consitutional settlement incorporating a more clearly cut-down-to-size Scandinavian monarchy, Federal devo-max to keep Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales interested, and a massive national effort to move away from the ingrained, and over-financialised , structural economic and social short-termism that has been holding the country back for decades now. All this also includes understanding what has been lost in national broadcasting, our common civic culture, and concepts of the public interest.
Utter, utter wankers
Get rid, get rid, get rid
And I’m not even drunk
Goodnight PB, goodnight
He’s consistently voted for the leopard eating party and now that the leopards have decided to eat him, he’s upset about it.
In essence, like all the gammony boomers in his age cohort, he was quite happy to vote for things like Brexit simply because the costs would be borne by other people.
But if the Lib Dems are targeting things effectively, you would not be getting anything at all, Mr Palmer. After all you are an ex Labour MP and a Labour loyalist.
This could be HS2 dudes floating an outrageous idea - which perversely forces a reluctant government to see HS2 through or risk voter/pundit explosions
PS: you don’t understand the “leopard eating” meme
Although proudly free-thinking, Leon has generally followed the Tories into the sewer and, now, as he gazes upon the full cloacal horror, urgently wishes to find a manhole.
The real world - which is a million miles from the one you inhabit - is filled with people who simply cannot afford to ever get on the property ladder.
I was never convinced that turning Brum into a Crydon of the North was progress.
I support HS2 but it's a classic case study of what happens when you screw up the original business case - because it was scoped to be an ultra high speed line (save journey time) it hugely increased engineering and construction costs - bridges, tunnels and curve radii, "air hammer" and land purchase etc - that weren't necessary for a provide new capacity line that could operate at a fast but lower speed. The parliamentary process added on a lot of extra mitigation obligations along the route too.
It needs to be built because the infrastructure connecting major English cities and the capital is shocking, and at capacity, but boy has it been handled badly.
Mr. Royale, 'the whole route to Manchester' does make this Yorkshireman raise an eyebrow.
Agree on the business case. I'm not an economist, but it seems that value of time analysis seems to dominate this sort of thing. As I understand it, without going at a zillion miles per hour, there is no business case for HS2.
I thought the idea of terminating it at Old Oak Common would be what would kill it off entirely, but surely we're too far down the line to can it altogether?
It will be so bad if we end up spending an absolute fortune on a new railway line that doesn't actually go to London.
By the time people have fannied around trying to get there and back from central London they may as well have hopped on a direct conventional train to the north from Euston.
Doubt it will happen.
Doubtless that’s the rationale behind the latest decision - take the capacity benefit but lose the travel advantage, at least to and from central London. I agree it’s foolish and short-sighted, but not as foolish as it would have been to launch the project solely to reduce journey times and then spend the money but not do so.
Which is what the DfE, their clients and their client’s patsies in the media want. Scrap HS2 and in the small minds of two of them, more money is spent on transport where it’s needed, I.e. London. For the clients, the air and road haulage industries will be safe from highly unwelcome competition.
Yes yes Sunk Cost Fallacy but there is also a political/emotional cost the other way. Abandoning the only reason for the line would be a tremendous admission of national failure and ineptitude. Colossally bad for the Tories and bad for the nation too, I suggest
It would be like half building a new runway at Heathrow for £80bn and destroying all those villages and then deciding the runway should be a smaller runway in Gatwick
I can’t see it happening. My guess is this has been floated as an extreme possibility so we accept some other but significant cost cutting elsewhere. Maybe a delayed opening. More trimming in other places
A “cost-cutting” rail timetable has been blamed by passengers for “dangerous” chaos at London Bridge.
Extraordinary pictures show the concourse at the central London station crammed with thousands of passengers during the evening rush hour on Wednesday.
People described being trapped in a “crush”, with a “total lack of information”. There were reports of fights breaking out and people suffering panic attacks.
There were scores of cancellations, delays and line closures, with passengers taking to social media over the “unsafe” stampede at around 5.30pm.
Rail chiefs blamed a trespassing incident but commuters lashed out at rail firm Southeastern, saying overcrowding was a daily occurrence since it scrapped three key direct services in a new timetable last month.
Direct trains on the line between Hayes and London Cannon Street, and from London Charing Cross to both Woolwich and Maidstone East, have been axed to create “more reliable” services and save £10 million, meaning people heading to these destinations must now change at London Bridge.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/26/dangerous-london-bridge-rush-hour-stampede-blamed-rail-bosses/
One of my special moments was at the count, after we’d won by over a thousand (having lost by the same four years earlier!) when one of the leading Tories came up to me and said “I don’t understand how you’ve done it?; we never saw anything from you”!
Back then it was rare to go to so much trouble, and credit to our delivers for following the instructions. Nowadays if a party isn’t doing targeted campaigning and messaging, it’s way behind the times.
The proposal is like building Eurostar but having it finish in Morden or Tooting, not Waterloo/St Pancras
Also, how much would they even save by scrapping Euston? I’ve been watching them build it for years. Many years. Much of it around Euston Camden is completed (the new station apart). They’re about to move beyond central london to the outer london stuff
Boris Johnson earns £1m in six weeks, but taxpayer gets his bill for legal fees
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-earns-1m-in-six-weeks-but-taxpayer-gets-his-bill-for-legal-fees-gfsv2ml8w
What a slavonian clusterfuck. Does Sunak want this to be his sole notable legacy? The man who pushed the final button on the biggest infrastructure disaster in UK history