Incidentally can I correct one error in the media reporting on Sunak's latest insanity? Construction of HS2 north of Birmingham is underway and has been for about two years.
If the Government is briefing it hasn't started yet so they can axe it, either they're lying or so bloody stupid it's no wonder the country's collapsing in a heap.
No doubt there have already been wildly expensive purchases of the needed sites too. If there were unexpected mountains it'd be a different thing, but once you get the whole rail thing going it's choo choo.
The only way to recoup the loss on HS2 is to redesignate it as a standard line, build parkway stations every 20 miles and seize 100 square miles of land for development around each station. The net result would be a string of planned cities within easy commuting distance of London and Birmingham. As this is my back yard I'm pleased to say it's unlikely to happen.
How serious do people think the shoplifting situation is?
Just seen a bizarre video of a lady in a shop (Peckham?) trying to steal something and being stopped by the shopkeeper. Weirdly once he got hold of her she didn't let the item go and tried to resist*. Apparently a crowd then gathered outside to protest on her behalf. Rumour is that the shopkeeper has gone into hiding. Not good.
Incidentally can I correct one error in the media reporting on Sunak's latest insanity? Construction of HS2 north of Birmingham is underway and has been for about two years.
If the Government is briefing it hasn't started yet so they can axe it, either they're lying or so bloody stupid it's no wonder the country's collapsing in a heap.
No doubt there have already been wildly expensive purchases of the needed sites too. If there were unexpected mountains it'd be a different thing, but once you get the whole rail thing going it's choo choo.
The only way to recoup the loss on HS2 is to redesignate it as a standard line, build parkway stations every 20 miles and seize 100 square miles of land for development around each station. The net result would be a string of planned cities within easy commuting distance of London and Birmingham. As this is my back yard I'm pleased to say it's unlikely to happen.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
Using TPE on the north east leg I cannot see how it would get any worse.
TransPennine Express will mothball a fleet of 13 almost new trains as part of drastic plans to cut services from December and improve its dreadful punctuality record.
The company's boss said the moves were aimed at simplifying its operations and 'deliver improved punctuality and reliability'. The train firm was nationalised in May after months of poor performance.
The train company only began using its Spain-built Nova 3 trains in August 2019 but bosses have now confirmed they will be withdrawn because they don't have enough drivers trained to operate them.
There is an argument for a new Labour government to actually borrow more money to drive through improved metro and intercity links in the Midlands and the North. Especially the northern power link, or whatever it was: a regular Crossrail-esque train from Liverpool to Salford to Manc to Sheffield to Leeds to Newcastle. And then build proper tram or light rail links in the northern cities, all integrated with some Oystercard contactless system that works across the north
I cannot think of a single thing more likely to “level up”
That argument, or something very close to it, has been made for well over a decade now. One day it might even happen.
There, I've said it. I didn't used to hate them, and I'm generally courteous to bike riders - when overtaking I'll wait for a safe spot, slow down and leave plenty of room - but more and more a large percentage of cyclists have gone militant and seem to deliberately want to piss off other road users.
Coming home from the supermarket this afternoon, and oh look there's cyclists on the road. About thirty of them, strung out at irregular intervals and every one riding dead centre in the lane. It's a twisty rural road with loads of blind bends, so effectively they've made sure any car trying to overtake has to do so in a dangerous manner or spend the next five miles moving at a crawl.
But I'm riding a scooter, not driving a car. evil cackle
I can still get past, although without as much gap as I'd normally leave. So I carefully and slowly make my way past several of them, only to have one shake his fist at me and another obviously shouting something (futile, as I'm wearing earplugs). Clearly the objective was to stop anyone getting past.
If I indulged in that sort of twattery on the road the courts would, rightly, look to confiscate my license. But cyclists don't have licences. Or registration plates to identify them.
I hate cyclists.
The maximum fine for blocking the road is probably about £40, but conspiracy to block the road could earn a life sentence.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
First northern england PM since Blair and yet ironically he does not give a flying f.
Every time the snivelling little shit uses his helicopter he’s giving a giant fuck you to Northerners.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
I'd like to see the revised economic case for the current shitshow.
Hunt is desperately looking for tax cut money for next year so why on earth does £34b of capital investment to be spent over the next 20 years come into the frame?
Fag end days of this administration.
It's a sobering thought that I was arguing about HS2 with Josiah Jessop when I was still an MP, which is more than 13 years ago. I said it was a classic big-project politicians' catnip, we should spend the money on improving smaller projects and the cost estimates were likely to be wild underestimates, JJ was his customary scornful self and said it was absolutely essential (as, to be fair, did most local councillors in my area). What's sobering is that it's still undecided and JJ and I are still here. Does nothing ever change??
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
First northern england PM since Blair and yet ironically he does not give a flying f.
Southampton only northern if you are based on the Isle of Wight!
There, I've said it. I didn't used to hate them, and I'm generally courteous to bike riders - when overtaking I'll wait for a safe spot, slow down and leave plenty of room - but more and more a large percentage of cyclists have gone militant and seem to deliberately want to piss off other road users.
Coming home from the supermarket this afternoon, and oh look there's cyclists on the road. About thirty of them, strung out at irregular intervals and every one riding dead centre in the lane. It's a twisty rural road with loads of blind bends, so effectively they've made sure any car trying to overtake has to do so in a dangerous manner or spend the next five miles moving at a crawl.
But I'm riding a scooter, not driving a car. evil cackle
I can still get past, although without as much gap as I'd normally leave. So I carefully and slowly make my way past several of them, only to have one shake his fist at me and another obviously shouting something (futile, as I'm wearing earplugs). Clearly the objective was to stop anyone getting past.
If I indulged in that sort of twattery on the road the courts would, rightly, look to confiscate my license. But cyclists don't have licences. Or registration plates to identify them.
I hate cyclists.
I love cyclists.
They are making lawyers and bankers look less bad.
There, I've said it. I didn't used to hate them, and I'm generally courteous to bike riders - when overtaking I'll wait for a safe spot, slow down and leave plenty of room - but more and more a large percentage of cyclists have gone militant and seem to deliberately want to piss off other road users.
Coming home from the supermarket this afternoon, and oh look there's cyclists on the road. About thirty of them, strung out at irregular intervals and every one riding dead centre in the lane. It's a twisty rural road with loads of blind bends, so effectively they've made sure any car trying to overtake has to do so in a dangerous manner or spend the next five miles moving at a crawl.
But I'm riding a scooter, not driving a car. evil cackle
I can still get past, although without as much gap as I'd normally leave. So I carefully and slowly make my way past several of them, only to have one shake his fist at me and another obviously shouting something (futile, as I'm wearing earplugs). Clearly the objective was to stop anyone getting past.
If I indulged in that sort of twattery on the road the courts would, rightly, look to confiscate my license. But cyclists don't have licences. Or registration plates to identify them.
I hate cyclists.
I love cyclists.
They are making lawyers and bankers look less bad.
Especially when it comes to loud clothing in quiet areas.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
I'd like to see the revised economic case for the current shitshow.
Hunt is desperately looking for tax cut money for next year so why on earth does £34b of capital investment to be spent over the next 20 years come into the frame?
Fag end days of this administration.
Appropriate for a government that is full of butts.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
Using TPE on the north east leg I cannot see how it would get any worse.
TransPennine Express will mothball a fleet of 13 almost new trains as part of drastic plans to cut services from December and improve its dreadful punctuality record.
The company's boss said the moves were aimed at simplifying its operations and 'deliver improved punctuality and reliability'. The train firm was nationalised in May after months of poor performance.
The train company only began using its Spain-built Nova 3 trains in August 2019 but bosses have now confirmed they will be withdrawn because they don't have enough drivers trained to operate them.
There is an argument for a new Labour government to actually borrow more money to drive through improved metro and intercity links in the Midlands and the North. Especially the northern power link, or whatever it was: a regular Crossrail-esque train from Liverpool to Salford to Manc to Sheffield to Leeds to Newcastle. And then build proper tram or light rail links in the northern cities, all integrated with some Oystercard contactless system that works across the north
I cannot think of a single thing more likely to “level up”
That argument, or something very close to it, has been made for well over a decade now. One day it might even happen.
If I vote for Labour for the first time in my life - and it might well happen - I will feel my vote has been well-used (to an extent) if Starmer does this
IT IS SO FUCKING OBVIOUS
This is how you level up the North. Turn it into one giant conurbation so it gets economies of scale and the virtues of agglomeration
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
Using TPE on the north east leg I cannot see how it would get any worse.
TransPennine Express will mothball a fleet of 13 almost new trains as part of drastic plans to cut services from December and improve its dreadful punctuality record.
The company's boss said the moves were aimed at simplifying its operations and 'deliver improved punctuality and reliability'. The train firm was nationalised in May after months of poor performance.
The train company only began using its Spain-built Nova 3 trains in August 2019 but bosses have now confirmed they will be withdrawn because they don't have enough drivers trained to operate them.
There is an argument for a new Labour government to actually borrow more money to drive through improved metro and intercity links in the Midlands and the North. Especially the northern power link, or whatever it was: a regular Crossrail-esque train from Liverpool to Salford to Manc to Sheffield to Leeds to Newcastle. And then build proper tram or light rail links in the northern cities, all integrated with some Oystercard contactless system that works across the north
I cannot think of a single thing more likely to “level up”
That argument, or something very close to it, has been made for well over a decade now. One day it might even happen.
And in most other Western European countries would have happened 40 years ago.
There, I've said it. I didn't used to hate them, and I'm generally courteous to bike riders - when overtaking I'll wait for a safe spot, slow down and leave plenty of room - but more and more a large percentage of cyclists have gone militant and seem to deliberately want to piss off other road users.
Coming home from the supermarket this afternoon, and oh look there's cyclists on the road. About thirty of them, strung out at irregular intervals and every one riding dead centre in the lane. It's a twisty rural road with loads of blind bends, so effectively they've made sure any car trying to overtake has to do so in a dangerous manner or spend the next five miles moving at a crawl.
But I'm riding a scooter, not driving a car. evil cackle
I can still get past, although without as much gap as I'd normally leave. So I carefully and slowly make my way past several of them, only to have one shake his fist at me and another obviously shouting something (futile, as I'm wearing earplugs). Clearly the objective was to stop anyone getting past.
If I indulged in that sort of twattery on the road the courts would, rightly, look to confiscate my license. But cyclists don't have licences. Or registration plates to identify them.
I hate cyclists.
I love cyclists.
They are making lawyers and bankers look less bad.
Especially when it comes to loud clothing in quiet areas.
Incidentally can I correct one error in the media reporting on Sunak's latest insanity? Construction of HS2 north of Birmingham is underway and has been for about two years.
If the Government is briefing it hasn't started yet so they can axe it, either they're lying or so bloody stupid it's no wonder the country's collapsing in a heap.
No doubt there have already been wildly expensive purchases of the needed sites too. If there were unexpected mountains it'd be a different thing, but once you get the whole rail thing going it's choo choo.
The only way to recoup the loss on HS2 is to redesignate it as a standard line, build parkway stations every 20 miles and seize 100 square miles of land for development around each station. The net result would be a string of planned cities within easy commuting distance of London and Birmingham. As this is my back yard I'm pleased to say it's unlikely to happen.
Sigh.
That would have about a third of the effect of putting the high speed trains on separate tracks so you can have more stopping trains on the WCML and MML where people already live.
The very great lack of understanding of HS2 among the general public and ignorance of what it will actually do if the drunken twats at the DfT and HMT ever get round to building it is one reason why they're able to keep paying it back to appease their paymasters.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
First northern england PM since Blair and yet ironically he does not give a flying f.
Southampton only northern if you are based on the Isle of Wight!
Who was the last proper northerner to be PM?
Assuming we don't count Grantham as the north, I come up with Harold Wilson, and Eden, but then I think I'm going all the way back to Asquith for the previous one.
Is the potential cancellation of HS2 to Manchester about moving the capital budget into RAAC replacement buildings?
It's about writing Sunak's name into the record books, by surpassing Salisbury as the most inexplicable disaster in the history of the British Railway network.
If he really does cut it back to Old Oak Common he might even be gunning to surpass Quintinshill.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
First northern england PM since Blair and yet ironically he does not give a flying f.
Southampton only northern if you are based on the Isle of Wight!
Who was the last proper northerner to be PM?
Assuming we don't count Grantham as the north, I come up with Harold Wilson, and Eden, but then I think I'm going all the way back to Asquith for the previous one.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
I'd like to see the revised economic case for the current shitshow.
Hunt is desperately looking for tax cut money for next year so why on earth does £34b of capital investment to be spent over the next 20 years come into the frame?
Fag end days of this administration.
It's a sobering thought that I was arguing about HS2 with Josiah Jessop when I was still an MP, which is more than 13 years ago. I said it was a classic big-project politicians' catnip, we should spend the money on improving smaller projects and the cost estimates were likely to be wild underestimates, JJ was his customary scornful self and said it was absolutely essential (as, to be fair, did most local councillors in my area). What's sobering is that it's still undecided and JJ and I are still here. Does nothing ever change??
That's the stark difference between North and South. Up there everyone wants it, down here no-one wants it.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
First northern england PM since Blair and yet ironically he does not give a flying f.
Southampton only northern if you are based on the Isle of Wight!
Who was the last proper northerner to be PM?
Assuming we don't count Grantham as the north, I come up with Harold Wilson, and Eden, but then I think I'm going all the way back to Asquith for the previous one.
Gordon Brown came from North Britain.
A big influence behind the Game of Thrones I imagine. They had to tone it down though.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
Using TPE on the north east leg I cannot see how it would get any worse.
TransPennine Express will mothball a fleet of 13 almost new trains as part of drastic plans to cut services from December and improve its dreadful punctuality record.
The company's boss said the moves were aimed at simplifying its operations and 'deliver improved punctuality and reliability'. The train firm was nationalised in May after months of poor performance.
The train company only began using its Spain-built Nova 3 trains in August 2019 but bosses have now confirmed they will be withdrawn because they don't have enough drivers trained to operate them.
There is an argument for a new Labour government to actually borrow more money to drive through improved metro and intercity links in the Midlands and the North. Especially the northern power link, or whatever it was: a regular Crossrail-esque train from Liverpool to Salford to Manc to Sheffield to Leeds to Newcastle. And then build proper tram or light rail links in the northern cities, all integrated with some Oystercard contactless system that works across the north
I cannot think of a single thing more likely to “level up”
That argument, or something very close to it, has been made for well over a decade now. One day it might even happen.
If I vote for Labour for the first time in my life - and it might well happen - I will feel my vote has been well-used (to an extent) if Starmer does this
IT IS SO FUCKING OBVIOUS
This is how you level up the North. Turn it into one giant conurbation so it gets economies of scale and the virtues of agglomeration
But also you devolve power to them from the south. Give them the power to build their own dreams.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
First northern england PM since Blair and yet ironically he does not give a flying f.
Southampton only northern if you are based on the Isle of Wight!
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
Using TPE on the north east leg I cannot see how it would get any worse.
TransPennine Express will mothball a fleet of 13 almost new trains as part of drastic plans to cut services from December and improve its dreadful punctuality record.
The company's boss said the moves were aimed at simplifying its operations and 'deliver improved punctuality and reliability'. The train firm was nationalised in May after months of poor performance.
The train company only began using its Spain-built Nova 3 trains in August 2019 but bosses have now confirmed they will be withdrawn because they don't have enough drivers trained to operate them.
There is an argument for a new Labour government to actually borrow more money to drive through improved metro and intercity links in the Midlands and the North. Especially the northern power link, or whatever it was: a regular Crossrail-esque train from Liverpool to Salford to Manc to Sheffield to Leeds to Newcastle. And then build proper tram or light rail links in the northern cities, all integrated with some Oystercard contactless system that works across the north
I cannot think of a single thing more likely to “level up”
That argument, or something very close to it, has been made for well over a decade now. One day it might even happen.
If I vote for Labour for the first time in my life - and it might well happen - I will feel my vote has been well-used (to an extent) if Starmer does this
IT IS SO FUCKING OBVIOUS
This is how you level up the North. Turn it into one giant conurbation so it gets economies of scale and the virtues of agglomeration
Will never happen owing to the chronic parochialism (the archetypal narcissism of small differences) of the British public. If you can't persuade people in Gateshead that they are part of Newcastle, and folk are still whining about utilitarian reforms to local government made 50 years ago, your chances of creating the beautiful Northern mega city of Limalesh are unfortunately vanishingly small.
"Between 2016 and 2018, Spelthorne Borough Council borrowed £1 billion to invest in a commercial portfolio of Grade A office buildings in and around our borough.
The size of this debt for a relatively small authority has always attracted media attention over the years. More recently, with an increasing number of local authorities declaring bankruptcy, speculation has been rife as to whether Spelthorne is at risk of joining this growing queue. The answer is categorically ‘NO’.
Spelthorne has generated approximately £50m return every year from its commercial portfolio. This sum comfortably covers the cost of interest and paying down the loans. It also makes a significant profit for the Borough which is spent on front line services and enables us to put some money away for a rainy day.
On average every year, just over £10m of our profits are spent on funding community services across the Borough, such as independent living services, ‘Meals on Wheels’ and Community Centres, which are a lifeline for residents and communities most in need.
We also save some profit having banked approximately £38m as a rainy day reserve, so that we can make up any shortfall if our commercial profits dip in any given year, for example when tenants move on.
Since we last added to our commercial portfolio 5 years ago, by acquiring a new office building, we have successfully managed our investments, even through the darkest periods of a pandemic and cost of living crisis.
Whilst the state of the UK economy and the high interest rates are impacting many local authorities who can no longer afford paying the historically high interest on their debts, that is not the case here in Spelthorne. This is because we had the foresight to fix our interest rates at an average 2.3% until we pay off the loan.
In short, with prudent management of our assets, Spelthorne residents continue benefiting from many local services (that other authorities can no longer afford to provide) and in the longer term, once our loans are paid off, from owning outright the £1 billion portfolio of assets.
So the next time the topic of Spelthorne debt levels come up, feel free to share this explanation of how this innovative borough protects our local services and bucks the trend."
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
I'd like to see the revised economic case for the current shitshow.
Hunt is desperately looking for tax cut money for next year so why on earth does £34b of capital investment to be spent over the next 20 years come into the frame?
Fag end days of this administration.
It's a sobering thought that I was arguing about HS2 with Josiah Jessop when I was still an MP, which is more than 13 years ago. I said it was a classic big-project politicians' catnip, we should spend the money on improving smaller projects and the cost estimates were likely to be wild underestimates, JJ was his customary scornful self and said it was absolutely essential (as, to be fair, did most local councillors in my area). What's sobering is that it's still undecided and JJ and I are still here. Does nothing ever change??
That's the stark difference between North and South. Up there everyone wants it, down here no-one wants it.
Cancelling HS2 is a stupid idea IMO. The trains between London, B'ham and Manchester are currently very crowded. You often have to stand up the whole way.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
First northern england PM since Blair and yet ironically he does not give a flying f.
Southampton only northern if you are based on the Isle of Wight!
Who was the last proper northerner to be PM?
Assuming we don't count Grantham as the north, I come up with Harold Wilson, and Eden, but then I think I'm going all the way back to Asquith for the previous one.
Gordon Brown came from North Britain.
As did Ramsay Macdonald, Tony Blair and Bonar Law, but I was thinking of the north of England as you well know.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
I'd like to see the revised economic case for the current shitshow.
Hunt is desperately looking for tax cut money for next year so why on earth does £34b of capital investment to be spent over the next 20 years come into the frame?
Fag end days of this administration.
It's a sobering thought that I was arguing about HS2 with Josiah Jessop when I was still an MP, which is more than 13 years ago. I said it was a classic big-project politicians' catnip, we should spend the money on improving smaller projects and the cost estimates were likely to be wild underestimates, JJ was his customary scornful self and said it was absolutely essential (as, to be fair, did most local councillors in my area). What's sobering is that it's still undecided and JJ and I are still here. Does nothing ever change??
"big-project politicians' catnip" has provided France, amongst others, superb intercity links.
Cancelling HS2 is a stupid idea IMO. The trains between London, B'ham and Manchester are currently very crowded. You often have to stand up the whole way.
They are also quite slow, and there are not enough stoppers so many stations are poorly served.
Is the potential cancellation of HS2 to Manchester about moving the capital budget into RAAC replacement buildings?
It's about writing Sunak's name into the record books, by surpassing Salisbury as the most inexplicable disaster in the history of the British Railway network.
If he really does cut it back to Old Oak Common he might even be gunning to surpass Quintinshill.
I don't see the problem with OOC. It leads to most London destinations just as quickly as Euston, except, arguably, the British Library. And Euston itself was built on a cowpatch presumably belonging to the eponymous earl. Londoners must have wondered why the line terminated in the countryside.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
Using TPE on the north east leg I cannot see how it would get any worse.
TransPennine Express will mothball a fleet of 13 almost new trains as part of drastic plans to cut services from December and improve its dreadful punctuality record.
The company's boss said the moves were aimed at simplifying its operations and 'deliver improved punctuality and reliability'. The train firm was nationalised in May after months of poor performance.
The train company only began using its Spain-built Nova 3 trains in August 2019 but bosses have now confirmed they will be withdrawn because they don't have enough drivers trained to operate them.
There is an argument for a new Labour government to actually borrow more money to drive through improved metro and intercity links in the Midlands and the North. Especially the northern power link, or whatever it was: a regular Crossrail-esque train from Liverpool to Salford to Manc to Sheffield to Leeds to Newcastle. And then build proper tram or light rail links in the northern cities, all integrated with some Oystercard contactless system that works across the north
I cannot think of a single thing more likely to “level up”
That argument, or something very close to it, has been made for well over a decade now. One day it might even happen.
If I vote for Labour for the first time in my life - and it might well happen - I will feel my vote has been well-used (to an extent) if Starmer does this
IT IS SO FUCKING OBVIOUS
This is how you level up the North. Turn it into one giant conurbation so it gets economies of scale and the virtues of agglomeration
Will never happen owing to the chronic parochialism (the archetypal narcissism of small differences) of the British public. If you can't persuade people in Gateshead that they are part of Newcastle, and folk are still whining about utilitarian reforms to local government made 50 years ago, your chances of creating the beautiful Northern mega city of Limalesh are unfortunately vanishingly small.
We need a King of the North to overrule them. I am at least semi serious
The combined might of Liverpool, Manc, Leeds, Sheffield, Newc would be a city to nearly match London and a city to match almost anywhere in Europe
Consider the combined puissance of the universities, industries, services, cultural impact - DO IT. Like a kind of EU of English northern cities
The advantage of England is that it is tiny: ergo compact. Everywhere is about 2 miles from anywhere else. Weaponise this
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
Using TPE on the north east leg I cannot see how it would get any worse.
TransPennine Express will mothball a fleet of 13 almost new trains as part of drastic plans to cut services from December and improve its dreadful punctuality record.
The company's boss said the moves were aimed at simplifying its operations and 'deliver improved punctuality and reliability'. The train firm was nationalised in May after months of poor performance.
The train company only began using its Spain-built Nova 3 trains in August 2019 but bosses have now confirmed they will be withdrawn because they don't have enough drivers trained to operate them.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
First northern england PM since Blair and yet ironically he does not give a flying f.
Something he has in common with Blair and most other PMs.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
I'd like to see the revised economic case for the current shitshow.
Hunt is desperately looking for tax cut money for next year so why on earth does £34b of capital investment to be spent over the next 20 years come into the frame?
Fag end days of this administration.
It's a sobering thought that I was arguing about HS2 with Josiah Jessop when I was still an MP, which is more than 13 years ago. I said it was a classic big-project politicians' catnip, we should spend the money on improving smaller projects and the cost estimates were likely to be wild underestimates, JJ was his customary scornful self and said it was absolutely essential (as, to be fair, did most local councillors in my area). What's sobering is that it's still undecided and JJ and I are still here. Does nothing ever change??
That's the stark difference between North and South. Up there everyone wants it, down here no-one wants it.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
First northern england PM since Blair and yet ironically he does not give a flying f.
Southampton only northern if you are based on the Isle of Wight!
Who was the last proper northerner to be PM?
Assuming we don't count Grantham as the north, I come up with Harold Wilson, and Eden, but then I think I'm going all the way back to Asquith for the previous one.
Gordon Brown came from North Britain.
Wilson was definitely from the North.
Blair was an oddity. Scottish born. Raised in Durham. Few v early years in Aussie.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
I'd like to see the revised economic case for the current shitshow.
Hunt is desperately looking for tax cut money for next year so why on earth does £34b of capital investment to be spent over the next 20 years come into the frame?
Fag end days of this administration.
It's a sobering thought that I was arguing about HS2 with Josiah Jessop when I was still an MP, which is more than 13 years ago. I said it was a classic big-project politicians' catnip, we should spend the money on improving smaller projects and the cost estimates were likely to be wild underestimates, JJ was his customary scornful self and said it was absolutely essential (as, to be fair, did most local councillors in my area). What's sobering is that it's still undecided and JJ and I are still here. Does nothing ever change??
That's the stark difference between North and South. Up there everyone wants it, down here no-one wants it.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
Using TPE on the north east leg I cannot see how it would get any worse.
TransPennine Express will mothball a fleet of 13 almost new trains as part of drastic plans to cut services from December and improve its dreadful punctuality record.
The company's boss said the moves were aimed at simplifying its operations and 'deliver improved punctuality and reliability'. The train firm was nationalised in May after months of poor performance.
The train company only began using its Spain-built Nova 3 trains in August 2019 but bosses have now confirmed they will be withdrawn because they don't have enough drivers trained to operate them.
There is an argument for a new Labour government to actually borrow more money to drive through improved metro and intercity links in the Midlands and the North. Especially the northern power link, or whatever it was: a regular Crossrail-esque train from Liverpool to Salford to Manc to Sheffield to Leeds to Newcastle. And then build proper tram or light rail links in the northern cities, all integrated with some Oystercard contactless system that works across the north
I cannot think of a single thing more likely to “level up”
That argument, or something very close to it, has been made for well over a decade now. One day it might even happen.
If I vote for Labour for the first time in my life - and it might well happen - I will feel my vote has been well-used (to an extent) if Starmer does this
IT IS SO FUCKING OBVIOUS
This is how you level up the North. Turn it into one giant conurbation so it gets economies of scale and the virtues of agglomeration
Will never happen owing to the chronic parochialism (the archetypal narcissism of small differences) of the British public. If you can't persuade people in Gateshead that they are part of Newcastle, and folk are still whining about utilitarian reforms to local government made 50 years ago, your chances of creating the beautiful Northern mega city of Limalesh are unfortunately vanishingly small.
Newcastle and Gateshead isn’t the issue. They both work together pretty well
It’s Newcastle and Sunderland. Sunderland will never, ever, match Newcastle and when we have a combined mayor across the North East all the money and focus will be Newcastle.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
First northern england PM since Blair and yet ironically he does not give a flying f.
Southampton only northern if you are based on the Isle of Wight!
Who was the last proper northerner to be PM?
Assuming we don't count Grantham as the north, I come up with Harold Wilson, and Eden, but then I think I'm going all the way back to Asquith for the previous one.
Gordon Brown came from North Britain.
Wilson was definitely from the North.
Blair was an oddity. Scottish born. Raised in Durham. Few v early years in Aussie.
Yet never quite seemed anything but metropolitan.
Truss was schooled in Leeds, as well as a few other spots.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
I'd like to see the revised economic case for the current shitshow.
Hunt is desperately looking for tax cut money for next year so why on earth does £34b of capital investment to be spent over the next 20 years come into the frame?
Fag end days of this administration.
It's a sobering thought that I was arguing about HS2 with Josiah Jessop when I was still an MP, which is more than 13 years ago. I said it was a classic big-project politicians' catnip, we should spend the money on improving smaller projects and the cost estimates were likely to be wild underestimates, JJ was his customary scornful self and said it was absolutely essential (as, to be fair, did most local councillors in my area). What's sobering is that it's still undecided and JJ and I are still here. Does nothing ever change??
Ahem.
Firstly, you were not an MP. AFAICR you were the 2015 candidate for Broxtowe, the good people of that constituency having chucked you out in 2010. I'm fairly sure of this, as I only joined this site in 2010. Facts, eh?
I also believe my argument with you was not about that: it was about you sitting on the fence over the project, and waiting for the party to tell you what to think on it. You were, as I recall, 'undecided', as if your radar dish was still waiting for a signal from Miliband.
My memories might well be wrong, but I don't believe so.
" JJ was his customary scornful self "
Well, yes, I am scornful towards the sort of people who excuse Russia's evil little imperialistic war, and worse, who blame *us* for the invasion of Ukraine. As you do. I guess this little rant against me is more to do with my pointing out your sheer hypocrisy and stupidity over Ukraine, rather than HS2.
I could continue, but it might well gain me my first ban.
Oh, you could also at least spell my alias correctly...
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
I'd like to see the revised economic case for the current shitshow.
Hunt is desperately looking for tax cut money for next year so why on earth does £34b of capital investment to be spent over the next 20 years come into the frame?
Fag end days of this administration.
It's a sobering thought that I was arguing about HS2 with Josiah Jessop when I was still an MP, which is more than 13 years ago. I said it was a classic big-project politicians' catnip, we should spend the money on improving smaller projects and the cost estimates were likely to be wild underestimates, JJ was his customary scornful self and said it was absolutely essential (as, to be fair, did most local councillors in my area). What's sobering is that it's still undecided and JJ and I are still here. Does nothing ever change??
Ahem.
Firstly, you were not an MP. AFAICR you were the 2015 candidate for Broxtowe, the good people of that constituency having chucked you out in 2010. I'm fairly sure of this, as I only joined this site in 2010. Facts, eh?
I also believe my argument with you was not about that: it was about you sitting on the fence over the project, and waiting for the party to tell you what to think on it. You were, as I recall, 'undecided', as if your radar dish was still waiting for a signal from Miliband.
My memories might well be wrong, but I don't believe so.
" JJ was his customary scornful self "
Well, yes, I am scornful towards the sort of people who excuse Russia's evil little imperialistic war, and worse, who blame *us* for the invasion of Ukraine. As you do. I guess this little rant against me is more to do with my pointing out your sheer hypocrisy and stupidity over Ukraine, rather than HS2.
I could continue, but it might well gain me my first ban.
Oh, you could also at least spell my alias correctly...
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
Using TPE on the north east leg I cannot see how it would get any worse.
TransPennine Express will mothball a fleet of 13 almost new trains as part of drastic plans to cut services from December and improve its dreadful punctuality record.
The company's boss said the moves were aimed at simplifying its operations and 'deliver improved punctuality and reliability'. The train firm was nationalised in May after months of poor performance.
The train company only began using its Spain-built Nova 3 trains in August 2019 but bosses have now confirmed they will be withdrawn because they don't have enough drivers trained to operate them.
There is an argument for a new Labour government to actually borrow more money to drive through improved metro and intercity links in the Midlands and the North. Especially the northern power link, or whatever it was: a regular Crossrail-esque train from Liverpool to Salford to Manc to Sheffield to Leeds to Newcastle. And then build proper tram or light rail links in the northern cities, all integrated with some Oystercard contactless system that works across the north
I cannot think of a single thing more likely to “level up”
That argument, or something very close to it, has been made for well over a decade now. One day it might even happen.
If I vote for Labour for the first time in my life - and it might well happen - I will feel my vote has been well-used (to an extent) if Starmer does this
IT IS SO FUCKING OBVIOUS
This is how you level up the North. Turn it into one giant conurbation so it gets economies of scale and the virtues of agglomeration
Will never happen owing to the chronic parochialism (the archetypal narcissism of small differences) of the British public. If you can't persuade people in Gateshead that they are part of Newcastle, and folk are still whining about utilitarian reforms to local government made 50 years ago, your chances of creating the beautiful Northern mega city of Limalesh are unfortunately vanishingly small.
We need a King of the North to overrule them. I am at least semi serious
The combined might of Liverpool, Manc, Leeds, Sheffield, Newc would be a city to nearly match London and a city to match almost anywhere in Europe
Consider the combined puissance of the universities, industries, services, cultural impact - DO IT. Like a kind of EU of English northern cities
The advantage of England is that it is tiny: ergo compact. Everywhere is about 2 miles from anywhere else. Weaponise this
"The advantage of England is that it is tiny: ergo compact. Everywhere is about 2 miles from anywhere else. "
I presume you mean 'London'? And it's definitely not 2 miles from the bit you're in to the bit you want to go to. With the state of the tube it can feel like about 2 thousand.
Cancelling HS2 is a stupid idea IMO. The trains between London, B'ham and Manchester are currently very crowded. You often have to stand up the whole way.
Since Covid they are running fewer trains to cut their losses. For example, there used to be three fast trains an hour between Euston and Coventry. Now there are only two.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
First northern england PM since Blair and yet ironically he does not give a flying f.
Southampton only northern if you are based on the Isle of Wight!
Who was the last proper northerner to be PM?
Assuming we don't count Grantham as the north, I come up with Harold Wilson, and Eden, but then I think I'm going all the way back to Asquith for the previous one.
Gordon Brown came from North Britain.
Wilson was definitely from the North.
Blair was an oddity. Scottish born. Raised in Durham. Few v early years in Aussie.
Yet never quite seemed anything but metropolitan.
Truss was schooled in Leeds, as well as a few other spots.
Indeed. But apparently it was so appalling she learnt nothing and somehow escaped.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
I'd like to see the revised economic case for the current shitshow.
Hunt is desperately looking for tax cut money for next year so why on earth does £34b of capital investment to be spent over the next 20 years come into the frame?
Fag end days of this administration.
It's a sobering thought that I was arguing about HS2 with Josiah Jessop when I was still an MP, which is more than 13 years ago. I said it was a classic big-project politicians' catnip, we should spend the money on improving smaller projects and the cost estimates were likely to be wild underestimates, JJ was his customary scornful self and said it was absolutely essential (as, to be fair, did most local councillors in my area). What's sobering is that it's still undecided and JJ and I are still here. Does nothing ever change??
Ahem.
Firstly, you were not an MP. AFAICR you were the 2015 candidate for Broxtowe, the good people of that constituency having chucked you out in 2010. I'm fairly sure of this, as I only joined this site in 2010. Facts, eh?
I also believe my argument with you was not about that: it was about you sitting on the fence over the project, and waiting for the party to tell you what to think on it. You were, as I recall, 'undecided', as if your radar dish was still waiting for a signal from Miliband.
My memories might well be wrong, but I don't believe so.
" JJ was his customary scornful self "
Well, yes, I am scornful towards the sort of people who excuse Russia's evil little imperialistic war, and worse, who blame *us* for the invasion of Ukraine. As you do. I guess this little rant against me is more to do with my pointing out your sheer hypocrisy and stupidity over Ukraine, rather than HS2.
I could continue, but it might well gain me my first ban.
Oh, you could also at least spell my alias correctly...
Cancelling HS2 is a stupid idea IMO. The trains between London, B'ham and Manchester are currently very crowded. You often have to stand up the whole way.
Since Covid they are running fewer trains to cut their losses. For example, there used to be three fast trains an hour between Euston and Coventry. Now there are only two.
You sure about that? Avanti West Coast still seem to be running three although admittedly one takes a few minutes longer than the others:
"Hunter Biden has been indicted by special counsel David Weiss in connection with a gun he purchased in 2018.
The charges include making false statements on a federal firearms form and possession of a firearm as a prohibited person.
It’s an extraordinary turn of events after his original plea deal collapsed and potentially sets up a dramatic trial in the middle of his father’s 2024 reelection bid."
Firstly, you were not an MP. AFAICR you were the 2015 candidate for Broxtowe, the good people of that constituency having chucked you out in 2010. I'm fairly sure of this, as I only joined this site in 2010. Facts, eh?
I also believe my argument with you was not about that: it was about you sitting on the fence over the project, and waiting for the party to tell you what to think on it. You were, as I recall, 'undecided', as if your radar dish was still waiting for a signal from Miliband.
My memories might well be wrong, but I don't believe so.
" JJ was his customary scornful self "
Well, yes, I am scornful towards the sort of people who excuse Russia's evil little imperialistic war, and worse, who blame *us* for the invasion of Ukraine. As you do. I guess this little rant against me is more to do with my pointing out your sheer hypocrisy and stupidity over Ukraine, rather than HS2.
I could continue, but it might well gain me my first ban.
Oh, you could also at least spell my alias correctly...
Lol! I expect you're right about the date, though not about the issue - I was publicly against the project, against most party colleagues.
Calling you customarily scornful isn't exactly a rant. IMO you're unnecessarily abrasive on everything and with everyone, so I won't cross swords with you further on Ukraine either. But long may we both flourish on PB.
"Hunter Biden has been indicted by special counsel David Weiss in connection with a gun he purchased in 2018.
The charges include making false statements on a federal firearms form and possession of a firearm as a prohibited person.
It’s an extraordinary turn of events after his original plea deal collapsed and potentially sets up a dramatic trial in the middle of his father’s 2024 reelection bid."
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
First northern england PM since Blair and yet ironically he does not give a flying f.
Southampton only northern if you are based on the Isle of Wight!
Who was the last proper northerner to be PM?
Assuming we don't count Grantham as the north, I come up with Harold Wilson, and Eden, but then I think I'm going all the way back to Asquith for the previous one.
Gordon Brown came from North Britain.
Wilson was definitely from the North.
Blair was an oddity. Scottish born. Raised in Durham. Few v early years in Aussie.
Yet never quite seemed anything but metropolitan.
Truss was schooled in Leeds, as well as a few other spots.
Indeed. But apparently it was so appalling she learnt nothing and somehow escaped.
Her schooling was so appalling that Oxford took her.
"Hunter Biden has been indicted by special counsel David Weiss in connection with a gun he purchased in 2018.
The charges include making false statements on a federal firearms form and possession of a firearm as a prohibited person.
It’s an extraordinary turn of events after his original plea deal collapsed and potentially sets up a dramatic trial in the middle of his father’s 2024 reelection bid."
"FT Magazine Britain’s dawning self-awareness The nation has realised what it is: a small country that needs immigrants, high taxes and European allies Simon Kuper"
Firstly, you were not an MP. AFAICR you were the 2015 candidate for Broxtowe, the good people of that constituency having chucked you out in 2010. I'm fairly sure of this, as I only joined this site in 2010. Facts, eh?
I also believe my argument with you was not about that: it was about you sitting on the fence over the project, and waiting for the party to tell you what to think on it. You were, as I recall, 'undecided', as if your radar dish was still waiting for a signal from Miliband.
My memories might well be wrong, but I don't believe so.
" JJ was his customary scornful self "
Well, yes, I am scornful towards the sort of people who excuse Russia's evil little imperialistic war, and worse, who blame *us* for the invasion of Ukraine. As you do. I guess this little rant against me is more to do with my pointing out your sheer hypocrisy and stupidity over Ukraine, rather than HS2.
I could continue, but it might well gain me my first ban.
Oh, you could also at least spell my alias correctly...
Lol! I expect you're right about the date, though not about the issue - I was publicly against the project, against most party colleagues.
Calling you customarily scornful isn't exactly a rant. IMO you're unnecessarily abrasive on everything and with everyone, so I won't cross swords with you further on Ukraine either. But long may we both flourish on PB.
I'm fairly sure you were on the fence, awaiting orders.
"IMO you're unnecessarily abrasive on everything and with everyone"
It's a discussion site. There are times most of us have argued with others on here, and times when the same people have been in rapturous agreement. It's like a pub, albeit with generally more educated people in. Views and opinions are often hard-set, and text-based forums are not ideal for nuances. I've agreed with you on many things in the past, liked your posts etc.
I won't promise not to cross words with you further in Ukraine, as when you say *really* stupid things, particularly things that would just slip out of a Russian propagandist's mouth, I'll reply.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
First northern england PM since Blair and yet ironically he does not give a flying f.
Southampton only northern if you are based on the Isle of Wight!
Who was the last proper northerner to be PM?
Assuming we don't count Grantham as the north, I come up with Harold Wilson, and Eden, but then I think I'm going all the way back to Asquith for the previous one.
Gordon Brown came from North Britain.
Wilson was definitely from the North.
Blair was an oddity. Scottish born. Raised in Durham. Few v early years in Aussie.
Yet never quite seemed anything but metropolitan.
Truss was schooled in Leeds, as well as a few other spots.
"FT Magazine Britain’s dawning self-awareness The nation has realised what it is: a small country that needs immigrants, high taxes and European allies Simon Kuper"
The trouble is when looking at the UK economy, people tend to think that 'the north' is the exception. It isn't. The exception is London. GDP/GVA for the north are not so different to the midlands and the south west are they?
We've encouraged investment bankers and billionaires to come here in recent decades but not a lot else above the niche level.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
First northern england PM since Blair and yet ironically he does not give a flying f.
Southampton only northern if you are based on the Isle of Wight!
Who was the last proper northerner to be PM?
Assuming we don't count Grantham as the north, I come up with Harold Wilson, and Eden, but then I think I'm going all the way back to Asquith for the previous one.
Gordon Brown came from North Britain.
Wilson was definitely from the North.
Blair was an oddity. Scottish born. Raised in Durham. Few v early years in Aussie.
Yet never quite seemed anything but metropolitan.
Truss was schooled in Leeds, as well as a few other spots.
Indeed. But apparently it was so appalling she learnt nothing and somehow escaped.
Her schooling was so appalling that Oxford took her.
The only redeeming thing that can be said about Oxford's education in light of how badly taught our Prime Ministers have been is that the one who went to Edinburgh was not noticeably better.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
Using TPE on the north east leg I cannot see how it would get any worse.
TransPennine Express will mothball a fleet of 13 almost new trains as part of drastic plans to cut services from December and improve its dreadful punctuality record.
The company's boss said the moves were aimed at simplifying its operations and 'deliver improved punctuality and reliability'. The train firm was nationalised in May after months of poor performance.
The train company only began using its Spain-built Nova 3 trains in August 2019 but bosses have now confirmed they will be withdrawn because they don't have enough drivers trained to operate them.
There is an argument for a new Labour government to actually borrow more money to drive through improved metro and intercity links in the Midlands and the North. Especially the northern power link, or whatever it was: a regular Crossrail-esque train from Liverpool to Salford to Manc to Sheffield to Leeds to Newcastle. And then build proper tram or light rail links in the northern cities, all integrated with some Oystercard contactless system that works across the north
I cannot think of a single thing more likely to “level up”
That argument, or something very close to it, has been made for well over a decade now. One day it might even happen.
If I vote for Labour for the first time in my life - and it might well happen - I will feel my vote has been well-used (to an extent) if Starmer does this
IT IS SO FUCKING OBVIOUS
This is how you level up the North. Turn it into one giant conurbation so it gets economies of scale and the virtues of agglomeration
Will never happen owing to the chronic parochialism (the archetypal narcissism of small differences) of the British public. If you can't persuade people in Gateshead that they are part of Newcastle, and folk are still whining about utilitarian reforms to local government made 50 years ago, your chances of creating the beautiful Northern mega city of Limalesh are unfortunately vanishingly small.
Newcastle and Gateshead isn’t the issue. They both work together pretty well
It’s Newcastle and Sunderland. Sunderland will never, ever, match Newcastle and when we have a combined mayor across the North East all the money and focus will be Newcastle.
I won't be popular for saying this, but the money and focus should be on Newcastle. For the North East as a whole to prosper its biggest city - its only real city - needs to be developed to its fullest potential. Sunderland needs to accept that it is a satellite of Newcastle, instead of pretending to be its rival. Big cities generate wealth. But of course nobody is allowed to say this out loud because it isn't politically correct. We can't tell people they might have to move more a few miles from where they were born for a job. And this kind of charade plays out right across the country, and meanwhile our infrastructure falls behind our competitors and we gradually sink into poverty and irrelevance, because we prefer for our cities and towns to exist in glorious isolation, begging to London for money instead of getting together and generating their own wealth.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
First northern england PM since Blair and yet ironically he does not give a flying f.
Southampton only northern if you are based on the Isle of Wight!
Who was the last proper northerner to be PM?
Assuming we don't count Grantham as the north, I come up with Harold Wilson, and Eden, but then I think I'm going all the way back to Asquith for the previous one.
Gordon Brown came from North Britain.
Wilson was definitely from the North.
Blair was an oddity. Scottish born. Raised in Durham. Few v early years in Aussie.
Yet never quite seemed anything but metropolitan.
Truss was schooled in Leeds, as well as a few other spots.
Indeed. But apparently it was so appalling she learnt nothing and somehow escaped.
Her schooling was so appalling that Oxford took her.
I think this is the point where many fall down. Oxford isn't to be criticised when it fulfils it's role of providing reasonably decent people to supervise the lesser tasks of society. Who after all doesn't want their shirts laundered in the Oxford style. All Oxford graduates must surely be familiar with the everyday detail that will facilitate their service in aid of their betters. It comes down to simple things such as carefully ironing the morning issue of the Cambridge Gazette that the Oxford graduate can really make his (or now day's 'her'!) really tiny imprint on the world.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
I'd like to see the revised economic case for the current shitshow.
Hunt is desperately looking for tax cut money for next year so why on earth does £34b of capital investment to be spent over the next 20 years come into the frame?
Fag end days of this administration.
It's a sobering thought that I was arguing about HS2 with Josiah Jessop when I was still an MP, which is more than 13 years ago. I said it was a classic big-project politicians' catnip, we should spend the money on improving smaller projects and the cost estimates were likely to be wild underestimates, JJ was his customary scornful self and said it was absolutely essential (as, to be fair, did most local councillors in my area). What's sobering is that it's still undecided and JJ and I are still here. Does nothing ever change??
That's the stark difference between North and South. Up there everyone wants it, down here no-one wants it.
That was actually the case in France a couple of decades ago. Parts of France wanted high-speed rail links; often the poorer parts. The richer parts often did not. (There was actually a study on this, I think...)
My own view on HS2: a country runs on its infrastructure. And if you want a country to grow and modernise, you need its infrastructure to grow and modernise. Whilst that does not mean a trash-everything approach, it does not mean we should try to preserve a bucolic past and country that never really existed, either. Anything else is stagnation and reversal.
Imagine if NIMBYs had existed in the mid-1800s (aside from a few gentrified landowners), and we had not developed a railway network. Where would the country - and because of the Empire, the world - be now? What if we had decided not to build the motorway network from the 1960s onwards?
Yes, HS2 has been mismanaged by the Conservative governments, and the coalition (although given the dead hands of the DfT and treasury, I doubt it would have been much different under any government). But that does not mean that such projects are unnecessary. What is necessary is to work out *why* and *how* they were mismanaged, and try to ensure such mistakes do not happen again.
We have had interesting discussions on those questions on here in the past, including recently.
Philip (Lord) Hammond was on the TV yesterday. We need to invest more, consume less and then raise productivity as a result was his advice. Sounds reasonable enough. You can fiddle around with local government etc but I don't see it as a fundamental problem.
Invest in what? Things that are of obvious benefit to us in the future. Things that foreigners would want to buy from us, so we can afford to import stuff from them. Not investing in fixed assets like the housing stock. The readjustment of house prices might be a start. I'd love to see a regional breakdown of bank lending. What percentage of mortgage lending is to the south east?
Who was that modest self effacing fellow who wrote at the weekend that he had doubts about Labour winning a majority?
Sir Keir Starmer’s chances of forming a majority government have been dealt a blow, according to a poll that reveals support for Labour in Scotland is drifting back to the SNP.
In a reversal of a trend showing Labour almost neck and neck with the nationalists, research for YouGov put clear water between the parties, giving the SNP an 11-point advantage.
The survey is a welcome boost for Humza Yousaf, the first minister, before the Rutherglen & Hamilton West by-election, his first major electoral test since replacing Nicola Sturgeon in March.
Sir John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, said the shift would not be enough for the SNP to win in Rutherglen on October 5. Postal votes for the by-election will be sent out on Friday.
The poll puts support for the SNP at a general election at 38 per cent, up two points since last month, while backing for Labour fell by five points to 27 per cent. Under Westminster boundaries, this would mean the SNP winning 39 seats while Labour would return 11, a significant increase from the ones the party has at present. The SNP holds 44 Westminster seats.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
I'd like to see the revised economic case for the current shitshow.
Hunt is desperately looking for tax cut money for next year so why on earth does £34b of capital investment to be spent over the next 20 years come into the frame?
Fag end days of this administration.
It's a sobering thought that I was arguing about HS2 with Josiah Jessop when I was still an MP, which is more than 13 years ago. I said it was a classic big-project politicians' catnip, we should spend the money on improving smaller projects and the cost estimates were likely to be wild underestimates, JJ was his customary scornful self and said it was absolutely essential (as, to be fair, did most local councillors in my area). What's sobering is that it's still undecided and JJ and I are still here. Does nothing ever change??
That's the stark difference between North and South. Up there everyone wants it, down here no-one wants it.
That was actually the case in France a couple of decades ago. Parts of France wanted high-speed rail links; often the poorer parts. The richer parts often did not. (There was actually a study on this, I think...)
My own view on HS2: a country runs on its infrastructure. And if you want a country to grow and modernise, you need its infrastructure to grow and modernise. Whilst that does not mean a trash-everything approach, it does not mean we should try to preserve a bucolic past and country that never really existed, either. Anything else is stagnation and reversal.
Imagine if NIMBYs had existed in the mid-1800s (aside from a few gentrified landowners), and we had not developed a railway network. Where would the country - and because of the Empire, the world - be now? What if we had decided not to build the motorway network from the 1960s onwards?
They did. One reason the London and Birmingham (now the WCML) went three times over budget was because the landowners insisted on vast sums being paid before they would stop fighting against the railways. Even that wasn't always enough. My particular favourite story is of one part of the survey had to be carried out on Sunday morning while a particularly obstreperous parson was preaching in his church and couldn't throw the party off his glebe.
And where they were being built they were frequently unpopular with locals because of the rowdiness of the navvies.
Despite the apparent boost to the SNP’s fortunes, backing for independence fell three points to 39 per cent while an unchanged 44 per cent of people said they wanted to remain in the Union. This left 16 per cent who said they were either undecided, would not vote or refused to reveal their preference.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
Using TPE on the north east leg I cannot see how it would get any worse.
TransPennine Express will mothball a fleet of 13 almost new trains as part of drastic plans to cut services from December and improve its dreadful punctuality record.
The company's boss said the moves were aimed at simplifying its operations and 'deliver improved punctuality and reliability'. The train firm was nationalised in May after months of poor performance.
The train company only began using its Spain-built Nova 3 trains in August 2019 but bosses have now confirmed they will be withdrawn because they don't have enough drivers trained to operate them.
There is an argument for a new Labour government to actually borrow more money to drive through improved metro and intercity links in the Midlands and the North. Especially the northern power link, or whatever it was: a regular Crossrail-esque train from Liverpool to Salford to Manc to Sheffield to Leeds to Newcastle. And then build proper tram or light rail links in the northern cities, all integrated with some Oystercard contactless system that works across the north
I cannot think of a single thing more likely to “level up”
That argument, or something very close to it, has been made for well over a decade now. One day it might even happen.
If I vote for Labour for the first time in my life - and it might well happen - I will feel my vote has been well-used (to an extent) if Starmer does this
IT IS SO FUCKING OBVIOUS
This is how you level up the North. Turn it into one giant conurbation so it gets economies of scale and the virtues of agglomeration
Will never happen owing to the chronic parochialism (the archetypal narcissism of small differences) of the British public. If you can't persuade people in Gateshead that they are part of Newcastle, and folk are still whining about utilitarian reforms to local government made 50 years ago, your chances of creating the beautiful Northern mega city of Limalesh are unfortunately vanishingly small.
Newcastle and Gateshead isn’t the issue. They both work together pretty well
It’s Newcastle and Sunderland. Sunderland will never, ever, match Newcastle and when we have a combined mayor across the North East all the money and focus will be Newcastle.
I won't be popular for saying this, but the money and focus should be on Newcastle. For the North East as a whole to prosper its biggest city - its only real city - needs to be developed to its fullest potential. Sunderland needs to accept that it is a satellite of Newcastle, instead of pretending to be its rival. Big cities generate wealth. But of course nobody is allowed to say this out loud because it isn't politically correct. We can't tell people they might have to move more a few miles from where they were born for a job. And this kind of charade plays out right across the country, and meanwhile our infrastructure falls behind our competitors and we gradually sink into poverty and irrelevance, because we prefer for our cities and towns to exist in glorious isolation, begging to London for money instead of getting together and generating their own wealth.
I totally agree with you and much of the issues rooted in bloody soccer rivalry.
Sunderland will always play second fiddle to Newcastle. Mackems should be glad they don’t live in Middlesbrough.
Philip (Lord) Hammond was on the TV yesterday. We need to invest more, consume less and then raise productivity as a result was his advice. Sounds reasonable enough. You can fiddle around with local government etc but I don't see it as a fundamental problem.
Invest in what? Things that are of obvious benefit to us in the future. Things that foreigners would want to buy from us, so we can afford to import stuff from them. Not investing in fixed assets like the housing stock. The readjustment of house prices might be a start. I'd love to see a regional breakdown of bank lending. What percentage of mortgage lending is to the south east?
Enjoy less quality of life and no new housing builds? It's certainly a message to go out on a bang with.
Philip (Lord) Hammond was on the TV yesterday. We need to invest more, consume less and then raise productivity as a result was his advice. Sounds reasonable enough. You can fiddle around with local government etc but I don't see it as a fundamental problem.
Invest in what? Things that are of obvious benefit to us in the future. Things that foreigners would want to buy from us, so we can afford to import stuff from them. Not investing in fixed assets like the housing stock. The readjustment of house prices might be a start. I'd love to see a regional breakdown of bank lending. What percentage of mortgage lending is to the south east?
Enjoy less quality of life and no new housing builds? It's certainly a message to go out on a bang with.
Where do you get the 'no new housing builds' from?
Philip (Lord) Hammond was on the TV yesterday. We need to invest more, consume less and then raise productivity as a result was his advice. Sounds reasonable enough. You can fiddle around with local government etc but I don't see it as a fundamental problem.
Invest in what? Things that are of obvious benefit to us in the future. Things that foreigners would want to buy from us, so we can afford to import stuff from them. Not investing in fixed assets like the housing stock. The readjustment of house prices might be a start. I'd love to see a regional breakdown of bank lending. What percentage of mortgage lending is to the south east?
Enjoy less quality of life and no new housing builds? It's certainly a message to go out on a bang with.
Where do you get the 'no new housing builds' from?
I live in the constituency and have never heard of Gareth Mackey outside this website. I've been canvassed twice by Labour. Usually there's no campaigns to speak of and the Tories walk it.
Finally an actual voter speaks! Tell us more? Are Labour the only party who's canvassed you? How many leaflets have you had? What's your impression of how it's going?
Yeah, only canvassed by Labour. Had a couple of leaflets from each of the main parties. Seen a few Labour placards too, certainly a novelty. FWIW, I think they'll do it.
So if Labour make only 10 gains in Scotland they will need to make 114 net gains in England & Wales for a majority (and that's before boundary changes.)
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
I'd like to see the revised economic case for the current shitshow.
Hunt is desperately looking for tax cut money for next year so why on earth does £34b of capital investment to be spent over the next 20 years come into the frame?
Fag end days of this administration.
It's a sobering thought that I was arguing about HS2 with Josiah Jessop when I was still an MP, which is more than 13 years ago. I said it was a classic big-project politicians' catnip, we should spend the money on improving smaller projects and the cost estimates were likely to be wild underestimates, JJ was his customary scornful self and said it was absolutely essential (as, to be fair, did most local councillors in my area). What's sobering is that it's still undecided and JJ and I are still here. Does nothing ever change??
That's the stark difference between North and South. Up there everyone wants it, down here no-one wants it.
That was actually the case in France a couple of decades ago. Parts of France wanted high-speed rail links; often the poorer parts. The richer parts often did not. (There was actually a study on this, I think...)
My own view on HS2: a country runs on its infrastructure. And if you want a country to grow and modernise, you need its infrastructure to grow and modernise. Whilst that does not mean a trash-everything approach, it does not mean we should try to preserve a bucolic past and country that never really existed, either. Anything else is stagnation and reversal.
Imagine if NIMBYs had existed in the mid-1800s (aside from a few gentrified landowners), and we had not developed a railway network. Where would the country - and because of the Empire, the world - be now? What if we had decided not to build the motorway network from the 1960s onwards?
They did. One reason the London and Birmingham (now the WCML) went three times over budget was because the landowners insisted on vast sums being paid before they would stop fighting against the railways. Even that wasn't always enough. My particular favourite story is of one part of the survey had to be carried out on Sunday morning while a particularly obstreperous parson was preaching in his church and couldn't throw the party off his glebe.
And where they were being built they were frequently unpopular with locals because of the rowdiness of the navvies.
Or Haddon Tunnel, which was a totally unnecessary tunnel (I think at its deepest it is only twelve or so feet below the ground's surface), built only because the Duke of Rutland did not want to see trains. And which killed five workers during its construction.
But I did mention 'a few gentrified landowners'. Many others actually wanted railways on their lands (if not near their stately piles), as they saw railways as a great way of getting goods (especially minerals) off their land and to their markets.
There are a few stories of surveyors of prospective railways having to have guards because of rowdy locals. I think there's such a story about Brunel.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
And TPE is going to get worse from December.
The North has been well and truly fucked by Sunak.
Using TPE on the north east leg I cannot see how it would get any worse.
TransPennine Express will mothball a fleet of 13 almost new trains as part of drastic plans to cut services from December and improve its dreadful punctuality record.
The company's boss said the moves were aimed at simplifying its operations and 'deliver improved punctuality and reliability'. The train firm was nationalised in May after months of poor performance.
The train company only began using its Spain-built Nova 3 trains in August 2019 but bosses have now confirmed they will be withdrawn because they don't have enough drivers trained to operate them.
There is an argument for a new Labour government to actually borrow more money to drive through improved metro and intercity links in the Midlands and the North. Especially the northern power link, or whatever it was: a regular Crossrail-esque train from Liverpool to Salford to Manc to Sheffield to Leeds to Newcastle. And then build proper tram or light rail links in the northern cities, all integrated with some Oystercard contactless system that works across the north
I cannot think of a single thing more likely to “level up”
That argument, or something very close to it, has been made for well over a decade now. One day it might even happen.
If I vote for Labour for the first time in my life - and it might well happen - I will feel my vote has been well-used (to an extent) if Starmer does this
IT IS SO FUCKING OBVIOUS
This is how you level up the North. Turn it into one giant conurbation so it gets economies of scale and the virtues of agglomeration
Will never happen owing to the chronic parochialism (the archetypal narcissism of small differences) of the British public. If you can't persuade people in Gateshead that they are part of Newcastle, and folk are still whining about utilitarian reforms to local government made 50 years ago, your chances of creating the beautiful Northern mega city of Limalesh are unfortunately vanishingly small.
Newcastle and Gateshead isn’t the issue. They both work together pretty well
It’s Newcastle and Sunderland. Sunderland will never, ever, match Newcastle and when we have a combined mayor across the North East all the money and focus will be Newcastle.
I won't be popular for saying this, but the money and focus should be on Newcastle. For the North East as a whole to prosper its biggest city - its only real city - needs to be developed to its fullest potential. Sunderland needs to accept that it is a satellite of Newcastle, instead of pretending to be its rival. Big cities generate wealth. But of course nobody is allowed to say this out loud because it isn't politically correct. We can't tell people they might have to move more a few miles from where they were born for a job. And this kind of charade plays out right across the country, and meanwhile our infrastructure falls behind our competitors and we gradually sink into poverty and irrelevance, because we prefer for our cities and towns to exist in glorious isolation, begging to London for money instead of getting together and generating their own wealth.
It's the @GardenWalker theory- focus the investment where there's a chance of it paying off. I think he goes for Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and nowhere else. I think I'd go further- put money into places which had ITV studios. So Southampton (not Portsmouth or Brighton), and Newcastle (not anywhere else on the NE).
But yes. A combination of local rivalries and not actually wanting regional hubs to succeed (we're proud towns, not satellites of That There Big City) stop us doing the rational thing.
And being irrational is a luxury the UK can't afford any more.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
I'd like to see the revised economic case for the current shitshow.
Hunt is desperately looking for tax cut money for next year so why on earth does £34b of capital investment to be spent over the next 20 years come into the frame?
Fag end days of this administration.
It's a sobering thought that I was arguing about HS2 with Josiah Jessop when I was still an MP, which is more than 13 years ago. I said it was a classic big-project politicians' catnip, we should spend the money on improving smaller projects and the cost estimates were likely to be wild underestimates, JJ was his customary scornful self and said it was absolutely essential (as, to be fair, did most local councillors in my area). What's sobering is that it's still undecided and JJ and I are still here. Does nothing ever change??
That's the stark difference between North and South. Up there everyone wants it, down here no-one wants it.
That was actually the case in France a couple of decades ago. Parts of France wanted high-speed rail links; often the poorer parts. The richer parts often did not. (There was actually a study on this, I think...)
My own view on HS2: a country runs on its infrastructure. And if you want a country to grow and modernise, you need its infrastructure to grow and modernise. Whilst that does not mean a trash-everything approach, it does not mean we should try to preserve a bucolic past and country that never really existed, either. Anything else is stagnation and reversal.
Imagine if NIMBYs had existed in the mid-1800s (aside from a few gentrified landowners), and we had not developed a railway network. Where would the country - and because of the Empire, the world - be now? What if we had decided not to build the motorway network from the 1960s onwards?
Yes, HS2 has been mismanaged by the Conservative governments, and the coalition (although given the dead hands of the DfT and treasury, I doubt it would have been much different under any government). But that does not mean that such projects are unnecessary. What is necessary is to work out *why* and *how* they were mismanaged, and try to ensure such mistakes do not happen again.
We have had interesting discussions on those questions on here in the past, including recently.
I know too much about HS2 to guve a succinct view, but a few points: - the business cases are in the public domain (links below). - HS2 identified benefuts outweighed costs in the Jan22 business case - however when the Golborne Link was taken out in Jun22 (temporarily?), this was no longer the case. - However, the monetised benefits don't include the benefits of released capacity and improved reliability - because this is hard to monetise; and nor do they include land use benefits/regeneration benefits. This is superficially odd, as this is all kind of the point of the exercise. As anyone who knows anything about this will bang on ceaselessly about, it's about capacity, not speed. But DfT don't really like monetisation of those sorts of benefita in business cases.
I'm ducking back out of this conversation for now because the wife has got out of the bath and the second half of France Uruguay beckons! (Uruguay looking surprisingly good!)
Off topic, but too amusing not to share: "A Democratic candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates performed sex acts with her husband online — and asked her virtual audience to pitch in with “tips,” The Post has learned.
To be honest, compared with Woking, this is a drop in the proverbial. Derbyshire probably turns over £1.5 billion per annum so a £46 million gap shouldn't lead to an S114 notice.
Derbyshire County Council has made £300 million in cuts over the past 13 years in order to meet balanced budgets, along with £16 million which is being cut this financial year and a combined total of £46.7 million it was already pencilling in to cut over the next five years.
No 10 refuses to confirm HS2 will run to Manchester Fresh uncertainty for high-speed line as leaked document suggests Sunak and Hunt have met to discuss more cuts
While Downing Street said the government was “committed to HS2”, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm that HS2 would extend to Manchester, under repeated questioning at a briefing on Thursday...
HS2 looking increasingly like a very, very long-burn version of the classic Monorail episode of The Simpsons.
The scale of the failure here is genuinely very difficult to fully comprehend - I'm sure someone's made out of it like an absolute bandit though.
I'd like to see the revised economic case for the current shitshow.
Hunt is desperately looking for tax cut money for next year so why on earth does £34b of capital investment to be spent over the next 20 years come into the frame?
Fag end days of this administration.
It's a sobering thought that I was arguing about HS2 with Josiah Jessop when I was still an MP, which is more than 13 years ago. I said it was a classic big-project politicians' catnip, we should spend the money on improving smaller projects and the cost estimates were likely to be wild underestimates, JJ was his customary scornful self and said it was absolutely essential (as, to be fair, did most local councillors in my area). What's sobering is that it's still undecided and JJ and I are still here. Does nothing ever change??
That's the stark difference between North and South. Up there everyone wants it, down here no-one wants it.
That was actually the case in France a couple of decades ago. Parts of France wanted high-speed rail links; often the poorer parts. The richer parts often did not. (There was actually a study on this, I think...)
My own view on HS2: a country runs on its infrastructure. And if you want a country to grow and modernise, you need its infrastructure to grow and modernise. Whilst that does not mean a trash-everything approach, it does not mean we should try to preserve a bucolic past and country that never really existed, either. Anything else is stagnation and reversal.
Imagine if NIMBYs had existed in the mid-1800s (aside from a few gentrified landowners), and we had not developed a railway network. Where would the country - and because of the Empire, the world - be now? What if we had decided not to build the motorway network from the 1960s onwards?
Yes, HS2 has been mismanaged by the Conservative governments, and the coalition (although given the dead hands of the DfT and treasury, I doubt it would have been much different under any government). But that does not mean that such projects are unnecessary. What is necessary is to work out *why* and *how* they were mismanaged, and try to ensure such mistakes do not happen again.
We have had interesting discussions on those questions on here in the past, including recently.
I know too much about HS2 to guve a succinct view, but a few points: - the business cases are in the public domain (links below). - HS2 identified benefuts outweighed costs in the Jan22 business case - however when the Golborne Link was taken out in Jun22 (temporarily?), this was no longer the case. - However, the monetised benefits don't include the benefits of released capacity and improved reliability - because this is hard to monetise; and nor do they include land use benefits/regeneration benefits. This is superficially odd, as this is all kind of the point of the exercise. As anyone who knows anything about this will bang on ceaselessly about, it's about capacity, not speed. But DfT don't really like monetisation of those sorts of benefita in business cases.
I'm ducking back out of this conversation for now because the wife has got out of the bath and the second half of France Uruguay beckons! (Uruguay looking surprisingly good!)
The first thing you always do in government when considering a policy with long term costs and benefits is bin the business case/impact assessment/cost-benefit analysis though, for several overlapping reasons:
- they're usually out of date - they almost always underestimate the costs by several times and overestimate the benefits likewise - the social discount rate is questionable, if not outright ridiculous - as you point out, they often don't include key factors - they're often rigged to get the outcome the government of the day wants.
I've been involved in the preparation and assessment of far too many of them in my career to take them seriously. Still, fortunately, the work can be very lucrative.
"FT Magazine Britain’s dawning self-awareness The nation has realised what it is: a small country that needs immigrants, high taxes and European allies Simon Kuper"
It's a biggish country that needs immigrants, investment (in the short term therefore higher taxes but investment does pay off) and European allies. So about half right, but the small country barb not just innaccurate but deliberately switching off the people he should be persuading. Why?
Philip (Lord) Hammond was on the TV yesterday. We need to invest more, consume less and then raise productivity as a result was his advice. Sounds reasonable enough. You can fiddle around with local government etc but I don't see it as a fundamental problem.
Invest in what? Things that are of obvious benefit to us in the future. Things that foreigners would want to buy from us, so we can afford to import stuff from them. Not investing in fixed assets like the housing stock. The readjustment of house prices might be a start. I'd love to see a regional breakdown of bank lending. What percentage of mortgage lending is to the south east?
Enjoy less quality of life and no new housing builds? It's certainly a message to go out on a bang with.
Where do you get the 'no new housing builds' from?
Off topic, but too amusing not to share: "A Democratic candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates performed sex acts with her husband online — and asked her virtual audience to pitch in with “tips,” The Post has learned.
Who could have predicted rent controls do not work?
Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s rent cap and eviction ban have sent prices for Scottish tenants soaring faster than in London, new data reveals.
The cost of rent in Scotland is rising more rapidly than anywhere else in the UK after the SNP introduced restrictions on landlords’ ability to raise rent and carry out evictions.
Holyrood’s decision in September 2022 to freeze rent payments for hundreds of thousands of Scots and ban most evictions came in response to the cost of living crisis, which Ms Sturgeon labelled a “humanitarian emergency” at the time.
However, the move has since backfired with rental growth in Scotland climbing 12.7pc in the last year, compared with 10.5pc nationally and 12.4pc in London, according to property website Zoopla.
Philip (Lord) Hammond was on the TV yesterday. We need to invest more, consume less and then raise productivity as a result was his advice. Sounds reasonable enough. You can fiddle around with local government etc but I don't see it as a fundamental problem.
Invest in what? Things that are of obvious benefit to us in the future. Things that foreigners would want to buy from us, so we can afford to import stuff from them. Not investing in fixed assets like the housing stock. The readjustment of house prices might be a start. I'd love to see a regional breakdown of bank lending. What percentage of mortgage lending is to the south east?
Enjoy less quality of life and no new housing builds? It's certainly a message to go out on a bang with.
Where do you get the 'no new housing builds' from?
Tank house prices, invest less in housing?
Nothing to stop houses being built.
There is if they sell for half the price, for the same labour and materials.
I also thought that "Not investing in fixed assets like the housing stock" would implicitly involve less housebuilding. It's mostly not extensions.
Philip (Lord) Hammond was on the TV yesterday. We need to invest more, consume less and then raise productivity as a result was his advice. Sounds reasonable enough. You can fiddle around with local government etc but I don't see it as a fundamental problem.
Invest in what? Things that are of obvious benefit to us in the future. Things that foreigners would want to buy from us, so we can afford to import stuff from them. Not investing in fixed assets like the housing stock. The readjustment of house prices might be a start. I'd love to see a regional breakdown of bank lending. What percentage of mortgage lending is to the south east?
Enjoy less quality of life and no new housing builds? It's certainly a message to go out on a bang with.
Where do you get the 'no new housing builds' from?
Tank house prices, invest less in housing?
Nothing to stop houses being built.
There is if they sell for half the price, for the same labour and materials.
I also thought that "Not investing in fixed assets like the housing stock" would implicitly involve less housebuilding. It's mostly not extensions.
By fixed assets (sorry I'm not an economist) I meant mortgages for existing properties. I suppose I shouldn't have used the word invest. Or at least put it in inverted commas. Lending would be the correct word.
Off topic, but too amusing not to share: "A Democratic candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates performed sex acts with her husband online — and asked her virtual audience to pitch in with “tips,” The Post has learned.
There, I've said it. I didn't used to hate them, and I'm generally courteous to bike riders - when overtaking I'll wait for a safe spot, slow down and leave plenty of room - but more and more a large percentage of cyclists have gone militant and seem to deliberately want to piss off other road users.
Coming home from the supermarket this afternoon, and oh look there's cyclists on the road. About thirty of them, strung out at irregular intervals and every one riding dead centre in the lane. It's a twisty rural road with loads of blind bends, so effectively they've made sure any car trying to overtake has to do so in a dangerous manner or spend the next five miles moving at a crawl.
But I'm riding a scooter, not driving a car. evil cackle
I can still get past, although without as much gap as I'd normally leave. So I carefully and slowly make my way past several of them, only to have one shake his fist at me and another obviously shouting something (futile, as I'm wearing earplugs). Clearly the objective was to stop anyone getting past.
If I indulged in that sort of twattery on the road the courts would, rightly, look to confiscate my license. But cyclists don't have licences. Or registration plates to identify them.
I hate cyclists.
I love cyclists.
They are making lawyers and bankers look less bad.
Especially when it comes to loud clothing in quiet areas.
Even louder footwear.
The latest addition to the shoe family.
Is that in case you run into an XL Bully? Armoured trainers?
Who could have predicted rent controls do not work?
Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s rent cap and eviction ban have sent prices for Scottish tenants soaring faster than in London, new data reveals.
The cost of rent in Scotland is rising more rapidly than anywhere else in the UK after the SNP introduced restrictions on landlords’ ability to raise rent and carry out evictions.
Holyrood’s decision in September 2022 to freeze rent payments for hundreds of thousands of Scots and ban most evictions came in response to the cost of living crisis, which Ms Sturgeon labelled a “humanitarian emergency” at the time.
However, the move has since backfired with rental growth in Scotland climbing 12.7pc in the last year, compared with 10.5pc nationally and 12.4pc in London, according to property website Zoopla.
It’s practically the one thing the entire economics profession agrees on, from left to right. Rent controls always result in a housing market that’s even worse than it was before you brought them in.
Build more housing: That’s how you bring rents down.
Off topic, but too amusing not to share: "A Democratic candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates performed sex acts with her husband online — and asked her virtual audience to pitch in with “tips,” The Post has learned.
TPE: If the Nova 3s are going, that doesn't sound like a terrible decision, albeit the romance of locomotives people will be deeply saddened.
Of all TPE rolled out, the Nova 3s never fully came in, they served Scarborough, but never replaced the 185s to Middlesbrough. And then Scarborough became half a service and a lot of them only shuttled to York.
I was worried a year or so ago that they'd re-assign the Nova 1 Hitachis for parts or to GWR. At least those stay in the fleet, but guess it could mean fewer 6 carriagers on the Sheffield line.
Let's see the timetables that result and how they run, but that could be OK.
There, I've said it. I didn't used to hate them, and I'm generally courteous to bike riders - when overtaking I'll wait for a safe spot, slow down and leave plenty of room - but more and more a large percentage of cyclists have gone militant and seem to deliberately want to piss off other road users.
Coming home from the supermarket this afternoon, and oh look there's cyclists on the road. About thirty of them, strung out at irregular intervals and every one riding dead centre in the lane. It's a twisty rural road with loads of blind bends, so effectively they've made sure any car trying to overtake has to do so in a dangerous manner or spend the next five miles moving at a crawl.
But I'm riding a scooter, not driving a car. evil cackle
I can still get past, although without as much gap as I'd normally leave. So I carefully and slowly make my way past several of them, only to have one shake his fist at me and another obviously shouting something (futile, as I'm wearing earplugs). Clearly the objective was to stop anyone getting past.
If I indulged in that sort of twattery on the road the courts would, rightly, look to confiscate my license. But cyclists don't have licences. Or registration plates to identify them.
I hate cyclists.
I love cyclists.
They are making lawyers and bankers look less bad.
Especially when it comes to loud clothing in quiet areas.
Even louder footwear.
The latest addition to the shoe family.
Is that in case you run into an XL Bully? Armoured trainers?
Giving those a mauling would be a public service that could seriously undermine the case for a ban.
Comments
Just seen a bizarre video of a lady in a shop (Peckham?) trying to steal something and being stopped by the shopkeeper. Weirdly once he got hold of her she didn't let the item go and tried to resist*. Apparently a crowd then gathered outside to protest on her behalf. Rumour is that the shopkeeper has gone into hiding. Not good.
*One wonders if she is fully compos mentis.
One day it might even happen.
They are making lawyers and bankers look less bad.
IT IS SO FUCKING OBVIOUS
This is how you level up the North. Turn it into one giant conurbation so it gets economies of scale and the virtues of agglomeration
The latest addition to the shoe family.
That would have about a third of the effect of putting the high speed trains on separate tracks so you can have more stopping trains on the WCML and MML where people already live.
The very great lack of understanding of HS2 among the general public and ignorance of what it will actually do if the drunken twats at the DfT and HMT ever get round to building it is one reason why they're able to keep paying it back to appease their paymasters.
https://x.com/jrpsaki/status/1318382779659411458
Assuming we don't count Grantham as the north, I come up with Harold Wilson, and Eden, but then I think I'm going all the way back to Asquith for the previous one.
If he really does cut it back to Old Oak Common he might even be gunning to surpass Quintinshill.
This country is far too centralised.
I meant their actual seat of MPness.
Sunak - Richmond
Blair - Sedgefield
Next one is way back with Mike Yarwood.
"Between 2016 and 2018, Spelthorne Borough Council borrowed £1 billion to invest in a commercial portfolio of Grade A office buildings in and around our borough.
The size of this debt for a relatively small authority has always attracted media attention over the years. More recently, with an increasing number of local authorities declaring bankruptcy, speculation has been rife as to whether Spelthorne is at risk of joining this growing queue. The answer is categorically ‘NO’.
Spelthorne has generated approximately £50m return every year from its commercial portfolio. This sum comfortably covers the cost of interest and paying down the loans. It also makes a significant profit for the Borough which is spent on front line services and enables us to put some money away for a rainy day.
On average every year, just over £10m of our profits are spent on funding community services across the Borough, such as independent living services, ‘Meals on Wheels’ and Community Centres, which are a lifeline for residents and communities most in need.
We also save some profit having banked approximately £38m as a rainy day reserve, so that we can make up any shortfall if our commercial profits dip in any given year, for example when tenants move on.
Since we last added to our commercial portfolio 5 years ago, by acquiring a new office building, we have successfully managed our investments, even through the darkest periods of a pandemic and cost of living crisis.
Whilst the state of the UK economy and the high interest rates are impacting many local authorities who can no longer afford paying the historically high interest on their debts, that is not the case here in Spelthorne. This is because we had the foresight to fix our interest rates at an average 2.3% until we pay off the loan.
In short, with prudent management of our assets, Spelthorne residents continue benefiting from many local services (that other authorities can no longer afford to provide) and in the longer term, once our loans are paid off, from owning outright the £1 billion portfolio of assets.
So the next time the topic of Spelthorne debt levels come up, feel free to share this explanation of how this innovative borough protects our local services and bucks the trend."
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7108039618201051136/
The combined might of Liverpool, Manc, Leeds, Sheffield, Newc would be a city to nearly match London and a city to match almost anywhere in Europe
Consider the combined puissance of the universities, industries, services, cultural impact - DO IT. Like a kind of EU of English northern cities
The advantage of England is that it is tiny: ergo compact. Everywhere is about 2 miles from anywhere else. Weaponise this
Blair was an oddity. Scottish born. Raised in Durham. Few v early years in Aussie.
Yet never quite seemed anything but metropolitan.
It’s Newcastle and Sunderland. Sunderland will never, ever, match Newcastle and when we have a combined mayor across the North East all the money and focus will be Newcastle.
A bunch of drunken, obviously wealthy male Australians - 40s-50s - in this luxe hotel restaurant garden:
“The Brits are the funniest tho, they really make you laugh”
“Yeah, that’s true, proper belly laughs - they leave you in stitches”
One guy demurs:
“What about Americans?”
“Hmm. Maybe a bit. But they take themselves too seriously”
“Apart from New Yorkers? They’re funny. Ironic”
“That’s true, they’re funny - but that’s because they are more like Brits”
+ + +
True story. I am going to leave the table before they say something nasty about us
Firstly, you were not an MP. AFAICR you were the 2015 candidate for Broxtowe, the good people of that constituency having chucked you out in 2010. I'm fairly sure of this, as I only joined this site in 2010. Facts, eh?
I also believe my argument with you was not about that: it was about you sitting on the fence over the project, and waiting for the party to tell you what to think on it. You were, as I recall, 'undecided', as if your radar dish was still waiting for a signal from Miliband.
My memories might well be wrong, but I don't believe so.
" JJ was his customary scornful self "
Well, yes, I am scornful towards the sort of people who excuse Russia's evil little imperialistic war, and worse, who blame *us* for the invasion of Ukraine. As you do. I guess this little rant against me is more to do with my pointing out your sheer hypocrisy and stupidity over Ukraine, rather than HS2.
I could continue, but it might well gain me my first ban.
Oh, you could also at least spell my alias correctly...
I presume you mean 'London'? And it's definitely not 2 miles from the bit you're in to the bit you want to go to. With the state of the tube it can feel like about 2 thousand.
Why bother with any trains between 10am and 4pm at all?
The charges include making false statements on a federal firearms form and possession of a firearm as a prohibited person.
It’s an extraordinary turn of events after his original plea deal collapsed and potentially sets up a dramatic trial in the middle of his father’s 2024 reelection bid."
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/14/politics/hunter-biden/index.html
Calling you customarily scornful isn't exactly a rant. IMO you're unnecessarily abrasive on everything and with everyone, so I won't cross swords with you further on Ukraine either. But long may we both flourish on PB.
I believe people in the suburbs who use trains don’t only use them for commuting.
They were discussing humour around the world
Britain’s dawning self-awareness
The nation has realised what it is: a small country that needs immigrants, high taxes and European allies
Simon Kuper"
https://www.ft.com
"IMO you're unnecessarily abrasive on everything and with everyone"
It's a discussion site. There are times most of us have argued with others on here, and times when the same people have been in rapturous agreement. It's like a pub, albeit with generally more educated people in. Views and opinions are often hard-set, and text-based forums are not ideal for nuances. I've agreed with you on many things in the past, liked your posts etc.
I won't promise not to cross words with you further in Ukraine, as when you say *really* stupid things, particularly things that would just slip out of a Russian propagandist's mouth, I'll reply.
We've encouraged investment bankers and billionaires to come here in recent decades but not a lot else above the niche level.
But of course nobody is allowed to say this out loud because it isn't politically correct. We can't tell people they might have to move more a few miles from where they were born for a job.
And this kind of charade plays out right across the country, and meanwhile our infrastructure falls behind our competitors and we gradually sink into poverty and irrelevance, because we prefer for our cities and towns to exist in glorious isolation, begging to London for money instead of getting together and generating their own wealth.
My own view on HS2: a country runs on its infrastructure. And if you want a country to grow and modernise, you need its infrastructure to grow and modernise. Whilst that does not mean a trash-everything approach, it does not mean we should try to preserve a bucolic past and country that never really existed, either. Anything else is stagnation and reversal.
Imagine if NIMBYs had existed in the mid-1800s (aside from a few gentrified landowners), and we had not developed a railway network. Where would the country - and because of the Empire, the world - be now? What if we had decided not to build the motorway network from the 1960s onwards?
Yes, HS2 has been mismanaged by the Conservative governments, and the coalition (although given the dead hands of the DfT and treasury, I doubt it would have been much different under any government). But that does not mean that such projects are unnecessary. What is necessary is to work out *why* and *how* they were mismanaged, and try to ensure such mistakes do not happen again.
We have had interesting discussions on those questions on here in the past, including recently.
Invest in what? Things that are of obvious benefit to us in the future. Things that foreigners would want to buy from us, so we can afford to import stuff from them. Not investing in fixed assets like the housing stock. The readjustment of house prices might be a start. I'd love to see a regional breakdown of bank lending. What percentage of mortgage lending is to the south east?
Russia’s southern mistake — Surovikin lines, Gerasimov tactics
https://kyivindependent.com/attrition-shortages-tactical-inconsistency-russian-blunders-on-southern-front/
Sir Keir Starmer’s chances of forming a majority government have been dealt a blow, according to a poll that reveals support for Labour in Scotland is drifting back to the SNP.
In a reversal of a trend showing Labour almost neck and neck with the nationalists, research for YouGov put clear water between the parties, giving the SNP an 11-point advantage.
The survey is a welcome boost for Humza Yousaf, the first minister, before the Rutherglen & Hamilton West by-election, his first major electoral test since replacing Nicola Sturgeon in March.
Sir John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, said the shift would not be enough for the SNP to win in Rutherglen on October 5. Postal votes for the by-election will be sent out on Friday.
The poll puts support for the SNP at a general election at 38 per cent, up two points since last month, while backing for Labour fell by five points to 27 per cent. Under Westminster boundaries, this would mean the SNP winning 39 seats while Labour would return 11, a significant increase from the ones the party has at present. The SNP holds 44 Westminster seats.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-risks-losing-seats-as-scottish-support-for-snp-rises-cx7dmcsgw
And where they were being built they were frequently unpopular with locals because of the rowdiness of the navvies.
Despite the apparent boost to the SNP’s fortunes, backing for independence fell three points to 39 per cent while an unchanged 44 per cent of people said they wanted to remain in the Union. This left 16 per cent who said they were either undecided, would not vote or refused to reveal their preference.
Sunderland will always play second fiddle to Newcastle. Mackems should be glad they don’t live in Middlesbrough.
But I did mention 'a few gentrified landowners'. Many others actually wanted railways on their lands (if not near their stately piles), as they saw railways as a great way of getting goods (especially minerals) off their land and to their markets.
There are a few stories of surveyors of prospective railways having to have guards because of rowdy locals. I think there's such a story about Brunel.
13 years of underfunding local Government by the Tories about to collapse huge number of Councils
Both Con and SKS Lab with austerity Reeves offers a further 5 years of Austerity that should finish the job.
https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/local-news/derbyshire-county-council-edge-bankruptcy-8750344?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar
But yes. A combination of local rivalries and not actually wanting regional hubs to succeed (we're proud towns, not satellites of That There Big City) stop us doing the rational thing.
And being irrational is a luxury the UK can't afford any more.
- the business cases are in the public domain (links below).
- HS2 identified benefuts outweighed costs in the Jan22 business case - however when the Golborne Link was taken out in Jun22 (temporarily?), this was no longer the case.
- However, the monetised benefits don't include the benefits of released capacity and improved reliability - because this is hard to monetise; and nor do they include land use benefits/regeneration benefits. This is superficially odd, as this is all kind of the point of the exercise. As anyone who knows anything about this will bang on ceaselessly about, it's about capacity, not speed. But DfT don't really like monetisation of those sorts of benefita in business cases.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hs2-crewe-to-manchester-update-on-the-strategic-outline-business-case
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hs2-crewe-to-manchester-impacts-of-removing-the-golborne-link
I'm ducking back out of this conversation for now because the wife has got out of the bath and the second half of France Uruguay beckons! (Uruguay looking surprisingly good!)
Susanna Gibson, a mother of two young children who is running in a competitive race to represent District 57 in Richmond, showed quite a bit more than skin on the adult streaming website Chaturbate, according to screenshots of archived material reviewed by The Post."
source: https://nypost.com/2023/09/11/house-candidate-susanna-gibson-performed-sex-acts-on-webcam-for-tips/
Now that's transparency! Though some old fuddy duddys may consider it "too much information".
(She's a 40 year old "nurse practitioner". Could there be a spot for her in the NHS, assuming she dosn't win her race?)
- they're usually out of date
- they almost always underestimate the costs by several times and overestimate the benefits likewise
- the social discount rate is questionable, if not outright ridiculous
- as you point out, they often don't include key factors
- they're often rigged to get the outcome the government of the day wants.
I've been involved in the preparation and assessment of far too many of them in my career to take them seriously. Still, fortunately, the work can be very lucrative.
Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s rent cap and eviction ban have sent prices for Scottish tenants soaring faster than in London, new data reveals.
The cost of rent in Scotland is rising more rapidly than anywhere else in the UK after the SNP introduced restrictions on landlords’ ability to raise rent and carry out evictions.
Holyrood’s decision in September 2022 to freeze rent payments for hundreds of thousands of Scots and ban most evictions came in response to the cost of living crisis, which Ms Sturgeon labelled a “humanitarian emergency” at the time.
However, the move has since backfired with rental growth in Scotland climbing 12.7pc in the last year, compared with 10.5pc nationally and 12.4pc in London, according to property website Zoopla.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/rents-faster-scotland-london-war-landlords-nicola-sturgeon/
I also thought that "Not investing in fixed assets like the housing stock" would implicitly involve less housebuilding. It's mostly not extensions.
Build more housing: That’s how you bring rents down.
Of all TPE rolled out, the Nova 3s never fully came in, they served Scarborough, but never replaced the 185s to Middlesbrough. And then Scarborough became half a service and a lot of them only shuttled to York.
I was worried a year or so ago that they'd re-assign the Nova 1 Hitachis for parts or to GWR. At least those stay in the fleet, but guess it could mean fewer 6 carriagers on the Sheffield line.
Let's see the timetables that result and how they run, but that could be OK.