As per @Peston I’m also told the decision has been made to scrap the Manchester leg of HS2 with the money going on other transport projects
So Crossrail 2.
A key part of the levelling up agenda.
It's kind of amazing that they can't see how Crossrail despite the delays and excess cost was still worth building and then using their gigantic brains ponder whether there is a lesson for HS2 which may last 100 years.
If the UK had always been run by people like Sunak and Hunt we'd be much poorer and at best a developing country.
The problem is that for decades the country has been mismanaged by an attitude that transport growth, or "induced demand" is something to be discouraged rather than encouraged as a fundamental part of economic growth.
The ability to quickly (and ideally cheaply) from A to B significantly increases the area in which people can find work.
That means companies have a wider choice of people to employ when filling vacancies and provides people with the ability to find better paid work where their skills can be used (hence everyone wins because they are more productiove).
Absolutely, which is why we should be investing in more motorways, since driving is by far how most people get to work.
Our motorways were constructed in the 60s and 70s and GDP per capita growth was far higher then as a result.
For the past few decades we've neglected our infrastructure. If we'd kept investing in new motorway capacity at the same rate as we had in the 60s, we'd be far more productive today.
Onj the same logic, we should have double the railways we had then. Fat lot of chance, it seems, now.
As per @Peston I’m also told the decision has been made to scrap the Manchester leg of HS2 with the money going on other transport projects
So Crossrail 2.
A key part of the levelling up agenda.
It's a very sensible investment. It's clear though that such projects entail us (the taxpayers) getting ripped off in quite shocking ways. What's odd though is that the big construction companies are all going bust. Where is the money going?
I think we have multiple issues
1) companies get told the budget for public projects so gold plate everything because they want more of the money 2) this Government disliked risk so expected all the costs to be covered upfront. Ask me to take a risk on a project and I'll add 50% to the bill to cover that risk 3) for private work construction material costs have rendered even projects that were sensible planned as problematic because they budget for inflation at say 10% rather than 40%..
4) Dragging out and perpetually stalling/postponing projects only makes them more expensive, not cheaper.
When things get expensive its natural to want to go slow, but doing so only makes things viciously more expensive.
In my previous comment about I-200, I should have added that it is likely that the state government and universities have continued to discriminate on the basis of race and sex -- but have been a little sneakier in the ways they do it.
Or, to put it another way, they have continued to break our civil rights laws, and defy the will of the people.
As usual there’s nothing but dreary shite coming out of Manchester
The atmosphere is flat. Very light applause. People more interested in their mobile phones. It feels as if there are only a couple of hundred people present. Have they lost heart?
It is in stark contrast to the boisterous Lib Dem conference with several thousand attendees, with frequent enthusiastic standing ovations in spite of three successive nights of disco, karaoke and glee club.
Lib Dems - the fun party with a leader who is a decent chap. How about that as a slogan?
As per @Peston I’m also told the decision has been made to scrap the Manchester leg of HS2 with the money going on other transport projects
So Crossrail 2.
A key part of the levelling up agenda.
It's kind of amazing that they can't see how Crossrail despite the delays and excess cost was still worth building and then using their gigantic brains ponder whether there is a lesson for HS2 which may last 100 years.
If the UK had always been run by people like Sunak and Hunt we'd be much poorer and at best a developing country.
The problem is that for decades the country has been mismanaged by an attitude that transport growth, or "induced demand" is something to be discouraged rather than encouraged as a fundamental part of economic growth.
The ability to quickly (and ideally cheaply) from A to B significantly increases the area in which people can find work.
That means companies have a wider choice of people to employ when filling vacancies and provides people with the ability to find better paid work where their skills can be used (hence everyone wins because they are more productiove).
Absolutely, which is why we should be investing in more motorways, since driving is by far how most people get to work.
Our motorways were constructed in the 60s and 70s and GDP per capita growth was far higher then as a result.
For the past few decades we've neglected our infrastructure. If we'd kept investing in new motorway capacity at the same rate as we had in the 60s, we'd be far more productive today.
Onj the same logic, we should have double the railways we had then. Fat lot of chance, it seems, now.
If we did, how much more productive would the country be now?
Its time to start recognising induced demand, when it happens, as a positive not a negative to be ameliorated.
People only take journeys that are economically worthwhile to them. If they start to make more journeys than they did before, then that is more economic activity, more economic growth and leads ultimately to more taxes.
As per @Peston I’m also told the decision has been made to scrap the Manchester leg of HS2 with the money going on other transport projects
So Crossrail 2.
A key part of the levelling up agenda.
It's a very sensible investment. It's clear though that such projects entail us (the taxpayers) getting ripped off in quite shocking ways. What's odd though is that the big construction companies are all going bust. Where is the money going?
I think we have multiple issues
1) companies get told the budget for public projects so gold plate everything because they want more of the money 2) this Government disliked risk so expected all the costs to be covered upfront. Ask me to take a risk on a project and I'll add 50% to the bill to cover that risk 3) for private work construction material costs have rendered even projects that were sensible planned as problematic because they budget for inflation at say 10% rather than 40%..
Tens of billions of pounds are somehow vanishing, and every major civil engineering company is in trouble. It makes no sense.
Thought I’d better update the good people of PB on how we fared doing the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge on Saturday, after people here were so generous with their donations.
I did it, completed the circuit in 8.5hrs, which I’m pleased with but I really pushed myself - no stopping to eat, no breaks, just constant motion. In parts it was utterly brutal especially getting up Ingleborough, the last of the peaks. A few people dropped out after the second peak cos they were either done in or so far behind they’d have been climbing the last peak in the dark - not a good idea.
I was the first to finish in our group - there were 28 of us that started in the end, 23 finished - and the last group of 5 got in after 13 hours in total, and they had to come down from Ingleborough in the dark. It was tricky enough in the daylight for me, so their persistence and determination was superb. One guy who did it had a prosthetic leg, after losing his leg in a crash last year. I cannot imagine how the hell he did that.
A couple of people who were intending to do it had to pull out due to injuries so they plan to do it in May and I said I’d join them. I must be insane.
We’re all stiff as a board and I’m still knackered - feels like a two day hangover today, that lingering lethargy I now have on a Monday if I’ve had a very boozy Saturday night.
1. Buried in North Carolina's 600+ page budget is a little-noticed provision that creates a secret police force, controlled by Republicans, with extraordinary powers.. https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1708833141580861818
As usual there’s nothing but dreary shite coming out of Manchester
The atmosphere is flat. Very light applause. People more interested in their mobile phones. It feels as if there are only a couple of hundred people present. Have they lost heart?
It is in stark contrast to the boisterous Lib Dem conference with several thousand attendees, with frequent enthusiastic standing ovations in spite of three successive nights of disco, karaoke and glee club.
Lib Dems - the fun party with a leader who is a decent chap. How about that as a slogan?
Everyone I know who went came back with COVID. It is being referred to as conference flu. Sounds like a really good time was had.
As per @Peston I’m also told the decision has been made to scrap the Manchester leg of HS2 with the money going on other transport projects
So Crossrail 2.
A key part of the levelling up agenda.
It's a very sensible investment. It's clear though that such projects entail us (the taxpayers) getting ripped off in quite shocking ways. What's odd though is that the big construction companies are all going bust. Where is the money going?
I think we have multiple issues
1) companies get told the budget for public projects so gold plate everything because they want more of the money 2) this Government disliked risk so expected all the costs to be covered upfront. Ask me to take a risk on a project and I'll add 50% to the bill to cover that risk 3) for private work construction material costs have rendered even projects that were sensible planned as problematic because they budget for inflation at say 10% rather than 40%..
Tens of billions of pounds are somehow vanishing, and every major civil engineering company is in trouble. It makes no sense.
I think it's all gone on pointless paperwork. 2 year delay in a project - rechecks required. Reduce platforms at Euston £200m redesign costs...
The best idea is to create a plan, get everyone to agree to it and then just leave to build it...
As per @Peston I’m also told the decision has been made to scrap the Manchester leg of HS2 with the money going on other transport projects
So Crossrail 2.
A key part of the levelling up agenda.
It's a very sensible investment. It's clear though that such projects entail us (the taxpayers) getting ripped off in quite shocking ways. What's odd though is that the big construction companies are all going bust. Where is the money going?
I think we have multiple issues
1) companies get told the budget for public projects so gold plate everything because they want more of the money 2) this Government disliked risk so expected all the costs to be covered upfront. Ask me to take a risk on a project and I'll add 50% to the bill to cover that risk 3) for private work construction material costs have rendered even projects that were sensible planned as problematic because they budget for inflation at say 10% rather than 40%..
Tens of billions of pounds are somehow vanishing, and every major civil engineering company is in trouble. It makes no sense.
I think it's all gone on pointless paperwork. 2 year delay in a project - rechecks required. Reduce platforms at Euston £200m redesign costs...
The best idea is to create a plan, get everyone to agree to it and then just leave to build it...
Insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.
So surely this time stalling the project and kicking it into the long grass will make things cheaper? /Hunt
1. Buried in North Carolina's 600+ page budget is a little-noticed provision that creates a secret police force, controlled by Republicans, with extraordinary powers.. https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1708833141580861818
As per @Peston I’m also told the decision has been made to scrap the Manchester leg of HS2 with the money going on other transport projects
So Crossrail 2.
A key part of the levelling up agenda.
It's a very sensible investment. It's clear though that such projects entail us (the taxpayers) getting ripped off in quite shocking ways. What's odd though is that the big construction companies are all going bust. Where is the money going?
I think we have multiple issues
1) companies get told the budget for public projects so gold plate everything because they want more of the money 2) this Government disliked risk so expected all the costs to be covered upfront. Ask me to take a risk on a project and I'll add 50% to the bill to cover that risk 3) for private work construction material costs have rendered even projects that were sensible planned as problematic because they budget for inflation at say 10% rather than 40%..
Tens of billions of pounds are somehow vanishing, and every major civil engineering company is in trouble. It makes no sense.
I think it's all gone on pointless paperwork. 2 year delay in a project - rechecks required. Reduce platforms at Euston £200m redesign costs...
The best idea is to create a plan, get everyone to agree to it and then just leave to build it...
Agreed entirely, but there are tens of billions missing still.
As per @Peston I’m also told the decision has been made to scrap the Manchester leg of HS2 with the money going on other transport projects
What money? It has already been spent....
The money doesn't exist - without HS2 there money simply won't be printed / borrowed from the BoE / markets..
And some of it still will be- spades in the ground and all that.
So the question is- how much money has the government borrowed to chuck on the bonfire doing works that will serve no purpose whatsoever? Or alternatively, how much will the extra cost be when some future government has to resurrect basically the same scheme?
If we are being prepared for a sell off of the nation to the highest bidder, let us hope that our new foreign overlords are merciful.
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
As per @Peston I’m also told the decision has been made to scrap the Manchester leg of HS2 with the money going on other transport projects
So Crossrail 2.
A key part of the levelling up agenda.
It's a very sensible investment. It's clear though that such projects entail us (the taxpayers) getting ripped off in quite shocking ways. What's odd though is that the big construction companies are all going bust. Where is the money going?
I think we have multiple issues
1) companies get told the budget for public projects so gold plate everything because they want more of the money 2) this Government disliked risk so expected all the costs to be covered upfront. Ask me to take a risk on a project and I'll add 50% to the bill to cover that risk 3) for private work construction material costs have rendered even projects that were sensible planned as problematic because they budget for inflation at say 10% rather than 40%..
Tens of billions of pounds are somehow vanishing, and every major civil engineering company is in trouble. It makes no sense.
I think it's all gone on pointless paperwork. 2 year delay in a project - rechecks required. Reduce platforms at Euston £200m redesign costs...
The best idea is to create a plan, get everyone to agree to it and then just leave to build it...
Agreed entirely, but there are tens of billions missing still.
Why do you think its missing?
Rather than spent on bloody paperwork, or costs escalating due to inflation and it not having been completed yet?
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
It shouldn't have been a priority in my view, more motorways would be a much better use of money.
But having half-built it, not finishing it properly is just bloody insane.
As per @Peston I’m also told the decision has been made to scrap the Manchester leg of HS2 with the money going on other transport projects
So Crossrail 2.
A key part of the levelling up agenda.
It's a very sensible investment. It's clear though that such projects entail us (the taxpayers) getting ripped off in quite shocking ways. What's odd though is that the big construction companies are all going bust. Where is the money going?
Not on construction.
On chopping and changing specs, lawyers, reviews etc, etc, etc
It wouldn't surprise me if the actual construction costs end up a tiny fraction of the overall costs.
Having politicians routinely reviewing or adapting the specs is a huge part of the problem - and they're doing it again now.
All of your points are undoubtedly right, but I rather imagine that's an odd billion of crap hiding a far greater pit. Hunt on the radio this morning was saying that our construction costs are 10x those in France.
I'm sure we've all observed the complete uselessness of the average British contractor - scratching their arses while 3 others stand around and supervise, but it seems almost inconceivable that this is the answer.
To which the all important questions are
1) why are our costs 10x that of France? 2) what needs to be done to correct those issues? 3) Which of items can be fixed quickly?
Oh and I know he's lying that the costs are 10 times that of France but regardless of the actual multiply we should be identifying the issues and resolving them not stopping there and saying - tough.
The numbers are of that kind of level of inanity
The way it is achieved is by appalling productivity at every level, multiplied by layers of idiot management, the belief that no matter how much money they ask, they will get it and a topping of changing the requirements all the fucking time.
https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1708778412150534226 "The penny is dropping among people in Westminster that the Government doesn't run the Government," says Conservative MP Danny Kruger.. ..."There's a huge movement going on globally to create essentially a world government that will have power to dictate to national governments what they should do in anticipation of another pandemic," says Danny Kruger, who says there is "no greater threat to our national democracy"..
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
I have always been against HS2. But now that London-Brum is being built, it is bloody daft to stop there.
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
I strongly favoured developing (a) new transpennine line(s) as a priority, and though HS2 only marginally justifiable. But stopping development of HS2 half way through, and leaving it as an expensive toy, would be utterly mad.
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
If you're going to do it, do it properly. I would have been happy for them to pull the plug post-COVID even with the money spent and trees chopped down. And I was fine with them reducing the Eastern leg (what's happening with that by the way?). But scrapping Birmingham to Manchester seems stupid given all the effort put into London to Birmingham.
As per @Peston I’m also told the decision has been made to scrap the Manchester leg of HS2 with the money going on other transport projects
So Crossrail 2.
A key part of the levelling up agenda.
It's a very sensible investment. It's clear though that such projects entail us (the taxpayers) getting ripped off in quite shocking ways. What's odd though is that the big construction companies are all going bust. Where is the money going?
I think we have multiple issues
1) companies get told the budget for public projects so gold plate everything because they want more of the money 2) this Government disliked risk so expected all the costs to be covered upfront. Ask me to take a risk on a project and I'll add 50% to the bill to cover that risk 3) for private work construction material costs have rendered even projects that were sensible planned as problematic because they budget for inflation at say 10% rather than 40%..
Tens of billions of pounds are somehow vanishing, and every major civil engineering company is in trouble. It makes no sense.
I think it's all gone on pointless paperwork. 2 year delay in a project - rechecks required. Reduce platforms at Euston £200m redesign costs...
The best idea is to create a plan, get everyone to agree to it and then just leave to build it...
Agreed entirely, but there are tens of billions missing still.
Why do you think its missing?
Rather than spent on bloody paperwork, or costs escalating due to inflation and it not having been completed yet?
I think it's missing because there seems to be no rational account of where it was spent. Malmesbury addresses some of this below.
As per @Peston I’m also told the decision has been made to scrap the Manchester leg of HS2 with the money going on other transport projects
So Crossrail 2.
A key part of the levelling up agenda.
It's a very sensible investment. It's clear though that such projects entail us (the taxpayers) getting ripped off in quite shocking ways. What's odd though is that the big construction companies are all going bust. Where is the money going?
I think we have multiple issues
1) companies get told the budget for public projects so gold plate everything because they want more of the money 2) this Government disliked risk so expected all the costs to be covered upfront. Ask me to take a risk on a project and I'll add 50% to the bill to cover that risk 3) for private work construction material costs have rendered even projects that were sensible planned as problematic because they budget for inflation at say 10% rather than 40%..
Tens of billions of pounds are somehow vanishing, and every major civil engineering company is in trouble. It makes no sense.
Google the Senate Launch System. And the Webb telescope.
There’s a reason that SpaceX has taken over the Western launch industry to a startling degree. It’s very simple - they launch rockets, not feed the pyramid.
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
Some polling on the subject,
According to YouGov, the public tend to support building HS2 (by 47%-33%), but where they are much more united is in opposing the cancellation of the Manchester leg, which is opposed by 52%, with only 23% supporting it being cancelled, as Sunak has done today.
https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1708778412150534226 "The penny is dropping among people in Westminster that the Government doesn't run the Government," says Conservative MP Danny Kruger.. ..."There's a huge movement going on globally to create essentially a world government that will have power to dictate to national governments what they should do in anticipation of another pandemic," says Danny Kruger, who says there is "no greater threat to our national democracy"..
All together now.
RISHI SUNAK IS A CONSPIRACY THEORIST
Yep. From the introduction to his new "Plan for Drivers":
We will explore options to stop local councils using so-called “15-minute cities”, such as in Oxford, to police people’s lives.
That's straight out of the "WEF/Soros are controlling our lives" conspiracy playbook. There is no plan in Oxford to "police people's lives" other than, I guess, the ever-inept efforts of Thames Valley Police.
Oxfordshire County Council has a transport policy to reduce congestion by preventing through traffic on some roads. Oxford City Council has a planning policy to ensure facilities are within a 20-minute walk of where people live. In Rishiworld this equates to "policing people's lives".
Rishi Sunak is what you get if you cross the Cones Hotline with a belief in the Illuminati.
1. Buried in North Carolina's 600+ page budget is a little-noticed provision that creates a secret police force, controlled by Republicans, with extraordinary powers.. https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1708833141580861818
As per @Peston I’m also told the decision has been made to scrap the Manchester leg of HS2 with the money going on other transport projects
So Crossrail 2.
A key part of the levelling up agenda.
It's a very sensible investment. It's clear though that such projects entail us (the taxpayers) getting ripped off in quite shocking ways. What's odd though is that the big construction companies are all going bust. Where is the money going?
I think we have multiple issues
1) companies get told the budget for public projects so gold plate everything because they want more of the money 2) this Government disliked risk so expected all the costs to be covered upfront. Ask me to take a risk on a project and I'll add 50% to the bill to cover that risk 3) for private work construction material costs have rendered even projects that were sensible planned as problematic because they budget for inflation at say 10% rather than 40%..
Tens of billions of pounds are somehow vanishing, and every major civil engineering company is in trouble. It makes no sense.
Google the Senate Launch System. And the Webb telescope.
There’s a reason that SpaceX has taken over the Western launch industry to a startling degree. It’s very simple - they launch rockets, not feed the pyramid.
As per @Peston I’m also told the decision has been made to scrap the Manchester leg of HS2 with the money going on other transport projects
So Crossrail 2.
A key part of the levelling up agenda.
It's a very sensible investment. It's clear though that such projects entail us (the taxpayers) getting ripped off in quite shocking ways. What's odd though is that the big construction companies are all going bust. Where is the money going?
I think we have multiple issues
1) companies get told the budget for public projects so gold plate everything because they want more of the money 2) this Government disliked risk so expected all the costs to be covered upfront. Ask me to take a risk on a project and I'll add 50% to the bill to cover that risk 3) for private work construction material costs have rendered even projects that were sensible planned as problematic because they budget for inflation at say 10% rather than 40%..
Tens of billions of pounds are somehow vanishing, and every major civil engineering company is in trouble. It makes no sense.
Google the Senate Launch System. And the Webb telescope.
There’s a reason that SpaceX has taken over the Western launch industry to a startling degree. It’s very simple - they launch rockets, not feed the pyramid.
I presume you were replying to another post.
Nope - those two are perfect examples of what happens when you accept any level of cost, and simply shovel money into a project.
It was only when cancellation was considered that the Webb telescope suddenly was readied for flight.
There's a sad lack of noise from Labour about guaranteeing that the Manchester leg of HS2 will be built, along with NPR, in full. Only a week or so ago I got the impression they were confirming this. If Labour were clear then it would be contractors could continue to plan for that leg, and simply shift the workplan a bit. If they don't then it'll end and those spades will have to be picked up again fresh, no doubt with further cost overruns.
Or have I missed something from Labour? It feels like Reeves is in the same asset sweating, don't build and they won't come mould as Hunt and Sunak.
Finally, I should add that there is nothing new about "affirmative action" in American politics, though the descriptions of it vary: Here's what the great Chicago journalist Mike Royko said, back in 1978:
"Let me say right in the beginning that I think U.S. District Judge Prentice Marshall is well-meaning, but wrong.
Any arbitrary quota system for hiring and promoting cops probably is going to that some better-qualified person will be passed over.
But, so what? That's the way things have always been done around here anyway. The only difference is that now a federal judge has the clout, instead of some cigar-chomping ward heeler."
Royko goes on to say that the Daley machine discriminated in favor of Irish-Americans, and family members. And certainly the Irish had been discriminated against, in the past. He could have added that similar behavior could be found in other big city machines, although the details varied, depending on the size of the ethnic groups.
If you understand this kind of politics, it isn't difficult to see why Keir Starmer might want to make "some more equal than others".
Brilliant, and entirely original, idea from Hunt. Freeze Civil Service expansion to save £1b! As with previous iterations passim, private consultants will be looking forward to the oodles they can make now by not being on the CS payroll. Not to mention the slightly awkward fact that CS expansion has been 'necessary' due to Brexit, largely.
Finally, I should add that there is nothing new about "affirmative action" in American politics, though the descriptions of it vary: Here's what the great Chicago journalist Mike Royko said, back in 1978:
"Let me say right in the beginning that I think U.S. District Judge Prentice Marshall is well-meaning, but wrong.
Any arbitrary quota system for hiring and promoting cops probably is going to that some better-qualified person will be passed over.
But, so what? That's the way things have always been done around here anyway. The only difference is that now a federal judge has the clout, instead of some cigar-chomping ward heeler."
Royko goes on to say that the Daley machine discriminated in favor of Irish-Americans, and family members. And certainly the Irish had been discriminated against, in the past. He could have added that similar behavior could be found in other big city machines, although the details varied, depending on the size of the ethnic groups.
If you understand this kind of politics, it isn't difficult to see why Keir Starmer might want to make "some more equal than others".
We call it, (or always used to describe it as), "positive discrimination" here in the UK, which is a bit honest description in my opinion.
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
It shouldn't have been a priority in my view, more motorways would be a much better use of money.
But having half-built it, not finishing it properly is just bloody insane.
More motorways are a shite idea. I use them prolifically, you don't. You can fill the nation with six lane highways and they will still be gridlocked at the pinch points. More motorways is a fool's errand.
HS2 should either go ahead or have been strangled at birth. We need decent public transport and we need people living in close proximity to the amenities they want and need. This is why the denigrating of 15 minute cities as woke is the maddest thing we will hear this week in a week of Liz Truss focused madness.
Just when you think the Tories are so bad you have no option but to vote Labour next time, they come up with something like this.
What specifically do you object to about this?
There should be no special treatment for anyone , especially due to their colour. Everyone should have an equal chance, only exception could be disabled people. Just virtue signalling and showing how crap a labour government will be. From one shitshow to another one , both of these useless parties should be shutdown.
Trump isn’t getting a jury trial in his $250m civil fraud suit brought against him by New York AG James because one of his lawyers overlooked submitting the routine request/checking boxes on the form, per two people familiar https://twitter.com/hugolowell/status/1708851585869140399
September confirmed by the Met Office as warmest on record: 17C. Not only warmest on record, but warmest month of 2023 and a touch warmer than June, which was the warmest June on record.
Trump isn’t getting a jury trial in his $250m civil fraud suit brought against him by New York AG James because one of his lawyers overlooked submitting the routine request/checking boxes on the form, per two people familiar https://twitter.com/hugolowell/status/1708851585869140399
The judge mocked her, asking how did she manage to pass the bar exams....
Brilliant, and entirely original, idea from Hunt. Freeze Civil Service expansion to save £1b! As with previous iterations passim, private consultants will be looking forward to the oodles they can make now by not being on the CS payroll. Not to mention the slightly awkward fact that CS expansion has been 'necessary' due to Brexit, largely.
Last week for 1 single project IT project I'm aware of HMRC decided they needed 30 rather than 10 consultants because they can't spare / find the staff.
In another part of HMRC one entire team has left in the last 3 months because they could earn 50-100% more elsewhere...
There's a sad lack of noise from Labour about guaranteeing that the Manchester leg of HS2 will be built, along with NPR, in full. Only a week or so ago I got the impression they were confirming this. If Labour were clear then it would be contractors could continue to plan for that leg, and simply shift the workplan a bit. If they don't then it'll end and those spades will have to be picked up again fresh, no doubt with further cost overruns.
Or have I missed something from Labour? It feels like Reeves is in the same asset sweating, don't build and they won't come mould as Hunt and Sunak.
Terror at committing to spending any money on anything?
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
It shouldn't have been a priority in my view, more motorways would be a much better use of money.
But having half-built it, not finishing it properly is just bloody insane.
More motorways are a shite idea. I use them prolifically, you don't. You can fill the nation with six lane highways and they will still be gridlocked at the pinch points. More motorways is a fool's errand.
HS2 should either go ahead or have been strangled at birth. We need decent public transport and we need people living in close proximity to the amenities they want and need. This is why the denigrating of 15 minute cities as woke is the maddest thing we will hear this week in a week of Liz Truss focused madness.
Most of europe is working to shift as much freight as possible to rail because the energy savings are massive. Instead we are focused on keeping freight on the road because rail doesn't have any spare capacity...
Which is why we need HS2 - it allows the existing WCML to be used for freight...
Brilliant, and entirely original, idea from Hunt. Freeze Civil Service expansion to save £1b! As with previous iterations passim, private consultants will be looking forward to the oodles they can make now by not being on the CS payroll. Not to mention the slightly awkward fact that CS expansion has been 'necessary' due to Brexit, largely.
Last week for 1 single project IT project I'm aware of HMRC decided they needed 30 rather than 10 consultants because they can't spare / find the staff.
In another part of HMRC one entire team has left in the last 3 months because they could earn 50-100% more elsewhere...
I've seen something new. You are basically given the choice between being a permanent employee or a contractor and can switch between the two. So either 50k plus the pension, annual leave, sick pay etc. Or 90k and do whatever you want. The work still has to be done irrespective of the politics.
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
It shouldn't have been a priority in my view, more motorways would be a much better use of money.
But having half-built it, not finishing it properly is just bloody insane.
More motorways are a shite idea. I use them prolifically, you don't. You can fill the nation with six lane highways and they will still be gridlocked at the pinch points. More motorways is a fool's errand.
HS2 should either go ahead or have been strangled at birth. We need decent public transport and we need people living in close proximity to the amenities they want and need. This is why the denigrating of 15 minute cities as woke is the maddest thing we will hear this week in a week of Liz Truss focused madness.
Most of europe is working to shift as much freight as possible to rail because the energy savings are massive. Instead we are focused on keeping freight on the road because rail doesn't have any spare capacity...
Which is why we need HS2 - it allows the existing WCML to be used for freight...
IIRC the original Beeching Plan envisaged more freight on the main railways, taken to freight depots, and delivered locally by road.
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
It shouldn't have been a priority in my view, more motorways would be a much better use of money.
But having half-built it, not finishing it properly is just bloody insane.
More motorways are a shite idea. I use them prolifically, you don't. You can fill the nation with six lane highways and they will still be gridlocked at the pinch points. More motorways is a fool's errand.
HS2 should either go ahead or have been strangled at birth. We need decent public transport and we need people living in close proximity to the amenities they want and need. This is why the denigrating of 15 minute cities as woke is the maddest thing we will hear this week in a week of Liz Truss focused madness.
Most of europe is working to shift as much freight as possible to rail because the energy savings are massive. Instead we are focused on keeping freight on the road because rail doesn't have any spare capacity...
Which is why we need HS2 - it allows the existing WCML to be used for freight...
Indeed. Also why it was vital for it to be built from London first - as that is where the greatest capacity crunch was.
One sad point though: railfreight companies are mothballing some of their electric fleet and moving back to diesels - because they're cheaper. It should not be this way...
There's a sad lack of noise from Labour about guaranteeing that the Manchester leg of HS2 will be built, along with NPR, in full. Only a week or so ago I got the impression they were confirming this. If Labour were clear then it would be contractors could continue to plan for that leg, and simply shift the workplan a bit. If they don't then it'll end and those spades will have to be picked up again fresh, no doubt with further cost overruns.
Or have I missed something from Labour? It feels like Reeves is in the same asset sweating, don't build and they won't come mould as Hunt and Sunak.
There'll be a "sad lack of noise from Labour" right up to the election....
Eventually this race-grifting will come to a total juddering halt
Obviously Leon hating a Graun article is not earth-shattering news but your comment made me read the piece, which I had previously skipped (so thanks for that).
I'm genuinely interested in what specifically you find so objectionable about the article?
I’ve not read the article but this is what I find objectionable about the headline…
* “vulgar” sets the scene in a wholly negative and personalised way that is stylistic rather than content based * “humiliation” implies motive, power and control * “Every migrant” clearly an exaggeration
On the subheading:
*!”beyond the pale” is deeply offensive to the Irish and it was used as a synonym for brutish and uncivilised. Ironic to use a racist phrase in this context * Trying to put a political topic that is central to people’s lives out of the scope of political discourse. Either you agree with him or you are a Bad Person * “Decades ago” - historical BS. “Multiculturalism” was a specific Blairite policy so 20 years old at most. I believe it was controversial at the time “”(“melting pot” vs “multiculturalism”) so to say that it would have been unacceptable decades ago is just garbage
In summary the headline is click bait that is designed to rile up the base. It’s not conducive to a sensible discussion about a matter of huge importance to people and the country
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
It shouldn't have been a priority in my view, more motorways would be a much better use of money.
But having half-built it, not finishing it properly is just bloody insane.
More motorways are a shite idea. I use them prolifically, you don't. You can fill the nation with six lane highways and they will still be gridlocked at the pinch points. More motorways is a fool's errand.
HS2 should either go ahead or have been strangled at birth. We need decent public transport and we need people living in close proximity to the amenities they want and need. This is why the denigrating of 15 minute cities as woke is the maddest thing we will hear this week in a week of Liz Truss focused madness.
Most of europe is working to shift as much freight as possible to rail because the energy savings are massive. Instead we are focused on keeping freight on the road because rail doesn't have any spare capacity...
Which is why we need HS2 - it allows the existing WCML to be used for freight...
IIRC the original Beeching Plan envisaged more freight on the main railways, taken to freight depots, and delivered locally by road.
Beeching is maligned more than he deerves. A government asked him to do a task, and he did it. You can argue he did not do it very well; but the vast majority of the closures sadly made sense - and others were closed despite not being in his reports (e.g. Oxford to Cambridge, Matlock to Buxton).
Beeching did not close a single mile of railway. The Conservative and Labour governments in power closed them. He also proposed other measures - as you say, including freight, that the governments only half-heartedly invested in, if at all. Although after the disaster of the 1955 modernisation plan, that might be understandable.
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
Personally I've always been in favour of it, but since that is on a general-principles "more rail would be a good idea" basis rather than because I have a view on the specifics of HS2, I don't generally bother arguing that point since it won't convince anybody who doesn't already agree, and I don't care enough to do the research to defend HS2 in specific. But the "we've started and already spent a lot of the money, and changing the scope mid-build is expensive and stupid" argument is much stronger and I hope more persuasive, so I'm more likely to post it here.
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
One of the main reasons is that so much time and money has already been spent on the project.
I say it part in jest but part seriously - socio-economic factors are the key issues behind many of the underlying problems people face.
So why not?
Come the Socialist Reboot of Britain this will be a Day 1 no-brainer. But going by the fuss kicked up about just possibly deciding that our elitist private schools are not really charities meriting tax breaks I think that Day might be quite a way off yet.
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
It shouldn't have been a priority in my view, more motorways would be a much better use of money.
But having half-built it, not finishing it properly is just bloody insane.
More motorways are a shite idea. I use them prolifically, you don't. You can fill the nation with six lane highways and they will still be gridlocked at the pinch points. More motorways is a fool's errand.
HS2 should either go ahead or have been strangled at birth. We need decent public transport and we need people living in close proximity to the amenities they want and need. This is why the denigrating of 15 minute cities as woke is the maddest thing we will hear this week in a week of Liz Truss focused madness.
Most of europe is working to shift as much freight as possible to rail because the energy savings are massive. Instead we are focused on keeping freight on the road because rail doesn't have any spare capacity...
Which is why we need HS2 - it allows the existing WCML to be used for freight...
IIRC the original Beeching Plan envisaged more freight on the main railways, taken to freight depots, and delivered locally by road.
Beeching is maligned more than he deerves. A government asked him to do a task, and he did it. You can argue he did not do it very well; but the vast majority of the closures sadly made sense - and others were closed despite not being in his reports (e.g. Oxford to Cambridge, Matlock to Buxton).
Beeching did not close a single mile of railway. The Conservative and Labour governments in power closed them. He also proposed other measures - as you say, including freight, that the governments only half-heartedly invested in, if at all. Although after the disaster of the 1955 modernisation plan, that might be understandable.
Beeching leadership of BR was one of the finest jobs a civil servant did in the 20th century.
The network needed culling. It was built for 19th century technology, both on rail and in the wider transport ecosystem, and that was no longer appropriate by the second half of the 20th century. Rail does three things well: commute people into city centres, transport people rapidly across medium distances, move bulk freight. And that's what the Beeching cuts were rightly designed to focus on.
Further, without those cuts, BR would have massively expensive overheads for a network on which only a fraction paid its way, either of itself or serving more popular lines. Money that would have to be spent on propping that up couldn't be invested in creating the cleaner, faster, more efficient rail of diesel and electric. Further, running parallel systems of steam *and* diesel / electric would have meant maintaining even more infrastructure to support the different power sources in parallel. Doing away with steam was essential to modernization and efficiency.
But all those efficiencies meant losing a load of workers in a unionized industry. To achieve that programme without paralysing the country through strikes in the process was an extraordinary achievement.
It's easy to get nostalgic about branch lines but the reality is that people had already made their choices and moved on, both as passengers and small-scale freight.
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
It shouldn't have been a priority in my view, more motorways would be a much better use of money.
But having half-built it, not finishing it properly is just bloody insane.
More motorways are a shite idea. I use them prolifically, you don't. You can fill the nation with six lane highways and they will still be gridlocked at the pinch points. More motorways is a fool's errand.
HS2 should either go ahead or have been strangled at birth. We need decent public transport and we need people living in close proximity to the amenities they want and need. This is why the denigrating of 15 minute cities as woke is the maddest thing we will hear this week in a week of Liz Truss focused madness.
Most of europe is working to shift as much freight as possible to rail because the energy savings are massive. Instead we are focused on keeping freight on the road because rail doesn't have any spare capacity...
Which is why we need HS2 - it allows the existing WCML to be used for freight...
Look what happened in the late C19 - early C20. A number of lines to London were quadrupled for that very reason - and still are quadruple.
Edit: I meant to say, no scope for expanding that along the same line ...
Just when you think the Tories are so bad you have no option but to vote Labour next time, they come up with something like this.
Does this honestly weigh that heavily in the scales versus the Tories' catalogue of disaster and incompetence?
I'm not convinced the alternative is vastly better in terms of competence.
But even if it was - do I want someone competently favouring one racial group over another?
And yes, this is important stuff - the fact that they believe in favouring one racial group over another outweighs any amount of incompetent tinkering. I think it's quite fundamentally a bad thing to do.
Dear PB Please can you help me. I am not sure that I understand what woke and anti-woke mean. I think antisemitism, prejudice against women and racism etc are bad things. Does this mean that I am woke? If so, what does anti-woke mean? Does anti-woke mean that someone is racist or misogynist? I am not trying to cause an argument, I want to understand. I had an argument with a friend last week. He mentioned being anti-woke. I assumed that he was admitting to being a racist or something along those lines. I was quite rude to him. I more or less accused him of being a RWNJ (Right Wing Nut Job). I may have overreacted. What does anti-woke mean?
What the Conservatives need to ask themselves is why so many other countries in Europe and the wider world see high-speed rail thoughout their countries as being necessary. It's not a fad: or if it is, then it's a long-lasting one. France opened its first one forty years ago; Japan sixty years.
Why do they think Britain is so different that we don't require such a network? What is our exceptionalism?
There's a sad lack of noise from Labour about guaranteeing that the Manchester leg of HS2 will be built, along with NPR, in full. Only a week or so ago I got the impression they were confirming this. If Labour were clear then it would be contractors could continue to plan for that leg, and simply shift the workplan a bit. If they don't then it'll end and those spades will have to be picked up again fresh, no doubt with further cost overruns.
Or have I missed something from Labour? It feels like Reeves is in the same asset sweating, don't build and they won't come mould as Hunt and Sunak.
There'll be a "sad lack of noise from Labour" right up to the election....
Their manifesto will be an empty fudge wrapper.
True, but less offensive than the current Conservative offering of a carefully packaged turd in a fudge wrapper.
Just when you think the Tories are so bad you have no option but to vote Labour next time, they come up with something like this.
Does this honestly weigh that heavily in the scales versus the Tories' catalogue of disaster and incompetence?
I'm not convinced the alternative is vastly better in terms of competence.
But even if it was - do I want someone competently favouring one racial group over another?
And yes, this is important stuff - the fact that they believe in favouring one racial group over another outweighs any amount of incompetent tinkering. I think it's quite fundamentally a bad thing to do.
Do you really interpret a racial equality act as favouring one group over another? As specifically identifying one group in that sense?
Just when you think the Tories are so bad you have no option but to vote Labour next time, they come up with something like this.
What specifically do you object to about this?
I infer from "tackle structural racial inequalities" to mean "prioritise non-white people over white people". My view is that we should aim to treat people equally regardless of race. My inference is that the Labour Party do not believe this.
If people were previously hindered due to their race, there will have to be a period where they are prioritised to bring them to equity with others. You cannot just remove the hinderance and leave it be, because what is left is still what was created by the existence of the barriers. You do need to actively tackle those issues.
We can say the same for gender, class, sexuality, disability etc.
Once upon a time there was a hinderance to being non-white. I'm not convinced there is any more. At least, if there is, the extent to which it is a hinderance to be non-white is dwarfed by the extent to which it is a hinderance to be non-middle-class, and the vast majority of any difference in outcomes between races can be explained by the extent to which non-whites are disproportionately represented in the working class.
What the Conservatives need to ask themselves is why so many other countries in Europe and the wider world see high-speed rail thoughout their countries as being necessary. It's not a fad: or if it is, then it's a long-lasting one. France opened its first one forty years ago; Japan sixty years.
Why do they think Britain is so different that we don't require such a network? What is our exceptionalism?
We're quite small? Anyway, isn't it about capacity not speed?
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
It shouldn't have been a priority in my view, more motorways would be a much better use of money.
But having half-built it, not finishing it properly is just bloody insane.
More motorways are a shite idea. I use them prolifically, you don't. You can fill the nation with six lane highways and they will still be gridlocked at the pinch points. More motorways is a fool's errand.
HS2 should either go ahead or have been strangled at birth. We need decent public transport and we need people living in close proximity to the amenities they want and need. This is why the denigrating of 15 minute cities as woke is the maddest thing we will hear this week in a week of Liz Truss focused madness.
Most of europe is working to shift as much freight as possible to rail because the energy savings are massive. Instead we are focused on keeping freight on the road because rail doesn't have any spare capacity...
Which is why we need HS2 - it allows the existing WCML to be used for freight...
IIRC the original Beeching Plan envisaged more freight on the main railways, taken to freight depots, and delivered locally by road.
Beeching is maligned more than he deerves. A government asked him to do a task, and he did it. You can argue he did not do it very well; but the vast majority of the closures sadly made sense - and others were closed despite not being in his reports (e.g. Oxford to Cambridge, Matlock to Buxton).
Beeching did not close a single mile of railway. The Conservative and Labour governments in power closed them. He also proposed other measures - as you say, including freight, that the governments only half-heartedly invested in, if at all. Although after the disaster of the 1955 modernisation plan, that might be understandable.
Beeching leadership of BR was one of the finest jobs a civil servant did in the 20th century.
The network needed culling. It was built for 19th century technology, both on rail and in the wider transport ecosystem, and that was no longer appropriate by the second half of the 20th century. Rail does three things well: commute people into city centres, transport people rapidly across medium distances, move bulk freight. And that's what the Beeching cuts were rightly designed to focus on.
Further, without those cuts, BR would have massively expensive overheads for a network on which only a fraction paid its way, either of itself or serving more popular lines. Money that would have to be spent on propping that up couldn't be invested in creating the cleaner, faster, more efficient rail of diesel and electric. Further, running parallel systems of steam *and* diesel / electric would have meant maintaining even more infrastructure to support the different power sources in parallel. Doing away with steam was essential to modernization and efficiency.
But all those efficiencies meant losing a load of workers in a unionized industry. To achieve that programme without paralysing the country through strikes in the process was an extraordinary achievement.
It's easy to get nostalgic about branch lines but the reality is that people had already made their choices and moved on, both as passengers and small-scale freight.
There is however an argument that Beeching was broadly right in overview but usually wrong on the details.
Gerry Fiennes' book "I Tried to Run a Railway" is superb on both the operational challenges and the broader strategic issues of British Railways in that era. He is respectful but critical of Beeching, who he describes as having "a weakness for maps" - in the sense of a desk jockey who didn't really understand the operational network and where the custom actually came from.
The one criticism of Beeching that comes up time and time again, and which Fiennes echoes, is that not enough had been done to cut costs on the lesser-used lines. Plenty of lines went straight from steam operation, with fully staffed stations, to closure - without any attempt to run a basic DMU service between unstaffed stations. Fiennes had great success with the Paytrain concept in East Anglia. It could, and should, have been rolled out nationally.
Dear PB Please can you help me. I am not sure that I understand what woke and anti-woke mean. I think antisemitism, prejudice against women and racism etc are bad things. Does this mean that I am woke? If so, what does anti-woke mean? Does anti-woke mean that someone is racist or misogynist? I am not trying to cause an argument, I want to understand. I had an argument with a friend last week. He mentioned being anti-woke. I assumed that he was admitting to being a racist or something along those lines. I was quite rude to him. I more or less accused him of being a RWNJ (Right Wing Nut Job). I may have overreacted. What does anti-woke mean?
The Labour Party 30 years was against all of those things, but it wasn't woke.
From the get go, selling the vision of HS2 to the public seems to have been a muddle when it comes to explaining its purpose, its benefits and also integrating it into a wider upgrade of infrastructure.
From the get go, selling the vision of HS2 to the public seems to have been a muddle when it comes to explaining its purpose, its benefits and also integrating it into a wider upgrade of infrastructure.
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
It shouldn't have been a priority in my view, more motorways would be a much better use of money.
But having half-built it, not finishing it properly is just bloody insane.
More motorways are a shite idea. I use them prolifically, you don't. You can fill the nation with six lane highways and they will still be gridlocked at the pinch points. More motorways is a fool's errand.
HS2 should either go ahead or have been strangled at birth. We need decent public transport and we need people living in close proximity to the amenities they want and need. This is why the denigrating of 15 minute cities as woke is the maddest thing we will hear this week in a week of Liz Truss focused madness.
Most of europe is working to shift as much freight as possible to rail because the energy savings are massive. Instead we are focused on keeping freight on the road because rail doesn't have any spare capacity...
Which is why we need HS2 - it allows the existing WCML to be used for freight...
IIRC the original Beeching Plan envisaged more freight on the main railways, taken to freight depots, and delivered locally by road.
Beeching is maligned more than he deerves. A government asked him to do a task, and he did it. You can argue he did not do it very well; but the vast majority of the closures sadly made sense - and others were closed despite not being in his reports (e.g. Oxford to Cambridge, Matlock to Buxton).
Beeching did not close a single mile of railway. The Conservative and Labour governments in power closed them. He also proposed other measures - as you say, including freight, that the governments only half-heartedly invested in, if at all. Although after the disaster of the 1955 modernisation plan, that might be understandable.
Beeching leadership of BR was one of the finest jobs a civil servant did in the 20th century.
The network needed culling. It was built for 19th century technology, both on rail and in the wider transport ecosystem, and that was no longer appropriate by the second half of the 20th century. Rail does three things well: commute people into city centres, transport people rapidly across medium distances, move bulk freight. And that's what the Beeching cuts were rightly designed to focus on.
Further, without those cuts, BR would have massively expensive overheads for a network on which only a fraction paid its way, either of itself or serving more popular lines. Money that would have to be spent on propping that up couldn't be invested in creating the cleaner, faster, more efficient rail of diesel and electric. Further, running parallel systems of steam *and* diesel / electric would have meant maintaining even more infrastructure to support the different power sources in parallel. Doing away with steam was essential to modernization and efficiency.
But all those efficiencies meant losing a load of workers in a unionized industry. To achieve that programme without paralysing the country through strikes in the process was an extraordinary achievement.
It's easy to get nostalgic about branch lines but the reality is that people had already made their choices and moved on, both as passengers and small-scale freight.
There is however an argument that Beeching was broadly right in overview but usually wrong on the details.
Gerry Fiennes' book "I Tried to Run a Railway" is superb on both the operational challenges and the broader strategic issues of British Railways in that era.
The one criticism of Beeching that comes up time and time again, and which Fiennes echoes, is that not enough had been done to cut costs on the lesser-used lines. Plenty of lines went straight from steam operation, with fully staffed stations, to closure - without any attempt to run a basic DMU service between unstaffed stations. Fiennes had great success with the Paytrain concept in East Anglia. It could, and should, have been rolled out nationally.
Indeed, that's a valid criticism. But a) costs could only be reduced so much (which is why many branch lines still require subsidies to this day); b) there was an immense amount of duplication; c) many of these changes required lots of investment, and d) they required governmental and union buy-in, and that was hard to get.
Fiennes also talks up his own story somewhat, as well.
From the get go HS2 seems to have been a muddle when it comes to explaining its purpose, its benefits and also integrating it into a wider upgrade of infrastructure.
I think that's fair about NPR but not HS2 which always had capacity relief for the busiest mixed use railway in Europe as the main benefit.
It was always linked to the existing network to provide many services to places, like Liverpool, Glasgow etc across the new lines then onto the legacy network.
From the get go HS2 seems to have been a muddle when it comes to explaining its purpose, its benefits and also integrating it into a wider upgrade of infrastructure.
HS2 as a project fell apart in the first 5 minutes on Radio 4 today when whoever was announcing it talked about Speed and not the capacity issues.
It's Faster trains alongside more capacity. Imagine not having 10,000 lorries on the M6 because the long haul freight journey is on the WCML instead.
Does anyone believe these west to east links to replace the HS2 will ever happen ?
Not the rail links, since they require building the bits of rail tunnel that make HS2 Manc expensive.
Still, the BBC News at 4 had the PM's spokesman spokesing that no decision has been taken yet.
#amateurhour
It's been almost the main news story for a week - you would have thought Rishi and co could have picked up how obvious their lack of an answer is and done something about it by now..
To be fair, if government said: HS2 cancelled: we're going to give the £96bn we'd earmarked for the IRP for the North and Midlands to Transport for the North and Midlands Connect to hand down to their respective transport authorities to spend on local priorities, so that Transport for Greater Manchester got (checks sums) £6bn to spend on rail - you know, I'd take that. But that's not going to happen, is it?
From the get go HS2 seems to have been a muddle when it comes to explaining its purpose, its benefits and also integrating it into a wider upgrade of infrastructure.
HS2 as a project fell apart in the first 5 minutes on Radio 4 today when whoever was announcing it talked about Speed and not the capacity issues.
It's Faster trains alongside more capacity. Imagine not having 10,000 lorries on the M6 because the long haul freight journey is on the WCML instead.
The name itself is part of the problem..High Speed 2....then the public learn its not a Japanese style bullet train and think on the face of it (based on 5 min news segments) a way to get from Brum to London in a few minutes less...
Rather than what we actually needed was talk of 21st Century infrastructure and wrap it into a coherent set of policies across road, rail and air, for both public and business.
From the get go HS2 seems to have been a muddle when it comes to explaining its purpose, its benefits and also integrating it into a wider upgrade of infrastructure.
HS2 as a project fell apart in the first 5 minutes on Radio 4 today when whoever was announcing it talked about Speed and not the capacity issues.
It's Faster trains alongside more capacity. Imagine not having 10,000 lorries on the M6 because the long haul freight journey is on the WCML instead.
The project came about because of capacity problems; particularly on the southern part of the WCML. The government had just spent billions on the WCML upgrade project, which took years longer than planned, cost ten times the original budget, was massively disruptive and did not deliver everything planned. Then experts told them that, even with the upgrade, it would run out of capacity...
So they looked at how to improve capacity. Building a new line made sense; and if you have a new line, segregating high-speed traffic from local and freight services made sense. And that made it a high-speed line.
And as 'high speed' is sexy, that's the way it was sold.
But more than that; when you have a new line as a spine, you can build off it, as other countries do. That's why NPR should really be new lines, rather than just upgrades of existing ones. But the north has problems with having lots of large population centres close together.
https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1708778412150534226 "The penny is dropping among people in Westminster that the Government doesn't run the Government," says Conservative MP Danny Kruger.. ..."There's a huge movement going on globally to create essentially a world government that will have power to dictate to national governments what they should do in anticipation of another pandemic," says Danny Kruger, who says there is "no greater threat to our national democracy"..
All together now.
RISHI SUNAK IS A CONSPIRACY THEORIST
Yep. From the introduction to his new "Plan for Drivers":
We will explore options to stop local councils using so-called “15-minute cities”, such as in Oxford, to police people’s lives.
That's straight out of the "WEF/Soros are controlling our lives" conspiracy playbook. There is no plan in Oxford to "police people's lives" other than, I guess, the ever-inept efforts of Thames Valley Police.
Oxfordshire County Council has a transport policy to reduce congestion by preventing through traffic on some roads. Oxford City Council has a planning policy to ensure facilities are within a 20-minute walk of where people live. In Rishiworld this equates to "policing people's lives".
Rishi Sunak is what you get if you cross the Cones Hotline with a belief in the Illuminati.
Allowing local businesses to open local shops = "Policing People's Lives"
WTAF? Seriously, any of the remaining PB Tories want to defend this?
“If I’m sitting down and that boat is going down and I’m on top of a battery and the water starts flooding in, I’m getting concerned, but then I look 10 yards to my left and there’s a shark over there, so I have a choice of electrocution and a shark, you know what I’m going to take? Electrocution,” Trump said. “I will take electrocution every single time, do we agree?”
Trump then continued criticising the prospect of any other sustainable energy technologies and claiming he would repeal the Joe Biden White House’s electric vehicle mandate.
“These people are crazy,” Trump said.
Both candidates need to drop out of the race and allow a new generation.
To be fair, if government said: HS2 cancelled: we're going to give the £96bn we'd earmarked for the IRP for the North and Midlands to Transport for the North and Midlands Connect to hand down to their respective transport authorities to spend on local priorities, so that Transport for Greater Manchester got (checks sums) £6bn to spend on rail - you know, I'd take that. But that's not going to happen, is it?
Nope.
A few million quid for buses and the rest trousered for tax cuts.
Dear PB Please can you help me. I am not sure that I understand what woke and anti-woke mean. I think antisemitism, prejudice against women and racism etc are bad things. Does this mean that I am woke? If so, what does anti-woke mean? Does anti-woke mean that someone is racist or misogynist? I am not trying to cause an argument, I want to understand. I had an argument with a friend last week. He mentioned being anti-woke. I assumed that he was admitting to being a racist or something along those lines. I was quite rude to him. I more or less accused him of being a RWNJ (Right Wing Nut Job). I may have overreacted. What does anti-woke mean?
The Labour Party 30 years was against all of those things, but it wasn't woke.
Andy_JS Thanks for replying. Can you explain a bit more.
The thing I'm finding funny about HS2 is that, for years, I felt like a lone voice in arguing for the scheme on here. Posters talked about reopening the GCR instead (as we saw again earlier...), how home-working was going to make rail travel irrelevant (seemingly wrong, as Covid shows); how we should build a Hyperloop instead (really!); how we should build from the north first (wrong for several reasons); or how it was going to destroy the landscape.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
It shouldn't have been a priority in my view, more motorways would be a much better use of money.
But having half-built it, not finishing it properly is just bloody insane.
More motorways are a shite idea. I use them prolifically, you don't. You can fill the nation with six lane highways and they will still be gridlocked at the pinch points. More motorways is a fool's errand.
HS2 should either go ahead or have been strangled at birth. We need decent public transport and we need people living in close proximity to the amenities they want and need. This is why the denigrating of 15 minute cities as woke is the maddest thing we will hear this week in a week of Liz Truss focused madness.
Most of europe is working to shift as much freight as possible to rail because the energy savings are massive. Instead we are focused on keeping freight on the road because rail doesn't have any spare capacity...
Which is why we need HS2 - it allows the existing WCML to be used for freight...
IIRC the original Beeching Plan envisaged more freight on the main railways, taken to freight depots, and delivered locally by road.
Beeching is maligned more than he deerves. A government asked him to do a task, and he did it. You can argue he did not do it very well; but the vast majority of the closures sadly made sense - and others were closed despite not being in his reports (e.g. Oxford to Cambridge, Matlock to Buxton).
Beeching did not close a single mile of railway. The Conservative and Labour governments in power closed them. He also proposed other measures - as you say, including freight, that the governments only half-heartedly invested in, if at all. Although after the disaster of the 1955 modernisation plan, that might be understandable.
Beeching leadership of BR was one of the finest jobs a civil servant did in the 20th century.
The network needed culling. It was built for 19th century technology, both on rail and in the wider transport ecosystem, and that was no longer appropriate by the second half of the 20th century. Rail does three things well: commute people into city centres, transport people rapidly across medium distances, move bulk freight. And that's what the Beeching cuts were rightly designed to focus on.
Further, without those cuts, BR would have massively expensive overheads for a network on which only a fraction paid its way, either of itself or serving more popular lines. Money that would have to be spent on propping that up couldn't be invested in creating the cleaner, faster, more efficient rail of diesel and electric. Further, running parallel systems of steam *and* diesel / electric would have meant maintaining even more infrastructure to support the different power sources in parallel. Doing away with steam was essential to modernization and efficiency.
But all those efficiencies meant losing a load of workers in a unionized industry. To achieve that programme without paralysing the country through strikes in the process was an extraordinary achievement.
It's easy to get nostalgic about branch lines but the reality is that people had already made their choices and moved on, both as passengers and small-scale freight.
There is however an argument that Beeching was broadly right in overview but usually wrong on the details.
Gerry Fiennes' book "I Tried to Run a Railway" is superb on both the operational challenges and the broader strategic issues of British Railways in that era. He is respectful but critical of Beeching, who he describes as having "a weakness for maps" - in the sense of a desk jockey who didn't really understand the operational network and where the custom actually came from.
The one criticism of Beeching that comes up time and time again, and which Fiennes echoes, is that not enough had been done to cut costs on the lesser-used lines. Plenty of lines went straight from steam operation, with fully staffed stations, to closure - without any attempt to run a basic DMU service between unstaffed stations. Fiennes had great success with the Paytrain concept in East Anglia. It could, and should, have been rolled out nationally.
Yes, and that's probably a fair criticism - and particularly on lines that were kept running. The overheads on many sparsely used country lines would still have been unviably high even with unstaffed stations and DMUs but cutting the intermediate stations - which have often been restored, unmanned, since - on retained lines was an error.
https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1708778412150534226 "The penny is dropping among people in Westminster that the Government doesn't run the Government," says Conservative MP Danny Kruger.. ..."There's a huge movement going on globally to create essentially a world government that will have power to dictate to national governments what they should do in anticipation of another pandemic," says Danny Kruger, who says there is "no greater threat to our national democracy"..
All together now.
RISHI SUNAK IS A CONSPIRACY THEORIST
Yep. From the introduction to his new "Plan for Drivers":
We will explore options to stop local councils using so-called “15-minute cities”, such as in Oxford, to police people’s lives.
That's straight out of the "WEF/Soros are controlling our lives" conspiracy playbook. There is no plan in Oxford to "police people's lives" other than, I guess, the ever-inept efforts of Thames Valley Police.
Oxfordshire County Council has a transport policy to reduce congestion by preventing through traffic on some roads. Oxford City Council has a planning policy to ensure facilities are within a 20-minute walk of where people live. In Rishiworld this equates to "policing people's lives".
Rishi Sunak is what you get if you cross the Cones Hotline with a belief in the Illuminati.
Allowing local businesses to open local shops = "Policing People's Lives"
WTAF? Seriously, any of the remaining PB Tories want to defend this?
Means competition for existing businesses, less profit for supermarkets by centring in big malls, and so on (because of the reduction in car use).
Not my justification - but it might explain one reason for the anti-15min policy.
To be fair, if government said: HS2 cancelled: we're going to give the £96bn we'd earmarked for the IRP for the North and Midlands to Transport for the North and Midlands Connect to hand down to their respective transport authorities to spend on local priorities, so that Transport for Greater Manchester got (checks sums) £6bn to spend on rail - you know, I'd take that. But that's not going to happen, is it?
It all needs to be part of a coherent, planned network, as some of us have been screeching about for years.
As an example, if you were building a line from the south into Manchester, you might want the station in a certain place. But if you later want to build a west-east line using the same station, then you might want it in a different place, or on a different alignment. This is broad-scope passive provision, and is vital.
It's a shame that HS2 was not planned as part of a wider network of potential enhancements, and could have been planned as such. NPR should always have been seen as a follow-up, even if it got no funding aside from studies.
Comments
When things get expensive its natural to want to go slow, but doing so only makes things viciously more expensive.
Or, to put it another way, they have continued to break our civil rights laws, and defy the will of the people.
It is in stark contrast to the boisterous Lib Dem conference with several thousand attendees, with frequent enthusiastic standing ovations in spite of three successive nights of disco, karaoke and glee club.
Lib Dems - the fun party with a leader who is a decent chap. How about that as a slogan?
Its time to start recognising induced demand, when it happens, as a positive not a negative to be ameliorated.
People only take journeys that are economically worthwhile to them. If they start to make more journeys than they did before, then that is more economic activity, more economic growth and leads ultimately to more taxes.
https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1708833141580861818
https://www.racingpost.com/news/britain/who-could-imagine-this-was-going-to-happen-marco-botti-among-trainers-left-in-the-lurch-by-newmarket-manure-crisis-azGso6V3dpJO/
One of the two horseshit-recycling firms in Newmarket has packed up and the other one has not got the capacity to take on its customers.
The best idea is to create a plan, get everyone to agree to it and then just leave to build it...
So surely this time stalling the project and kicking it into the long grass will make things cheaper? /Hunt
So the question is- how much money has the government borrowed to chuck on the bonfire doing works that will serve no purpose whatsoever? Or alternatively, how much will the extra cost be when some future government has to resurrect basically the same scheme?
If we are being prepared for a sell off of the nation to the highest bidder, let us hope that our new foreign overlords are merciful.
Now, it seems most posters are in favour of it, and don't want to see it scrapped.
Is that because the project is now seen as good; the fact it has started so should be finished; or just because it is a way of bashing Rishi's risible regime?
Rather than spent on bloody paperwork, or costs escalating due to inflation and it not having been completed yet?
But having half-built it, not finishing it properly is just bloody insane.
The way it is achieved is by appalling productivity at every level, multiplied by layers of idiot management, the belief that no matter how much money they ask, they will get it and a topping of changing the requirements all the fucking time.
RISHI SUNAK IS A CONSPIRACY THEORIST
The railway equivalent of being half-pregnant.
But stopping development of HS2 half way through, and leaving it as an expensive toy, would be utterly mad.
There’s a reason that SpaceX has taken over the Western launch industry to a startling degree. It’s very simple - they launch rockets, not feed the pyramid.
We're close to fully manufacturing Bayraktar Akinci here in Ukraine, with government approval. A significant step forward." - Khaluk Bayraktar, CEO of Baykar Makina.
https://twitter.com/JustusUwakwe/status/1708756188672737338
According to YouGov, the public tend to support building HS2 (by 47%-33%), but where they are much more united is in opposing the cancellation of the Manchester leg, which is opposed by 52%, with only 23% supporting it being cancelled, as Sunak has done today.
https://x.com/Beyond_Topline/status/1708831537985167692
If Rishi has sent HS2 Manc down the pawnbrokers, he'd better have bought some really shiny trinkets with the proceeds.
That's straight out of the "WEF/Soros are controlling our lives" conspiracy playbook. There is no plan in Oxford to "police people's lives" other than, I guess, the ever-inept efforts of Thames Valley Police.
Oxfordshire County Council has a transport policy to reduce congestion by preventing through traffic on some roads. Oxford City Council has a planning policy to ensure facilities are within a 20-minute walk of where people live. In Rishiworld this equates to "policing people's lives".
Rishi Sunak is what you get if you cross the Cones Hotline with a belief in the Illuminati.
It was only when cancellation was considered that the Webb telescope suddenly was readied for flight.
Or have I missed something from Labour? It feels like Reeves is in the same asset sweating, don't build and they won't come mould as Hunt and Sunak.
"Let me say right in the beginning that I think U.S. District Judge Prentice Marshall is well-meaning, but wrong.
Any arbitrary quota system for hiring and promoting cops probably is going to that some better-qualified person will be passed over.
But, so what? That's the way things have always been done around here anyway. The only difference is that now a federal judge has the clout, instead of some cigar-chomping ward heeler."
source: "Daley Always a Quota Man", in this collection of Royko columns:
https://www.amazon.com/One-More-Time-Best-Royko/dp/0226730727/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2XHTRSLRNEKSX&keywords=mike+royko+one+more+time&qid=1696256442&sprefix=Mike+Royko,aps,310&sr=8-1
Royko goes on to say that the Daley machine discriminated in favor of Irish-Americans, and family members. And certainly the Irish had been discriminated against, in the past. He could have added that similar behavior could be found in other big city machines, although the details varied, depending on the size of the ethnic groups.
If you understand this kind of politics, it isn't difficult to see why Keir Starmer might want to make "some more equal than others".
As with previous iterations passim, private consultants will be looking forward to the oodles they can make now by not being on the CS payroll.
Not to mention the slightly awkward fact that CS expansion has been 'necessary' due to Brexit, largely.
HS2 should either go ahead or have been strangled at birth. We need decent public transport and we need people living in close proximity to the amenities they want and need. This is why the denigrating of 15 minute cities as woke is the maddest thing we will hear this week in a week of Liz Truss focused madness.
Trump isn’t getting a jury trial in his $250m civil fraud suit brought against him by New York AG James because one of his lawyers overlooked submitting the routine request/checking boxes on the form, per two people familiar
https://twitter.com/hugolowell/status/1708851585869140399
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cet_info_mean.html
October starting off on a similar track.
In another part of HMRC one entire team has left in the last 3 months because they could earn 50-100% more elsewhere...
https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1708815227939160293
Which is why we need HS2 - it allows the existing WCML to be used for freight...
I say it part in jest but part seriously - socio-economic factors are the key issues behind many of the underlying problems people face.
So why not?
One sad point though: railfreight companies are mothballing some of their electric fleet and moving back to diesels - because they're cheaper. It should not be this way...
https://www.railstaff.co.uk/2021/10/18/rising-electricity-prices-force-freight-back-to-diesel
https://theloadstar.com/db-cargo-pulls-the-plug-as-energy-costs-signal-red-for-electrified-rail-freight/
Their manifesto will be an empty fudge wrapper.
I’ve not read the article but this is what I find objectionable about the headline…
* “vulgar” sets the scene in a wholly negative and personalised way that is stylistic rather than content based
* “humiliation” implies motive, power and control
* “Every migrant” clearly an exaggeration
On the subheading:
*!”beyond the pale” is deeply offensive to the Irish and it was used as a synonym for brutish and uncivilised. Ironic to use a racist phrase in this context
* Trying to put a political topic that is central to people’s lives out of the scope of political discourse. Either you agree with him or you are a Bad Person
* “Decades ago” - historical BS. “Multiculturalism” was a specific Blairite policy so 20 years old at most. I believe it was controversial at the time “”(“melting pot” vs “multiculturalism”) so to say that it would have been unacceptable decades ago is just garbage
In summary the headline is click bait that is designed to rile up the base. It’s not conducive to a sensible discussion about a matter of huge importance to people and the country
Beeching did not close a single mile of railway. The Conservative and Labour governments in power closed them. He also proposed other measures - as you say, including freight, that the governments only half-heartedly invested in, if at all. Although after the disaster of the 1955 modernisation plan, that might be understandable.
The network needed culling. It was built for 19th century technology, both on rail and in the wider transport ecosystem, and that was no longer appropriate by the second half of the 20th century. Rail does three things well: commute people into city centres, transport people rapidly across medium distances, move bulk freight. And that's what the Beeching cuts were rightly designed to focus on.
Further, without those cuts, BR would have massively expensive overheads for a network on which only a fraction paid its way, either of itself or serving more popular lines. Money that would have to be spent on propping that up couldn't be invested in creating the cleaner, faster, more efficient rail of diesel and electric. Further, running parallel systems of steam *and* diesel / electric would have meant maintaining even more infrastructure to support the different power sources in parallel. Doing away with steam was essential to modernization and efficiency.
But all those efficiencies meant losing a load of workers in a unionized industry. To achieve that programme without paralysing the country through strikes in the process was an extraordinary achievement.
It's easy to get nostalgic about branch lines but the reality is that people had already made their choices and moved on, both as passengers and small-scale freight.
Edit: I meant to say, no scope for expanding that along the same line ...
But even if it was - do I want someone competently favouring one racial group over another?
And yes, this is important stuff - the fact that they believe in favouring one racial group over another outweighs any amount of incompetent tinkering. I think it's quite fundamentally a bad thing to do.
Please can you help me.
I am not sure that I understand what woke and anti-woke mean.
I think antisemitism, prejudice against women and racism etc are bad things. Does this mean that I am woke?
If so, what does anti-woke mean?
Does anti-woke mean that someone is racist or misogynist?
I am not trying to cause an argument, I want to understand.
I had an argument with a friend last week. He mentioned being anti-woke. I assumed that he was admitting to being a racist or something along those lines. I was quite rude to him. I more or less accused him of being a RWNJ (Right Wing Nut Job).
I may have overreacted.
What does anti-woke mean?
Why do they think Britain is so different that we don't require such a network? What is our exceptionalism?
Still, the BBC News at 4 had the PM's spokesman spokesing that no decision has been taken yet.
#amateurhour
Gerry Fiennes' book "I Tried to Run a Railway" is superb on both the operational challenges and the broader strategic issues of British Railways in that era. He is respectful but critical of Beeching, who he describes as having "a weakness for maps" - in the sense of a desk jockey who didn't really understand the operational network and where the custom actually came from.
The one criticism of Beeching that comes up time and time again, and which Fiennes echoes, is that not enough had been done to cut costs on the lesser-used lines. Plenty of lines went straight from steam operation, with fully staffed stations, to closure - without any attempt to run a basic DMU service between unstaffed stations. Fiennes had great success with the Paytrain concept in East Anglia. It could, and should, have been rolled out nationally.
Couple of young women, probably in their young twenties commentating on the volume of police and security in the area, wondering what's going on
A good reminder of how many of the population aren't remotely engaged in politics, even when it's quite literally on your doorstep
Couple of young women, probably in their young twenties commentating on the volume of police and security in the area, wondering what's going on
A good reminder of how many of the population aren't remotely engaged in politics, even when it's quite literally on your doorstep
Fiennes also talks up his own story somewhat, as well.
It was always linked to the existing network to provide many services to places, like Liverpool, Glasgow etc across the new lines then onto the legacy network.
It's Faster trains alongside more capacity. Imagine not having 10,000 lorries on the M6 because the long haul freight journey is on the WCML instead.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/02/rishi-sunak-commons-majority-in-peril-as-60-tories-join-liz-truss-group
But that's not going to happen, is it?
Rather than what we actually needed was talk of 21st Century infrastructure and wrap it into a coherent set of policies across road, rail and air, for both public and business.
So they looked at how to improve capacity. Building a new line made sense; and if you have a new line, segregating high-speed traffic from local and freight services made sense. And that made it a high-speed line.
And as 'high speed' is sexy, that's the way it was sold.
But more than that; when you have a new line as a spine, you can build off it, as other countries do. That's why NPR should really be new lines, rather than just upgrades of existing ones. But the north has problems with having lots of large population centres close together.
WTAF? Seriously, any of the remaining PB Tories want to defend this?
A few million quid for buses and the rest trousered for tax cuts.
Thanks for replying.
Can you explain a bit more.
Not my justification - but it might explain one reason for the anti-15min policy.
As an example, if you were building a line from the south into Manchester, you might want the station in a certain place. But if you later want to build a west-east line using the same station, then you might want it in a different place, or on a different alignment. This is broad-scope passive provision, and is vital.
It's a shame that HS2 was not planned as part of a wider network of potential enhancements, and could have been planned as such. NPR should always have been seen as a follow-up, even if it got no funding aside from studies.