Rishi Sunak will vow to end 30 years of the status quo in politics as he tries to position himself as the change candidate for the next general election.
In his first speech to the Conservative Party conference as leader, Mr Sunak will seek to paint Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, as the continuity choice for voters.
As a government you don't get multiple opportunities to reinvent your image and brand after years in power. The Tories have already dried up that well.
In the May years things were so chaotic and fraught they never had the chance after the flop of 2017.
Boris managed it successfully in 2019, aided by but not entirely due to the Corbyn factor.
Truss seems to have genuinely wanted to do it, however inconsistent that was with her running as the 'Boris should not have quit' candidate. But she didn't have a plan beyond slogans and vibes and that's why it fell apart so spectacularly at the first resistance (if the argument is she did have a plan but was not able to implement it that's no defence, it means she lacked the ability to do it).
Sunak took over with the express purpose of NOT being a change candidate. Its too late to be one now. Its questionable whether he could have tried given the Truss implosion, but the failure of his year as PM to deliver scuppers the chance as he has no goodwill - anything he announces is painted a desperate calculation, even if its genuine.
As for saying Keir is the continuity choice and that's bad, it's just plain bizarre as it's yet another admission the current government is doing a bad job and so don't elect someone (purportedly) planning on doing the same things.
Last 8 greater manchester tory seats gone I reckon.
I doubt most of the redwall Gter Manchester seats are bothered either way by HS2, they want inflation down further and better bus routes and local train stations not a quicker journey to London which they rarely go to anyway
My point is it is two fingers to people from Manchester by Sunak. Doesn't matter whether it is HS2 or whatever. It is London elite telling the north that they are happy to spend billions on a high speed line out of london but manchester can go and do one.
The Tories have a seat in Birmingham, the Tories have 0 seats in Manchester
No seats in the City of Manchester, but, what, nine in Greater Manchester? Many won on the premise of Levelling Up. "Sorry Greater Manchester, we spent all our money on transport schemes in the south so can't afford to give you the £6bn we promised. But we'll repair some potholes and give you a new bus". Not likely to go down well.
Surely, surely you can see how badly this is going down?
Voters in redwall Greater Manchester seats do NOT live in Manchester city itself and rarely go on the train to London.
They would much rather have new buses and potholes repaired than HS2
*bangs head against brick wall*
Really? "£6bn of rail investment in GM? Or repair some potholes?" "We're just simple people here, the pothole option seems much more up our street."
What voters in redwall Greater Manchester want is what they were promised - i.e. levelling up - i.e. finally, some of the money that was always spent in London being spent in Greater Manchester. Because that brings about jobs and investment and growth. WHICH IS THE POINT OF HS2.
Now, a secret: more even than HS2, we'd like NPR. That does even more: more access to jobs, more relief of suburban routes, more connectivity, more investement. But the middle section of NPR is delivered by HS2: we can't do NPR until HS2 Phase 2b puts in place the Manchester Airport to Manchester section, plus the high speed stations at Manchesters Piccadilly and Airport.
(In fact, ALL of Phase 2b technically supports NPR, because there are two proposed NPR services an hour running Newcastle-Leeds-Manchester-Crewe-Birmingham. But weirdly no-one really talks about them.)
Voters in redwall seats hardly ever go to London. Why would they therefore want a faster rail ink from Manchester city centre to London they would hardly ever use which could be used for bus routes they would use or repairing potholes in their area?
Better bus routes is more levelling up for them and the working class Leave voters and pensioners than posh Remain voting commuters and students getting a faster commute to and from London.
Even adding NPR routes to Leeds and Bradford wouldn't benefit them much either compared to better bus routes and local roads
Why would they want a faster rail link from Manchester to London? Well, as I keep saying, because it would bring investment and jobs to Greater Manchester far in excess of what improvements to bus services would bring.
Levelling up is not sitting and wondering why all the investment continues to go to the south east.
Last 8 greater manchester tory seats gone I reckon.
I doubt most of the redwall Gter Manchester seats are bothered either way by HS2, they want inflation down further and better bus routes and local train stations not a quicker journey to London which they rarely go to anyway
My point is it is two fingers to people from Manchester by Sunak. Doesn't matter whether it is HS2 or whatever. It is London elite telling the north that they are happy to spend billions on a high speed line out of london but manchester can go and do one.
The Tories have a seat in Birmingham, the Tories have 0 seats in Manchester
No seats in the City of Manchester, but, what, nine in Greater Manchester? Many won on the premise of Levelling Up. "Sorry Greater Manchester, we spent all our money on transport schemes in the south so can't afford to give you the £6bn we promised. But we'll repair some potholes and give you a new bus". Not likely to go down well.
Surely, surely you can see how badly this is going down?
Voters in redwall Greater Manchester seats do NOT live in Manchester city itself and rarely go on the train to London.
They would much rather have new buses and potholes repaired than HS2
*bangs head against brick wall*
Really? "£6bn of rail investment in GM? Or repair some potholes?" "We're just simple people here, the pothole option seems much more up our street."
What voters in redwall Greater Manchester want is what they were promised - i.e. levelling up - i.e. finally, some of the money that was always spent in London being spent in Greater Manchester. Because that brings about jobs and investment and growth. WHICH IS THE POINT OF HS2.
Now, a secret: more even than HS2, we'd like NPR. That does even more: more access to jobs, more relief of suburban routes, more connectivity, more investement. But the middle section of NPR is delivered by HS2: we can't do NPR until HS2 Phase 2b puts in place the Manchester Airport to Manchester section, plus the high speed stations at Manchesters Piccadilly and Airport.
(In fact, ALL of Phase 2b technically supports NPR, because there are two proposed NPR services an hour running Newcastle-Leeds-Manchester-Crewe-Birmingham. But weirdly no-one really talks about them.)
Voters in redwall seats hardly ever go to London. Why would they therefore want a faster rail ink from Manchester city centre to London they would hardly ever use which could be used for bus routes they would use or repairing potholes in their area?
Better bus routes is more levelling up for them and the working class Leave voters and pensioners than posh Remain voting commuters and students getting a faster commute to and from London.
Even adding NPR routes to Leeds and Bradford wouldn't benefit them much either compared to better bus routes and local roads
Why would they want a faster rail link from Manchester to London? Well, as I keep saying, because it would bring investment and jobs to Greater Manchester far in excess of what improvements to bus services would bring.
Levelling up is not sitting and wondering why all the investment continues to go to the south east.
If Turin and Lyon can be linked via a 57km tunnel, why can't we also have a Pennine Base Tunnel? A star shaped layout between Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds.
Just sink the whole sodding thing below ground and avoid the planning nightmares.
"The building of a modern high-speed railway that will shorten the journey from Manchester to London to just over an hour — and free up the full-to-bursting West Coast Main Line to carry more regular and reliable local and freight services — seems to be a matter of when rather than if. Sure, we can kick it down the track for a few years, but the cost of doing so will only rise. And, in the meantime, local train services will continue to share tracks with faster intercity rail, and hordes of travellers will have to put up with the dismal services of Avanti West Coast, a company that sometimes charges us more to visit London than it would cost to fly to Italy, and then makes us stand up for two hours to drive home the humiliation."
"no seats available, standing for entire journey on crowded train Review of Avanti West Coast Reviewed 29 June 2023 stood up as no seat for the entire journey from london euston to stoke on trent- avanti did not open up discounted seats in first class to sort issues , people blocked in walk way, sitting on floor between toilets and next carriages, suitcases blocking walk ways , this cant be safe, everyone the train breaks or sharp bends i was jostled around as standing up with nothing to hold onto, absolutely disgraceful service. avanti should not over sell tickets and make people stand for entire journey."
"The building of a modern high-speed railway that will shorten the journey from Manchester to London to just over an hour — and free up the full-to-bursting West Coast Main Line to carry more regular and reliable local and freight services — seems to be a matter of when rather than if. Sure, we can kick it down the track for a few years, but the cost of doing so will only rise. And, in the meantime, local train services will continue to share tracks with faster intercity rail, and hordes of travellers will have to put up with the dismal services of Avanti West Coast, a company that sometimes charges us more to visit London than it would cost to fly to Italy, and then makes us stand up for two hours to drive home the humiliation."
"no seats available, standing for entire journey on crowded train Review of Avanti West Coast Reviewed 29 June 2023 stood up as no seat for the entire journey from london euston to stoke on trent- avanti did not open up discounted seats in first class to sort issues , people blocked in walk way, sitting on floor between toilets and next carriages, suitcases blocking walk ways , this cant be safe, everyone the train breaks or sharp bends i was jostled around as standing up with nothing to hold onto, absolutely disgraceful service. avanti should not over sell tickets and make people stand for entire journey."
"My understanding is that, after studying the Prime Minister’s dreadful polling numbers in recent months, Sunak’s close advisers called the exiled Cummings in from the cold. "
Or, as one insider characterised Cummings’s advice: “Do mental stuff that proves you’re not the Establishment.”
The comment at the bottom makes an interesting point...it wasn't going to be open until 2041, nearly 20 more years to build a railway...from my point of view, there is something fundamentally wrong with our whole systems in that will be have 30+ years to build it from announcement to finishing it.
Last 8 greater manchester tory seats gone I reckon.
I doubt most of the redwall Gter Manchester seats are bothered either way by HS2, they want inflation down further and better bus routes and local train stations not a quicker journey to London which they rarely go to anyway
My point is it is two fingers to people from Manchester by Sunak. Doesn't matter whether it is HS2 or whatever. It is London elite telling the north that they are happy to spend billions on a high speed line out of london but manchester can go and do one.
The Tories have a seat in Birmingham, the Tories have 0 seats in Manchester
No seats in the City of Manchester, but, what, nine in Greater Manchester? Many won on the premise of Levelling Up. "Sorry Greater Manchester, we spent all our money on transport schemes in the south so can't afford to give you the £6bn we promised. But we'll repair some potholes and give you a new bus". Not likely to go down well.
Surely, surely you can see how badly this is going down?
Voters in redwall Greater Manchester seats do NOT live in Manchester city itself and rarely go on the train to London.
They would much rather have new buses and potholes repaired than HS2
*bangs head against brick wall*
Really? "£6bn of rail investment in GM? Or repair some potholes?" "We're just simple people here, the pothole option seems much more up our street."
What voters in redwall Greater Manchester want is what they were promised - i.e. levelling up - i.e. finally, some of the money that was always spent in London being spent in Greater Manchester. Because that brings about jobs and investment and growth. WHICH IS THE POINT OF HS2.
Now, a secret: more even than HS2, we'd like NPR. That does even more: more access to jobs, more relief of suburban routes, more connectivity, more investement. But the middle section of NPR is delivered by HS2: we can't do NPR until HS2 Phase 2b puts in place the Manchester Airport to Manchester section, plus the high speed stations at Manchesters Piccadilly and Airport.
(In fact, ALL of Phase 2b technically supports NPR, because there are two proposed NPR services an hour running Newcastle-Leeds-Manchester-Crewe-Birmingham. But weirdly no-one really talks about them.)
Voters in redwall seats hardly ever go to London. Why would they therefore want a faster rail ink from Manchester city centre to London they would hardly ever use which could be used for bus routes they would use or repairing potholes in their area?
Better bus routes is more levelling up for them and the working class Leave voters and pensioners than posh Remain voting commuters and students getting a faster commute to and from London.
Even adding NPR routes to Leeds and Bradford wouldn't benefit them much either compared to better bus routes and local roads
Why would they want a faster rail link from Manchester to London? Well, as I keep saying, because it would bring investment and jobs to Greater Manchester far in excess of what improvements to bus services would bring.
Levelling up is not sitting and wondering why all the investment continues to go to the south east.
If Turin and Lyon can be linked via a 57km tunnel, why can't we also have a Pennine Base Tunnel? A star shaped layout between Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds.
Just sink the whole sodding thing below ground and avoid the planning nightmares.
Note that it seems to be costing about 1/4 of HS2...
Something like that was the (or at least, an) original plan for NPR: a delta along the route of the Woodhead Tunnel from Manchester to, roughly, Penistone, with an alignment north to Leeds and one south to Sheffield. It became increasingly difficult to develop a business case for Sheffield, so the axis then swung to Manchester-Bradford-Leeds. The proposal is still for a substantial tunnelled section, from Warrington to Marsden. Though we'll now have to wait for the end of this government for that to get going again.
Last 8 greater manchester tory seats gone I reckon.
I doubt most of the redwall Gter Manchester seats are bothered either way by HS2, they want inflation down further and better bus routes and local train stations not a quicker journey to London which they rarely go to anyway
My point is it is two fingers to people from Manchester by Sunak. Doesn't matter whether it is HS2 or whatever. It is London elite telling the north that they are happy to spend billions on a high speed line out of london but manchester can go and do one.
The Tories have a seat in Birmingham, the Tories have 0 seats in Manchester
No seats in the City of Manchester, but, what, nine in Greater Manchester? Many won on the premise of Levelling Up. "Sorry Greater Manchester, we spent all our money on transport schemes in the south so can't afford to give you the £6bn we promised. But we'll repair some potholes and give you a new bus". Not likely to go down well.
Surely, surely you can see how badly this is going down?
Voters in redwall Greater Manchester seats do NOT live in Manchester city itself and rarely go on the train to London.
They would much rather have new buses and potholes repaired than HS2
*bangs head against brick wall*
Really? "£6bn of rail investment in GM? Or repair some potholes?" "We're just simple people here, the pothole option seems much more up our street."
What voters in redwall Greater Manchester want is what they were promised - i.e. levelling up - i.e. finally, some of the money that was always spent in London being spent in Greater Manchester. Because that brings about jobs and investment and growth. WHICH IS THE POINT OF HS2.
Now, a secret: more even than HS2, we'd like NPR. That does even more: more access to jobs, more relief of suburban routes, more connectivity, more investement. But the middle section of NPR is delivered by HS2: we can't do NPR until HS2 Phase 2b puts in place the Manchester Airport to Manchester section, plus the high speed stations at Manchesters Piccadilly and Airport.
(In fact, ALL of Phase 2b technically supports NPR, because there are two proposed NPR services an hour running Newcastle-Leeds-Manchester-Crewe-Birmingham. But weirdly no-one really talks about them.)
Voters in redwall seats hardly ever go to London. Why would they therefore want a faster rail ink from Manchester city centre to London they would hardly ever use which could be used for bus routes they would use or repairing potholes in their area?
Better bus routes is more levelling up for them and the working class Leave voters and pensioners than posh Remain voting commuters and students getting a faster commute to and from London.
Even adding NPR routes to Leeds and Bradford wouldn't benefit them much either compared to better bus routes and local roads
Why would they want a faster rail link from Manchester to London? Well, as I keep saying, because it would bring investment and jobs to Greater Manchester far in excess of what improvements to bus services would bring.
Levelling up is not sitting and wondering why all the investment continues to go to the south east.
If Turin and Lyon can be linked via a 57km tunnel, why can't we also have a Pennine Base Tunnel? A star shaped layout between Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds.
Just sink the whole sodding thing below ground and avoid the planning nightmares.
Note that it seems to be costing about 1/4 of HS2...
Also worth noting that tunnelling is pretty easy - and therefore cheap - in the North of England. We're largely on sandstone, which is very easy stuff to tunnel through but also (unlike the mudstones of the south east) self supporting. (Possibly gets harder going through millstone grits in the Pennines.)
Would love to see some Greater Manchester seat polling after this week.
The line for over/under Tory seats should probably be 1.5
I'd struggle to see where they'd get 1 in the current climate. They won't win Altrincham and Sale West.
Bolton West with a bit of swing back - Bolton has the most Uxbridgy GM seats.
The hope of holding Cheadle or Hazel Grove if LD and Lab split the vote.
But out of their 8 nominal defences they don't look near to being favourites anywhere.
It's really, really, really easy to envisage the Tories being wiped out totally in their 22 Metro defences between the Dee and Don.
There are only two seats between the Dee and the Don, and both are held by the SNP.
Ha!
Although I live not far from the Don actually referred to, "between the Dee and the Don" definitely had me wondering who was going to lay siege to Craigievar.
The source of our Don is in Derbyshire so I'm not sure there is actually much Metro between there and Chester (other than Stockport).
Would love to see some Greater Manchester seat polling after this week.
The line for over/under Tory seats should probably be 1.5
I'd struggle to see where they'd get 1 in the current climate. They won't win Altrincham and Sale West.
Bolton West with a bit of swing back - Bolton has the most Uxbridgy GM seats.
The hope of holding Cheadle or Hazel Grove if LD and Lab split the vote.
But out of their 8 nominal defences they don't look near to being favourites anywhere.
It's really, really, really easy to envisage the Tories being wiped out totally in their 22 Metro defences between the Dee and Don.
There are only two seats between the Dee and the Don, and both are held by the SNP.
Ha!
Although I live not far from the Don actually referred to, "between the Dee and the Don" definitely had me wondering who was going to lay siege to Craigievar.
The source of our Don is in Derbyshire so I'm not sure there is actually much Metro between there and Chester.
My first thought was Aberdeen too! And though I knew what he meant, I still spent a while working it out. I rather liked it, though. A nice rhetorical flourish. And it works if you mean Wirral-Doncaster - which I think was the intention.
Would love to see some Greater Manchester seat polling after this week.
The line for over/under Tory seats should probably be 1.5
I'd struggle to see where they'd get 1 in the current climate. They won't win Altrincham and Sale West.
Bolton West with a bit of swing back - Bolton has the most Uxbridgy GM seats.
The hope of holding Cheadle or Hazel Grove if LD and Lab split the vote.
But out of their 8 nominal defences they don't look near to being favourites anywhere.
It's really, really, really easy to envisage the Tories being wiped out totally in their 22 Metro defences between the Dee and Don.
There are only two seats between the Dee and the Don, and both are held by the SNP.
Ha!
Although I live not far from the Don actually referred to, "between the Dee and the Don" definitely had me wondering who was going to lay siege to Craigievar.
The source of our Don is in Derbyshire so I'm not sure there is actually much Metro between there and Chester (other than Stockport).
A pedant who has just checked the OS map notes: actually, the boundary between Yorkshire and Derbyshire above Winscar reservoir at the top of the Don appears to be the watershed between the rivers Don and Etherow. So the Don is an all-Yorkshire river. (The same pedant points out that that bit of Derbyshire north of the Etherow is historically Cheshire, this is interesting but not really relevant.)
Last 8 greater manchester tory seats gone I reckon.
I doubt most of the redwall Gter Manchester seats are bothered either way by HS2, they want inflation down further and better bus routes and local train stations not a quicker journey to London which they rarely go to anyway
My point is it is two fingers to people from Manchester by Sunak. Doesn't matter whether it is HS2 or whatever. It is London elite telling the north that they are happy to spend billions on a high speed line out of london but manchester can go and do one.
The Tories have a seat in Birmingham, the Tories have 0 seats in Manchester
No seats in the City of Manchester, but, what, nine in Greater Manchester? Many won on the premise of Levelling Up. "Sorry Greater Manchester, we spent all our money on transport schemes in the south so can't afford to give you the £6bn we promised. But we'll repair some potholes and give you a new bus". Not likely to go down well.
Surely, surely you can see how badly this is going down?
Voters in redwall Greater Manchester seats do NOT live in Manchester city itself and rarely go on the train to London.
They would much rather have new buses and potholes repaired than HS2
*bangs head against brick wall*
Really? "£6bn of rail investment in GM? Or repair some potholes?" "We're just simple people here, the pothole option seems much more up our street."
What voters in redwall Greater Manchester want is what they were promised - i.e. levelling up - i.e. finally, some of the money that was always spent in London being spent in Greater Manchester. Because that brings about jobs and investment and growth. WHICH IS THE POINT OF HS2.
Now, a secret: more even than HS2, we'd like NPR. That does even more: more access to jobs, more relief of suburban routes, more connectivity, more investement. But the middle section of NPR is delivered by HS2: we can't do NPR until HS2 Phase 2b puts in place the Manchester Airport to Manchester section, plus the high speed stations at Manchesters Piccadilly and Airport.
(In fact, ALL of Phase 2b technically supports NPR, because there are two proposed NPR services an hour running Newcastle-Leeds-Manchester-Crewe-Birmingham. But weirdly no-one really talks about them.)
Voters in redwall seats hardly ever go to London. Why would they therefore want a faster rail ink from Manchester city centre to London they would hardly ever use which could be used for bus routes they would use or repairing potholes in their area?
Better bus routes is more levelling up for them and the working class Leave voters and pensioners than posh Remain voting commuters and students getting a faster commute to and from London.
Even adding NPR routes to Leeds and Bradford wouldn't benefit them much either compared to better bus routes and local roads
Why would they want a faster rail link from Manchester to London? Well, as I keep saying, because it would bring investment and jobs to Greater Manchester far in excess of what improvements to bus services would bring.
Levelling up is not sitting and wondering why all the investment continues to go to the south east.
If Turin and Lyon can be linked via a 57km tunnel, why can't we also have a Pennine Base Tunnel? A star shaped layout between Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds.
Just sink the whole sodding thing below ground and avoid the planning nightmares.
Last 8 greater manchester tory seats gone I reckon.
I doubt most of the redwall Gter Manchester seats are bothered either way by HS2, they want inflation down further and better bus routes and local train stations not a quicker journey to London which they rarely go to anyway
My point is it is two fingers to people from Manchester by Sunak. Doesn't matter whether it is HS2 or whatever. It is London elite telling the north that they are happy to spend billions on a high speed line out of london but manchester can go and do one.
The Tories have a seat in Birmingham, the Tories have 0 seats in Manchester
No seats in the City of Manchester, but, what, nine in Greater Manchester? Many won on the premise of Levelling Up. "Sorry Greater Manchester, we spent all our money on transport schemes in the south so can't afford to give you the £6bn we promised. But we'll repair some potholes and give you a new bus". Not likely to go down well.
Surely, surely you can see how badly this is going down?
Voters in redwall Greater Manchester seats do NOT live in Manchester city itself and rarely go on the train to London.
They would much rather have new buses and potholes repaired than HS2
*bangs head against brick wall*
Really? "£6bn of rail investment in GM? Or repair some potholes?" "We're just simple people here, the pothole option seems much more up our street."
What voters in redwall Greater Manchester want is what they were promised - i.e. levelling up - i.e. finally, some of the money that was always spent in London being spent in Greater Manchester. Because that brings about jobs and investment and growth. WHICH IS THE POINT OF HS2.
Now, a secret: more even than HS2, we'd like NPR. That does even more: more access to jobs, more relief of suburban routes, more connectivity, more investement. But the middle section of NPR is delivered by HS2: we can't do NPR until HS2 Phase 2b puts in place the Manchester Airport to Manchester section, plus the high speed stations at Manchesters Piccadilly and Airport.
(In fact, ALL of Phase 2b technically supports NPR, because there are two proposed NPR services an hour running Newcastle-Leeds-Manchester-Crewe-Birmingham. But weirdly no-one really talks about them.)
Voters in redwall seats hardly ever go to London. Why would they therefore want a faster rail ink from Manchester city centre to London they would hardly ever use which could be used for bus routes they would use or repairing potholes in their area?
Better bus routes is more levelling up for them and the working class Leave voters and pensioners than posh Remain voting commuters and students getting a faster commute to and from London.
Even adding NPR routes to Leeds and Bradford wouldn't benefit them much either compared to better bus routes and local roads
Why would they want a faster rail link from Manchester to London? Well, as I keep saying, because it would bring investment and jobs to Greater Manchester far in excess of what improvements to bus services would bring.
Levelling up is not sitting and wondering why all the investment continues to go to the south east.
If Turin and Lyon can be linked via a 57km tunnel, why can't we also have a Pennine Base Tunnel? A star shaped layout between Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds.
Just sink the whole sodding thing below ground and avoid the planning nightmares.
Note that it seems to be costing about 1/4 of HS2...
65 miles of HS2 tunnel for the south. You'd want at least the same for the north.
If Levelling Up is a thing - and you accept that connectivity is greater in the south east than in the north - you need to be spending more on connectivity in the north than in the south (assuming your investments are sensible - but really, so onerous is the process of getting investment in transport that generally, they are). However, since Levelling Up was announced as a policy, the reverse has been true. The gap is therefore widening.
Would love to see some Greater Manchester seat polling after this week.
The line for over/under Tory seats should probably be 1.5
I'd struggle to see where they'd get 1 in the current climate. They won't win Altrincham and Sale West.
Bolton West with a bit of swing back - Bolton has the most Uxbridgy GM seats.
The hope of holding Cheadle or Hazel Grove if LD and Lab split the vote.
But out of their 8 nominal defences they don't look near to being favourites anywhere.
It's really, really, really easy to envisage the Tories being wiped out totally in their 22 Metro defences between the Dee and Don.
There are only two seats between the Dee and the Don, and both are held by the SNP.
Ha!
Although I live not far from the Don actually referred to, "between the Dee and the Don" definitely had me wondering who was going to lay siege to Craigievar.
The source of our Don is in Derbyshire so I'm not sure there is actually much Metro between there and Chester (other than Stockport).
A pedant who has just checked the OS map notes: actually, the boundary between Yorkshire and Derbyshire above Winscar reservoir at the top of the Don appears to be the watershed between the rivers Don and Etherow. So the Don is an all-Yorkshire river. (The same pedant points out that that bit of Derbyshire north of the Etherow is historically Cheshire, this is interesting but not really relevant.)
Well, I have an advantage here, because I've been on a mini-expedition to the very spot.
I think it depends which side of the fence you think the precise watershed is...
Last 8 greater manchester tory seats gone I reckon.
I doubt most of the redwall Gter Manchester seats are bothered either way by HS2, they want inflation down further and better bus routes and local train stations not a quicker journey to London which they rarely go to anyway
My point is it is two fingers to people from Manchester by Sunak. Doesn't matter whether it is HS2 or whatever. It is London elite telling the north that they are happy to spend billions on a high speed line out of london but manchester can go and do one.
The Tories have a seat in Birmingham, the Tories have 0 seats in Manchester
No seats in the City of Manchester, but, what, nine in Greater Manchester? Many won on the premise of Levelling Up. "Sorry Greater Manchester, we spent all our money on transport schemes in the south so can't afford to give you the £6bn we promised. But we'll repair some potholes and give you a new bus". Not likely to go down well.
Surely, surely you can see how badly this is going down?
Voters in redwall Greater Manchester seats do NOT live in Manchester city itself and rarely go on the train to London.
They would much rather have new buses and potholes repaired than HS2
*bangs head against brick wall*
Really? "£6bn of rail investment in GM? Or repair some potholes?" "We're just simple people here, the pothole option seems much more up our street."
What voters in redwall Greater Manchester want is what they were promised - i.e. levelling up - i.e. finally, some of the money that was always spent in London being spent in Greater Manchester. Because that brings about jobs and investment and growth. WHICH IS THE POINT OF HS2.
Now, a secret: more even than HS2, we'd like NPR. That does even more: more access to jobs, more relief of suburban routes, more connectivity, more investement. But the middle section of NPR is delivered by HS2: we can't do NPR until HS2 Phase 2b puts in place the Manchester Airport to Manchester section, plus the high speed stations at Manchesters Piccadilly and Airport.
(In fact, ALL of Phase 2b technically supports NPR, because there are two proposed NPR services an hour running Newcastle-Leeds-Manchester-Crewe-Birmingham. But weirdly no-one really talks about them.)
Voters in redwall seats hardly ever go to London. Why would they therefore want a faster rail ink from Manchester city centre to London they would hardly ever use which could be used for bus routes they would use or repairing potholes in their area?
Better bus routes is more levelling up for them and the working class Leave voters and pensioners than posh Remain voting commuters and students getting a faster commute to and from London.
Even adding NPR routes to Leeds and Bradford wouldn't benefit them much either compared to better bus routes and local roads
Why would they want a faster rail link from Manchester to London? Well, as I keep saying, because it would bring investment and jobs to Greater Manchester far in excess of what improvements to bus services would bring.
Levelling up is not sitting and wondering why all the investment continues to go to the south east.
If Turin and Lyon can be linked via a 57km tunnel, why can't we also have a Pennine Base Tunnel? A star shaped layout between Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds.
Just sink the whole sodding thing below ground and avoid the planning nightmares.
Note that it seems to be costing about 1/4 of HS2...
65 miles of HS2 tunnel for the south. You'd want at least the same for the north.
If Levelling Up is a thing - and you accept that connectivity is greater in the south east than in the north - you need to be spending more on connectivity in the north than in the south (assuming your investments are sensible - but really, so onerous is the process of getting investment in transport that generally, they are). However, since Levelling Up was announced as a policy, the reverse has been true. The gap is therefore widening.
It's pretty simple - regional capital spending in the UK should be based on the inverse of productivity levels.
Unfortunately, the benefits of investment appear to be magnified in high productivity areas in a cost-benefit analysis. So London just gets more and more.
Last 8 greater manchester tory seats gone I reckon.
I doubt most of the redwall Gter Manchester seats are bothered either way by HS2, they want inflation down further and better bus routes and local train stations not a quicker journey to London which they rarely go to anyway
My point is it is two fingers to people from Manchester by Sunak. Doesn't matter whether it is HS2 or whatever. It is London elite telling the north that they are happy to spend billions on a high speed line out of london but manchester can go and do one.
The Tories have a seat in Birmingham, the Tories have 0 seats in Manchester
No seats in the City of Manchester, but, what, nine in Greater Manchester? Many won on the premise of Levelling Up. "Sorry Greater Manchester, we spent all our money on transport schemes in the south so can't afford to give you the £6bn we promised. But we'll repair some potholes and give you a new bus". Not likely to go down well.
Surely, surely you can see how badly this is going down?
Voters in redwall Greater Manchester seats do NOT live in Manchester city itself and rarely go on the train to London.
They would much rather have new buses and potholes repaired than HS2
*bangs head against brick wall*
Really? "£6bn of rail investment in GM? Or repair some potholes?" "We're just simple people here, the pothole option seems much more up our street."
What voters in redwall Greater Manchester want is what they were promised - i.e. levelling up - i.e. finally, some of the money that was always spent in London being spent in Greater Manchester. Because that brings about jobs and investment and growth. WHICH IS THE POINT OF HS2.
Now, a secret: more even than HS2, we'd like NPR. That does even more: more access to jobs, more relief of suburban routes, more connectivity, more investement. But the middle section of NPR is delivered by HS2: we can't do NPR until HS2 Phase 2b puts in place the Manchester Airport to Manchester section, plus the high speed stations at Manchesters Piccadilly and Airport.
(In fact, ALL of Phase 2b technically supports NPR, because there are two proposed NPR services an hour running Newcastle-Leeds-Manchester-Crewe-Birmingham. But weirdly no-one really talks about them.)
Voters in redwall seats hardly ever go to London. Why would they therefore want a faster rail ink from Manchester city centre to London they would hardly ever use which could be used for bus routes they would use or repairing potholes in their area?
Better bus routes is more levelling up for them and the working class Leave voters and pensioners than posh Remain voting commuters and students getting a faster commute to and from London.
Even adding NPR routes to Leeds and Bradford wouldn't benefit them much either compared to better bus routes and local roads
Why would they want a faster rail link from Manchester to London? Well, as I keep saying, because it would bring investment and jobs to Greater Manchester far in excess of what improvements to bus services would bring.
Levelling up is not sitting and wondering why all the investment continues to go to the south east.
If Turin and Lyon can be linked via a 57km tunnel, why can't we also have a Pennine Base Tunnel? A star shaped layout between Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds.
Just sink the whole sodding thing below ground and avoid the planning nightmares.
Note that it seems to be costing about 1/4 of HS2...
65 miles of HS2 tunnel for the south. You'd want at least the same for the north.
If Levelling Up is a thing - and you accept that connectivity is greater in the south east than in the north - you need to be spending more on connectivity in the north than in the south (assuming your investments are sensible - but really, so onerous is the process of getting investment in transport that generally, they are). However, since Levelling Up was announced as a policy, the reverse has been true. The gap is therefore widening.
It's pretty simple - regional capital spending in the UK should be based on the inverse of productivity levels.
Unfortunately, the benefits of investment appear to be magnified in high productivity areas in a cost-benefit analysis. So London just gets more and more.
Is the problem that each project is treated individually?
Three projects might multiply the benefits if done together, but taken individually they might not add up in the Treasury spreadsheet.
Would love to see some Greater Manchester seat polling after this week.
The line for over/under Tory seats should probably be 1.5
I'd struggle to see where they'd get 1 in the current climate. They won't win Altrincham and Sale West.
Bolton West with a bit of swing back - Bolton has the most Uxbridgy GM seats.
The hope of holding Cheadle or Hazel Grove if LD and Lab split the vote.
But out of their 8 nominal defences they don't look near to being favourites anywhere.
It's really, really, really easy to envisage the Tories being wiped out totally in their 22 Metro defences between the Dee and Don.
There are only two seats between the Dee and the Don, and both are held by the SNP.
Ha!
Although I live not far from the Don actually referred to, "between the Dee and the Don" definitely had me wondering who was going to lay siege to Craigievar.
The source of our Don is in Derbyshire so I'm not sure there is actually much Metro between there and Chester (other than Stockport).
A pedant who has just checked the OS map notes: actually, the boundary between Yorkshire and Derbyshire above Winscar reservoir at the top of the Don appears to be the watershed between the rivers Don and Etherow. So the Don is an all-Yorkshire river. (The same pedant points out that that bit of Derbyshire north of the Etherow is historically Cheshire, this is interesting but not really relevant.)
Well, I have an advantage here, because I've been on a mini-expedition to the very spot.
I think it depends which side of the fence you think the precise watershed is...
I bow to your local knowledge.
In all honesty, while I know that bit of territory moderately well, I wouldn't have been 100% on the details. I was struck by your comment and thought 'huh - I wonder if I can find that spot on a map'.
Would love to see some Greater Manchester seat polling after this week.
The line for over/under Tory seats should probably be 1.5
I'd struggle to see where they'd get 1 in the current climate. They won't win Altrincham and Sale West.
Bolton West with a bit of swing back - Bolton has the most Uxbridgy GM seats.
The hope of holding Cheadle or Hazel Grove if LD and Lab split the vote.
But out of their 8 nominal defences they don't look near to being favourites anywhere.
It's really, really, really easy to envisage the Tories being wiped out totally in their 22 Metro defences between the Dee and Don.
There are only two seats between the Dee and the Don, and both are held by the SNP.
Ha!
Although I live not far from the Don actually referred to, "between the Dee and the Don" definitely had me wondering who was going to lay siege to Craigievar.
The source of our Don is in Derbyshire so I'm not sure there is actually much Metro between there and Chester (other than Stockport).
A pedant who has just checked the OS map notes: actually, the boundary between Yorkshire and Derbyshire above Winscar reservoir at the top of the Don appears to be the watershed between the rivers Don and Etherow. So the Don is an all-Yorkshire river. (The same pedant points out that that bit of Derbyshire north of the Etherow is historically Cheshire, this is interesting but not really relevant.)
Well, I have an advantage here, because I've been on a mini-expedition to the very spot.
I think it depends which side of the fence you think the precise watershed is...
I bow to your local knowledge.
In all honesty, while I know that bit of territory moderately well, I wouldn't have been 100% on the details. I was struck by your comment and thought 'huh - I wonder if I can find that spot on a map'.
You are right in spirit, because the boundary was clearly drawn to be the watershed. I was being a bit naughty.
It is only because you can't draw a fractal path on a map that any trickle from Derbyshire as legally drawn ends up in Yorkshire.
I think the fence is a few yards off the boundary too, BTW.
Bit of a desolate spot but it was a vaguely amusing premise for a one off.
Last 8 greater manchester tory seats gone I reckon.
I doubt most of the redwall Gter Manchester seats are bothered either way by HS2, they want inflation down further and better bus routes and local train stations not a quicker journey to London which they rarely go to anyway
My point is it is two fingers to people from Manchester by Sunak. Doesn't matter whether it is HS2 or whatever. It is London elite telling the north that they are happy to spend billions on a high speed line out of london but manchester can go and do one.
The Tories have a seat in Birmingham, the Tories have 0 seats in Manchester
No seats in the City of Manchester, but, what, nine in Greater Manchester? Many won on the premise of Levelling Up. "Sorry Greater Manchester, we spent all our money on transport schemes in the south so can't afford to give you the £6bn we promised. But we'll repair some potholes and give you a new bus". Not likely to go down well.
Surely, surely you can see how badly this is going down?
Voters in redwall Greater Manchester seats do NOT live in Manchester city itself and rarely go on the train to London.
They would much rather have new buses and potholes repaired than HS2
*bangs head against brick wall*
Really? "£6bn of rail investment in GM? Or repair some potholes?" "We're just simple people here, the pothole option seems much more up our street."
What voters in redwall Greater Manchester want is what they were promised - i.e. levelling up - i.e. finally, some of the money that was always spent in London being spent in Greater Manchester. Because that brings about jobs and investment and growth. WHICH IS THE POINT OF HS2.
Now, a secret: more even than HS2, we'd like NPR. That does even more: more access to jobs, more relief of suburban routes, more connectivity, more investement. But the middle section of NPR is delivered by HS2: we can't do NPR until HS2 Phase 2b puts in place the Manchester Airport to Manchester section, plus the high speed stations at Manchesters Piccadilly and Airport.
(In fact, ALL of Phase 2b technically supports NPR, because there are two proposed NPR services an hour running Newcastle-Leeds-Manchester-Crewe-Birmingham. But weirdly no-one really talks about them.)
Voters in redwall seats hardly ever go to London. Why would they therefore want a faster rail ink from Manchester city centre to London they would hardly ever use which could be used for bus routes they would use or repairing potholes in their area?
Better bus routes is more levelling up for them and the working class Leave voters and pensioners than posh Remain voting commuters and students getting a faster commute to and from London.
Even adding NPR routes to Leeds and Bradford wouldn't benefit them much either compared to better bus routes and local roads
Why would they want a faster rail link from Manchester to London? Well, as I keep saying, because it would bring investment and jobs to Greater Manchester far in excess of what improvements to bus services would bring.
Levelling up is not sitting and wondering why all the investment continues to go to the south east.
If Turin and Lyon can be linked via a 57km tunnel, why can't we also have a Pennine Base Tunnel? A star shaped layout between Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds.
Just sink the whole sodding thing below ground and avoid the planning nightmares.
Note that it seems to be costing about 1/4 of HS2...
65 miles of HS2 tunnel for the south. You'd want at least the same for the north.
If Levelling Up is a thing - and you accept that connectivity is greater in the south east than in the north - you need to be spending more on connectivity in the north than in the south (assuming your investments are sensible - but really, so onerous is the process of getting investment in transport that generally, they are). However, since Levelling Up was announced as a policy, the reverse has been true. The gap is therefore widening.
It's pretty simple - regional capital spending in the UK should be based on the inverse of productivity levels.
Unfortunately, the benefits of investment appear to be magnified in high productivity areas in a cost-benefit analysis. So London just gets more and more.
Is the problem that each project is treated individually?
Three projects might multiply the benefits if done together, but taken individually they might not add up in the Treasury spreadsheet.
Yep - we see this most obviously in public transport. 20 bus routes in 20 towns will have smaller benefits and more costs than 20 in one town.
That's why I'd advocate a active travel/public transport raffle for towns and suburbs. Invest in each one in turn.
On that same trip, I stayed in a motel that had been built from the wood of a single redwood. And visited Crescent City, where you could still see a few marks of the tsunami from the 1964 Alaska earthquake, for example a high water mark about 4 feet up on a KFC.
FPT: On the local Trader Joe's stores: They have happy employees, not as happy as those who work for Chick-fil-A, but happier than those I see at any other grocery stores in this area (Seattle's Eastside suburbs).
FWIW, the two chains are not begging for workers, unlike their competitors. (I sort of understand why that's true for Chick-fil-A, but don't know Trader Joe's secret.)
Kemi Badenoch becomes bookies' favourite for next Conservative leader The Business Secretary emerged as a frontrunner to succeed Sunak after her performance at the annual party conference ... Ms Badenoch is the frontrunner with odds of 7/2, followed by Penny Mordaunt, the Commons leader, at 5/1, odds published by the bookmakers Coral show. Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, takes third place with odds of 9/1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/03/kemi-badenoch-next-conservative-leader-rishi-sunak/ (£££)
Rishi Sunak will vow to end 30 years of the status quo in politics as he tries to position himself as the change candidate for the next general election.
In his first speech to the Conservative Party conference as leader, Mr Sunak will seek to paint Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, as the continuity choice for voters.
As a government you don't get multiple opportunities to reinvent your image and brand after years in power. The Tories have already dried up that well.
In the May years things were so chaotic and fraught they never had the chance after the flop of 2017.
Boris managed it successfully in 2019, aided by but not entirely due to the Corbyn factor.
Truss seems to have genuinely wanted to do it, however inconsistent that was with her running as the 'Boris should not have quit' candidate. But she didn't have a plan beyond slogans and vibes and that's why it fell apart so spectacularly at the first resistance (if the argument is she did have a plan but was not able to implement it that's no defence, it means she lacked the ability to do it).
Sunak took over with the express purpose of NOT being a change candidate. Its too late to be one now. Its questionable whether he could have tried given the Truss implosion, but the failure of his year as PM to deliver scuppers the chance as he has no goodwill - anything he announces is painted a desperate calculation, even if its genuine.
As for saying Keir is the continuity choice and that's bad, it's just plain bizarre as it's yet another admission the current government is doing a bad job and so don't elect someone (purportedly) planning on doing the same things.
Put more simply, it's taking the piss.
HYUFD seems to be echoing that line. Potholes ! Nice trolling.
Jessica: You hear a lot about the impossible job of managing a caucus like this. He only had a five seat majority. That is the same number that Pelosi had and she managed just fine. Nothing like this ever happened when Nancy Pelosi was in charge. https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1709316811525615772
"Lord Jenkins unveils his recommended alternative proportional system to be used for elections to Parliament: Robin Oakley reports. Home Secretary Jack Straw notes it will not be easy to implement, and Huw Edwards explains how voting would be conducted (with the assistance of Peter Snow)."
Sunak will make a load of promises about new transport links in the north . Why would anyone believe this is beyond me .
It's a bit depressing that all the people who suggested building it from the north down were proven correct.
I note that Crossrail 2 has been "paused" rather than cancelled. And the £1.7 billion tunnel under Stonehenge is going ahead. And the Silverton tunnel.
North down was the only possibility it would ever be built.
Starmer has an opportunity to reset British politics. Westminster is a crumbling, decrepit fire hazard.
Move Parliament and all Civil Servants out of London. Build a new city, DC/Canberra style in the North as a new capital and leave London for businesses. Sell all London property which will help fund a relocation.
Let the Civil Servants adapt to life outside London. See how quickly attitudes on investment change.
I'm not sure that preplanned government cities are a great idea: they tend to be soulless places, with little real industry.
And when it comes to hosting politicians and civil servants, the problem with that is ... ?
Let the real industry thrive in London or Manchester etc like it does in New York/California/Sydney/Melbourne.
Let the Politicians and Civil Servants have a soulless place of their own to operate in, like DC/Canberra.
The problem is that currently our version of New York and our version of DC are on top of each other and acting like a black hole that swallows all investment civil servants can come up with. Move them away and see how quickly that black hole effect stops, London like New York or Melbourne and Sydney will still thrive without being the home to the nations politicians but the rest of the country might start to see some investment too.
Yes, absolutely, potholes should be repaired. And yes, absolutely, more Northerners will be affected by road quality than high speed rail. Afterall like everywhere outside of London, 75% of commuters commute by car or van (with most of the rest walking instead).
But the idea fixing potholes are an alternative to investment? Absolutely crackers.
Potholes should be getting repaired as a matter of course anyway. It should be part of day to day maintenance, opex not capex. We should be able to take for granted that the roads will be maintained and if they're not that's neglect.
And switching funds from capex to opex is no way to operate.
So opposition parties shouldn't laugh and scorn that potholes don't matter (they do!) but that if potholes are there its because of neglect and starting some maintenance and fixing your own neglect is not an alternative to investment.
Rishi Sunak will pledge tomorrow to “fundamentally change” Britain as he unveils plans to scale back HS2, overhaul A-levels and improve people’s health.
The prime minister will say in his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference that voters are “exhausted” with politics and that they believe the Westminster system of government is “broken”.
He will attempt to position himself as the candidate of change who is willing to work in the country’s long-term interests to deliver a “brighter future”.
Yes, absolutely, potholes should be repaired. And yes, absolutely, more Northerners will be affected by road quality than high speed rail. Afterall like everywhere outside of London, 75% of commuters commute by car or van (with most of the rest walking instead).
But the idea fixing potholes are an alternative to investment? Absolutely crackers.
Potholes should be getting repaired as a matter of course anyway. It should be part of day to day maintenance, opex not capex. We should be able to take for granted that the roads will be maintained and if they're not that's neglect.
And switching funds from capex to opex is no way to operate.
So opposition parties shouldn't laugh and scorn that potholes don't matter (they do!) but that if potholes are there its because of neglect and starting some maintenance and fixing your own neglect is not an alternative to investment.
Potholes are going to get worse and worse as cars get heavier and mileage increases. That's why I think a switch to axle load as VED tapers out would be sensible.
I am willing to pay it on my 10kg bike, as long as it's proportionate
If these reports are genuine - about HS2, which he can't deliver on without either a vote in Parliament he would probably lose or breaking the law, about education, which is impossible and in reality just underlines the failure of his colleagues, and on health, which is ignoring the real issues in favour of soundbites - then to quote Justice Cantley, he needs psychiatric help.
And that is not a tasteless joke. It's actually worrying.
If these reports are genuine - about HS2, which he can't deliver on without either a vote in Parliament he would probably lose or breaking the law, about education, which is impossible and in reality just underlines the failure of his colleagues, and on health, which is ignoring the real issues in favour of soundbites - then to quote Justice Cantley, he needs psychiatric help.
And that is not a tasteless joke. It's actually worrying.
If the report upthread about him employing Dominic Cummings is true, he needs psychiatric help.
If these reports are genuine - about HS2, which he can't deliver on without either a vote in Parliament he would probably lose or breaking the law, about education, which is impossible and in reality just underlines the failure of his colleagues, and on health, which is ignoring the real issues in favour of soundbites - then to quote Justice Cantley, he needs psychiatric help.
And that is not a tasteless joke. It's actually worrying.
If the report upthread about him employing Dominic Cummings is true, he needs psychiatric help.
It is genuinely puzzling that after a lifetime where he has got every major judgment call wrong, achieved next to nothing in terms of change (and actually, no changes for the better) been repeatedly proven a fluent liar and most of all, demonstrated at every opportunity that he's a thoroughly nasty piece of work, Dominic Cummings continues to be rated by certain politicians.
But equally, we all know Sunak is a very poor judge of character. Raab, Williamson, Zahawi, Braverman (edit) Shapps...
Yes, absolutely, potholes should be repaired. And yes, absolutely, more Northerners will be affected by road quality than high speed rail. Afterall like everywhere outside of London, 75% of commuters commute by car or van (with most of the rest walking instead).
But the idea fixing potholes are an alternative to investment? Absolutely crackers.
Potholes should be getting repaired as a matter of course anyway. It should be part of day to day maintenance, opex not capex. We should be able to take for granted that the roads will be maintained and if they're not that's neglect.
And switching funds from capex to opex is no way to operate.
So opposition parties shouldn't laugh and scorn that potholes don't matter (they do!) but that if potholes are there its because of neglect and starting some maintenance and fixing your own neglect is not an alternative to investment.
Potholes are going to get worse and worse as cars get heavier and mileage increases. That's why I think a switch to axle load as VED tapers out would be sensible.
I am willing to pay it on my 10kg bike, as long as it's proportionate
6.8kg is the UCI minimum for competition so if your bike weighs more than that, you are fucking up.
So we have train strike, NHS strikes, no HS2 north of Birmingham (Handsacre?) and the Tories in full civil war.
I've always thought it unlikely the Tories would crash to a 1997 style defeat for logistical reasons, but if they keep this nonsense up for six months I wouldn't rule anything out.
Just heard the news about McCarthy, (since I was in a cinema watching The Exorcist).
Was there any warning that this might happen?
Some of us predicted this pretty much exactly as it played out, that McCarthy would pass a continuation bill with Democrat support to avoid the shutdown, and then get voted out of office by his own party.
Massive win for Gaetz and friends, who want to debate budget bills by individual department and project, rather than a massive unreadable up-or-down continuation bill, with the threat of shutting down the whole federal government if it’s voted down.
The House can now do very little else, until they’ve selected a new speaker.
Yes, absolutely, potholes should be repaired. And yes, absolutely, more Northerners will be affected by road quality than high speed rail. Afterall like everywhere outside of London, 75% of commuters commute by car or van (with most of the rest walking instead).
But the idea fixing potholes are an alternative to investment? Absolutely crackers.
Potholes should be getting repaired as a matter of course anyway. It should be part of day to day maintenance, opex not capex. We should be able to take for granted that the roads will be maintained and if they're not that's neglect.
And switching funds from capex to opex is no way to operate.
So opposition parties shouldn't laugh and scorn that potholes don't matter (they do!) but that if potholes are there its because of neglect and starting some maintenance and fixing your own neglect is not an alternative to investment.
Potholes are going to get worse and worse as cars get heavier and mileage increases. That's why I think a switch to axle load as VED tapers out would be sensible.
I am willing to pay it on my 10kg bike, as long as it's proportionate
6.8kg is the UCI minimum for competition so if your bike weighs more than that, you are fucking up.
Yes, absolutely, potholes should be repaired. And yes, absolutely, more Northerners will be affected by road quality than high speed rail. Afterall like everywhere outside of London, 75% of commuters commute by car or van (with most of the rest walking instead).
But the idea fixing potholes are an alternative to investment? Absolutely crackers.
Potholes should be getting repaired as a matter of course anyway. It should be part of day to day maintenance, opex not capex. We should be able to take for granted that the roads will be maintained and if they're not that's neglect.
And switching funds from capex to opex is no way to operate.
So opposition parties shouldn't laugh and scorn that potholes don't matter (they do!) but that if potholes are there its because of neglect and starting some maintenance and fixing your own neglect is not an alternative to investment.
Potholes are going to get worse and worse as cars get heavier and mileage increases. That's why I think a switch to axle load as VED tapers out would be sensible.
I am willing to pay it on my 10kg bike, as long as it's proportionate
6.8kg is the UCI minimum for competition so if your bike weighs more than that, you are fucking up.
I'm actually after a new bike - a road bike, after several cheapo mountain bikes over the decades. I'm finding a world filled with a massive amount of dense, mysterious jargon - and I worked in tech...
Although the source is the Daily Mail, there's been rumours of this story for a whole now. IMV it's getting too specific and from too many sources for *nothing* to have happened.
China's handling of the incident might make Putin's handling of the Kursk seem humane and statesmanlike...
Yes, absolutely, potholes should be repaired. And yes, absolutely, more Northerners will be affected by road quality than high speed rail. Afterall like everywhere outside of London, 75% of commuters commute by car or van (with most of the rest walking instead).
But the idea fixing potholes are an alternative to investment? Absolutely crackers.
Potholes should be getting repaired as a matter of course anyway. It should be part of day to day maintenance, opex not capex. We should be able to take for granted that the roads will be maintained and if they're not that's neglect.
And switching funds from capex to opex is no way to operate.
So opposition parties shouldn't laugh and scorn that potholes don't matter (they do!) but that if potholes are there its because of neglect and starting some maintenance and fixing your own neglect is not an alternative to investment.
Pot holes sit in between investment and maintenance. We treat it solely as maintenance so do the cheapest possible bodge job that lasts 1-3 years, and it will be at the shorter end as climate change creates more extreme weather. We would save a lot of cash (relative to that spent on potholes) by spending/investing a bit more now and creating a more durable road surface that would last 10 years plus.
Sunak will make a load of promises about new transport links in the north . Why would anyone believe this is beyond me .
It's a bit depressing that all the people who suggested building it from the north down were proven correct.
I note that Crossrail 2 has been "paused" rather than cancelled. And the £1.7 billion tunnel under Stonehenge is going ahead. And the Silverton tunnel.
North down was the only possibility it would ever be built.
Starmer has an opportunity to reset British politics. Westminster is a crumbling, decrepit fire hazard.
Move Parliament and all Civil Servants out of London. Build a new city, DC/Canberra style in the North as a new capital and leave London for businesses. Sell all London property which will help fund a relocation.
Let the Civil Servants adapt to life outside London. See how quickly attitudes on investment change.
I'm not sure that preplanned government cities are a great idea: they tend to be soulless places, with little real industry.
And when it comes to hosting politicians and civil servants, the problem with that is ... ?
Let the real industry thrive in London or Manchester etc like it does in New York/California/Sydney/Melbourne.
Let the Politicians and Civil Servants have a soulless place of their own to operate in, like DC/Canberra.
The problem is that currently our version of New York and our version of DC are on top of each other and acting like a black hole that swallows all investment civil servants can come up with. Move them away and see how quickly that black hole effect stops, London like New York or Melbourne and Sydney will still thrive without being the home to the nations politicians but the rest of the country might start to see some investment too.
Well: I would also point out that the UK is not exactly filled with city sized holes just begging to be the administrative capital of the country. I guess you plop it in the middle of the Yorkshire dales, in the Scottish Highland, or East Anglia.
But I get what you're saying: having the political and financial and commercial capitals all in the same place creates an effect where the rest of the country is shaded. I'm just not sure that hobbling London is the best way to make Manchester succeed.
Rishi Sunak will pledge tomorrow to “fundamentally change” Britain as he unveils plans to scale back HS2, overhaul A-levels and improve people’s health.
The prime minister will say in his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference that voters are “exhausted” with politics and that they believe the Westminster system of government is “broken”.
He will attempt to position himself as the candidate of change who is willing to work in the country’s long-term interests to deliver a “brighter future”.
What is "broken" is the Conservative Party. This fiasco of a conference is genuinely the beginning of the end. Dithering, cowardly and clueless, with a side order of triumphalist incompetence, the Tories have been at their very worst.
As for the polls, the havering ex-Tory voters will soon be moving off elsewhere and the pitiful populists who remain will go down to an historic defeat.
I'm not Burnham's greatest fan, but this is a well expressed truth.
"What message will that send to people in our part of the world? Basically the one they've got used to all of their lives. They are second class citizens when it comes to transport, in the eyes of Whitehall and the Westminster system – and this Conservative government."
Yes, absolutely, potholes should be repaired. And yes, absolutely, more Northerners will be affected by road quality than high speed rail. Afterall like everywhere outside of London, 75% of commuters commute by car or van (with most of the rest walking instead).
But the idea fixing potholes are an alternative to investment? Absolutely crackers.
Potholes should be getting repaired as a matter of course anyway. It should be part of day to day maintenance, opex not capex. We should be able to take for granted that the roads will be maintained and if they're not that's neglect.
And switching funds from capex to opex is no way to operate.
So opposition parties shouldn't laugh and scorn that potholes don't matter (they do!) but that if potholes are there its because of neglect and starting some maintenance and fixing your own neglect is not an alternative to investment.
Pot holes sit in between investment and maintenance. We treat it solely as maintenance so do the cheapest possible bodge job that lasts 1-3 years, and it will be at the shorter end as climate change creates more extreme weather. We would save a lot of cash (relative to that spent on potholes) by spending/investing a bit more now and creating a more durable road surface that would last 10 years plus.
And the reasons for the scorn are not because people don't want pot holes fixed but because:
The PM has run out of ideas and political capital on more important areas. He seems pretty unlikely to properly fund his pledges, he never does. Councils who have to fix most of them are perpetually underfunded. Come spring we will have really bad pot holes and roads yet again.
If these reports are genuine - about HS2, which he can't deliver on without either a vote in Parliament he would probably lose or breaking the law, about education, which is impossible and in reality just underlines the failure of his colleagues, and on health, which is ignoring the real issues in favour of soundbites - then to quote Justice Cantley, he needs psychiatric help.
And that is not a tasteless joke. It's actually worrying.
If the report upthread about him employing Dominic Cummings is true, he needs psychiatric help.
It is genuinely puzzling that after a lifetime where he has got every major judgment call wrong, achieved next to nothing in terms of change (and actually, no changes for the better) been repeatedly proven a fluent liar and most of all, demonstrated at every opportunity that he's a thoroughly nasty piece of work, Dominic Cummings continues to be rated by certain politicians.
But equally, we all know Sunak is a very poor judge of character. Raab, Williamson, Zahawi, Braverman (edit) Shapps...
It's a ghastly thought. But the return of Dom is consistent with the observations- especially the deliberate sidelining of Parliament.
And retreat to a comfort zone of imagined past triumphs is a natural human response to things going badly. I don't think it works, because people are much less willing to swallow lies from Conservatives now than in 2019. But it increases the sense that the next fifteen months are going to be ugly.
One of the striking features of the HS2 debacle, apart from the political ineptness of the leaks, is that support of HS2 is stronger on the right than the left.
Sunak is trying to piss off his few remaining voters.
Kemi Badenoch becomes bookies' favourite for next Conservative leader The Business Secretary emerged as a frontrunner to succeed Sunak after her performance at the annual party conference ... Ms Badenoch is the frontrunner with odds of 7/2, followed by Penny Mordaunt, the Commons leader, at 5/1, odds published by the bookmakers Coral show. Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, takes third place with odds of 9/1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/03/kemi-badenoch-next-conservative-leader-rishi-sunak/ (£££)
Rishi Sunak will pledge tomorrow to “fundamentally change” Britain as he unveils plans to scale back HS2, overhaul A-levels and improve people’s health.
The prime minister will say in his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference that voters are “exhausted” with politics and that they believe the Westminster system of government is “broken”.
He will attempt to position himself as the candidate of change who is willing to work in the country’s long-term interests to deliver a “brighter future”.
What is "broken" is the Conservative Party. This fiasco of a conference is genuinely the beginning of the end. Dithering, cowardly and clueless, with a side order of triumphalist incompetence, the Tories have been at their very worst.
As for the polls, the havering ex-Tory voters will soon be moving off elsewhere and the pitiful populists who remain will go down to an historic defeat.
It's an attempt to rerun the 2019 playbook.
Unfortunately for Rishi, there are a bajillion reasons why now isn't like 2019.
One of the striking features of the HS2 debacle, apart from the political ineptness of the leaks, is that support of HS2 is stronger on the right than the left.
Sunak is trying to piss off his few remaining voters.
He is trying to placate Liz Truss and her media mates. Not sure why Rishi's massive spreadsheet doesnt tell him she had a -70% favourability rating when she left office.
Just heard the news about McCarthy, (since I was in a cinema watching The Exorcist).
Was there any warning that this might happen?
Some of us predicted this pretty much exactly as it played out, that McCarthy would pass a continuation bill with Democrat support to avoid the shutdown, and then get voted out of office by his own party.
Massive win for Gaetz and friends, who want to debate budget bills by individual department and project, rather than a massive unreadable up-or-down continuation bill, with the threat of shutting down the whole federal government if it’s voted down.
The House can now do very little else, until they’ve selected a new speaker.
I think it is near certain that the US Federal Government will shut down in six weeks time. And it is also likely that it will stay shut for some time. Whether it's the Democrats or the Republicans that get the blame this could be a major factor in determining the 2024 Presidential election.
Just heard the news about McCarthy, (since I was in a cinema watching The Exorcist).
Was there any warning that this might happen?
Some of us predicted this pretty much exactly as it played out, that McCarthy would pass a continuation bill with Democrat support to avoid the shutdown, and then get voted out of office by his own party.
Massive win for Gaetz and friends, who want to debate budget bills by individual department and project, rather than a massive unreadable up-or-down continuation bill, with the threat of shutting down the whole federal government if it’s voted down.
The House can now do very little else, until they’ve selected a new speaker.
I think it is near certain that the US Federal Government will shut down in six weeks time. And it is also likely that it will stay shut for some time. Whether it's the Democrats or the Republicans that get the blame this could be a major factor in determining the 2024 Presidential election.
I can confidently predict Democrats will blame the Republicans and Republicans will blame the Democrats.
The economy will determine the 2024 election, and the shut down is bad for the economy, particularly if lengthy.
McCarthy about to become the first House speaker in American history to be ejected from the job.
Edit: And it's happened. 216 to 210.
This will sound passive aggressive but it's not meant that way: why should I care?
Because America hasn't got a Budget at the minute, only a few weeks continuance, and if one can't be passed then the US Government will shortly go into shutdown and throw havoc upon the markets.
Between the Democrats, the GOP who don't want to drive over the cliffedge and the Trump loons who do, nobody has a majority.
In a sane world a rational Republican would make a deal with the Democrats to keep the lights on in America.
Otherwise the GOP will wholeheartedly turn the House over to the likes of Gaetz, who makes Braverman look like a fluffy and welcoming individual in comparison.
Indeed. Awful though Braverman is, no-one’s ever accused her of having sex with underage prostitutes.
My assumption is that the stuff on health and A-levels, as well as HS2, is chicken feed and he's saving up a few big announcements and surprises for his speech. It would also explain why Hunt's speech was so short.
That's on the basis he's actually that creative and calculating, though.
Based on the rather poor and unmemorable slogan, "long term decisions for a brighter future", which sounds like it was written by a committee, the big reveal might simply be a case of the emperor has no clothes.
One thing the government has been surprisingly quiet about - given how much Cameron/Osborne majored on it- is debt.
About £85bn per year is being sucked out by higher interest rates, and that's basically where all our higher taxes are going rather than health, education, transport, defence and industrial investment, as well as personal tax allowance rises on top.
If it was still at 2020 rates the government could do one heck of a lot more.
Kemi Badenoch becomes bookies' favourite for next Conservative leader The Business Secretary emerged as a frontrunner to succeed Sunak after her performance at the annual party conference ... Ms Badenoch is the frontrunner with odds of 7/2, followed by Penny Mordaunt, the Commons leader, at 5/1, odds published by the bookmakers Coral show. Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, takes third place with odds of 9/1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/03/kemi-badenoch-next-conservative-leader-rishi-sunak/ (£££)
I really struggle to see why Badenoch is the favourite. I know she did passably well in last years leadership contest, though outshone by Truss and Sunak (!!@#£!), but she has been really anonymous as a Minister and shown no real aptitude for anything other than public speaking.
Rishi Sunak will pledge tomorrow to “fundamentally change” Britain as he unveils plans to scale back HS2, overhaul A-levels and improve people’s health.
The prime minister will say in his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference that voters are “exhausted” with politics and that they believe the Westminster system of government is “broken”.
He will attempt to position himself as the candidate of change who is willing to work in the country’s long-term interests to deliver a “brighter future”.
One of the striking features of the HS2 debacle, apart from the political ineptness of the leaks, is that support of HS2 is stronger on the right than the left.
Sunak is trying to piss off his few remaining voters.
It makes sense if you consider the most important factor in voting patterns - age.
Younger people are more likely to use public transport to get around than older commuters. (WFH rates don't vary with age much except for 16-24, who turn up for work)
Couples with dependent children and older couples (over 65) are the car owners. Single parents and single-person households have much lower rates of access.
Kemi Badenoch becomes bookies' favourite for next Conservative leader The Business Secretary emerged as a frontrunner to succeed Sunak after her performance at the annual party conference ... Ms Badenoch is the frontrunner with odds of 7/2, followed by Penny Mordaunt, the Commons leader, at 5/1, odds published by the bookmakers Coral show. Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, takes third place with odds of 9/1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/03/kemi-badenoch-next-conservative-leader-rishi-sunak/ (£££)
I really struggle to see why Badenoch is the favourite. I know she did passably well in last years leadership contest, though outshone by Truss and Sunak (!!@#£!), but she has been really anonymous as a Minister and shown no real aptitude for anything other than public speaking.
She’s the female Matt Goodwin. A certain type of person is inclined to follow her around, but nobody else can understand why.
My assumption is that the stuff on health and A-levels, as well as HS2, is chicken feed and he's saving up a few big announcements and surprises for his speech. It would also explain why Hunt's speech was so short.
That's on the basis he's actually that creative and calculating, though.
Based on the rather poor and unmemorable slogan, "long term decisions for a brighter future", which sounds like it was written by a committee, the big reveal might simply be a case of the emperor has no clothes.
I find the strapline particularly inept. Not as bad as the title on this policy paper though.
I thought this an obvious spoof, but it does seem to have come from the Conservative Office:
One of the striking features of the HS2 debacle, apart from the political ineptness of the leaks, is that support of HS2 is stronger on the right than the left.
Sunak is trying to piss off his few remaining voters.
It makes sense if you consider the most important factor in voting patterns - age.
Younger people are more likely to use public transport to get around than older commuters. (WFH rates don't vary with age much except for 16-24, who turn up for work)
Couples with dependent children and older couples (over 65) are the car owners. Single parents and single-person households have much lower rates of access.
And, without being tactless, those of our older friends who are a bit selfish will have worked out that they won't really benefit from a project set to open in fifteen years time.
Much better to spend the money on something we/they can use now.
Rishi Sunak will pledge tomorrow to “fundamentally change” Britain as he unveils plans to scale back HS2, overhaul A-levels and improve people’s health.
The prime minister will say in his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference that voters are “exhausted” with politics and that they believe the Westminster system of government is “broken”.
He will attempt to position himself as the candidate of change who is willing to work in the country’s long-term interests to deliver a “brighter future”.
As with everything the Tories say, the answer is: well, who’s been in power for the last 13 years?
2010-5: Lib Dem/Tory coalition 2015-9: government without a working majority, Brexit 2019-22: COVID
They have been in office but not really in power for most of it - very different from say the 13 years of Blair/Brown with large parliamentary majorities and, until 2008, much more favourable economic circumstances.
My assumption is that the stuff on health and A-levels, as well as HS2, is chicken feed and he's saving up a few big announcements and surprises for his speech. It would also explain why Hunt's speech was so short.
That's on the basis he's actually that creative and calculating, though.
Based on the rather poor and unmemorable slogan, "long term decisions for a brighter future", which sounds like it was written by a committee, the big reveal might simply be a case of the emperor has no clothes.
Maybe the major announcement will be the go ahead for Crossrail 2
One of the striking features of the HS2 debacle, apart from the political ineptness of the leaks, is that support of HS2 is stronger on the right than the left.
Sunak is trying to piss off his few remaining voters.
It makes sense if you consider the most important factor in voting patterns - age.
Younger people are more likely to use public transport to get around than older commuters. (WFH rates don't vary with age much except for 16-24, who turn up for work)
Couples with dependent children and older couples (over 65) are the car owners. Single parents and single-person households have much lower rates of access.
And, without being tactless, those of our older friends who are a bit selfish will have worked out that they won't really benefit from a project set to open in fifteen years time.
Much better to spend the money on something we/they can use now.
#anymorefurniturewecanburn?
Quite. This could well be packaged up as yet another attack on the young.
It's more pronounced than usual because it's almost impossible to get or afford driving lessons/tests, and there is a backlog since COVID.
Rishi Sunak will pledge tomorrow to “fundamentally change” Britain as he unveils plans to scale back HS2, overhaul A-levels and improve people’s health.
The prime minister will say in his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference that voters are “exhausted” with politics and that they believe the Westminster system of government is “broken”.
He will attempt to position himself as the candidate of change who is willing to work in the country’s long-term interests to deliver a “brighter future”.
As with everything the Tories say, the answer is: well, who’s been in power for the last 13 years?
2010-5: Lib Dem/Tory coalition 2015-9: government without a working majority, Brexit 2019-22: COVID
They have been in office but not really in power for most of it - very different from say the 13 years of Blair/Brown with large parliamentary majorities and, until 2008, much more favourable economic circumstances.
But that is completely abdicating the governments responsibility for the economy. And the main reason lots of people used to vote Conservative rather than Labour was the perception the Tories were better on the economy.
Blaming the economy over one parliament politicians can get away with, but not three.
One of the striking features of the HS2 debacle, apart from the political ineptness of the leaks, is that support of HS2 is stronger on the right than the left.
Sunak is trying to piss off his few remaining voters.
It makes sense if you consider the most important factor in voting patterns - age.
Younger people are more likely to use public transport to get around than older commuters. (WFH rates don't vary with age much except for 16-24, who turn up for work)
Couples with dependent children and older couples (over 65) are the car owners. Single parents and single-person households have much lower rates of access.
And, without being tactless, those of our older friends who are a bit selfish will have worked out that they won't really benefit from a project set to open in fifteen years time.
Much better to spend the money on something we/they can use now.
#anymorefurniturewecanburn?
Quite. This could well be packaged up as yet another attack on the young.
It's more pronounced than usual because it's almost impossible to get or afford driving lessons/tests, and there is a backlog since COVID.
Not only that the only way to get a test is via the spivs selling tests that they have bought up. It is an unbelievably incompetent arrangement.
Sort it out, rather than ban the imaginary meat tax.
My assumption is that the stuff on health and A-levels, as well as HS2, is chicken feed and he's saving up a few big announcements and surprises for his speech. It would also explain why Hunt's speech was so short.
That's on the basis he's actually that creative and calculating, though.
Based on the rather poor and unmemorable slogan, "long term decisions for a brighter future", which sounds like it was written by a committee, the big reveal might simply be a case of the emperor has no clothes.
I find the strapline particularly inept. Not as bad as the title on this policy paper though.
I thought this an obvious spoof, but it does seem to have come from the Conservative Office:
One of the striking features of the HS2 debacle, apart from the political ineptness of the leaks, is that support of HS2 is stronger on the right than the left.
Sunak is trying to piss off his few remaining voters.
It makes sense if you consider the most important factor in voting patterns - age.
Younger people are more likely to use public transport to get around than older commuters. (WFH rates don't vary with age much except for 16-24, who turn up for work)
Couples with dependent children and older couples (over 65) are the car owners. Single parents and single-person households have much lower rates of access.
And, without being tactless, those of our older friends who are a bit selfish will have worked out that they won't really benefit from a project set to open in fifteen years time.
Much better to spend the money on something we/they can use now.
#anymorefurniturewecanburn?
This from the party that rightly criticised Brown for blurring the line between investment and current spending.
They are mortgaging the country's future in return for the vain hope of a better result at the next election.
Just heard the news about McCarthy, (since I was in a cinema watching The Exorcist).
Was there any warning that this might happen?
Some of us predicted this pretty much exactly as it played out, that McCarthy would pass a continuation bill with Democrat support to avoid the shutdown, and then get voted out of office by his own party.
Massive win for Gaetz and friends, who want to debate budget bills by individual department and project, rather than a massive unreadable up-or-down continuation bill, with the threat of shutting down the whole federal government if it’s voted down.
The House can now do very little else, until they’ve selected a new speaker.
I think it is near certain that the US Federal Government will shut down in six weeks time. And it is also likely that it will stay shut for some time. Whether it's the Democrats or the Republicans that get the blame this could be a major factor in determining the 2024 Presidential election.
I can confidently predict Democrats will blame the Republicans and Republicans will blame the Democrats.
The economy will determine the 2024 election, and the shut down is bad for the economy, particularly if lengthy.
There is only one party which wants a shutdown. The Democrats would get rid of the absurd 'debt limit', if they could. The GOP is effectively voting not to fund spending commitments Congress has already voted for.
Rishi Sunak will pledge tomorrow to “fundamentally change” Britain as he unveils plans to scale back HS2, overhaul A-levels and improve people’s health.
The prime minister will say in his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference that voters are “exhausted” with politics and that they believe the Westminster system of government is “broken”.
He will attempt to position himself as the candidate of change who is willing to work in the country’s long-term interests to deliver a “brighter future”.
As with everything the Tories say, the answer is: well, who’s been in power for the last 13 years?
2010-5: Lib Dem/Tory coalition 2015-9: government without a working majority, Brexit 2019-22: COVID
They have been in office but not really in power for most of it - very different from say the 13 years of Blair/Brown with large parliamentary majorities and, until 2008, much more favourable economic circumstances.
So the Tories are to campaign on the basis that the last 13 years have been trash and it's nothing to do with them when they seek to win a fourth successive general election in 2024. Reinforcing the perception of 13 years of trash is pure genius.
Rishi Sunak will pledge tomorrow to “fundamentally change” Britain as he unveils plans to scale back HS2, overhaul A-levels and improve people’s health.
The prime minister will say in his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference that voters are “exhausted” with politics and that they believe the Westminster system of government is “broken”.
He will attempt to position himself as the candidate of change who is willing to work in the country’s long-term interests to deliver a “brighter future”.
As with everything the Tories say, the answer is: well, who’s been in power for the last 13 years?
2010-5: Lib Dem/Tory coalition 2015-9: government without a working majority, Brexit 2019-22: COVID
They have been in office but not really in power for most of it - very different from say the 13 years of Blair/Brown with large parliamentary majorities and, until 2008, much more favourable economic circumstances.
In which period did they get most actual domestic policy change done? 2010-2015, during coalition.
Not all to everyone’s taste of course, and some of it downright unpopular, but it was a functioning government of the sort that’s been absent ever since.
My assumption is that the stuff on health and A-levels, as well as HS2, is chicken feed and he's saving up a few big announcements and surprises for his speech. It would also explain why Hunt's speech was so short.
That's on the basis he's actually that creative and calculating, though.
Based on the rather poor and unmemorable slogan, "long term decisions for a brighter future", which sounds like it was written by a committee, the big reveal might simply be a case of the emperor has no clothes.
I find the strapline particularly inept. Not as bad as the title on this policy paper though.
I thought this an obvious spoof, but it does seem to have come from the Conservative Office:
Rishi Sunak will pledge tomorrow to “fundamentally change” Britain as he unveils plans to scale back HS2, overhaul A-levels and improve people’s health.
The prime minister will say in his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference that voters are “exhausted” with politics and that they believe the Westminster system of government is “broken”.
He will attempt to position himself as the candidate of change who is willing to work in the country’s long-term interests to deliver a “brighter future”.
As with everything the Tories say, the answer is: well, who’s been in power for the last 13 years?
2010-5: Lib Dem/Tory coalition 2015-9: government without a working majority, Brexit 2019-22: COVID
They have been in office but not really in power for most of it - very different from say the 13 years of Blair/Brown with large parliamentary majorities and, until 2008, much more favourable economic circumstances.
Granted, on your terms they haven't had a fair run at a positive prospectus, but how come they have managed at the same time to unleash so much fire and brimstone on the economy, social cohesion, our ability to trade internationally and our standing as a global player?
Just heard the news about McCarthy, (since I was in a cinema watching The Exorcist).
Was there any warning that this might happen?
Some of us predicted this pretty much exactly as it played out, that McCarthy would pass a continuation bill with Democrat support to avoid the shutdown, and then get voted out of office by his own party.
Massive win for Gaetz and friends, who want to debate budget bills by individual department and project, rather than a massive unreadable up-or-down continuation bill, with the threat of shutting down the whole federal government if it’s voted down.
The House can now do very little else, until they’ve selected a new speaker.
I think it is near certain that the US Federal Government will shut down in six weeks time. And it is also likely that it will stay shut for some time. Whether it's the Democrats or the Republicans that get the blame this could be a major factor in determining the 2024 Presidential election.
I can confidently predict Democrats will blame the Republicans and Republicans will blame the Democrats.
The economy will determine the 2024 election, and the shut down is bad for the economy, particularly if lengthy.
There is only one party which wants a shutdown. The Democrats would get rid of the absurd 'debt limit', if they could. The GOP is effectively voting not to fund spending commitments Congress has already voted for.
Sure, if you want to know which party is to blame its clearly the Republicans, for too many reasons to list.
If you want to know, electorally, which party gets the blame, its very likely a push as each side blames each other and the stalemate continues.
My assumption is that the stuff on health and A-levels, as well as HS2, is chicken feed and he's saving up a few big announcements and surprises for his speech. It would also explain why Hunt's speech was so short.
That's on the basis he's actually that creative and calculating, though.
Based on the rather poor and unmemorable slogan, "long term decisions for a brighter future", which sounds like it was written by a committee, the big reveal might simply be a case of the emperor has no clothes.
Maybe the major announcement will be the go ahead for Crossrail 2
Yes Minister or The Thick of It can't come close to how bonkers this government really is.
Why are they still talking about 40 new hospitals when everyone knows there arent going to be 40 new hospitals.
Boris could get away with it, because he was Boris. Sunak is supposed to be Mr Spreadsheet and Details, he just looks like a lying fool when he tries this shit.
I wonder what the polling impact of this week will be. Surely no conference bounce, but will the Tories lose support? Or will the 5-8% RefUK bloc be reassured enough by Braverman and Co to offset any red wall or wavering centrist losses? Hard to tell. Also hard to tell whether it’s all “cut through” to the public or not. RAAC did, which surprised me, so perhaps the HS2 dither will too.
Probably need to wait for later next week to get polls that fully reflect the PR impact of this conference. Though it’ll all be complicated by the by-elections of course.
Unless Labour really cock up next week in a Liverpool, which seems unlikely - I expect it to be slick (I’ll be there on Monday doing a panel so will report back) - I’d expect a little conference bounce for them. Possibly at the expense of the Lib Dems and Greens.
Rishi Sunak will pledge tomorrow to “fundamentally change” Britain as he unveils plans to scale back HS2, overhaul A-levels and improve people’s health.
The prime minister will say in his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference that voters are “exhausted” with politics and that they believe the Westminster system of government is “broken”.
He will attempt to position himself as the candidate of change who is willing to work in the country’s long-term interests to deliver a “brighter future”.
As with everything the Tories say, the answer is: well, who’s been in power for the last 13 years?
2010-5: Lib Dem/Tory coalition 2015-9: government without a working majority, Brexit 2019-22: COVID
They have been in office but not really in power for most of it - very different from say the 13 years of Blair/Brown with large parliamentary majorities and, until 2008, much more favourable economic circumstances.
Granted, on your terms they haven't had a fair run at a positive prospectus, but how come they have managed at the same time to unleash so much fire and brimstone on the economy, social cohesion, our ability to trade internationally and our standing as a global player?
If we are looking back at the Coalition years as the best of the last 13, then the obvious choice at the next election is to vote LibDem..
Rishi Sunak will pledge tomorrow to “fundamentally change” Britain as he unveils plans to scale back HS2, overhaul A-levels and improve people’s health.
The prime minister will say in his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference that voters are “exhausted” with politics and that they believe the Westminster system of government is “broken”.
He will attempt to position himself as the candidate of change who is willing to work in the country’s long-term interests to deliver a “brighter future”.
As with everything the Tories say, the answer is: well, who’s been in power for the last 13 years?
2010-5: Lib Dem/Tory coalition 2015-9: government without a working majority, Brexit 2019-22: COVID
They have been in office but not really in power for most of it - very different from say the 13 years of Blair/Brown with large parliamentary majorities and, until 2008, much more favourable economic circumstances.
In which period did they get most actual domestic policy change done? 2010-2015, during coalition.
Not all to everyone’s taste of course, and some of it downright unpopular, but it was a functioning government of the sort that’s been absent ever since.
Easily the best government we've had in the last 15 years. And yet the Lib Dems are still maligned, which I find strange.
Downside of being seen as the Gareth Keenan to the Tories’ David Brent.
Last 8 greater manchester tory seats gone I reckon.
I doubt most of the redwall Gter Manchester seats are bothered either way by HS2, they want inflation down further and better bus routes and local train stations not a quicker journey to London which they rarely go to anyway
My point is it is two fingers to people from Manchester by Sunak. Doesn't matter whether it is HS2 or whatever. It is London elite telling the north that they are happy to spend billions on a high speed line out of london but manchester can go and do one.
The Tories have a seat in Birmingham, the Tories have 0 seats in Manchester
No seats in the City of Manchester, but, what, nine in Greater Manchester? Many won on the premise of Levelling Up. "Sorry Greater Manchester, we spent all our money on transport schemes in the south so can't afford to give you the £6bn we promised. But we'll repair some potholes and give you a new bus". Not likely to go down well.
Surely, surely you can see how badly this is going down?
Voters in redwall Greater Manchester seats do NOT live in Manchester city itself and rarely go on the train to London.
They would much rather have new buses and potholes repaired than HS2
Looking at HYUFD's post again, I do wonder whether this is what went through some SPAD's mind. "Voters in Leigh and Bury North are simple people. They don't want to go to London. They certainly don't want change - investment in Greater Manchester would frighten them. If we cancel HS2 they will understand and love us. We should announce it when we go to Manchester for the conference just to maximise the feel-good we will get from it."
Point of order that Bury North is a swing seat, not ‘red wall’.
Comments
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/29/us/baltimore-tech-ceo-killing-pava-lapere-friday/index.html
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/02/us/josh-kruger-death-philadelphia/index.html
In the May years things were so chaotic and fraught they never had the chance after the flop of 2017.
Boris managed it successfully in 2019, aided by but not entirely due to the Corbyn factor.
Truss seems to have genuinely wanted to do it, however inconsistent that was with her running as the 'Boris should not have quit' candidate. But she didn't have a plan beyond slogans and vibes and that's why it fell apart so spectacularly at the first resistance (if the argument is she did have a plan but was not able to implement it that's no defence, it means she lacked the ability to do it).
Sunak took over with the express purpose of NOT being a change candidate. Its too late to be one now. Its questionable whether he could have tried given the Truss implosion, but the failure of his year as PM to deliver scuppers the chance as he has no goodwill - anything he announces is painted a desperate calculation, even if its genuine.
As for saying Keir is the continuity choice and that's bad, it's just plain bizarre as it's yet another admission the current government is doing a bad job and so don't elect someone (purportedly) planning on doing the same things.
Levelling up is not sitting and wondering why all the investment continues to go to the south east.
Now tell me how to do it with 330 million people...
Just sink the whole sodding thing below ground and avoid the planning nightmares.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turin–Lyon_high-speed_railway
Note that it seems to be costing about 1/4 of HS2...
https://unherd.com/2023/10/the-brutal-death-of-manchester-toryism/
"The brutal death of Manchester Toryism
Was Cummings behind the decision to derail HS2?
By Joshi Herrmann"
Example:
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g186402-d19746609-r898997037-Avanti_West_Coast-Birmingham_West_Midlands_England.html
"no seats available, standing for entire journey on crowded train
Review of Avanti West Coast
Reviewed 29 June 2023
stood up as no seat for the entire journey from london euston to stoke on trent- avanti did not open up discounted seats in first class to sort issues , people blocked in walk way, sitting on floor between toilets and next carriages, suitcases blocking walk ways , this cant be safe, everyone the train breaks or sharp bends i was jostled around as standing up with nothing to hold onto, absolutely disgraceful service. avanti should not over sell tickets and make people stand for entire journey."
Or, as one insider characterised Cummings’s advice: “Do mental stuff that proves you’re not the Establishment.”
The comment at the bottom makes an interesting point...it wasn't going to be open until 2041, nearly 20 more years to build a railway...from my point of view, there is something fundamentally wrong with our whole systems in that will be have 30+ years to build it from announcement to finishing it.
The proposal is still for a substantial tunnelled section, from Warrington to Marsden. Though we'll now have to wait for the end of this government for that to get going again.
Although I live not far from the Don actually referred to, "between the Dee and the Don" definitely had me wondering who was going to lay siege to Craigievar.
The source of our Don is in Derbyshire so I'm not sure there is actually much Metro between there and Chester (other than Stockport).
I rather liked it, though. A nice rhetorical flourish. And it works if you mean Wirral-Doncaster - which I think was the intention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLTuoZCuRs8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdIdCIQv9M4
I think it depends which side of the fence you think the precise watershed is...
Unfortunately, the benefits of investment appear to be magnified in high productivity areas in a cost-benefit analysis. So London just gets more and more.
Three projects might multiply the benefits if done together, but taken individually they might not add up in the Treasury spreadsheet.
In all honesty, while I know that bit of territory moderately well, I wouldn't have been 100% on the details. I was struck by your comment and thought 'huh - I wonder if I can find that spot on a map'.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12589429/chinese-sailors-trap-yellow-sea.html
It is only because you can't draw a fractal path on a map that any trickle from Derbyshire as legally drawn ends up in Yorkshire.
I think the fence is a few yards off the boundary too, BTW.
Bit of a desolate spot but it was a vaguely amusing premise for a one off.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66991932
That's why I'd advocate a active travel/public transport raffle for towns and suburbs. Invest in each one in turn.
Sempervirens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens
On that same trip, I stayed in a motel that had been built from the wood of a single redwood. And visited Crescent City, where you could still see a few marks of the tsunami from the 1964 Alaska earthquake, for example a high water mark about 4 feet up on a KFC.
FWIW, the two chains are not begging for workers, unlike their competitors. (I sort of understand why that's true for Chick-fil-A, but don't know Trader Joe's secret.)
The Business Secretary emerged as a frontrunner to succeed Sunak after her performance at the annual party conference
...
Ms Badenoch is the frontrunner with odds of 7/2, followed by Penny Mordaunt, the Commons leader, at 5/1, odds published by the bookmakers Coral show. Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, takes third place with odds of 9/1.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/03/kemi-badenoch-next-conservative-leader-rishi-sunak/ (£££)
Oddschecker for the next Conservative leader market:-
https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/next-conservative-leader-after-rishi-sunak
HYUFD seems to be echoing that line.
Potholes ! Nice trolling.
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1709316811525615772
Only problem is it's from 1998.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_IZfehWF4M
Let the real industry thrive in London or Manchester etc like it does in New York/California/Sydney/Melbourne.
Let the Politicians and Civil Servants have a soulless place of their own to operate in, like DC/Canberra.
The problem is that currently our version of New York and our version of DC are on top of each other and acting like a black hole that swallows all investment civil servants can come up with. Move them away and see how quickly that black hole effect stops, London like New York or Melbourne and Sydney will still thrive without being the home to the nations politicians but the rest of the country might start to see some investment too.
Yes, absolutely, potholes should be repaired.
And yes, absolutely, more Northerners will be affected by road quality than high speed rail. Afterall like everywhere outside of London, 75% of commuters commute by car or van (with most of the rest walking instead).
But the idea fixing potholes are an alternative to investment? Absolutely crackers.
Potholes should be getting repaired as a matter of course anyway. It should be part of day to day maintenance, opex not capex. We should be able to take for granted that the roads will be maintained and if they're not that's neglect.
And switching funds from capex to opex is no way to operate.
So opposition parties shouldn't laugh and scorn that potholes don't matter (they do!) but that if potholes are there its because of neglect and starting some maintenance and fixing your own neglect is not an alternative to investment.
The prime minister will say in his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference that voters are “exhausted” with politics and that they believe the Westminster system of government is “broken”.
He will attempt to position himself as the candidate of change who is willing to work in the country’s long-term interests to deliver a “brighter future”.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-speech-hs2-tory-party-conference-2023-808ctmthq
I am willing to pay it on my 10kg bike, as long as it's proportionate
And that is not a tasteless joke. It's actually worrying.
But equally, we all know Sunak is a very poor judge of character. Raab, Williamson, Zahawi, Braverman (edit) Shapps...
I've always thought it unlikely the Tories would crash to a 1997 style defeat for logistical reasons, but if they keep this nonsense up for six months I wouldn't rule anything out.
Massive win for Gaetz and friends, who want to debate budget bills by individual department and project, rather than a massive unreadable up-or-down continuation bill, with the threat of shutting down the whole federal government if it’s voted down.
The House can now do very little else, until they’ve selected a new speaker.
China's handling of the incident might make Putin's handling of the Kursk seem humane and statesmanlike...
A defamation lawsuit against the creators of the conspiracy film alleging voter fraud can proceed, judge rules
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/03/judge-rules-defamation-lawsuit-against-2000-mules-can-proceed/
But I get what you're saying: having the political and financial and commercial capitals all in the same place creates an effect where the rest of the country is shaded. I'm just not sure that hobbling London is the best way to make Manchester succeed.
As for the polls, the havering ex-Tory voters will soon be moving off elsewhere and the pitiful populists who remain will go down to an historic defeat.
"What message will that send to people in our part of the world? Basically the one they've got used to all of their lives. They are second class citizens when it comes to transport, in the eyes of Whitehall and the Westminster system – and this Conservative government."
The PM has run out of ideas and political capital on more important areas.
He seems pretty unlikely to properly fund his pledges, he never does.
Councils who have to fix most of them are perpetually underfunded.
Come spring we will have really bad pot holes and roads yet again.
And retreat to a comfort zone of imagined past triumphs is a natural human response to things going badly. I don't think it works, because people are much less willing to swallow lies from Conservatives now than in 2019. But it increases the sense that the next fifteen months are going to be ugly.
Sunak is trying to piss off his few remaining voters.
Unfortunately for Rishi, there are a bajillion reasons why now isn't like 2019.
Rishi Sunak delivered a furious dressing-down to his own Downing Street team over the handling of plans to scrap HS2 in the North, i understands.
The economy will determine the 2024 election, and the shut down is bad for the economy, particularly if lengthy.
That's on the basis he's actually that creative and calculating, though.
Based on the rather poor and unmemorable slogan, "long term decisions for a brighter future", which sounds like it was written by a committee, the big reveal might simply be a case of the emperor has no clothes.
One thing the government has been surprisingly quiet about - given how much Cameron/Osborne majored on it- is debt.
About £85bn per year is being sucked out by higher interest rates, and that's basically where all our higher taxes are going rather than health, education, transport, defence and industrial investment, as well as personal tax allowance rises on top.
If it was still at 2020 rates the government could do one heck of a lot more.
SKS won't be able to escape this either BTW.
Younger people are more likely to use public transport to get around than older commuters. (WFH rates don't vary with age much except for 16-24, who turn up for work)
Couples with dependent children and older couples (over 65) are the car owners. Single parents and single-person households have much lower rates of access.
I thought this an obvious spoof, but it does seem to have come from the Conservative Office:
https://twitter.com/Conservatives/status/1709207218027934071?t=LnNNyAANFWcoDrI1n-fKtQ&s=19
Much better to spend the money on something we/they can use now.
#anymorefurniturewecanburn?
2015-9: government without a working majority, Brexit
2019-22: COVID
They have been in office but not really in power for most of it - very different from say the 13 years of Blair/Brown with large parliamentary majorities and, until 2008, much more favourable economic circumstances.
It's more pronounced than usual because it's almost impossible to get or afford driving lessons/tests, and there is a backlog since COVID.
Blaming the economy over one parliament politicians can get away with, but not three.
Wanker.
(Sunak, not you Verulamius.)
Sort it out, rather than ban the imaginary meat tax.
What are the odds that the dressing down included the words "don't you dare leak this to the papers"?
They are mortgaging the country's future in return for the vain hope of a better result at the next election.
The Democrats would get rid of the absurd 'debt limit', if they could. The GOP is effectively voting not to fund spending commitments Congress has already voted for.
Rather than build 40 hospitals, Barclay has created 40 Virtual Reality hospitals for us to wander through.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/health-secretary-spends-55000-virtual-31081972
Yes Minister or The Thick of It can't come close to how bonkers this government really is.
Not all to everyone’s taste of course, and some of it downright unpopular, but it was a functioning government of the sort that’s been absent ever since.
player?
If you want to know, electorally, which party gets the blame, its very likely a push as each side blames each other and the stalemate continues.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/10/03/tory-vote-lose-election-sunak-conservative-party-conference/
I wasn’t expecting this in Manchester, but I won’t let HS2 go without a fight.
The offer to the PM is there - work with me and the private sector, grip the costs, and build Britain’s future.
https://twitter.com/andy4wm/status/1708882135715664345
A party which drives him out, while welcoming Farage, has no future as a mainstream political entity.
Boris could get away with it, because he was Boris. Sunak is supposed to be Mr Spreadsheet and Details, he just looks like a lying fool when he tries this shit.
Probably need to wait for later next week to get polls that fully reflect the PR impact of this conference. Though it’ll all be complicated by the by-elections of course.
Unless Labour really cock up next week in a Liverpool, which seems unlikely - I expect it to be slick (I’ll be there on Monday doing a panel so will report back) - I’d expect a little conference bounce for them. Possibly at the expense of the Lib Dems and Greens.
So something is coming.
Pathetic.
Enormously popular across the spectrum as someone who gets stuff done.
I hope he tells them to stuff it and runs as indie.