A man who says he was forced to sell his house by HS2 said the failed project has "destroyed his life".
Roly Bardsley learned his home in Stanthorne, Cheshire, was affected by the planned route when he received a letter containing a map of the line.
After being denied a compulsory purchase order, the 59-year-old said he had "lost everything".
Doesn't exactly suggest the public are too bothered about the cancellation of half of HS2 with the money saved put into local transport projects instead
You are probably right that this is of interest to high attention voters and plenty of low attention voters won't take the slightest notice. It will frame how he is regarded by the media and his colleagues though, and it won't be favourable. That does get noticed over time.
1) Cancel a rail line they had seen as their flagship while promising to put the money into local schemes. You know - just like they did with the 40 new hospitals.
2) Reform A-Levels - while not funding the required facilities and teachers.
3) Ban smoking in a rolling scheme over the next 80 years. Nothing about disposable vapes.
For the first time in my life I want the Tories to lose a general election, actually I want them eviscerated.
Sunak's shafting of the North will not be forgotten or forgiven.
Scorching the earth to ensure HS2 cannot be resurrected by the next government which might only be a year away (without substantial additional cost) is really rather outrageous.
The cancelling of HS2 is made out to be a massive deal but how many people actually travel from Manchester to London on a regular basis?
I only go into London about 4 times a year and I live in the south.
That's not really the point (or probably relevant).
Freeing up the older lines for freight (and moving it off road) would have been the big winner.
No.
Building more roads to carry both freight and passengers would have been a big winner.
If capacity is needed because passengers are trying to travel but can't due to lack of capacity, then that's fair enough. If capacity is needed because freight is trying to travel but can't due to lack of capacity, then that's fair enough.
If capacity is needed to dislocate a fraction of road traffic off the arteries - just build more road artery capacity.
I keep telling you roads are not the answer, and I use the motorway network all day every day. The more roads you make, the more vehicles you encourage and the cycle continues. The M25 was the case in point. You need people out of their cars and freight on the rails. It is the only way forward.
And I keep telling you you're wrong.
95% of freight mileage is moving by roads, so if you get more vehicles on the roads afterwards then what are they moving? The remaining 5%? Or goods not currently getting moved?
If its the latter, there's a word for that. Economic growth!
That's two words.
In 20 years your new roads will be full to the brim again. It won't help long term economic growth.
Also a lot, lot of support for the "man is a man, woman is a woman" line from the Instagram index. But not that useful for Rishi, most people think he's still a massive dickbag even if he says sensible things from time to time. I expect tiktoks to be very much the opposite. Millennials definitely seem to be hardening their stance on gender rights in favour of sex based rights. This time last year Instagram was all about trans inclusion, now it's definitely not, any posts in favour get destroyed by all of the fairly ordinary people in the comments and posts like these about what Rishi said get a lot of support that didn't exist even a year ago.
I expect the polls to pick this up over the next 6-12 months. I also don't think it's going to change many votes for Rishi, it may do for a different Tory leader but Rishi is now, IMO, completely damaged goods. Not as bad as Liz the lettuce, but probably worse than Boris.
That reinforces my suspicion that Millennials are busybody puritans who like sticking their noses into other people’s affairs.
And another thing, there is no NPR. The new station at Bradford will have services to Manchester via Huddersfield. So a bit of new track in West Yorkshire, but no new route under the Pennines.
So utterly pointless
I suspect the only way to solve the issue is to actually move Parliament to Bradford and watch how quickly money starts being spent up north as all of HS2 and NPR become essential so MPs can get home quicker....
A man who says he was forced to sell his house by HS2 said the failed project has "destroyed his life".
Roly Bardsley learned his home in Stanthorne, Cheshire, was affected by the planned route when he received a letter containing a map of the line.
After being denied a compulsory purchase order, the 59-year-old said he had "lost everything".
There's a farmhouse a few miles from where I live that had to be demolished about a year ago in order to make way for HS2 to Manchester. That was a waste of time and money.
I did a pretty mammoth walk yesterday: just over 73,000 steps and about 30 miles
I set off from Marlborough with the dog at just after 5:30 on the clearest of dark mornings. I could see thousands of stars and the moon was bright enough to cast a shadow
A couple of miles out of town, walking along the Herepath, we came over the brow of a hill into a misty morning
We got to Avebury where I met my Dad who picked up the dog, and I headed off to Devizes past the Adam and Eve stones
I got briefly lost on the way, and slipped and fell a bit walking down the Wansdyke so I had a muddy leg all day, but got there and visited the Wiltshire museum to see all of the artefacts dug up from the sites I've been seeing
I then headed to my mate's place between Upavon and Amesbury. I met some pigs, then felt a bit guilty about my bacon sandwich lunch
Finally got to my friend's house fourteen hours after I set off, just as it got dark
The smoking ban policy is definitely cutting through. More than any others, including cancelling HS2 north.
Not in the North.
I'm just going by my real person index on Instagram. Takes no account of location. If a political policy makes it through to Instagram it means the wider country is talking about it, such is the insulation it has from politics.
Genuine question - good way or bad way?
I can envision either. The important thing is that it's basically irrelevant; young people can't afford to get the habit anyway.
Generally in favour, but I'm not sure how many are smokers given the age range of people on Instagram (25-40). I want the ban but I also don't smoke. I can imagine it will be very unpopular with people who do. There's also a lot of support for banning disposable vapes whenever that cuts through.
I'm in favour of ending smoking, through education, and that has been working for decades.
I'm not in favour of prohibition. Prohibition doesn't work.
If tobacco is banned people won't stop smoking. It will just boost income for criminals and drug dealers, increase costs on the Police and Courts and slash tax revenues. Its an insane policy.
Particularly when it'll be legal for older people. It will be a piece of cake to obtain. Even easier than it is to get illegal drugs right now, which is basically 'really fucking easy'.
It's just populist crap to demonise young people who do something that only harms themselves.
And that's about the third worst policy announced today.
Sorry but smoking tobacco doesn't only harm yourself, especially if there's kids around to breath second hand smoke.
A law banning smoking in front of children, or in cars with children etc (if its not illegal already) would make more sense than prohibition.
Smoking on your own (or with other smokers) only harms participants. That is 95% of smoking I see.
Tightening the laws on second hand smoke would be welcome but are completely irrelevant to my point on its legality for personal use.
You know it's all over when even The Daily Telegraph throws in the towel.
"Unfortunately, the party is now entering the “drunken tramp” phase of its existence, where it appears to be swinging randomly at either imagined antagonists or, more often, itself while shouting bizarre phrases into the ether. While the temptation is to stop and stare, some people in the park are beginning to avert their gaze in a sort of infectious embarrassment."
1) Cancel a rail line they had seen as their flagship while promising to put the money into local schemes. You know - just like they did with the 40 new hospitals.
2) Reform A-Levels - while not funding the required facilities and teachers.
3) Ban smoking in a rolling scheme over the next 80 years. Nothing about disposable vapes.
For the first time in my life I want the Tories to lose a general election, actually I want them eviscerated.
Sunak's shafting of the North will not be forgotten or forgiven.
Scorching the earth to ensure HS2 cannot be resurrected by the next government which might only be a year away (without substantial additional cost) is really rather outrageous.
The cancelling of HS2 is made out to be a massive deal but how many people actually travel from Manchester to London on a regular basis?
I only go into London about 4 times a year and I live in the south.
That's not really the point (or probably relevant).
Freeing up the older lines for freight (and moving it off road) would have been the big winner.
No.
Building more roads to carry both freight and passengers would have been a big winner.
If capacity is needed because passengers are trying to travel but can't due to lack of capacity, then that's fair enough. If capacity is needed because freight is trying to travel but can't due to lack of capacity, then that's fair enough.
If capacity is needed to dislocate a fraction of road traffic off the arteries - just build more road artery capacity.
I keep telling you roads are not the answer, and I use the motorway network all day every day. The more roads you make, the more vehicles you encourage and the cycle continues. The M25 was the case in point. You need people out of their cars and freight on the rails. It is the only way forward.
Logically there must be an endpoint to the demand induced by building better roads. I'm only willing to travel for so long to get to work, say 40 minutes. If I drive at a steady 70mph on an empty motorway that's only 46 miles. If you were to build a road network which allowed this, then my individual demand will cease to grow despite more and better roads being built near me. Actually, in my area this is pretty much the case - my average speed for my current commute is about 50mph, and I'm only using single carriageway A roads (on most of which traffic flows at 65-75mph).
More to the point, demand growing because of additional roads tells you that there is phenomenal pent up demand for more road travel, some of which is released by building more roads. Presumably that leads to at least some economic growth, unless people are making all these additional journeys for the love of driving.
I see that the details of the announced reopening of closed railway lines in County Durham involves the reopening of no railway lines. Just Ferryhill station.
Meanwhile I noticed this paragraph:
We will upgrade the Energy Coast Line between Carlisle, Workington and Barrow. This will enable a half-hourly service between Carlisle, Workington and Whitehaven and accommodate major new freight demands from the new coal mine.
So no U-turn on the pit.
Are they going to employ more drivers then as that's usually why the coast line trains get cancelled. Plus the coal wagon work has been planned for years, a new loading yard is planned on the edge of Whitehaven and a load of the passing places have been looked for upgrades for the same traffic. More empty promises that sound enticing but on close inspection don't pass muster.
1) Cancel a rail line they had seen as their flagship while promising to put the money into local schemes. You know - just like they did with the 40 new hospitals.
2) Reform A-Levels - while not funding the required facilities and teachers.
3) Ban smoking in a rolling scheme over the next 80 years. Nothing about disposable vapes.
Weak sauce boys and girls - very weak sauce
This is what we do. This is what we did with European Social Fund cash. France built the Milau bridge we put cobble stones in Cemaes Bay.
This isn't necessarily party political. It's just what our politicians do
The smoking ban policy is definitely cutting through. More than any others, including cancelling HS2 north.
Not in the North.
I'm just going by my real person index on Instagram. Takes no account of location. If a political policy makes it through to Instagram it means the wider country is talking about it, such is the insulation it has from politics.
Genuine question - good way or bad way?
I can envision either. The important thing is that it's basically irrelevant; young people can't afford to get the habit anyway.
Generally in favour, but I'm not sure how many are smokers given the age range of people on Instagram (25-40). I want the ban but I also don't smoke. I can imagine it will be very unpopular with people who do. There's also a lot of support for banning disposable vapes whenever that cuts through.
I'm in favour of ending smoking, through education, and that has been working for decades.
I'm not in favour of prohibition. Prohibition doesn't work.
If tobacco is banned people won't stop smoking. It will just boost income for criminals and drug dealers, increase costs on the Police and Courts and slash tax revenues. Its an insane policy.
Particularly when it'll be legal for older people. It will be a piece of cake to obtain. Even easier than it is to get illegal drugs right now, which is basically 'really fucking easy'.
It's just populist crap to demonise young people who do something that only harms themselves.
And that's about the third worst policy announced today.
Sorry but smoking tobacco doesn't only harm yourself, especially if there's kids around to breath second hand smoke.
A law banning smoking in front of children, or in cars with children etc (if its not illegal already) would make more sense than prohibition.
Smoking on your own (or with other smokers) only harms participants. That is 95% of smoking I see.
Tightening the laws on second hand smoke would be welcome but are completely irrelevant to my point on its legality for personal use.
Not that the scraping A/T - Levels will happen, but politically is there any real interest in doing this?
Surely parents are worried about mortgages, food / energy bills, knife crime, cost of uni....there is literally no benefit to an announcement to overturn the apple cart on education qualifications like this.
The youngsters need better maths skills, I can see that, but lets scrap the whole qualification system, just bizarre. There is zero upside politically or practically.
Not going to effect anyone with kids over 6 or 7 I think either given the 10 yr implementation period
The smoking ban policy is definitely cutting through. More than any others, including cancelling HS2 north.
Not in the North.
I'm just going by my real person index on Instagram. Takes no account of location. If a political policy makes it through to Instagram it means the wider country is talking about it, such is the insulation it has from politics.
Genuine question - good way or bad way?
I can envision either. The important thing is that it's basically irrelevant; young people can't afford to get the habit anyway.
Generally in favour, but I'm not sure how many are smokers given the age range of people on Instagram (25-40). I want the ban but I also don't smoke. I can imagine it will be very unpopular with people who do. There's also a lot of support for banning disposable vapes whenever that cuts through.
I'm in favour of ending smoking, through education, and that has been working for decades.
I'm not in favour of prohibition. Prohibition doesn't work.
If tobacco is banned people won't stop smoking. It will just boost income for criminals and drug dealers, increase costs on the Police and Courts and slash tax revenues. Its an insane policy.
Particularly when it'll be legal for older people. It will be a piece of cake to obtain. Even easier than it is to get illegal drugs right now, which is basically 'really fucking easy'.
It's just populist crap to demonise young people who do something that only harms themselves.
And that's about the third worst policy announced today.
What jobs do you think will get cut? The managers, or the people who actually do stuff?
I did a pretty mammoth walk yesterday: just over 73,000 steps and about 30 miles
I set off from Marlborough with the dog at just after 5:30 on the clearest of dark mornings. I could see thousands of stars and the moon was bright enough to cast a shadow
A couple of miles out of town, walking along the Herepath, we came over the brow of a hill into a misty morning
We got to Avebury where I met my Dad who picked up the dog, and I headed off to Devizes past the Adam and Eve stones
I got briefly lost on the way, and slipped and fell a bit walking down the Wansdyke so I had a muddy leg all day, but got there and visited the Wiltshire museum to see all of the artefacts dug up from the sites I've been seeing
I then headed to my mate's place between Upavon and Amesbury. I met some pigs, then felt a bit guilty about my bacon sandwich lunch
Finally got to my friend's house fourteen hours after I set off, just as it got dark
1) Cancel a rail line they had seen as their flagship while promising to put the money into local schemes. You know - just like they did with the 40 new hospitals.
2) Reform A-Levels - while not funding the required facilities and teachers.
3) Ban smoking in a rolling scheme over the next 80 years. Nothing about disposable vapes.
Weak sauce boys and girls - very weak sauce
It's utter shit from start to finish.
You know the line about how Boris lets everyone down, it's just a question of when?
For all that Boris has gone, he was awfully effective at making the party in his image while he was there.
And Rishi was Boris's faithful servant pretty much throughout.
The smoking ban policy is definitely cutting through. More than any others, including cancelling HS2 north.
Not in the North.
I'm just going by my real person index on Instagram. Takes no account of location. If a political policy makes it through to Instagram it means the wider country is talking about it, such is the insulation it has from politics.
Genuine question - good way or bad way?
I can envision either. The important thing is that it's basically irrelevant; young people can't afford to get the habit anyway.
Generally in favour, but I'm not sure how many are smokers given the age range of people on Instagram (25-40). I want the ban but I also don't smoke. I can imagine it will be very unpopular with people who do. There's also a lot of support for banning disposable vapes whenever that cuts through.
I'm in favour of ending smoking, through education, and that has been working for decades.
I'm not in favour of prohibition. Prohibition doesn't work.
If tobacco is banned people won't stop smoking. It will just boost income for criminals and drug dealers, increase costs on the Police and Courts and slash tax revenues. Its an insane policy.
Particularly when it'll be legal for older people. It will be a piece of cake to obtain. Even easier than it is to get illegal drugs right now, which is basically 'really fucking easy'.
It's just populist crap to demonise young people who do something that only harms themselves.
And that's about the third worst policy announced today.
Sorry but smoking tobacco doesn't only harm yourself, especially if there's kids around to breath second hand smoke.
A law banning smoking in front of children, or in cars with children etc (if its not illegal already) would make more sense than prohibition.
Smoking on your own (or with other smokers) only harms participants. That is 95% of smoking I see.
Tightening the laws on second hand smoke would be welcome but are completely irrelevant to my point on its legality for personal use.
Can't we just exile smokers to Rwanda?
Unfortunately the planes we have purchased to send them there only fly as far as Monaco.
Not that the scraping A/T - Levels will happen, but politically is there any real interest in doing this?
Surely parents are worried about mortgages, food / energy bills, knife crime, cost of uni....there is literally no benefit to an announcement to overturn the apple cart on education qualifications like this.
The youngsters need better maths skills, I can see that, but lets scrap the whole qualification system, just bizarre. There is zero upside politically or practically.
Not going to effect anyone with kids over 6 or 7 I think either given the 10 yr implementation period
Its not going to happen, full stop. The reality of such a scheme is bloody stupid. The whole reason we have A/T-Levels, is because some people are more academic, some are more practical, some have the capacity to do 5-6 A-Levels, others 3 is their limit....its actually a very "unconservative" policy to standardise it down to a single one size fits all qualification.
And of course that's before you think about the blow back from teachers / teaching unions, the practical elements of schools vs HE colleges, I doubt universities will be keen either.
Its dead on arrival, but just bizarre in that it doesn't even get any positives from anybody. It neither the right thing to do, but unpopular, nor a vote winner (but the wrong thing to do / you can't actually achieve it).
This whole speech seems as disappointing as a wet fart.
I certainly don't see anything in it worth voting for.
What 'road schemes' are happening? Are we getting a new parallel M6 to add extra capacity? Like a parallel new rail track as proposed but as a motorway? Or other new motorways? What's actually being built?
How about road schemes like for instance the new Western Link Bridge in Warrington that was said to be fully funded in 2019, due for construction in 2021 and still has not yet begun construction? Are these previously-funded schemes being reannounced and if so are they actually going to begin construction before the General Election? Or simply be re-promised like HS2 and these schemes previously, but never actually be built, and simply be cancelled to much less fanfare down the unbuilt road?
Or is it vague BS promises on the never-never? Need I even ask.
Resurfacing (which was hinted at) up to 70 or so Northern roads is nonetheless welcome.
I can just see the PPB at the next election. "We have resurfaced 70 roads and rebuilt 50 schools." Er, congratulations?
I see that the details of the announced reopening of closed railway lines in County Durham involves the reopening of no railway lines. Just Ferryhill station.
Meanwhile I noticed this paragraph:
We will upgrade the Energy Coast Line between Carlisle, Workington and Barrow. This will enable a half-hourly service between Carlisle, Workington and Whitehaven and accommodate major new freight demands from the new coal mine.
So no U-turn on the pit.
If you have a day or two to spare the Carlisle to Barrow coast line is a fascinating day out, as occasional trains trundle their way through obscure bits of Cumbria's industrial history for no obvious reason. Take lots of sandwiches and a flask, and the collected poems of Norman Nicholson. Prepare to meet a ferret down someone's trousers (yes I have).
However, currently Labour hold zero Cumbria seats, when normally they should have three or four (Copeland, Workington, Carlisle, Barrow) out of six, reducing to five this time.
On current polling a Tory wipe out is expected. Whether a plan to run a revised HS2 to Millom instead of Manchester will run is yet to be seen.
Not that the scraping A/T - Levels will happen, but politically is there any real interest in doing this?
Surely parents are worried about mortgages, food / energy bills, knife crime, cost of uni....there is literally no benefit to an announcement to overturn the apple cart on education qualifications like this.
The youngsters need better maths skills, I can see that, but lets scrap the whole qualification system, just bizarre.
Personally I think its a very good idea, if done right.
My Baccalaureate was 6 subjects, most of the world has Maths and more until 18.
There's nothing wrong with suggesting having a well-rounded education.
But "if done right" is key. It would need proper investment to get done right and there's nothing here that suggests that's happening.
I did a pretty mammoth walk yesterday: just over 73,000 steps and about 30 miles
I set off from Marlborough with the dog at just after 5:30 on the clearest of dark mornings. I could see thousands of stars and the moon was bright enough to cast a shadow
A couple of miles out of town, walking along the Herepath, we came over the brow of a hill into a misty morning
We got to Avebury where I met my Dad who picked up the dog, and I headed off to Devizes past the Adam and Eve stones
I got briefly lost on the way, and slipped and fell a bit walking down the Wansdyke so I had a muddy leg all day, but got there and visited the Wiltshire museum to see all of the artefacts dug up from the sites I've been seeing
I then headed to my mate's place between Upavon and Amesbury. I met some pigs, then felt a bit guilty about my bacon sandwich lunch
Finally got to my friend's house fourteen hours after I set off, just as it got dark
Looks amazing. I always think of Children of the Stones when I hear Avebury mentioned.
Sunak's policy platform reminds me of the eco-fascists that shut down the trains....yeahhhhhh....look at me...I'm being radical I am.....I'm fighting the vested interests....yeahhhh....I am effecting change...yeahhh...throw the smoke bomb and fire that paint everywhere, then glue ourselves to something....Tarquin, we can't get home now unless we go via diesel bus or your mum comes and picks up in the Range Rover.
Amount 'saved' by Sunak's HS2 evisceration = £36bn
Increase in annual debt interest since Truss = £54bn
That increase in debt interest was coming anyway - Truss only accelerated the process slightly.
The real problem is that we have the debt in the first place - essentially because Blair and Brown massively expanded state spending on the back of the pre2008 boom, and when the bust came nobody had a clue how to pay for it, so they just borrowed and borrowed and borrowed.
Thanks to loads of QE interest rates were artificially held down, so everything looked more or less under control.
We've now reached the point where interest rates have normalised, and we're having to borrow the entire debt interest every year. One doesn't have to be a math genius to figure that this is an unsustainable circling of the financial plughole. Just ask the Greeks.
As for how on earth we get out of this mess - goodness only knows. Tax revenue must pretty much maxed out with some of the marginal rates the wrong side of the Laffer curve. Every item of spending is apparently a sacred cow, and half the public sector is already on strike because they feel they aren't paid enough. The trouble with axing CapEx is that it helps this year... Then you've got to find some more to axe next year.
Realistically, the only long term options are - cut government spending on everything by 10% in cash terms, or prune some branches of government spending very severely to spare the others. Neither of those will make the chattering classes very happy.
This. I am pissed off about HS2 but if Sunak wanted to be honest with people he would admit that we are broke, we have been broke since 2008 and our ability to borrow on the cheap has dried up. It’s not so much that we can’t afford HS2: we can’t afford anything. We are paying heavy taxes but so much is being eaten up in debt interest there is no new money to spend.
If Sunak and Hunt had levelled with people about this they may actually have got a hearing. But they calculated people didn’t want to hear it so they gave a lot of waffly non promises instead.
Nov 24, 2022 Today I met skilled apprentices on the site of HS2’s new Interchange Station in #Solihull with the brilliant @andy4wm
We could have balanced the books with big cuts to capital projects, but better transport connections spread wealth & opportunity - so we are proud to BACK HS2
Sunak's policy platform reminds me of the eco-fascists that shut down the trains....yeahhhhhh....look at me...I'm being radical I am.....I'm fighting the vested interests....yeahhhh....I am effecting change...yeahhh...throw the smoke bomb and fire that paint everywhere, then glue ourselves to something....Tarquin, we can't get home now unless we go via diesel bus or your mum comes and picks up in the Range Rover.
Only difference is Tarquin's mum has a chopper here.
This whole speech seems as disappointing as a wet fart.
I certainly don't see anything in it worth voting for.
What 'road schemes' are happening? Are we getting a new parallel M6 to add extra capacity? Like a parallel new rail track as proposed but as a motorway? Or other new motorways? What's actually being built?
How about road schemes like for instance the new Western Link Bridge in Warrington that was said to be fully funded in 2019, due for construction in 2021 and still has not yet begun construction? Are these previously-funded schemes being reannounced and if so are they actually going to begin construction before the General Election? Or simply be re-promised like HS2 and these schemes previously, but never actually be built, and simply be cancelled to much less fanfare down the unbuilt road?
Or is it vague BS promises on the never-never? Need I even ask.
Resurfacing (which was hinted at) up to 70 or so Northern roads is nonetheless welcome.
I can just see the PPB at the next election. "We have resurfaced 70 roads and rebuilt 50 schools." Er, congratulations?
Don't forget 2 out of 40 hospitals. That is not just 2 more than Labour, but also 2 more than the LDs and Greens combined.
Not that the scraping A/T - Levels will happen, but politically is there any real interest in doing this?
Surely parents are worried about mortgages, food / energy bills, knife crime, cost of uni....there is literally no benefit to an announcement to overturn the apple cart on education qualifications like this.
The youngsters need better maths skills, I can see that, but lets scrap the whole qualification system, just bizarre. There is zero upside politically or practically.
I don't get the whole "maths at 18" obsession. A-level maths is pretty abstruse. I write fairly complex geometry code these days, inter alia, and even then pretty much everything I need was covered in the GCSE syllabus. Most people don't write complex geometry code.
We need more kids to be getting good maths GCSEs at 16, not poor A-levels (or whatever Sunak's replacement is called) at 18.
If the government want to have five subjects at post 16, we need to rewrite the whole curriculum.
And we will need to rejig our entire staffing patterns.
Plus, we will need to find several thousand more markers from somewhere.
This needs planning (as in, should already be well underway) now if it is to go live in ten years.
Not made up on the back of an envelope for a rather bad conference speech full of equally stupid lies about transport.
They tried to do previous GCSE and A-level reform in six years just seven years ago and it's been an utter fiasco that has left us without a meaningful exam system. Why do they never learn?
We all know the answer... because they are useless c*nts.
A truly dire speech. A set of policy announcements that were dialed in by the most junior SPAD available and almost all of which will cost 3/4x the nominal savings.
A conference of far right wing a*sholes who were so abject that even Farage cringed
I am genuinely furious that this bunch of tos*ers still form the government, and we could still have another year of this literal train wreck.
By the end of this they will deserve to be destroyed.
By the way, I am simply paraphrasing the comments of one of my most Conservative pals.
Not that the scraping A/T - Levels will happen, but politically is there any real interest in doing this?
Surely parents are worried about mortgages, food / energy bills, knife crime, cost of uni....there is literally no benefit to an announcement to overturn the apple cart on education qualifications like this.
The youngsters need better maths skills, I can see that, but lets scrap the whole qualification system, just bizarre. There is zero upside politically or practically.
I don't get the whole "maths at 18" obsession. A-level maths is pretty abstruse. I write fairly complex geometry code these days, inter alia, and even then pretty much everything I need was covered in the GCSE syllabus. Most people don't write complex geometry code.
We need more kids to be getting good maths GCSEs at 16, not poor A-levels (or whatever Sunak's replacement is called) at 18.
I think what you actually want is integration of "useful / practical" ongoing maths education until 18, I would also say English and IT skills. The things that are needed in practically every job from being a builder to coder these days.
For many they stop at 16, didn't really get it, don't see why it was useful etc. If you can take those kind of people with you into integrating the crucial skills for the 21st Century like Maths / IT into the practical aspects of their continued training / education.
That's quite different from now here are some integrals you didn't know how to solve at GCSE....here is now you do integration by substitution etc.
Sunak's policy platform reminds me of the eco-fascists that shut down the trains....yeahhhhhh....look at me...I'm being radical I am.....I'm fighting the vested interests....yeahhhh....I am effecting change...yeahhh...throw the smoke bomb and fire that paint everywhere, then glue ourselves to something....Tarquin, we can't get home now unless we go via diesel bus or your mum comes and picks up in the Range Rover.
Only difference is Tarquin's mum has a chopper here.
Or the smaller version the cool kids had, the Chipper.
Not that the scraping A/T - Levels will happen, but politically is there any real interest in doing this?
Surely parents are worried about mortgages, food / energy bills, knife crime, cost of uni....there is literally no benefit to an announcement to overturn the apple cart on education qualifications like this.
The youngsters need better maths skills, I can see that, but lets scrap the whole qualification system, just bizarre. There is zero upside politically or practically.
I don't get the whole "maths at 18" obsession. A-level maths is pretty abstruse. I write fairly complex geometry code these days, inter alia, and even then pretty much everything I need was covered in the GCSE syllabus. Most people don't write complex geometry code.
We need more kids to be getting good maths GCSEs at 16, not poor A-levels (or whatever Sunak's replacement is called) at 18.
No need for it to be A-Levels until 18.
Have higher level (A-Level standard) until 18 for the Maths gifted kids.
Have foundation level (GCSE+ basically) for those who would currently be dropping Maths altogether currently.
I think people are being too harsh on Rishi and his speech. The close out line only needs the slightest of edits to become a powerful assertion of the simple truth:
"The country needs a change. Because we are shit."
If as suggested by the Manchester Mill editor the new Sunak radical policy platform is the work of Big Dom...I hope they didn't pay him for any of this advice.
This whole speech seems as disappointing as a wet fart.
I certainly don't see anything in it worth voting for.
What 'road schemes' are happening? Are we getting a new parallel M6 to add extra capacity? Like a parallel new rail track as proposed but as a motorway? Or other new motorways? What's actually being built?
How about road schemes like for instance the new Western Link Bridge in Warrington that was said to be fully funded in 2019, due for construction in 2021 and still has not yet begun construction? Are these previously-funded schemes being reannounced and if so are they actually going to begin construction before the General Election? Or simply be re-promised like HS2 and these schemes previously, but never actually be built, and simply be cancelled to much less fanfare down the unbuilt road?
Or is it vague BS promises on the never-never? Need I even ask.
Resurfacing (which was hinted at) up to 70 or so Northern roads is nonetheless welcome.
I can just see the PPB at the next election. "We have resurfaced 70 roads and rebuilt 50 schools." Er, congratulations?
Oh I covered that earlier but it's worth repeating 2 lines from Hunt's 2022 Autumn Statement
Smart countries build on their long-term commitments rather than discard them.
So today I confirm that because of this decision, alongside Sizewell C, we will deliver the core Northern Powerhouse Rail. HS2 to Manchester. East West Rail.
So basically Rishi has said this country is not smart, we are not competent (see the £300m in contracts for the Manchester leg that were signed last week) and we are not trustworthy..
With HS2, it had either had to be done properly or cancelled right at the start. Anything else was always going to be political kryptonite. Knocking people's houses down for no reason isn't something you can recover from.
Not that the scraping A/T - Levels will happen, but politically is there any real interest in doing this?
Surely parents are worried about mortgages, food / energy bills, knife crime, cost of uni....there is literally no benefit to an announcement to overturn the apple cart on education qualifications like this.
The youngsters need better maths skills, I can see that, but lets scrap the whole qualification system, just bizarre. There is zero upside politically or practically.
I don't get the whole "maths at 18" obsession. A-level maths is pretty abstruse. I write fairly complex geometry code these days, inter alia, and even then pretty much everything I need was covered in the GCSE syllabus. Most people don't write complex geometry code.
We need more kids to be getting good maths GCSEs at 16, not poor A-levels (or whatever Sunak's replacement is called) at 18.
No need for it to be A-Levels until 18.
Have higher level (A-Level standard) until 18 for the Maths gifted kids.
Have foundation level (GCSE+ basically) for those who would currently be dropping Maths altogether currently.
And in the real world…we are one of the most sought-after schools to work at in my city, have just put out an ad for a maternity cover maths teacher and got zero applicants.
With HS2, it had either had to be done properly or cancelled right at the start. Anything else was always going to be political kryptonite. Knocking people's houses down for no reason isn't something you can recover from.
Yes, the “government made us go through a load of pain and it turns out they weren’t serious about it anyway” was the precise thing that hacked everyone off about partygate.
A quarter of the £36bn that the Government will save by axing HS2 in the North is to be spent on potholes, it has emerged.
In his keynote speech at the Conservative Party Conference, the Prime Minister finally confirmed the northern leg of the high-speed rail project beyond Birmingham is being cancelled with a promise that “every penny” will be spent on “hundreds” of other local transport projects instead.
But details published in a 40-page report from the Government titled Network North: Transforming British Transport reveal that in total, £8.3billion of the budget will go towards fixing “the blight of potholes” across the country including £3.3bn in the North, £2.2bn in the Midlands and £2.8bn across the East, South East and South West of England. https://inews.co.uk/news/network-north-budget-fixing-potholes-across-uk-2663580
The smoking ban policy is definitely cutting through. More than any others, including cancelling HS2 north.
Not in the North.
I'm just going by my real person index on Instagram. Takes no account of location. If a political policy makes it through to Instagram it means the wider country is talking about it, such is the insulation it has from politics.
@ITVNewsPolitics Rishi Sunak reported to police over Tory conference speech comments about Nicola Sturgeon
Interesting that it's an Alba member that's done it. Presumably would like to see Sunak get in trouble AND to remind people about the SNP's woes at the same time.
The HS2 debacle is like having an electrician spend a week only half-finishing the installation of your fuse box, then pointing at dangling wires and asking “which cowboy did this”. After you say “you did”, they shrug and tell you they are going to rewire the kitchen instead.
Not that the scraping A/T - Levels will happen, but politically is there any real interest in doing this?
Surely parents are worried about mortgages, food / energy bills, knife crime, cost of uni....there is literally no benefit to an announcement to overturn the apple cart on education qualifications like this.
The youngsters need better maths skills, I can see that, but lets scrap the whole qualification system, just bizarre. There is zero upside politically or practically.
I don't get the whole "maths at 18" obsession. A-level maths is pretty abstruse. I write fairly complex geometry code these days, inter alia, and even then pretty much everything I need was covered in the GCSE syllabus. Most people don't write complex geometry code.
We need more kids to be getting good maths GCSEs at 16, not poor A-levels (or whatever Sunak's replacement is called) at 18.
No need for it to be A-Levels until 18.
Have higher level (A-Level standard) until 18 for the Maths gifted kids.
Have foundation level (GCSE+ basically) for those who would currently be dropping Maths altogether currently.
And in the real world…we are one of the most sought-after schools to work at in my city, have just put out an ad for a maternity cover maths teacher and got zero applicants.
That's the free market in action.
Its not that teaching maths isn't worthwhile, its that the teachers aren't paid or treated like they're worthwhile.
With HS2, it had either had to be done properly or cancelled right at the start. Anything else was always going to be political kryptonite. Knocking people's houses down for no reason isn't something you can recover from.
I am scraping around for positives here and I fully concede to having gone through the bottom of the barrel a while ago. All I have come up with is that if Brown had these choices, and he had similar ones, he would have retained the existing spending and then screamed “cuts” when the new government admitted we couldn’t afford it.
A quarter of the £36bn that the Government will save by axing HS2 in the North is to be spent on potholes, it has emerged.
In his keynote speech at the Conservative Party Conference, the Prime Minister finally confirmed the northern leg of the high-speed rail project beyond Birmingham is being cancelled with a promise that “every penny” will be spent on “hundreds” of other local transport projects instead.
But details published in a 40-page report from the Government titled Network North: Transforming British Transport reveal that in total, £8.3billion of the budget will go towards fixing “the blight of potholes” across the country including £3.3bn in the North, £2.2bn in the Midlands and £2.8bn across the East, South East and South West of England. https://inews.co.uk/news/network-north-budget-fixing-potholes-across-uk-2663580
So basically it’s going to be used to pay for work councils used to do but can’t afford to do any more…
Hasn't Chris Packham done exactly the same? Both advocating for people to break the law & say he doesn't think he has any choice to do the same. But no visit from the rozzas yet.
A quarter of the £36bn that the Government will save by axing HS2 in the North is to be spent on potholes, it has emerged.
In his keynote speech at the Conservative Party Conference, the Prime Minister finally confirmed the northern leg of the high-speed rail project beyond Birmingham is being cancelled with a promise that “every penny” will be spent on “hundreds” of other local transport projects instead.
But details published in a 40-page report from the Government titled Network North: Transforming British Transport reveal that in total, £8.3billion of the budget will go towards fixing “the blight of potholes” across the country including £3.3bn in the North, £2.2bn in the Midlands and £2.8bn across the East, South East and South West of England. https://inews.co.uk/news/network-north-budget-fixing-potholes-across-uk-2663580
So the South gets a shiny new railway line, but don't worry us 'ere up north get some pothole repairs. Oh and those pothole repairs, most of them are in the South or elsewhere in the country not in the North.
Gee willickers, aren't we lucky. Please sir, can we have some more?
My absolute favourite part of the new Network North document - which is almost insulting in the way it tries to convince northerners they haven’t been shafted by HS2 cancellation - is the part where they promise…
Jan 24, 2022 Imagine Manchester to London by rail in just 70 minutes 🚄🕒
Today I’m laying a Bill in Parliament that will make this a reality - taking HS2 tracks from Crewe to Manchester – improving services, increasing connections, boosting local economies & creating 17,500 direct jobs🦺🛠️
1) Cancel a rail line they had seen as their flagship while promising to put the money into local schemes. You know - just like they did with the 40 new hospitals.
2) Reform A-Levels - while not funding the required facilities and teachers.
3) Ban smoking in a rolling scheme over the next 80 years. Nothing about disposable vapes.
Hard to believe this was Sunak's first speech to the Party Conference as leader - might very well be his last as well.
The HS2 debacle has overshadowed the week despite the Mail's attempts to portray Braverman as the new Thatcher - the true voice of the nation (the bits of it that read the Mail presumably).
Recent polling suggests we have two poll groupings - one has a Labour lead of 18-22 points with the Conservatives in the mid to high 20s and Labour in the mid to high 40s. The other has the Conservatives just under 30% and Labour around or just over 40%. I presume the difference is sampling methodologies, reallocation of DKs etc but we need to get through Conference season for the dust to settle so in a fortnight or so we'll have a better idea of where we are.
Not that the scraping A/T - Levels will happen, but politically is there any real interest in doing this?
Surely parents are worried about mortgages, food / energy bills, knife crime, cost of uni....there is literally no benefit to an announcement to overturn the apple cart on education qualifications like this.
The youngsters need better maths skills, I can see that, but lets scrap the whole qualification system, just bizarre. There is zero upside politically or practically.
I don't get the whole "maths at 18" obsession. A-level maths is pretty abstruse. I write fairly complex geometry code these days, inter alia, and even then pretty much everything I need was covered in the GCSE syllabus. Most people don't write complex geometry code.
We need more kids to be getting good maths GCSEs at 16, not poor A-levels (or whatever Sunak's replacement is called) at 18.
No need for it to be A-Levels until 18.
Have higher level (A-Level standard) until 18 for the Maths gifted kids.
Have foundation level (GCSE+ basically) for those who would currently be dropping Maths altogether currently.
And what about the ones struggling with functional skills Level 1? What exactly is the point of continuing to set them up to fail for an extra two years?
The HS2 debacle is like having an electrician spend a week only half-finishing the installation of your fuse box, then pointing at dangling wires and asking “which cowboy did this”. After you say “you did”, they shrug and tell you they are going to rewire the kitchen instead.
Or it’s like an electrician on your fuse box looking at the dangling wires and pointing out that the guys he took over the company from had sold you the job based on prices from 2008 when you were putting in the new kitchen and the basement conversion but since then your partner lost their job, the the roof needed replacing, the cost of wires has gone up ten times, and whilst it would be nice to put in the wiring and points you wanted in 2008 you don’t have the money to do it and send your kids to private school but he can make sure the kettle and the oven still work and also put in the new sockets with the holes for chargers that are actually more useful than the LED lights in the basement gym you can’t justify anymore.
Not that the scraping A/T - Levels will happen, but politically is there any real interest in doing this?
Surely parents are worried about mortgages, food / energy bills, knife crime, cost of uni....there is literally no benefit to an announcement to overturn the apple cart on education qualifications like this.
The youngsters need better maths skills, I can see that, but lets scrap the whole qualification system, just bizarre. There is zero upside politically or practically.
I don't get the whole "maths at 18" obsession. A-level maths is pretty abstruse. I write fairly complex geometry code these days, inter alia, and even then pretty much everything I need was covered in the GCSE syllabus. Most people don't write complex geometry code.
We need more kids to be getting good maths GCSEs at 16, not poor A-levels (or whatever Sunak's replacement is called) at 18.
No need for it to be A-Levels until 18.
Have higher level (A-Level standard) until 18 for the Maths gifted kids.
Have foundation level (GCSE+ basically) for those who would currently be dropping Maths altogether currently.
And in the real world…we are one of the most sought-after schools to work at in my city, have just put out an ad for a maternity cover maths teacher and got zero applicants.
That's the free market in action.
Its not that teaching maths isn't worthwhile, its that the teachers aren't paid or treated like they're worthwhile.
Agreed but there is no point planning how to have GCSE+ for all kids up to 18 when we are so far away from staffing it.
We have, pretty much exactly, GCSE+ already. It’s called Core Maths. And our current staffing/crisis plan partly relies on just not offering this course this year.
I support scrapping HS2. We can't afford it, and I don't think expensive infrastructure brings prosperity, I think prosperity allows you to afford expensive infrastructure, and dictates where it needs to go.
However, if the Government knew, which it did, for some time that this was happening, why is the list of projects so underwhelming and the presentation so lacking in finesse? Why weren't the announcements choreographed better between the Chancellor, Transport Minister, and PM?
I'm wondering of we're seeing the dark arts of Cummings - perhaps he wants to attract maximum attention to the scrapping of HS2 by creating this excrutiating mess.
Hard to believe this was Sunak's first speech to the Party Conference as leader - might very well be his last as well.
The HS2 debacle has overshadowed the week despite the Mail's attempts to portray Braverman as the new Thatcher - the true voice of the nation (the bits of it that read the Mail presumably).
Recent polling suggests we have two poll groupings - one has a Labour lead of 18-22 points with the Conservatives in the mid to high 20s and Labour in the mid to high 40s. The other has the Conservatives just under 30% and Labour around or just over 40%. I presume the difference is sampling methodologies, reallocation of DKs etc but we need to get through Conference season for the dust to settle so in a fortnight or so we'll have a better idea of where we are.
Doesn't really matter, does it? Even if the true score is L42C28, that still points to a terrible outcome for the government.
Remember everyone- the Gold Standard ICM polls from 1996 were in the range L45-50 C26-34 LD14-22. They're pretty much the only polls from that era with a methodology comparable to today.
Not that the scraping A/T - Levels will happen, but politically is there any real interest in doing this?
Surely parents are worried about mortgages, food / energy bills, knife crime, cost of uni....there is literally no benefit to an announcement to overturn the apple cart on education qualifications like this.
The youngsters need better maths skills, I can see that, but lets scrap the whole qualification system, just bizarre. There is zero upside politically or practically.
I don't get the whole "maths at 18" obsession. A-level maths is pretty abstruse. I write fairly complex geometry code these days, inter alia, and even then pretty much everything I need was covered in the GCSE syllabus. Most people don't write complex geometry code.
We need more kids to be getting good maths GCSEs at 16, not poor A-levels (or whatever Sunak's replacement is called) at 18.
No need for it to be A-Levels until 18.
Have higher level (A-Level standard) until 18 for the Maths gifted kids.
Have foundation level (GCSE+ basically) for those who would currently be dropping Maths altogether currently.
And in the real world…we are one of the most sought-after schools to work at in my city, have just put out an ad for a maternity cover maths teacher and got zero applicants.
That's the free market in action.
Its not that teaching maths isn't worthwhile, its that the teachers aren't paid or treated like they're worthwhile.
Agreed but there is no point planning how to have GCSE+ for all kids up to 18 when we are so far away from staffing it.
We have, pretty much exactly, GCSE+ already. It’s called Core Maths. And our current staffing/crisis plan partly relies on just not offering this course this year.
I agree its pointless if you're not going to staff it properly, that's what I said at the start.
Staff it properly. Pay the staff an attractive and worthwhile salary that means Maths Graduates think its a worthwhile profession rather than going into other jobs and the staffing problems can be fixed.
But that requires spending money. Something Sunak is not going to do.
A man who says he was forced to sell his house by HS2 said the failed project has "destroyed his life".
Roly Bardsley learned his home in Stanthorne, Cheshire, was affected by the planned route when he received a letter containing a map of the line.
After being denied a compulsory purchase order, the 59-year-old said he had "lost everything".
Doesn't exactly suggest the public are too bothered about the cancellation of half of HS2 with the money saved put into local transport projects instead
I agree up to a point, I don't think most people will feel that strongly about HS2 either. But as the centrepiece of what may be Sunak's last conference speech before the election it was oddly irrelevant to the things that most people do care about - cost of living, NHS, etc.
A quarter of the £36bn that the Government will save by axing HS2 in the North is to be spent on potholes, it has emerged...
And 150% of the money saved is going to be spent on increased debt servicing caused by Truss.
The increase in our interest payments was not caused by Truss. It has been caused by the increase in base rates that we have seen around the world since the inflation genie escaped the bottle. If Truss had never happened our costs today would have been much the same.
We are paying the price for living beyond our means, for pretending we could get through lockdowns without economic consequences, for subsidising the Ukraine war on credit and for spending absurd amounts trying to protect the middle classes from a higher gas bill. Sooner or later reality catches up with us.
Not that the scraping A/T - Levels will happen, but politically is there any real interest in doing this?
Surely parents are worried about mortgages, food / energy bills, knife crime, cost of uni....there is literally no benefit to an announcement to overturn the apple cart on education qualifications like this.
The youngsters need better maths skills, I can see that, but lets scrap the whole qualification system, just bizarre. There is zero upside politically or practically.
I don't get the whole "maths at 18" obsession. A-level maths is pretty abstruse. I write fairly complex geometry code these days, inter alia, and even then pretty much everything I need was covered in the GCSE syllabus. Most people don't write complex geometry code.
We need more kids to be getting good maths GCSEs at 16, not poor A-levels (or whatever Sunak's replacement is called) at 18.
No need for it to be A-Levels until 18.
Have higher level (A-Level standard) until 18 for the Maths gifted kids.
Have foundation level (GCSE+ basically) for those who would currently be dropping Maths altogether currently.
And what about the ones struggling with functional skills Level 1? What exactly is the point of continuing to set them up to fail for an extra two years?
Why not spend 2 years getting them up to functional skills Level 1?
Or are you suggesting just give up on them and write them off?
Jan 24, 2022 Imagine Manchester to London by rail in just 70 minutes 🚄🕒
Today I’m laying a Bill in Parliament that will make this a reality - taking HS2 tracks from Crewe to Manchester – improving services, increasing connections, boosting local economies & creating 17,500 direct jobs🦺🛠️
I'm imagining it.
"We choose to go to the Metro. We choose to go to the Metropolitan London Area... We choose to go to the Metropolitan London Area in this decade and do the other things such as fill potholes, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too. Tea, anyone?"
Hard to believe this was Sunak's first speech to the Party Conference as leader - might very well be his last as well.
The HS2 debacle has overshadowed the week despite the Mail's attempts to portray Braverman as the new Thatcher - the true voice of the nation (the bits of it that read the Mail presumably).
Recent polling suggests we have two poll groupings - one has a Labour lead of 18-22 points with the Conservatives in the mid to high 20s and Labour in the mid to high 40s. The other has the Conservatives just under 30% and Labour around or just over 40%. I presume the difference is sampling methodologies, reallocation of DKs etc but we need to get through Conference season for the dust to settle so in a fortnight or so we'll have a better idea of where we are.
Doesn't really matter, does it? Even if the true score is L42C28, that still points to a terrible outcome for the government.
Remember everyone- the Gold Standard ICM polls from 1996 were in the range L45-50 C26-34 LD14-22. They're pretty much the only polls from that era with a methodology comparable to today.
the interesting question is not "will Richi be PM after the next election?', it's "will he still be PM when the next election is called?"
Jan 24, 2022 Imagine Manchester to London by rail in just 70 minutes 🚄🕒
Today I’m laying a Bill in Parliament that will make this a reality - taking HS2 tracks from Crewe to Manchester – improving services, increasing connections, boosting local economies & creating 17,500 direct jobs🦺🛠️
I'm imagining it.
"We choose to go to the Metro. We choose to go to the Metropolitan London Area... We choose to go to the Metropolitan London Area in this decade and do the other things such as fill potholes, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too. Tea, anyone?"
Hard to believe this was Sunak's first speech to the Party Conference as leader - might very well be his last as well.
The HS2 debacle has overshadowed the week despite the Mail's attempts to portray Braverman as the new Thatcher - the true voice of the nation (the bits of it that read the Mail presumably).
Recent polling suggests we have two poll groupings - one has a Labour lead of 18-22 points with the Conservatives in the mid to high 20s and Labour in the mid to high 40s. The other has the Conservatives just under 30% and Labour around or just over 40%. I presume the difference is sampling methodologies, reallocation of DKs etc but we need to get through Conference season for the dust to settle so in a fortnight or so we'll have a better idea of where we are.
Doesn't really matter, does it? Even if the true score is L42C28, that still points to a terrible outcome for the government.
Remember everyone- the Gold Standard ICM polls from 1996 were in the range L45-50 C26-34 LD14-22. They're pretty much the only polls from that era with a methodology comparable to today.
the interesting question is not "will Richi be PM after the next election?', it's "will he still be PM when the next election is called?"
He will be, because you need somebody to pin a big defeat on, then you clean house.
A quarter of the £36bn that the Government will save by axing HS2 in the North is to be spent on potholes, it has emerged...
And 150% of the money saved is going to be spent on increased debt servicing caused by Truss.
The increase in our interest payments was not caused by Truss. It has been caused by the increase in base rates that we have seen around the world since the inflation genie escaped the bottle. If Truss had never happened our costs today would have been much the same.
We are paying the price for living beyond our means, for pretending we could get through lockdowns without economic consequences, for subsidising the Ukraine war on credit and for spending absurd amounts trying to protect the middle classes from a higher gas bill. Sooner or later reality catches up with us.
Bingo, 100% right.
So basically we dumped Truss for Sunak for nothing.
Sunak is infinitely worse than Truss. Truss fucked up a mini budget, but most of that was purely presentational not economic and had already rolled it back and brought Hunt in before she went.
Sunak just has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He has the popularity of Truss, the integrity of Johnson, the party management of May, the hubris of Cameron and rolled up with the economics of Brown.
A quarter of the £36bn that the Government will save by axing HS2 in the North is to be spent on potholes, it has emerged...
And 150% of the money saved is going to be spent on increased debt servicing caused by Truss.
The increase in our interest payments was not caused by Truss. It has been caused by the increase in base rates that we have seen around the world since the inflation genie escaped the bottle. If Truss had never happened our costs today would have been much the same.
We are paying the price for living beyond our means, for pretending we could get through lockdowns without economic consequences, for subsidising the Ukraine war on credit and for spending absurd amounts trying to protect the middle classes from a higher gas bill. Sooner or later reality catches up with us.
This is true, but this "fake news" has become truth in many voters minds.
And nobody really wants to admit the real situation is as you say living beyond our means for many many years, while piss poor productivity.
Not that the scraping A/T - Levels will happen, but politically is there any real interest in doing this?
Surely parents are worried about mortgages, food / energy bills, knife crime, cost of uni....there is literally no benefit to an announcement to overturn the apple cart on education qualifications like this.
The youngsters need better maths skills, I can see that, but lets scrap the whole qualification system, just bizarre. There is zero upside politically or practically.
I don't get the whole "maths at 18" obsession. A-level maths is pretty abstruse. I write fairly complex geometry code these days, inter alia, and even then pretty much everything I need was covered in the GCSE syllabus. Most people don't write complex geometry code.
We need more kids to be getting good maths GCSEs at 16, not poor A-levels (or whatever Sunak's replacement is called) at 18.
No need for it to be A-Levels until 18.
Have higher level (A-Level standard) until 18 for the Maths gifted kids.
Have foundation level (GCSE+ basically) for those who would currently be dropping Maths altogether currently.
And what about the ones struggling with functional skills Level 1? What exactly is the point of continuing to set them up to fail for an extra two years?
The answer to children leaving school functionally illiterate and innumerate is not more A-levels, it is to fix primary education where these things are either learned or not.
I see that the details of the announced reopening of closed railway lines in County Durham involves the reopening of no railway lines. Just Ferryhill station.
Meanwhile I noticed this paragraph:
We will upgrade the Energy Coast Line between Carlisle, Workington and Barrow. This will enable a half-hourly service between Carlisle, Workington and Whitehaven and accommodate major new freight demands from the new coal mine.
So no U-turn on the pit.
If you have a day or two to spare the Carlisle to Barrow coast line is a fascinating day out, as occasional trains trundle their way through obscure bits of Cumbria's industrial history for no obvious reason. Take lots of sandwiches and a flask, and the collected poems of Norman Nicholson. Prepare to meet a ferret down someone's trousers (yes I have).
However, currently Labour hold zero Cumbria seats, when normally they should have three or four (Copeland, Workington, Carlisle, Barrow) out of six, reducing to five this time.
On current polling a Tory wipe out is expected. Whether a plan to run a revised HS2 to Millom instead of Manchester will run is yet to be seen.
If it's not too personal, whereabouts are you?
I see that train from my window as it crosses the Duddon estuary. And was travelling on it yesterday.
Norman Nicholson's poems are worth reading for those who don't know him. Husband does a guided walk around some of the places he wrote about. That whole coast and the places in it are well worth exploring.
The old iron mines in Millom are now part of the Hodbarrow Bird Reserve. You can still see the remains of the floor in the ground.
Comments
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/stuck-on-the-slow-track-to-europe-1570983.html
How many MPs will see Cameron's and Osborne's responses to Sunak's HS2 cancellation, and say nothing?
As for Britain being held back by interest groups, perhaps Sunak might explain how the country is not in hock to a wunch of bankers?
1) Cancel a rail line they had seen as their flagship while promising to put the money into local schemes. You know - just like they did with the 40 new hospitals.
2) Reform A-Levels - while not funding the required facilities and teachers.
3) Ban smoking in a rolling scheme over the next 80 years. Nothing about disposable vapes.
Weak sauce boys and girls - very weak sauce
In 20 years your new roads will be full to the brim again. It won't help long term economic growth.
I just cannot think of any right now.
I suspect the only way to solve the issue is to actually move Parliament to Bradford and watch how quickly money starts being spent up north as all of HS2 and NPR become essential so MPs can get home quicker....
I set off from Marlborough with the dog at just after 5:30 on the clearest of dark mornings. I could see thousands of stars and the moon was bright enough to cast a shadow
A couple of miles out of town, walking along the Herepath, we came over the brow of a hill into a misty morning
We got to Avebury where I met my Dad who picked up the dog, and I headed off to Devizes past the Adam and Eve stones
I got briefly lost on the way, and slipped and fell a bit walking down the Wansdyke so I had a muddy leg all day, but got there and visited the Wiltshire museum to see all of the artefacts dug up from the sites I've been seeing
I then headed to my mate's place between Upavon and Amesbury. I met some pigs, then felt a bit guilty about my bacon sandwich lunch
Finally got to my friend's house fourteen hours after I set off, just as it got dark
Tightening the laws on second hand smoke would be welcome but are completely irrelevant to my point on its legality for personal use.
"Unfortunately, the party is now entering the “drunken tramp” phase of its existence, where it appears to be swinging randomly at either imagined antagonists or, more often, itself while shouting bizarre phrases into the ether. While the temptation is to stop and stare, some people in the park are beginning to avert their gaze in a sort of infectious embarrassment."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/10/04/tory-party-drunken-tramp-phase-of-existence
Actually, in my area this is pretty much the case - my average speed for my current commute is about 50mph, and I'm only using single carriageway A roads (on most of which traffic flows at 65-75mph).
More to the point, demand growing because of additional roads tells you that there is phenomenal pent up demand for more road travel, some of which is released by building more roads. Presumably that leads to at least some economic growth, unless people are making all these additional journeys for the love of driving.
More empty promises that sound enticing but on close inspection don't pass muster.
This isn't necessarily party political. It's just what our politicians do
"Do you believe him"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hPKcmk5uOBo
For all that Boris has gone, he was awfully effective at making the party in his image while he was there.
And Rishi was Boris's faithful servant pretty much throughout.
And of course that's before you think about the blow back from teachers / teaching unions, the practical elements of schools vs HE colleges, I doubt universities will be keen either.
Its dead on arrival, but just bizarre in that it doesn't even get any positives from anybody. It neither the right thing to do, but unpopular, nor a vote winner (but the wrong thing to do / you can't actually achieve it).
However, currently Labour hold zero Cumbria seats, when normally they should have three or four (Copeland, Workington, Carlisle, Barrow) out of six, reducing to five this time.
On current polling a Tory wipe out is expected. Whether a plan to run a revised HS2 to Millom instead of Manchester will run is yet to be seen.
“The Midlands Rail Hub will look at how you get high-speed trains through Birmingham and out to East Midlands Parkway.
“I’m still comfortable high-speed trains – not a new line but high-speed trains – will come to Parkway, Derby, Nottingham and Chesterfield.
“I don’t agree we’re not going to get high-speed travel through the East Midlands.
“If we can do the work to connect the dots, there’s no reason we can’t get high-speed trains to the places we thought we’d get them before.”
https://nottstv.com/fears-of-east-midlands-being-levelled-down-by-disaster-hs2-cancellation/
Andy Street will not be resigning from the Tory Party after all.
https://x.com/andy4wm/status/1709569052442607732?s=61&t=s0ae0IFncdLS1Dc7J0P_TQ
@UKLabour
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1h
The Tories are furious about the state of Britain today.
Just wait until they find out who's been in power for the last 13 years.
My Baccalaureate was 6 subjects, most of the world has Maths and more until 18.
There's nothing wrong with suggesting having a well-rounded education.
But "if done right" is key. It would need proper investment to get done right and there's nothing here that suggests that's happening.
I am pissed off about HS2 but if Sunak wanted to be honest with people he would admit that we are broke, we have been broke since 2008 and our ability to borrow on the cheap has dried up. It’s not so much that we can’t afford HS2: we can’t afford anything. We are paying heavy taxes but so much is being eaten up in debt interest there is no new money to spend.
If Sunak and Hunt had levelled with people about this they may actually have got a hearing. But they calculated people didn’t want to hear it so they gave a lot of waffly non promises instead.
Nov 24, 2022
Today I met skilled apprentices on the site of HS2’s new Interchange Station in #Solihull with the brilliant @andy4wm
We could have balanced the books with big cuts to capital projects, but better transport connections spread wealth & opportunity - so we are proud to BACK HS2
Rishi Sunak reported to police over Tory conference speech comments about Nicola Sturgeon
We need more kids to be getting good maths GCSEs at 16, not poor A-levels (or whatever Sunak's replacement is called) at 18.
A truly dire speech. A set of policy announcements that were dialed in by the most junior SPAD available and almost all of which will cost 3/4x the nominal savings.
A conference of far right wing a*sholes who were so abject that even Farage cringed
I am genuinely furious that this bunch of tos*ers still form the government, and we could still have another year of this literal train wreck.
By the end of this they will deserve to be destroyed.
By the way, I am simply paraphrasing the comments of one of my most Conservative pals.
My own thoughts do not delete the expletives.
For many they stop at 16, didn't really get it, don't see why it was useful etc. If you can take those kind of people with you into integrating the crucial skills for the 21st Century like Maths / IT into the practical aspects of their continued training / education.
That's quite different from now here are some integrals you didn't know how to solve at GCSE....here is now you do integration by substitution etc.
Personally I never understood it!
Have higher level (A-Level standard) until 18 for the Maths gifted kids.
Have foundation level (GCSE+ basically) for those who would currently be dropping Maths altogether currently.
https://twitter.com/Jeremy_Hunt/status/1595808268286312448
"The country needs a change. Because we are shit."
Smart countries build on their long-term commitments rather than discard them.
So today I confirm that because of this decision, alongside Sizewell C, we will deliver the core Northern Powerhouse Rail. HS2 to Manchester. East West Rail.
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-autumn-statement-2022-speech
So basically Rishi has said this country is not smart, we are not competent (see the £300m in contracts for the Manchester leg that were signed last week) and we are not trustworthy..
In his keynote speech at the Conservative Party Conference, the Prime Minister finally confirmed the northern leg of the high-speed rail project beyond Birmingham is being cancelled with a promise that “every penny” will be spent on “hundreds” of other local transport projects instead.
But details published in a 40-page report from the Government titled Network North: Transforming British Transport reveal that in total, £8.3billion of the budget will go towards fixing “the blight of potholes” across the country including £3.3bn in the North, £2.2bn in the Midlands and £2.8bn across the East, South East and South West of England.
https://inews.co.uk/news/network-north-budget-fixing-potholes-across-uk-2663580
https://inews.co.uk/news/hs2-manchester-leg-contracts-signed-up-before-project-scrapped-2662433 (£££)
The HS2 debacle is like having an electrician spend a week only half-finishing the installation of your fuse box, then pointing at dangling wires and asking “which cowboy did this”. After you say “you did”, they shrug and tell you they are going to rewire the kitchen instead.
Its not that teaching maths isn't worthwhile, its that the teachers aren't paid or treated like they're worthwhile.
Extinction Rebellion Tactics.
From Black Belt Barrister, D Shensmith.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP9mU7FQfGw
Gee willickers, aren't we lucky. Please sir, can we have some more?
My absolute favourite part of the new Network North document - which is almost insulting in the way it tries to convince northerners they haven’t been shafted by HS2 cancellation - is the part where they promise…
To fix potholes in the South of England.
Jan 24, 2022
Imagine Manchester to London by rail in just 70 minutes 🚄🕒
Today I’m laying a Bill in Parliament that will make this a reality - taking HS2 tracks from Crewe to Manchester – improving services, increasing connections, boosting local economies & creating 17,500 direct jobs🦺🛠️
Forgive me, but I'd sooner see them both lose.
Hard to believe this was Sunak's first speech to the Party Conference as leader - might very well be his last as well.
The HS2 debacle has overshadowed the week despite the Mail's attempts to portray Braverman as the new Thatcher - the true voice of the nation (the bits of it that read the Mail presumably).
Recent polling suggests we have two poll groupings - one has a Labour lead of 18-22 points with the Conservatives in the mid to high 20s and Labour in the mid to high 40s. The other has the Conservatives just under 30% and Labour around or just over 40%. I presume the difference is sampling methodologies, reallocation of DKs etc but we need to get through Conference season for the dust to settle so in a fortnight or so we'll have a better idea of where we are.
What exactly is the point of continuing to set them up to fail for an extra two years?
We have, pretty much exactly, GCSE+ already. It’s called Core Maths. And our current staffing/crisis plan partly relies on just not offering this course this year.
Is there any Tory on tonight who is actually prepared to defend this bunch of &*£@s ?
I support scrapping HS2. We can't afford it, and I don't think expensive infrastructure brings prosperity, I think prosperity allows you to afford expensive infrastructure, and dictates where it needs to go.
However, if the Government knew, which it did, for some time that this was happening, why is the list of projects so underwhelming and the presentation so lacking in finesse? Why weren't the announcements choreographed better between the Chancellor, Transport Minister, and PM?
I'm wondering of we're seeing the dark arts of Cummings - perhaps he wants to attract maximum attention to the scrapping of HS2 by creating this excrutiating mess.
Remember everyone- the Gold Standard ICM polls from 1996 were in the range L45-50 C26-34 LD14-22. They're pretty much the only polls from that era with a methodology comparable to today.
Staff it properly. Pay the staff an attractive and worthwhile salary that means Maths Graduates think its a worthwhile profession rather than going into other jobs and the staffing problems can be fixed.
But that requires spending money. Something Sunak is not going to do.
5 team group of death to decide who gets the automatic rights?
We are paying the price for living beyond our means, for pretending we could get through lockdowns without economic consequences, for subsidising the Ukraine war on credit and for spending absurd amounts trying to protect the middle classes
from a higher gas bill.
Sooner or later reality catches up with us.
Or are you suggesting just give up on them and write them off?
"We choose to go to the Metro. We choose to go to the Metropolitan London Area... We choose to go to the Metropolitan London Area in this decade and do the other things such as fill potholes, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too. Tea, anyone?"
So basically we dumped Truss for Sunak for nothing.
Sunak is infinitely worse than Truss. Truss fucked up a mini budget, but most of that was purely presentational not economic and had already rolled it back and brought Hunt in before she went.
Sunak just has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He has the popularity of Truss, the integrity of Johnson, the party management of May, the hubris of Cameron and rolled up with the economics of Brown.
https://x.com/paulwaugh/status/1709652101586964622?s=20
And nobody really wants to admit the real situation is as you say living beyond our means for many many years, while piss poor productivity.
I see that train from my window as it crosses the Duddon estuary. And was travelling on it yesterday.
Portillo's Great Coastal Railway Journeys - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001m82d - covers this line.
Norman Nicholson's poems are worth reading for those who don't know him. Husband does a guided walk around some of the places he wrote about. That whole coast and the places in it are well worth exploring.
The old iron mines in Millom are now part of the Hodbarrow Bird Reserve. You can still see the remains of the floor in the ground.