Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
Class auto-correct, but I think it is brexit which is going to outlast more than 45 ministers.
LOL at prolific PB regulars who get excited about saving 45 minutes of train journey, I have a very obvious suggestion as to how they could save 4 times that every single day.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
The interesting bit is that the commentators were dumb enough to fall for it.
It's cracking trolling from Barnier. And as usual the pbT's are biting.
It's beyond laughable what the MSM are peddling rn. Davis should turn up to the next meeting with a hundred packs of A4 paper stacked up in front of him and give the cameras the bird.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
In any other country HS2 would be welcomed, as investment in the future. French towns competed to be close to it, and the likes of Amiens have suffered from being off route.
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
The interesting bit is that the commentators were dumb enough to fall for it.
It's cracking trolling from Barnier. And as usual the pbT's are biting.
It's beyond laughable what the MSM are peddling rn. Davis should turn up to the next meeting with a hundred packs of A4 paper stacked up in front of him and give the cameras the bird.
Just imagine if the EU side turned up with no papers,the bull from the remain media would have being the EU not taking Davis seriously,another one up to the EU.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
In any other country HS2 would be welcomed, as investment in the future. French towns competed to be close to it, and the likes of Amiens have suffered from being off route.
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
A lot of the moaning I've heard is from people who are impacted by it but don't get any benefit from it at all....
My only complaint is that I'm not sure if trains will be stopped at York or continue to Newcastle on the existing tracks. Oh and if the track from Darlington to Newcastle which supposedly needs to be straightened anyway is going to be straightened.
The interesting bit is that the commentators were dumb enough to fall for it.
It's cracking trolling from Barnier. And as usual the pbT's are biting.
It's beyond laughable what the MSM are peddling rn. Davis should turn up to the next meeting with a hundred packs of A4 paper stacked up in front of him and give the cameras the bird.
Satire as an alternative to reasoned argument? It is easy to see that Remainers just make statements of opinion, dressed up as fact, rather than engage in the issues.
Are you actually aware of the legal position with respect of the Brexit Bill? What do you actually think will happen if Davis offers to refer this to the ICJ conditional on an overall trade deal? How will the EU appear if they refuse?
But hey, much easier just to insult Davis and glorify Barnier....
I look forward to the day when it finally dawns on the EU that they have no legal case to demand anything whatsoever from us, their collective arrogance will deflate quicker than that of Blatter and Platini.
The interesting bit is that the commentators were dumb enough to fall for it.
It's cracking trolling from Barnier. And as usual the pbT's are biting.
It's beyond laughable what the MSM are peddling rn. Davis should turn up to the next meeting with a hundred packs of A4 paper stacked up in front of him and give the cameras the bird.
There was a scene in House of Cards where Claire Underwood passes off a long trolley-convoy of telephone directories and random printouts as a "petition".
I've used it myself on many occasions in a much more limited way - bundling random papers into a folder before a meeting. A cheap trick but surprisingly effective.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
In any other country HS2 would be welcomed, as investment in the future. French towns competed to be close to it, and the likes of Amiens have suffered from being off route.
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
Yes a good use of £111 billion on a country that cannot house people, I know let's have faster trains. What dummy could not upgrade the existing infrastructure and put on double decker trains like those stupid Europeans do.
Brexit could be poised to tear Labour apart after a poll showed that more than 80 per cent of party members oppose Jeremy Corbyn’s plan to take the UK out of the European single market.
Almost 70 per cent of members polled said they thought Britain should definitely stay in the trade bloc while a further fifth of members answered “more yes than no” to the question and just four per cent backed leaving the arrangement entirely.
It's a dog that won't really bark. I know plenty of party members, including myself, who want Brexit as limited as possible and would much prefer none at all. I don't know any who regard it as an issue to reignite the internal wars, and rather a lot who feel the electorate have made a mistake but we have to go along with it unless the public mood totally changes.
I would say it is rather early in the day to say that the Labour EU dog won't stir from his slumbers and bark.
Who the feck knows where we will be in two years and what sort of nonsense deal Davis has cobbled together?
It was only a few short weeks ago that we were assured the referendum had finally ended the Tory feud over Europe. Turns out not to be the case.
In the Labour party, what you have is a far left leadership that has always wanted Brexit versus everyone else. Right now, the Tories are making it very easy for Corbyn and McDonnell. But if they had smart operators, as opposed to back-stabbing donkeys, they might notice that even key union supporters are urging a Labour rethink:
The interesting bit is that the commentators were dumb enough to fall for it.
It's cracking trolling from Barnier. And as usual the pbT's are biting.
It's beyond laughable what the MSM are peddling rn. Davis should turn up to the next meeting with a hundred packs of A4 paper stacked up in front of him and give the cameras the bird.
He is not that clever
It would be nice though, if just once, a politician decided they'd had enough of the bs and invited the media to shove it up their arse. Prezza twatting that egg moron kinda stuff.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
Who's going to buy the tickets? A subset of an already fractured market.
I'm going to London tomorrow. Already the choice is between £100 for a Branson special and £25 for a chugger through Northampton or Aylesbury. Is the extra worth it? In 2017 there's plenty I can do in the extra 45 minutes on the train. Or I can just do without the journey altogether and skype the people I want to talk to.
How much are the tickets on a £100 billion train going to cost? £200+? And who's going to buy them?
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
In any other country HS2 would be welcomed, as investment in the future. French towns competed to be close to it, and the likes of Amiens have suffered from being off route.
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
Yes a good use of £111 billion on a country that cannot house people, I know let's have faster trains. What dummy could not upgrade the existing infrastructure and put on double decker trains like those stupid Europeans do.
Because we would have to replace most of the bridges!
Not paying close attention to HS2 but a few months ago most of the complaints (to-be-demolished houses aside) was of places that wanted the line nearer, not further away.
It'd probably have more support if it started in Yorkshire and went outwards rather than coming here last.
Electrification of one line or other, perhaps to Manchester from Leeds, had its funding scrapped a couple of years ago. People see money being unavailable here but freely available for a London-Birmingham high speed line.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
In any other country HS2 would be welcomed, as investment in the future. French towns competed to be close to it, and the likes of Amiens have suffered from being off route.
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
A lot of the moaning I've heard is from people who are impacted by it but don't get any benefit from it at all....
My only complaint is that I'm not sure if trains will be stopped at York or continue to Newcastle on the existing tracks. Oh and if the track from Darlington to Newcastle which supposedly needs to be straightened anyway is going to be straightened.
The interesting bit is that the commentators were dumb enough to fall for it.
It's cracking trolling from Barnier. And as usual the pbT's are biting.
It's beyond laughable what the MSM are peddling rn. Davis should turn up to the next meeting with a hundred packs of A4 paper stacked up in front of him and give the cameras the bird.
There was a scene in House of Cards where Claire Underwood passes off a long trolley-convoy of telephone directories and random printouts as a "petition".
I've used it myself on many occasions in a much more limited way - bundling random papers into a folder before a meeting. A cheap trick but surprisingly effective.
Doesn't always work of course. Chamberlain had a piece of paper
The interesting bit is that the commentators were dumb enough to fall for it.
It's cracking trolling from Barnier. And as usual the pbT's are biting.
It's beyond laughable what the MSM are peddling rn. Davis should turn up to the next meeting with a hundred packs of A4 paper stacked up in front of him and give the cameras the bird.
He is not that clever
It would be nice though, if just once, a politician decided they'd had enough of the bs and invited the media to shove it up their arse. Prezza twatting that egg moron kinda stuff.
That's what Trump has done so well and the media hate him for it. The backlash has been an appalling affront to democracy.
The interesting bit is that the commentators were dumb enough to fall for it.
It's cracking trolling from Barnier. And as usual the pbT's are biting.
It's beyond laughable what the MSM are peddling rn. Davis should turn up to the next meeting with a hundred packs of A4 paper stacked up in front of him and give the cameras the bird.
He is not that clever
It would be nice though, if just once, a politician decided they'd had enough of the bs and invited the media to shove it up their arse. Prezza twatting that egg moron kinda stuff.
That's what Trump has done so well and the media hate him for it. The backlash has been an appalling affront to democracy.
I loathe trumps politics and think he's barking up several wrong trees but I do enjoy his trolling of the MSM. Thatcher was good at it as well.
Not paying close attention to HS2 but a few months ago most of the complaints (to-be-demolished houses aside) was of places that wanted the line nearer, not further away.
It'd probably have more support if it started in Yorkshire and went outwards rather than coming here last.
Electrification of one line or other, perhaps to Manchester from Leeds, had its funding scrapped a couple of years ago. People see money being unavailable here but freely available for a London-Birmingham high speed line.
"It'd probably have more support if it started in Yorkshire and went outwards rather than coming here last."
Why?
"Electrification of one line or other, perhaps to Manchester from Leeds, had its funding scrapped a couple of years ago."
AFAIAA that is totally wrong. It was paused as the project were reassessed after Network Rail's massive budget and timescale overruns on the GWML electrification, then unpaused after new timescales and costs were agreed. Some lines have already been electrified as part of the work:
The Dutch move to restrict right of return to Holland by removing passports is a direct attack on the rights of the Dutch Somalis that have moved here in such numbers. It can be seen in the same light as the Verhofstadt demand of "no social dumping" after brexit. They call for rights of EU nationals in the UK and how these rights must be enforced, but if you are the wrong EU national you will have no rights in the EU itself.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
In any other country HS2 would be welcomed, as investment in the future. French towns competed to be close to it, and the likes of Amiens have suffered from being off route.
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
Yes a good use of £111 billion on a country that cannot house people, I know let's have faster trains. What dummy could not upgrade the existing infrastructure and put on double decker trains like those stupid Europeans do.
Because we would have to replace most of the bridges!
Think of all those jobs and extra capacity, some value for money rather than a white elephant
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
Who's going to buy the tickets? A subset of an already fractured market.
I'm going to London tomorrow. Already the choice is between £100 for a Branson special and £25 for a chugger through Northampton or Aylesbury. Is the extra worth it? In 2017 there's plenty I can do in the extra 45 minutes on the train. Or I can just do without the journey altogether and skype the people I want to talk to.
How much are the tickets on a £100 billion train going to cost? £200+? And who's going to buy them?
Do you really believe it's going to be £100 billion? Really?
Just you wait until there's an infrastructure project your area needs, and the antis make such ridiculous statements about it.
We'll end up with no worthwhile infrastructure in the UK at all.
Actually Davis is doing a great job in handling the EU. He is refusing their invitation to put up endless position papers because he does not want to create pointless areas of public conflict. He knows that both they and he will have to climb down, so he is refusing to make too many positions public. The EU, on the other hand, brief the media every five seconds and therefore are backing themselves into a corner.
Remainers like to say that this is not a problem because the EU can dictate terms. You are about to find out that the EU has miscalculated. The UK are completely in the legal right on the Brexit Bill and the EU are wrong. Davis is going to easily be able to call their bluff by playing it cool and then, when it all breaks down, offering to refer the whole matter to an ICJ panel for arbitration after the trade deal is done. The EU will have to refuse, as any legal arbitration will almost certainly find that the EU owes the UK, not the other way around. The EU will look ridiculous as nobody is actually going to think we should pay money for which there is no legal basis unless there is a trade deal agreed at the same time.
No need for a pile of position papers. Just crafty negotiation strategy is all that is needed.
David Davis is an idiot. Not much more to say really.
I guess to some he is a useful idiot.
I am pretty sure David Davis thinks he's a crafty negotiator. He clearly doesn't think there's a need for planning and position papers. He probably thinks the EU has miscalculated.
I would say your post gets to the heart of the thinking at the Department for exiting the EU.
It probably does. I can't get past thinking Leavers are so stupid and or xenophobic and or pitiful old farts that every time I read one of their posts it's impossible to take seriously what they've written. Last night I had dinner with some Remoaning academics and they were so virulent in their loathing and so articulate that this morning it's even more difficult than usual.
Does anyone else expect the Tories to be ahead in the polls once we reach the autumn? I think it's more likely than not.
No. Not at current levels of incompetence.
It's not the Tories who are doing badly in the polls at the moment. 40% is higher than Dave was getting most of the time. It's Labour who are doing well and the LDs who are languishing at about 6%. It'll be interesting to see whether Vince Cable can get the LDs above 10% and if it would be mainly at the expense of Labour.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
In any other country HS2 would be welcomed, as investment in the future. French towns competed to be close to it, and the likes of Amiens have suffered from being off route.
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
Yes a good use of £111 billion on a country that cannot house people, I know let's have faster trains. What dummy could not upgrade the existing infrastructure and put on double decker trains like those stupid Europeans do.
The dummy that in the nineteenth century built our infrastructure to a more restricted loading gauge, Malcolm.
The interesting bit is that the commentators were dumb enough to fall for it.
It's cracking trolling from Barnier. And as usual the pbT's are biting.
It's beyond laughable what the MSM are peddling rn. Davis should turn up to the next meeting with a hundred packs of A4 paper stacked up in front of him and give the cameras the bird.
There was a scene in House of Cards where Claire Underwood passes off a long trolley-convoy of telephone directories and random printouts as a "petition".
I've used it myself on many occasions in a much more limited way - bundling random papers into a folder before a meeting. A cheap trick but surprisingly effective.
Doesn't always work of course. Chamberlain had a piece of paper
Clearly Chamberlian needed a folder of papers not a single piece...
The Dutch move to restrict right of return to Holland by removing passports is a direct attack on the rights of the Dutch Somalis that have moved here in such numbers. It can be seen in the same light as the Verhofstadt demand of "no social dumping" after brexit. They call for rights of EU nationals in the UK and how these rights must be enforced, but if you are the wrong EU national you will have no rights in the EU itself.
Hasn't the Netherlands always prohibited dual nationality?
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
Who's going to buy the tickets? A subset of an already fractured market.
I'm going to London tomorrow. Already the choice is between £100 for a Branson special and £25 for a chugger through Northampton or Aylesbury. Is the extra worth it? In 2017 there's plenty I can do in the extra 45 minutes on the train. Or I can just do without the journey altogether and skype the people I want to talk to.
How much are the tickets on a £100 billion train going to cost? £200+? And who's going to buy them?
It'll be like the current arrangement. £50 for an advance/restricted ticket. £500 for an executive/anytime one.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
Who's going to buy the tickets? A subset of an already fractured market.
I'm going to London tomorrow. Already the choice is between £100 for a Branson special and £25 for a chugger through Northampton or Aylesbury. Is the extra worth it? In 2017 there's plenty I can do in the extra 45 minutes on the train. Or I can just do without the journey altogether and skype the people I want to talk to.
How much are the tickets on a £100 billion train going to cost? £200+? And who's going to buy them?
Who's going to buy them ?
People on expense accounts.
It'll be great for politicians, bankers and bureaucrats who want to go quicker and on less crowded trains between London and Manchester or Leeds.
HS2 is effectively a vast wealth transfer from the proles and prole towns to the metropolitan 1%.
The interesting bit is that the commentators were dumb enough to fall for it.
It's cracking trolling from Barnier. And as usual the pbT's are biting.
It's beyond laughable what the MSM are peddling rn. Davis should turn up to the next meeting with a hundred packs of A4 paper stacked up in front of him and give the cameras the bird.
There was a scene in House of Cards where Claire Underwood passes off a long trolley-convoy of telephone directories and random printouts as a "petition".
I've used it myself on many occasions in a much more limited way - bundling random papers into a folder before a meeting. A cheap trick but surprisingly effective.
Doesn't always work of course. Chamberlain had a piece of paper
Clearly Chamberlian needed a folder of papers not a single piece...
There are those that suggest a spine would have been of more use to him
The interesting bit is that the commentators were dumb enough to fall for it.
It's cracking trolling from Barnier. And as usual the pbT's are biting.
It's beyond laughable what the MSM are peddling rn. Davis should turn up to the next meeting with a hundred packs of A4 paper stacked up in front of him and give the cameras the bird.
He is not that clever
It would be nice though, if just once, a politician decided they'd had enough of the bs and invited the media to shove it up their arse. Prezza twatting that egg moron kinda stuff.
That's what Trump has done so well and the media hate him for it. The backlash has been an appalling affront to democracy.
Trump was supported by a number of fake news sites. What Trump did when called out on this was to label any story he did not like in the MSM as fake news, thus undermining both the MSM (another alt-right coinage) and the term fake news, as well as true news. How any of this is good for democracy is beyond me, but it is entertaining in its own way.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
In any other country HS2 would be welcomed, as investment in the future. French towns competed to be close to it, and the likes of Amiens have suffered from being off route.
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
Yes a good use of £111 billion on a country that cannot house people, I know let's have faster trains. What dummy could not upgrade the existing infrastructure and put on double decker trains like those stupid Europeans do.
The dummy that in the nineteenth century built our infrastructure to a more restricted loading gauge, Malcolm.
Double decker trains can also reduce capacity, oddly enough. If the stations they stop at are close enough, then the increased dwell time at each station more than offsets the extra seats you get (especially as the stairwells and other items reduce the number of seats per level, so the total is less than double).
Actually Davis is doing a great job in handling the EU. He is refusing their invitation to put up endless position papers because he does not want to create pointless areas of public conflict. He knows that both they and he will have to climb down, so he is refusing to make too many positions public. The EU, on the other hand, brief the media every five seconds and therefore are backing themselves into a corner.
Remainers like to say that this is not a problem because the EU can dictate terms. You are about to find out that the EU has miscalculated. The UK are completely in the legal right on the Brexit Bill and the EU are wrong. Davis is going to easily be able to call their bluff by playing it cool and then, when it all breaks down, offering to refer the whole matter to an ICJ panel for arbitration after the trade deal is done. The EU will have to refuse, as any legal arbitration will almost certainly find that the EU owes the UK, not the other way around. The EU will look ridiculous as nobody is actually going to think we should pay money for which there is no legal basis unless there is a trade deal agreed at the same time.
No need for a pile of position papers. Just crafty negotiation strategy is all that is needed.
David Davis is an idiot. Not much more to say really.
I guess to some he is a useful idiot.
I am pretty sure David Davis thinks he's a crafty negotiator. He clearly doesn't think there's a need for planning and position papers. He probably thinks the EU has miscalculated.
I would say your post gets to the heart of the thinking at the Department for exiting the EU.
It probably does. I can't get past thinking Leavers are so stupid and or xenophobic and or pitiful old farts that every time I read one of their posts it's impossible to take seriously what they've written. Last night I had dinner with some Remoaning academics and they were so virulent in their loathing and so articulate that this morning it's even more difficult than usual.
Come on now Roger, don't be uprating and overvaluing the views of your drunken diners by calling them academics
Mr. Jessop, happy to take your word for it on the electrification, just reporting on what I'd heard last (I don't always watch local news).
By 'more support' I did specifically mean in Yorkshire. There's an impatience, mostly, for it to crack on and for the county to get the benefits of some transport infrastructure spending (there's also suspicion in some quarters. For example, Leeds has had multiple proposed and green-lit proposals for a tram system only for the funding to be withdrawn. Tens of millions has been wasted this way. But there's always cash for London spending).
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
In any other country HS2 would be welcomed, as investment in the future. French towns competed to be close to it, and the likes of Amiens have suffered from being off route.
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
Yes a good use of £111 billion on a country that cannot house people, I know let's have faster trains. What dummy could not upgrade the existing infrastructure and put on double decker trains like those stupid Europeans do.
Because we would have to replace most of the bridges!
With a brand new line we would have to build all the bridges from scratch. And all the bits between them.
Does anyone else expect the Tories to be ahead in the polls once we reach the autumn? I think it's more likely than not.
No. Not at current levels of incompetence.
It's not the Tories who are doing badly in the polls at the moment. 40% is higher than Dave was getting most of the time. It's Labour who are doing well and the LDs who are languishing at about 6%. It'll be interesting to see whether Vince Cable can get the LDs above 10% and if it would be mainly at the expense of Labour.
You wish, Andy. The LD support and the Lab support will be in different places, broadly speaking. And if you think, with the cabinet in open warfare, a zombie leader and a small but palpable shift in public opinion on Brexit, that the current admin is going to hold its form then fair enough.
Mr. Jessop, happy to take your word for it on the electrification, just reporting on what I'd heard last (I don't always watch local news).
By 'more support' I did specifically mean in Yorkshire. There's an impatience, mostly, for it to crack on and for the county to get the benefits of some transport infrastructure spending (there's also suspicion in some quarters. For example, Leeds has had multiple proposed and green-lit proposals for a tram system only for the funding to be withdrawn. Tens of millions has been wasted this way. But there's always cash for London spending).
Would you (or the Leeds folk) be interested in a Crossrail-style business rate subsidy to help pay for the infrastructure? London hasn't got it all for free.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
Who's going to buy the tickets? A subset of an already fractured market.
I'm going to London tomorrow. Already the choice is between £100 for a Branson special and £25 for a chugger through Northampton or Aylesbury. Is the extra worth it? In 2017 there's plenty I can do in the extra 45 minutes on the train. Or I can just do without the journey altogether and skype the people I want to talk to.
How much are the tickets on a £100 billion train going to cost? £200+? And who's going to buy them?
Who's going to buy them ?
People on expense accounts.
It'll be great for politicians, bankers and bureaucrats who want to go quicker and on less crowded trains between London and Manchester or Leeds.
HS2 is effectively a vast wealth transfer from the proles and prole towns to the metropolitan 1%.
Nonsense, Richard. The trains need to be full. Hence the offer will be the same as the model used by airlines and rail companies everywhere. Competitive for restrictive. Extortionate for flexible.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
In any other country HS2 would be welcomed, as investment in the future. French towns competed to be close to it, and the likes of Amiens have suffered from being off route.
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
Yes a good use of £111 billion on a country that cannot house people, I know let's have faster trains. What dummy could not upgrade the existing infrastructure and put on double decker trains like those stupid Europeans do.
Because we would have to replace most of the bridges!
With a brand new line we would have to build all the bridges from scratch. And all the bits between them.
Which, oddly, can be much cheaper than trying to upgrade existing lines. Witness the WCML upgrade. Or more locally to me atm, the A14 upgrade where, according to my friendly civ eng mole, it is costing much more to upgrade the existing road than to build the new section, per mile.
(In fact, massive upgrade projects like the WCM upgrade might have been cheaper and better for customers if they had just closed the entire line for six months and got on with the work, rather than trying to do it piecemeal).
Gender stereotyping getting axed from Ads. Does this mean we will be free from seeing hen pecked hipster wankers sorting out their life insurance on orders from the missus cos her mate Emma says they offer a better rate?
Mr. Jessop, not sure, but there is the underground, trams in Croydon, and, as I said, tens of millions were effectively poured down the drain on tram proposals here that were all eventually ditched.
It is a fair point that increased spending is rather more popular than increased paying-for-it and the latter is less reported upon (if at all). That said, spending per head is clearly higher in London. (You can make a case for this due to higher population density meaning more bang for your buck, however, greater development of other cities would be good for the economy and help ease pressure [at least a little] on London's real estate market. If Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham were more attractive alternatives, that'd be good for the country as a whole).
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
hmm.
I struggle with statements like that. I think it's because they can't be tested. At what point is it decided if its a white elephant or not?
When the passenger numbers for the first month of operation are published? or the fifth year? In the middle of a boom/recession?
I see HS2 like the severn bridge, or the channel tunnel, or the national grid or whatever. It's infrastructure. It's what makes the country function. We can't not build it.
Or, well, we can.
But it means in a hundred years we'll end up as a crap, poor country while the rest of the world has advanced.
What kind of legacy is that to leave to your grandchildren's grandchildren?
Actually Davis is doing a great job in handling the EU. He is refusing their invitation to put up endless position papers because he does not want to create pointless areas of public conflict. He knows that both they and he will have to climb down, so he is refusing to make too many positions public. The EU, on the other hand, brief the media every five seconds and therefore are backing themselves into a corner.
Remainers like to say that this is not a problem because the EU can dictate terms. You are about to find out that the EU has miscalculated. The UK are completely in the legal right on the Brexit Bill and the EU are wrong. Davis is going to easily be able to call their bluff by playing it cool and then, when it all breaks down, offering to refer the whole matter to an ICJ panel for arbitration after the trade deal is done. The EU will have to refuse, as any legal arbitration will almost certainly find that the EU owes the UK, not the other way around. The EU will look ridiculous as nobody is actually going to think we should pay money for which there is no legal basis unless there is a trade deal agreed at the same time.
No need for a pile of position papers. Just crafty negotiation strategy is all that is needed.
David Davis is an idiot. Not much more to say really.
I guess to some he is a useful idiot.
I am pretty sure David Davis thinks he's a crafty negotiator. He clearly doesn't think there's a need for planning and position papers. He probably thinks the EU has miscalculated.
I would say your post gets to the heart of the thinking at the Department for exiting the EU.
It probably does. I can't get past thinking Leavers are so stupid and or xenophobic and or pitiful old farts that every time I read one of their posts it's impossible to take seriously what they've written. Last night I had dinner with some Remoaning academics and they were so virulent in their loathing and so articulate that this morning it's even more difficult than usual.
Interestingly on the Today programme this morning the talking head remainer and brexiter both said it was pretty dumb to take papers into the negotiation. It was their opinion that Barnier has to have the paper as he has so many interested and competing agendas he has to balance. Justin Webb did his best to spin it badly for Davis but they were having none of it!!
Of course it was attention seeking, wasn't that the stated point? To draw attention to Blair's attempts to lock up potentially innocent people for 42 days?
Actually Davis is doing a great job in handling the EU. He is refusing their invitation to put up endless position papers because he does not want to create pointless areas of public conflict. He knows that both they and he will have to climb down, so he is refusing to make too many positions public. The EU, on the other hand, brief the media every five seconds and therefore are backing themselves into a corner.
Remainers like to say that this is not a problem because the EU can dictate terms. You are about to find out that the EU has miscalculated. The UK are completely in the legal right on the Brexit Bill and the EU are wrong. Davis is going to easily be able to call their bluff by playing it cool and then, when it all breaks down, offering to refer the whole matter to an ICJ panel for arbitration after the trade deal is done. The EU will have to refuse, as any legal arbitration will almost certainly find that the EU owes the UK, not the other way around. The EU will look ridiculous as nobody is actually going to think we should pay money for which there is no legal basis unless there is a trade deal agreed at the same time.
No need for a pile of position papers. Just crafty negotiation strategy is all that is needed.
David Davis is an idiot. Not much more to say really.
I guess to some he is a useful idiot.
I am pretty sure David Davis thinks he's a crafty negotiator. He clearly doesn't think there's a need for planning and position papers. He probably thinks the EU has miscalculated.
I would say your post gets to the heart of the thinking at the Department for exiting the EU.
It probably does. I can't get past thinking Leavers are so stupid and or xenophobic and or pitiful old farts that every time I read one of their posts it's impossible to take seriously what they've written. Last night I had dinner with some Remoaning academics and they were so virulent in their loathing and so articulate that this morning it's even more difficult than usual.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
In any other country HS2 would be welcomed, as investment in the future. French towns competed to be close to it, and the likes of Amiens have suffered from being off route.
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
Yes a good use of £111 billion on a country that cannot house people, I know let's have faster trains. What dummy could not upgrade the existing infrastructure and put on double decker trains like those stupid Europeans do.
Because we would have to replace most of the bridges!
With a brand new line we would have to build all the bridges from scratch. And all the bits between them.
Which, oddly, can be much cheaper than trying to upgrade existing lines. Witness the WCML upgrade. Or more locally to me atm, the A14 upgrade where, according to my friendly civ eng mole, it is costing much more to upgrade the existing road than to build the new section, per mile.
(In fact, massive upgrade projects like the WCM upgrade might have been cheaper and better for customers if they had just closed the entire line for six months and got on with the work, rather than trying to do it piecemeal).
Nothing odd about that, it is actually what I'd expect. I believe - and it may be you I heard it from - that building a brand new space shuttle for each launch would have been cheaper and easier than refitting the existing one.
Labour has 1-point lead over Conservatives, poll suggests
As mentioned earlier, the latest Guardian/ICM poll also included the usual state of the parties question and it suggests Labour maintains a lead over the Conservatives. Here are the figures.
Labour: 43% (no change from Guardian/ICM two weeks ago)
Labour has 1-point lead over Conservatives, poll suggests
As mentioned earlier, the latest Guardian/ICM poll also included the usual state of the parties question and it suggests Labour maintains a lead over the Conservatives. Here are the figures.
Labour: 43% (no change from Guardian/ICM two weeks ago)
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
In any other country HS2 would be welcomed, as investment in the future. French towns competed to be close to it, and the likes of Amiens have suffered from being off route.
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
Yes a good use of £111 billion on a country that cannot house people, I know let's have faster trains. What dummy could not upgrade the existing infrastructure and put on double decker trains like those stupid Europeans do.
Because we would have to replace most of the bridges!
With a brand new line we would have to build all the bridges from scratch. And all the bits between them.
Which, oddly, can be much cheaper than trying to upgrade existing lines. Witness the WCML upgrade. Or more locally to me atm, the A14 upgrade where, according to my friendly civ eng mole, it is costing much more to upgrade the existing road than to build the new section, per mile.
(In fact, massive upgrade projects like the WCM upgrade might have been cheaper and better for customers if they had just closed the entire line for six months and got on with the work, rather than trying to do it piecemeal).
Nothing odd about that, it is actually what I'd expect. I believe - and it may be you I heard it from - that building a brand new space shuttle for each launch would have been cheaper and easier than refitting the existing one.
You didn't hear it from me, and I'm fairly sure that's wrong. The SRB's, yes - there is an argument there. Possibly even the main engines (at least for the first few block iterations - the main engines in 2011 were different beasts in detail from those that first flew in 1981). But the Shuttle itself? I doubt it.
Of course, if you were to build it each time then you wouldn't have dseigned the shuttle.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
Who's going to buy the tickets? A subset of an already fractured market.
I'm going to London tomorrow. Already the choice is between £100 for a Branson special and £25 for a chugger through Northampton or Aylesbury. Is the extra worth it? In 2017 there's plenty I can do in the extra 45 minutes on the train. Or I can just do without the journey altogether and skype the people I want to talk to.
How much are the tickets on a £100 billion train going to cost? £200+? And who's going to buy them?
Who's going to buy them ?
People on expense accounts.
It'll be great for politicians, bankers and bureaucrats who want to go quicker and on less crowded trains between London and Manchester or Leeds.
HS2 is effectively a vast wealth transfer from the proles and prole towns to the metropolitan 1%.
Nonsense, Richard. The trains need to be full. Hence the offer will be the same as the model used by airlines and rail companies everywhere. Competitive for restrictive. Extortionate for flexible.
Indeed. You can regularly get "a Branson special" for £10 so long as you buy long enough in advance let alone £100. Not sure why you'd pay £100 unless you're travelling for work at the last possible minute in which case that sounds like the case for expenses.
Of course it was attention seeking, wasn't that the stated point? To draw attention to Blair's attempts to lock up potentially innocent people for 42 days?
Whatever the merits of the argument, which some would find spurious to say the least, creating a by-election in a ultra safe Tory seat that he was guaranteed to win was vain nonsense!
If he wanted to make his point, challenging at the next Labour held by-election would have been more worthy.
An absolute d*ckhead who will probably be our next Prime Minister!
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
In any other country HS2 would be welcomed, as investment in the future. French towns competed to be close to it, and the likes of Amiens have suffered from being off route.
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
Yes a good use of £111 billion on a country that cannot house people, I know let's have faster trains. What dummy could not upgrade the existing infrastructure and put on double decker trains like those stupid Europeans do.
Because we would have to replace most of the bridges!
With a brand new line we would have to build all the bridges from scratch. And all the bits between them.
Which, oddly, can be much cheaper than trying to upgrade existing lines. Witness the WCML upgrade. Or more locally to me atm, the A14 upgrade where, according to my friendly civ eng mole, it is costing much more to upgrade the existing road than to build the new section, per mile.
(In fact, massive upgrade projects like the WCM upgrade might have been cheaper and better for customers if they had just closed the entire line for six months and got on with the work, rather than trying to do it piecemeal).
Nothing odd about that, it is actually what I'd expect. I believe - and it may be you I heard it from - that building a brand new space shuttle for each launch would have been cheaper and easier than refitting the existing one.
Of course it was attention seeking, wasn't that the stated point? To draw attention to Blair's attempts to lock up potentially innocent people for 42 days?
Whatever the merits of the argument, which some would find spurious to say the least, creating a by-election in a ultra safe Tory seat that he was guaranteed to win was vain nonsense!
If he wanted to make his point, challenging at the next Labour held by-election would have been more worthy.
An absolute d*ckhead who will probably be our next Prime Minister!
Worth remembering that ultimately the 42 day detention bit was dropped from the bill and didn't become law. Davis may have made himself a joke but he won that war.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
In any other country HS2 would be welcomed, as investment in the future. French towns competed to be close to it, and the likes of Amiens have suffered from being off route.
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
Yes a good use of £111 billion on a country that cannot house people, I know let's have faster trains. What dummy could not upgrade the existing infrastructure and put on double decker trains like those stupid Europeans do.
Because we would have to replace most of the bridges!
With a brand new line we would have to build all the bridges from scratch. And all the bits between them.
Which, oddly, can be much cheaper than trying to upgrade existing lines. Witness the WCML upgrade. Or more locally to me atm, the A14 upgrade where, according to my friendly civ eng mole, it is costing much more to upgrade the existing road than to build the new section, per mile.
(In fact, massive upgrade projects like the WCM upgrade might have been cheaper and better for customers if they had just closed the entire line for six months and got on with the work, rather than trying to do it piecemeal).
Nothing odd about that, it is actually what I'd expect. I believe - and it may be you I heard it from - that building a brand new space shuttle for each launch would have been cheaper and easier than refitting the existing one.
SpaceX doesn't seem to have the same problem...
Technology has moved on quite a bit since then ...
Did we do this for Churchill? Wellington? Nelson? Pitt? Gibbon?
Mr. Woolie (2), whilst the men-being-rubbish stereotype is tedious, I do think making it illegal is a ridiculous overreaction.
Tbf it's at her home, not a national moment of silence. Silly though. As for gender stereotyping, indeed. Tackling advertising when there are still clear injustices in the way we are as humans to each other is fiddling whilst my bum burns.
Actually Davis is doing a great job in handling the EU. He is refusing their invitation to put up endless position papers because he does not want to create pointless areas of public conflict. He knows that both they and he will have to climb down, so he is refusing to make too many positions public. The EU, on the other hand, brief the media every five seconds and therefore are backing themselves into a corner.
Remainers like to say that this is not a problem because the EU can dictate terms. You are about to find out that the EU has miscalculated. The UK are completely in the legal right on the Brexit Bill and the EU are wrong. Davis is going to easily be able to call their bluff by playing it cool and then, when it all breaks down, offering to refer the whole matter to an ICJ panel for arbitration after the trade deal is done. The EU will have to refuse, as any legal arbitration will almost certainly find that the EU owes the UK, not the other way around. The EU will look ridiculous as nobody is actually going to think we should pay money for which there is no legal basis unless there is a trade deal agreed at the same time.
No need for a pile of position papers. Just crafty negotiation strategy is all that is needed.
David Davis is an idiot. Not much more to say really.
I guess to some he is a useful idiot.
I am pretty sure David Davis thinks he's a crafty negotiator. He clearly doesn't think there's a need for planning and position papers. He probably thinks the EU has miscalculated.
I would say your post gets to the heart of the thinking at the Department for exiting the EU.
It probably does. I can't get past thinking Leavers are so stupid and or xenophobic and or pitiful old farts that every time I read one of their posts it's impossible to take seriously what they've written. Last night I had dinner with some Remoaning academics and they were so virulent in their loathing and so articulate that this morning it's even more difficult than usual.
There are open, own-up Leavers on this site (I am not one of them). None of them is stupid or xenophobic, and some are markedly intelligent and cosmopolitan.* Why reject your own first-hand experience of these posters in favour of the spiteful maunderings of a handful of drunk sociology lecturers?
* Saying that might appear underhand because good manners would presumably inhibit you from openly disagreeing; but if you do disagree what are you doing here? Why would you actively seek the company of moronic xenophobes?
Actually Davis is doing a great job in handling the EU. He is refusing their invitation to put up endless position papers because he does not want to create pointless areas of public conflict. He knows that both they and he will have to climb down, so he is refusing to make too many positions public. The EU, on the other hand, brief the media every five seconds and therefore are backing themselves into a corner.
Remainers like to say that this is not a problem because the EU can dictate terms. You are about to find out that the EU has miscalculated. The UK are completely in the legal right on the Brexit Bill and the EU are wrong. Davis is going to easily be able to call their bluff by playing it cool and then, when it all breaks down, offering to refer the whole matter to an ICJ panel for arbitration after the trade deal is done. The EU will have to refuse, as any legal arbitration will almost certainly find that the EU owes the UK, not the other way around. The EU will look ridiculous as nobody is actually going to think we should pay money for which there is no legal basis unless there is a trade deal agreed at the same time.
No need for a pile of position papers. Just crafty negotiation strategy is all that is needed.
David Davis is an idiot. Not much more to say really.
I guess to some he is a useful idiot.
I am pretty sure David Davis thinks he's a crafty negotiator. He clearly doesn't think there's a need for planning and position papers. He probably thinks the EU has miscalculated.
I would say your post gets to the heart of the thinking at the Department for exiting the EU.
It probably does. I can't get past thinking Leavers are so stupid and or xenophobic and or pitiful old farts that every time I read one of their posts it's impossible to take seriously what they've written. Last night I had dinner with some Remoaning academics and they were so virulent in their loathing and so articulate that this morning it's even more difficult than usual.
Interestingly on the Today programme this morning the talking head remainer and brexiter both said it was pretty dumb to take papers into the negotiation. It was their opinion that Barnier has to have the paper as he has so many interested and competing agendas he has to balance. Justin Webb did his best to spin it badly for Davis but they were having none of it!!
That's overinterpteting a coordinated bit of spin from the Barnier team. They have an agenda to demonstrate the UK side as being woefully underprepared. Which of course they are.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
hmm.
I struggle with statements like that. I think it's because they can't be tested. At what point is it decided if its a white elephant or not?
When the passenger numbers for the first month of operation are published? or the fifth year? In the middle of a boom/recession?
I see HS2 like the severn bridge, or the channel tunnel, or the national grid or whatever. It's infrastructure. It's what makes the country function. We can't not build it.
Or, well, we can.
But it means in a hundred years we'll end up as a crap, poor country while the rest of the world has advanced.
What kind of legacy is that to leave to your grandchildren's grandchildren?
To me - a white elephant has to be relatively unused.
HS2 may be a dreadful idea that goes crazily over budget.
But it doesn't seem likely that it won't be be used?
The millennium dome for instance... Although I gather the 02 arena is doing well?
Did we do this for Churchill? Wellington? Nelson? Pitt? Gibbon?
Mr. Woolie (2), whilst the men-being-rubbish stereotype is tedious, I do think making it illegal is a ridiculous overreaction.
Tbf it's at her home, not a national moment of silence. Silly though. As for gender stereotyping, indeed. Tackling advertising when there are still clear injustices in the way we are as humans to each other is fiddling whilst my bum burns.
What harm is there in NOT reinforcing gender stereotypes?
Personally speaking, when attending meetings and such I would like it NOT to be assumed that I am the coffee and biscuits person just because I am a woman. It would also be nice if people assumed that I was born without an inbuilt knowledge of how washing machines, hoovers and irons work.
Mrs C, plenty, probably a majority (of biased) advertising is about men being incompetent. This isn't necessarily surprising, given women buy 80% or so of stuff (even 'male' things like aftershave are largely bought by women, hence aftershave ads having shirtless models).
I'm not a fan of some of the lines taken (few months ago saw a children's game advertised with the line "Even dad can play [understand] it"), but I suspect this is going to end up just cutting out gender-based humour.
As an aside, it's amusing, and perhaps telling, that the infamous Beach Body Ready ad was castigated for showing a healthy and attractive woman in a bikini, but nobody gave a shit about the ripped shirtless man with an eight-pack.
Obviously discrimination based on gender is abhorrent. That doesn't mean that taking the piss out of genders in comedy is something that should be a target, though.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
In any other country HS2 would be welcomed, as investment in the future. French towns competed to be close to it, and the likes of Amiens have suffered from being off route.
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
-
Because we would have to replace most of the bridges!
With a brand new line we would have to build all the bridges from scratch. And all the bits between them.
Which, oddly, can be much cheaper than trying to upgrade existing lines. Witness the WCML upgrade. Or more locally to me atm, the A14 upgrade where, according to my friendly civ eng mole, it is costing much more to upgrade the existing road than to build the new section, per mile.
(In fact, massive upgrade projects like the WCM upgrade might have been cheaper and better for customers if they had just closed the entire line for six months and got on with the work, rather than trying to do it piecemeal).
Nothing odd about that, it is actually what I'd expect. I believe - and it may be you I heard it from - that building a brand new space shuttle for each launch would have been cheaper and easier than refitting the existing one.
SpaceX doesn't seem to have the same problem...
Technology has moved on quite a bit since then ...
The Shuttle was essentially a reusable 2nd stage, Spacex has created a reusable 1st stage & Tech has only "moved on" with SpaceX due to what THEY are doing. The Shuttle can only land on earth (Or any planet with a thick atmosphere & a large stretch of flat solid ground), whereas the SpaceX tech only needs a spot of solid level ground.
Do you really believe it's going to be £100 billion? Really?
We're at 55.7 billion now, so ... yes, probably.
How do you work that out?
£100 bn is a suspiciously round number - but OTOH, you don't seriously think HS2 will be delivered on budget ?
The PAC has already labelled the delivery timescale 'overly ambitious', and as far as Leeds / Manchester are concerned, it's going to be at least 17 years, and probably a couple of decades before the line is open.
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
I know this is going to go down the usual rabbit holes, but why?
In any other country HS2 would be welcomed, as investment in the future. French towns competed to be close to it, and the likes of Amiens have suffered from being off route.
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
Yes a good use of £111 billion on a country that cannot house people, I know let's have faster trains. What dummy could not upgrade the existing infrastructure and put on double decker trains like those stupid Europeans do.
Because we would have to replace most of the bridges!
With a brand new line we would have to build all the bridges from scratch. And all the bits between them.
Which, oddly, can be much cheaper than trying to upgrade existing lines. Witness the WCML upgrade. Or more locally to me atm, the A14 upgrade where, according to my friendly civ eng mole, it is costing much more to upgrade the existing road than to build the new section, per mile.
(In fact, massive upgrade projects like the WCM upgrade might have been cheaper and better for customers if they had just closed the entire line for six months and got on with the work, rather than trying to do it piecemeal).
Nothing odd about that, it is actually what I'd expect. I believe - and it may be you I heard it from - that building a brand new space shuttle for each launch would have been cheaper and easier than refitting the existing one.
SpaceX doesn't seem to have the same problem...
Technology has moved on quite a bit since then ...
The most difficult aspect of HS2 will be Euston. Losing half the capacity for a number of years will be very painful for commuters on Virgin, London Midland and London Overground services.
The most difficult aspect of HS2 will be Euston. Losing half the capacity for a number of years will be very painful for commuters on Virgin, London Midland and London Overground services.
I know this might sound stupid, especially to your expertise in this area, but there are two train stations very close by to Euston that could handle the load.
Or are both St Pancras and King's X already at capacity?
Completely off topic, but I ended up watching the final 45 minutes or so of the HS2 statement late last night (I had missed start of the day's real TV i.e. Gore of Thrones and would need to do catchup later in week).
Rather to my surprise I thought Grayling handled it all rather well.
The statement lasted more than 45 ministers? You could be almost in Birmingham by then.
HS2 is going to be the biggest white elephant in history.
hmm.
I struggle with statements like that. I think it's because they can't be tested. At what point is it decided if its a white elephant or not?
When the passenger numbers for the first month of operation are published? or the fifth year? In the middle of a boom/recession?
I see HS2 like the severn bridge, or the channel tunnel, or the national grid or whatever. It's infrastructure. It's what makes the country function. We can't not build it.
Or, well, we can.
But it means in a hundred years we'll end up as a crap, poor country while the rest of the world has advanced.
What kind of legacy is that to leave to your grandchildren's grandchildren?
To me - a white elephant has to be relatively unused.
HS2 may be a dreadful idea that goes crazily over budget.
But it doesn't seem likely that it won't be be used?
The millennium dome for instance... Although I gather the 02 arena is doing well?
Plenty of reasons to build it - but why the (expensive) 400 kph requirement ?
Most other high speed rail projects seem to be around 300 kph.
Do you really believe it's going to be £100 billion? Really?
We're at 55.7 billion now, so ... yes, probably.
How do you work that out?
£100 bn is a suspiciously round number - but OTOH, you don't seriously think HS2 will be delivered on budget ?
The PAC has already labelled the delivery timescale 'overly ambitious', and as far as Leeds / Manchester are concerned, it's going to be at least 17 years, and probably a couple of decades before the line is open.
Why does these projects take so long in Britain ? In China, 5 years max. Even countries in Europe, it would be much shorter.
Actually Davis is doing a great job in handling the EU. He is refusing their invitation to put up endless position papers because he does not want to create pointless areas of public conflict. He knows that both they and he will have to climb down, so he is refusing to make too many positions public. The EU, on the other hand, brief the media every five seconds and therefore are backing themselves into a corner.
Remainers like to say that this is not a problem because the EU can dictate terms. You are about to find out that the EU has miscalculated. The UK are completely in the legal right on the Brexit Bill and the EU are wrong. Davis is going to easily be able to call their bluff by playing it cool and then, when it all breaks down, offering to refer the whole matter to an ICJ panel for arbitration after the trade deal is done. The EU will have to refuse, as any legal arbitration will almost certainly find that the EU owes the UK, not the other way around. The EU will look ridiculous as nobody is actually going to think we should pay money for which there is no legal basis unless there is a trade deal agreed at the same time.
No need for a pile of position papers. Just crafty negotiation strategy is all that is needed.
David Davis is an idiot. Not much more to say really.
I guess to some he is a useful idiot.
I am pretty sure David Davis thinks he's a crafty negotiator. He clearly doesn't think there's a need for planning and position papers. He probably thinks the EU has miscalculated.
I would say your post gets to the heart of the thinking at the Department for exiting the EU.
It probably does. I can't get past thinking Leavers are so stupid and or xenophobic and or pitiful old farts that every time I read one of their posts it's impossible to take seriously what they've written. Last night I had dinner with some Remoaning academics and they were so virulent in their loathing and so articulate that this morning it's even more difficult than usual.
Interestingly on the Today programme this morning the talking head remainer and brexiter both said it was pretty dumb to take papers into the negotiation. It was their opinion that Barnier has to have the paper as he has so many interested and competing agendas he has to balance. Justin Webb did his best to spin it badly for Davis but they were having none of it!!
That's overinterpteting a coordinated bit of spin from the Barnier team. They have an agenda to demonstrate the UK side as being woefully underprepared. Which of course they are.
That's overinterpteting a coordinated bit of spin from the Barnier team. They have an agenda to demonstrate the UK side as being woefully underprepared. Which of course they are.
How do you know?
Have you forgotten the "War of Summer" already? That cave-in happened at last month's negotiation.
Actually Davis is doing a great job in handling the EU. He is refusing their invitation to put up endless position papers because he does not want to create pointless areas of public conflict. He knows that both they and he will have to climb down, so he is refusing to make too many positions public. The EU, on the other hand, brief the media every five seconds and therefore are backing themselves into a corner.
No need for a pile of position papers. Just crafty negotiation strategy is all that is needed.
David Davis is an idiot. Not much more to say really.
I guess to some he is a useful idiot.
I am pretty sure David Davis thinks he's a crafty negotiator. He clearly doesn't think there's a need for planning and position papers. He probably thinks the EU has miscalculated.
I would say your post gets to the heart of the thinking at the Department for exiting the EU.
It probably does. I can't get past thinking Leavers are so stupid and or xenophobic and or pitiful old farts that every time I read one of their posts it's impossible to take seriously what they've written. Last night I had dinner with some Remoaning academics and they were so virulent in their loathing and so articulate that this morning it's even more difficult than usual.
There are open, own-up Leavers on this site (I am not one of them). None of them is stupid or xenophobic, and some are markedly intelligent and cosmopolitan.* Why reject your own first-hand experience of these posters in favour of the spiteful maunderings of a handful of drunk sociology lecturers?
* Saying that might appear underhand because good manners would presumably inhibit you from openly disagreeing; but if you do disagree what are you doing here? Why would you actively seek the company of moronic xenophobes?
They might have been drunk but they weren't sociology lectuers! They were medical physicists each a professor celebrating the publishing of their definitive text book which had taken them six years to write. You might think this makes them stupider than your average 'Leaver' (I suggested as much) but their point was a simple one. You can't allow a slim majority to so obviously self harm the country when the vast majority of them were too ignorant of the facts. Cameron alone was to blame.
Did we do this for Churchill? Wellington? Nelson? Pitt? Gibbon?
Mr. Woolie (2), whilst the men-being-rubbish stereotype is tedious, I do think making it illegal is a ridiculous overreaction.
Tbf it's at her home, not a national moment of silence. Silly though. As for gender stereotyping, indeed. Tackling advertising when there are still clear injustices in the way we are as humans to each other is fiddling whilst my bum burns.
What harm is there in NOT reinforcing gender stereotypes?
Personally speaking, when attending meetings and such I would like it NOT to be assumed that I am the coffee and biscuits person just because I am a woman. It would also be nice if people assumed that I was born without an inbuilt knowledge of how washing machines, hoovers and irons work.
I agree entirely. I'd like it not to be assumed I am adept at DIY or a bit thick and clumsy in the kitchen. My concern is that sticking plaster advertising changes don't address the fundamentals behind those stereotypes. Like I said though, it will be nice not to have to see pathetic excuses for humanity obligingly phoning the insurance company cos of what her mate Emma said.
Do you really believe it's going to be £100 billion? Really?
We're at 55.7 billion now, so ... yes, probably.
How do you work that out?
£100 bn is a suspiciously round number - but OTOH, you don't seriously think HS2 will be delivered on budget ?
The PAC has already labelled the delivery timescale 'overly ambitious', and as far as Leeds / Manchester are concerned, it's going to be at least 17 years, and probably a couple of decades before the line is open.
Why does these projects take so long in Britain ? In China, 5 years max. Even countries in Europe, it would be much shorter.
The WCML stuff seemed to go on forever, well it seemed that way from Coventry.
The most difficult aspect of HS2 will be Euston. Losing half the capacity for a number of years will be very painful for commuters on Virgin, London Midland and London Overground services.
I know this might sound stupid, especially to your expertise in this area, but there are two train stations very close by to Euston that can handle the load.
Or are both St Pancras and King's X already at capacity?
In terms of diverting trains of the WCML there isn't much you can do. St Pancras isn't the biggest in terms of domestic platforms so that's not much help and Kings X is not much better.
Of course, that doesn't stop commuters using other lines during the disruption but that could make trains on the MML and the Chiltern route particularly crowded.
EDIT: Though I suspect part of the solution will be to terminate trains at somewhere like Wembley and make people switch to the underground, but that's not particularly ideal.
And I suppose they might stop running the Scotland services and tell people to go to Kings X instead.
Comments
LOL at prolific PB regulars who get excited about saving 45 minutes of train journey, I have a very obvious suggestion as to how they could save 4 times that every single day.
We need to start fighting back!
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/887219966180810752
The real benefit of HS2 is releasing capacity on other lines. I suspect much of the moaning is from people who rarely use trains.
My only complaint is that I'm not sure if trains will be stopped at York or continue to Newcastle on the existing tracks. Oh and if the track from Darlington to Newcastle which supposedly needs to be straightened anyway is going to be straightened.
I've used it myself on many occasions in a much more limited way - bundling random papers into a folder before a meeting. A cheap trick but surprisingly effective.
What dummy could not upgrade the existing infrastructure and put on double decker trains like those stupid Europeans do.
In the Labour party, what you have is a far left leadership that has always wanted Brexit versus everyone else. Right now, the Tories are making it very easy for Corbyn and McDonnell. But if they had smart operators, as opposed to back-stabbing donkeys, they might notice that even key union supporters are urging a Labour rethink:
https://labourlist.org/2017/07/manuel-cortes-there-is-no-good-brexit-labour-needs-to-restart-the-remain-fight/
I'm going to London tomorrow. Already the choice is between £100 for a Branson special and £25 for a chugger through Northampton or Aylesbury. Is the extra worth it? In 2017 there's plenty I can do in the extra 45 minutes on the train. Or I can just do without the journey altogether and skype the people I want to talk to.
How much are the tickets on a £100 billion train going to cost? £200+? And who's going to buy them?
It'd probably have more support if it started in Yorkshire and went outwards rather than coming here last.
Electrification of one line or other, perhaps to Manchester from Leeds, had its funding scrapped a couple of years ago. People see money being unavailable here but freely available for a London-Birmingham high speed line.
http://assets.hs2.org.uk/sites/default/files/consulation_library/pdf/P2C37_Journey times and frequencies LOW.pdf
London to York will be 84 minutes, instead of the current ~113. I believe it's currently planned for 1tph.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_2#Proposed_service_pattern
The backlash has been an appalling affront to democracy.
Thatcher was good at it as well.
Why?
"Electrification of one line or other, perhaps to Manchester from Leeds, had its funding scrapped a couple of years ago."
AFAIAA that is totally wrong. It was paused as the project were reassessed after Network Rail's massive budget and timescale overruns on the GWML electrification, then unpaused after new timescales and costs were agreed. Some lines have already been electrified as part of the work:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Hub#Electrification
Just you wait until there's an infrastructure project your area needs, and the antis make such ridiculous statements about it.
We'll end up with no worthwhile infrastructure in the UK at all.
People on expense accounts.
It'll be great for politicians, bankers and bureaucrats who want to go quicker and on less crowded trains between London and Manchester or Leeds.
HS2 is effectively a vast wealth transfer from the proles and prole towns to the metropolitan 1%.
It was tried before:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR_Class_4DD
By 'more support' I did specifically mean in Yorkshire. There's an impatience, mostly, for it to crack on and for the county to get the benefits of some transport infrastructure spending (there's also suspicion in some quarters. For example, Leeds has had multiple proposed and green-lit proposals for a tram system only for the funding to be withdrawn. Tens of millions has been wasted this way. But there's always cash for London spending).
https://twitter.com/Brexit/status/887229213140434944
I don't.
https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/business-and-economy/promoting-london/paying-crossrail-business-rate-supplement
(In fact, massive upgrade projects like the WCM upgrade might have been cheaper and better for customers if they had just closed the entire line for six months and got on with the work, rather than trying to do it piecemeal).
It is a fair point that increased spending is rather more popular than increased paying-for-it and the latter is less reported upon (if at all). That said, spending per head is clearly higher in London. (You can make a case for this due to higher population density meaning more bang for your buck, however, greater development of other cities would be good for the economy and help ease pressure [at least a little] on London's real estate market. If Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham were more attractive alternatives, that'd be good for the country as a whole).
I struggle with statements like that. I think it's because they can't be tested. At what point is it decided if its a white elephant or not?
When the passenger numbers for the first month of operation are published? or the fifth year? In the middle of a boom/recession?
I see HS2 like the severn bridge, or the channel tunnel, or the national grid or whatever. It's infrastructure. It's what makes the country function. We can't not build it.
Or, well, we can.
But it means in a hundred years we'll end up as a crap, poor country while the rest of the world has advanced.
What kind of legacy is that to leave to your grandchildren's grandchildren?
Times hard in the tampon advertising sector?
As mentioned earlier, the latest Guardian/ICM poll also included the usual state of the parties question and it suggests Labour maintains a lead over the Conservatives. Here are the figures.
Labour: 43% (no change from Guardian/ICM two weeks ago)
Conservatives: 42% (up 1)
Lib Dems: 7% (no change)
Ukip: 3% (no change)
Greens: 2% (down 1)
Labour lead: 1 point (down 1)
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2017/jul/18/third-of-voters-back-second-referendum-on-brexit-poll-suggests-politics-live?page=with:block-596dba0ae4b0aadbb641bf2e#block-596dba0ae4b0aadbb641bf2e
Slightly inappropriate mawkishness?
Of course, if you were to build it each time then you wouldn't have dseigned the shuttle.
Did we do this for Churchill? Wellington? Nelson? Pitt? Gibbon?
Mr. Woolie (2), whilst the men-being-rubbish stereotype is tedious, I do think making it illegal is a ridiculous overreaction.
If he wanted to make his point, challenging at the next Labour held by-election would have been more worthy.
An absolute d*ckhead who will probably be our next Prime Minister!
As for gender stereotyping, indeed. Tackling advertising when there are still clear injustices in the way we are as humans to each other is fiddling whilst my bum burns.
David Who?
* Saying that might appear underhand because good manners would presumably inhibit you from openly disagreeing; but if you do disagree what are you doing here? Why would you actively seek the company of moronic xenophobes?
http://softpower30.portland-communications.com/?country_years=2015,2016,2017
HS2 may be a dreadful idea that goes crazily over budget.
But it doesn't seem likely that it won't be be used?
The millennium dome for instance... Although I gather the 02 arena is doing well?
Personally speaking, when attending meetings and such I would like it NOT to be assumed that I am the coffee and biscuits person just because I am a woman. It would also be nice if people assumed that I was born without an inbuilt knowledge of how washing machines, hoovers and irons work.
I'm not a fan of some of the lines taken (few months ago saw a children's game advertised with the line "Even dad can play [understand] it"), but I suspect this is going to end up just cutting out gender-based humour.
As an aside, it's amusing, and perhaps telling, that the infamous Beach Body Ready ad was castigated for showing a healthy and attractive woman in a bikini, but nobody gave a shit about the ripped shirtless man with an eight-pack.
Obviously discrimination based on gender is abhorrent. That doesn't mean that taking the piss out of genders in comedy is something that should be a target, though.
Edited extras bit: such as this
The Shuttle can only land on earth (Or any planet with a thick atmosphere & a large stretch of flat solid ground), whereas the SpaceX tech only needs a spot of solid level ground.
The PAC has already labelled the delivery timescale 'overly ambitious', and as far as Leeds / Manchester are concerned, it's going to be at least 17 years, and probably a couple of decades before the line is open.
Or are both St Pancras and King's X already at capacity?
Plenty of reasons to build it - but why the (expensive) 400 kph requirement ?
Most other high speed rail projects seem to be around 300 kph.
Of course, that doesn't stop commuters using other lines during the disruption but that could make trains on the MML and the Chiltern route particularly crowded.
EDIT: Though I suspect part of the solution will be to terminate trains at somewhere like Wembley and make people switch to the underground, but that's not particularly ideal.
And I suppose they might stop running the Scotland services and tell people to go to Kings X instead.