@frasernelson: But Balls is right HS2 waste, on economic flatlining and standard of living. Hate to say it, but it's a good speech full of substance.
The PB Tory demographic wont get it of course
Of course he is right on HS2, any idiot can come to the same conclusion. HS2 is a votebuying scheme for the Tories in the midlands. I don't see how it survives after 2015, Lab or Con.
Why is he right? What's the alternative solution to the railway capacity crunch that's coming up (and actually with us in some places)?
There isn't one. And Labour know this as much as everyone. After all, they were the ones who initially saw the need for the project ...
Lateral thinking. There is no need in this day and age why we should be having to have all those businessmen travelling up and down to London for face to face meetings. A fraction of the HS2 cost invested in effective high speed internet and a push for far more meetings to be conducted remotely would be a much better idea. It would not solve the whole issue but it would certainly make a difference.
HS2 wil not achieve the aims set out by the Government. That is being shown time and time again by reports and investigations. It is becoming the ultimate white elephant and will be a sad testament to Cameron's rule if it does, by any freak chance, go ahead.
Hard to disagree with any of this. What I really don't understand is why the coalition is wedded to this white elephant.
Dianne Abbot going wild. Still, I'm sure UKIP voters will be happy in 2015 when they vote UKIP and get Labour.
"1312: Shadow health minister Diane Abbott tells Labour activists: "We must never, ever make the mistake of giving any credence whatsoever to arguments that originate in the minds and hearts of racists, fascists and UKIP."
Labour MPs wouldn't never allow their kids to go to the kind of schools they've created with their policies.
"1312: Shadow health minister Diane Abbott tells Labour activists: "We must never, ever make the mistake of giving any credence whatsoever to arguments that originate in the minds and hearts of racists, fascists and UKIP."
Such as UKIP's arguments on intervention in Syria, for example?
@frasernelson: But Balls is right HS2 waste, on economic flatlining and standard of living. Hate to say it, but it's a good speech full of substance.
The PB Tory demographic wont get it of course
Of course he is right on HS2, any idiot can come to the same conclusion. HS2 is a votebuying scheme for the Tories in the midlands. I don't see how it survives after 2015, Lab or Con.
Why is he right? What's the alternative solution to the railway capacity crunch that's coming up (and actually with us in some places)?
There isn't one. And Labour know this as much as everyone. After all, they were the ones who initially saw the need for the project ...
Lateral thinking. There is no need in this day and age why we should be having to have all those businessmen travelling up and down to London for face to face meetings. A fraction of the HS2 cost invested in effective high speed internet and a push for far more meetings to be conducted remotely would be a much better idea. It would not solve the whole issue but it would certainly make a difference.
In the future we will all work from home etc etc and we'll all sit under a UV lamp with a virtual head set on showing images of Tuscany in our front room and never take a holiday.
Alternatively face up to it - people in business need face to face meetings - not every day but at regular points in a business relationship - it's human nature.
I'm impressed that people are so knowledgeable, and so confident of the future, that they can confidently throw around phrases like 'idiotic' about HS2. They must have done a fantastic amount of in-depth research and be absolutely brilliant at futurology.
Not really. Just good at reading and understanding reports. Something the Tories on here seem strangely unable to do when it comes to their pet white elephants.
Same numpties who are against HS2,3,4+5 are the same luddites who didn't want a channel tunnel.
Try heading to Germany and get on the ICE trains - we need that from london to Inverness, Cardiff and Exeter.
Decisions about everything in the world should be on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis. If the channel tunnel costs $2trillion would it have made sense? No, of course not. If it cost $20bn? Then yes, sure.
If HS2 was achievable for $1bn, would it be worth it, yes, probably. Will it be worth the inevitable $50bn it will cost? Probably not. Or rather, the opportunity cost of (a) taking the money away from people to make their own decisions about how to spend it, or (b) not doing some other infrastructure project, or (c) some mixture of both, will be greater than the amount spent.
That there are so many dissenting voices about an infrastructure project of this nature, given the costs are much more likely to balloon than the opposite, should cause everyone to pause before many, many billions are spent.
@frasernelson: But Balls is right HS2 waste, on economic flatlining and standard of living. Hate to say it, but it's a good speech full of substance.
The PB Tory demographic wont get it of course
Of course he is right on HS2, any idiot can come to the same conclusion. HS2 is a votebuying scheme for the Tories in the midlands. I don't see how it survives after 2015, Lab or Con.
I hope you are right. It is one of the more idiotic projects thought up by either party over the last decade or so. Twentieth century thinking that is already decades out of date.
The alternatives - Maglev in particular - have sadly proved to be a dead-end. Witness Germany closing their test track, and China not investing much more in Maglev. Their current shortish line isn't any faster than the fastest high-speed rail for most of the day. Japan is going forward with their plans at glacial speed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train
It's like saying: "Why upgrade Heathrow? Planes are an early-20th Century technology that are already decades out of date."
In the meantime, rail usage for both passengers and freight is soaring, and there are not enough paths. Forcing people and freight onto the roads isn't going to help ...
But the real question that needs asking is why infrastructure projects in the UK routinely cost more than they do in other countries.
"1312: Shadow health minister Diane Abbott tells Labour activists: "We must never, ever make the mistake of giving any credence whatsoever to arguments that originate in the minds and hearts of racists, fascists and UKIP."
I wonder if Kippers feel more p!ssed off at Di mentioning them in the same breath as racists, or Dave just going the whole hog and calling them racists? I guess we'll find out in 2015.
I can save hundreds of posts on next weks conference, as the vast majority will go like this.
From Charles/Plato/TCPB/Richard Dodd/TGOHF/Avery LP etc etc etc:
1. Camerons speech was monumental and Churchillesque and captured the nations mood so well. 2. Gideon speech was fabulously thought out and delivered and again shows that he is an economic master and the best political strategist ever. 3.Gove oozes class and is the best Education Minister ever 4. May is just out of this world. 5. Shapps one liners against Labour were delivered with such good timing they were Tarbuckesque. 6. The two minute silence for Mrs T was what makes GB great. 7. William Hague shows the statemenship of a colossus. 8.Philip Hammond is one of those people that would be first over in the trenches and is growing brilliantly into his job. 9.Eric Pickles was leading from the front and was at times so hilarious with his jokes that some delegates actually pissed their pants (this could actually have something to do with the average age of the delegates and incontinence). 10. Lansley plans to introduce more private companies into the NHS is a masterstroke that the public has been crying out for. 11. Jeremy Hunt is worth his weight in gold, for well.....just being Jeremy Hunt. 12. IDS proved the Bedroom Tax is a vote winner.
The entire conference was an absolute triumph from begining to end and everyone went home tissueless.
There will be hundreds of quotes from the Telegraph/Mail/Epress/Sun/Times etc to give insight on how the conference was the conference to beat all conferences ....again.
Have I missed anything out?
Why don't you focus on your own conference? - it's barely started and you're already sounding in full panic mode.
Not really. Just good at reading and understanding reports. Something the Tories on here seem strangely unable to do when it comes to their pet white elephants.
I don't know who these Tories are. JosiasJessop is keen, certainly, and argues from knowledge. Most of us are sensibly cautious about what is inevitably a hugely complicated cost-benefit analysis heavily dependent (like all such cost-benefit analyses) on the range of assumptions you make about huge numbers of unknowns, many of them stretching decades into the future.
To call it 'idiotic' is, frankly, idiotic. The case might not have been made, or at least not to the tune of committing such a huge sum, but that is not the same thing.
@frasernelson: But Balls is right HS2 waste, on economic flatlining and standard of living. Hate to say it, but it's a good speech full of substance.
The PB Tory demographic wont get it of course
Of course he is right on HS2, any idiot can come to the same conclusion. HS2 is a votebuying scheme for the Tories in the midlands. I don't see how it survives after 2015, Lab or Con.
Why is he right? What's the alternative solution to the railway capacity crunch that's coming up (and actually with us in some places)?
There isn't one. And Labour know this as much as everyone. After all, they were the ones who initially saw the need for the project ...
Lateral thinking. There is no need in this day and age why we should be having to have all those businessmen travelling up and down to London for face to face meetings. A fraction of the HS2 cost invested in effective high speed internet and a push for far more meetings to be conducted remotely would be a much better idea. It would not solve the whole issue but it would certainly make a difference.
In the future we will all work from home etc etc and we'll all sit under a UV lamp with a virtual head set on showing images of Tuscany in our front room and never take a holiday.
Alternatively face up to it - people in business need face to face meetings - not every day but at regular points in a business relationship - it's human nature.
That's funny. We somehow manage to run a 24 hour a day, 365 day a year, multi-billion pound business conducting some of the most demanding operations in the world and all done remotely with no more than 1 or 2 face to face meetings a year. We have meetings every morning and afternoon with dozens of people involved discussing hugely complex daily operations which cost millions of pounds and involve the lives and safety of thousands of people.
If we can do it then I fail to see why the business community onshore can't do the same.
Edit: Oh and as an aside I am holding this conversation with you from the Atlantic Ocean 120 miles north west of the Shetlands.
"1312: Shadow health minister Diane Abbott tells Labour activists: "We must never, ever make the mistake of giving any credence whatsoever to arguments that originate in the minds and hearts of racists, fascists and UKIP."
I wonder if Kippers feel more p!ssed off at Di mentioning them in the same breath as racists, or Dave just going the whole hog and calling them racists? I guess we'll find out in 2015.
Always best to simply attack back e.g. Labour MPs would never send their kids to the kind of schools they've created with their policies.
Harry Phibbs @harryph David Lammy says mood at Labour conference "subdued" - sense of being "tossed around by events." Miliband "not PM in waiting." #wato
Same numpties who are against HS2,3,4+5 are the same luddites who didn't want a channel tunnel.
Try heading to Germany and get on the ICE trains - we need that from london to Inverness, Cardiff and Exeter.
Decisions about everything in the world should be on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis. If the channel tunnel costs $2trillion would it have made sense? No, of course not. If it cost $20bn? Then yes, sure.
If HS2 was achievable for $1bn, would it be worth it, yes, probably. Will it be worth the inevitable $50bn it will cost? Probably not. Or rather, the opportunity cost of (a) taking the money away from people to make their own decisions about how to spend it, or (b) not doing some other infrastructure project, or (c) some mixture of both, will be greater than the amount spent.
That there are so many dissenting voices about an infrastructure project of this nature, given the costs are much more likely to balloon than the opposite, should cause everyone to pause before many, many billions are spent.
Infrastructure costs, whether it be airport, road or rail capacity. *Any* large infrastructure project has a large number of detractors. The resultant pauses would lead us to doing nothing.
Not really. Just good at reading and understanding reports. Something the Tories on here seem strangely unable to do when it comes to their pet white elephants.
I don't know who these Tories are. JosiasJessop is keen, certainly, and argues from knowledge. Most of us are sensibly cautious about what is inevitably a hugely complicated cost-benefit analysis heavily dependent (like all such cost-benefit analyses) on the range of assumptions you make about huge numbers of unknowns, many of them stretching decades into the future.
To call it 'idiotic' is, frankly, idiotic. The case might not have been made, or at least not to the tune of committing such a huge sum, but that is not the same thing.
My case would be that committing that sum of money without the case having been made and then insisting on continuing in the face of all evidence to the contrary is indeed idiotic.
Peter Kellner on BBC WATO 10 mins ago stated that no opposition has won when it was behind in the polls for both the Economy and their Leader 's rating.
My case would be that committing that sum of money without the case having been made and then insisting on continuing in the face of all evidence to the contrary is indeed idiotic.
No, it's a judgement call. So far all three main parties and a lot of informed commentators have reckoned that on balance it's worth doing, although within all three main parties many also have doubts or strongly oppose it, as do many informed commentators.
By all means say you oppose it; it's the confidence of calling everyone else 'idiots' on something as complex as this which suggests to me the opponents are not looking at this objectively.
Shut up, take it down, if you want more in the future.” Thus began my initiation into the masonic, macho and mediocre world where Westminster politics and journalism meet. I was new to what’s called the Lobby but I wasn’t new to the trade. I had spent a decade reporting on the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet communism, grown-up stories where ideological differences really mattered.
Instead, there I was in the mid-1990s taking down some nonsense from Alastair Campbell. He was dictating to me a new initiative for his master, a piece of regurgitated spin in advance of some breakfast speech by Tony Blair, the man who would be Prime Minister. Instead of acting as stenographer — the assumed job description of Lobby journalists — I peppered Blair’s spinner-in-chief with questions. Campbell seemed genuinely perplexed. This was the first and last time I would receive an official plant — the proper name for most political scoops. Demarcations properly observed, I think he and I got on moderately well. Indeed, once or twice he paid me backhanded compliments about stories that had caused problems for the Blair government.
I would struggle, though, to see any silver lining in the behaviour of Gordon Brown and his Mafia-manqué minions. One of the most curious characteristics of these people was their super-charged determination to destroy anyone or anything that stood in their way. This might have been understandable if, like Lenin or Che Guevara, they had been leading revolutions. But, no, what Brown wanted was petulant revenge over the man who had stitched him up many years before in an Islington bistro. This was the narcissism (and bullying) of small differences.
@frasernelson: But Balls is right HS2 waste, on economic flatlining and standard of living. Hate to say it, but it's a good speech full of substance.
The PB Tory demographic wont get it of course
Of course he is right on HS2, any idiot can come to the same conclusion. HS2 is a votebuying scheme for the Tories in the midlands. I don't see how it survives after 2015, Lab or Con.
Why is he right? What's the alternative solution to the railway capacity crunch that's coming up (and actually with us in some places)?
There isn't one. And Labour know this as much as everyone. After all, they were the ones who initially saw the need for the project ...
Lateral thinking. There is no need in this day and age why we should be having to have all those businessmen travelling up and down to London for face to face meetings. A fraction of the HS2 cost invested in effective high speed internet and a push for far more meetings to be conducted remotely would be a much better idea. It would not solve the whole issue but it would certainly make a difference.
HS2 wil not achieve the aims set out by the Government. That is being shown time and time again by reports and investigations. It is becoming the ultimate white elephant and will be a sad testament to Cameron's rule if it does, by any freak chance, go ahead.
Let's dissect your lateral thinking. You say high-speed Internet will stop business travel. Well, the Internet (or at least the Web) has been around since 1992. How has railway travel changed during that time?
Oh, passenger journies have nearly doubled, despite t'Internet.
People still want to travel around the country. You may not like rail, but lots of people rely on it. I can't telecommute to do a walk, or visit family and friends.
Which reports and investigations have shown the aims won't be met? Do you mean the IEA report ?
The alternatives - Maglev in particular - have sadly proved to be a dead-end. Witness Germany closing their test track, and China not investing much more in Maglev. Their current shortish line isn't any faster than the fastest high-speed rail for most of the day. Japan is going forward with their plans at glacial speed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train
TBF Tokyo-Nagoya is scheduled for opening in 2027, which is only a year later than HS2 phase 1, or adjusting for cultural variations in the meaning of the word "schedule" about 25 years earlier.
The German voting system signally failed to reflect the will of the electorate. The centre-right won a clear majority of votes but the far left party potentially holds the balance of power in parliament.
The thing about HS2 that I don't get is that the UK is such a small country the time saving is never going to be much. You can get from London to Edinburgh in just a few hours. What realistic time saving are they proposing? It's not going to be hours from anywhere to anywhere. In a country the size of China or the length of Japan - yeah maybe. But the time saving vs the cost seems puny. The benefit side of a proper cost / benefit analysis and business case seems pitifully thin.
Infrastructure costs, whether it be airport, road or rail capacity. *Any* large infrastructure project has a large number of detractors. The resultant pauses would lead us to doing nothing.
Really daft citing the KPMG report since it has already been so roundly slated by so many experts.
Lateral thinking. There is no need in this day and age why we should be having to have all those businessmen travelling up and down to London for face to face meetings. A fraction of the HS2 cost invested in effective high speed internet and a push for far more meetings to be conducted remotely would be a much better idea. It would not solve the whole issue but it would certainly make a difference.
In the future we will all work from home etc etc and we'll all sit under a UV lamp with a virtual head set on showing images of Tuscany in our front room and never take a holiday.
Alternatively face up to it - people in business need face to face meetings - not every day but at regular points in a business relationship - it's human nature.
That's funny. We somehow manage to run a 24 hour a day, 365 day a year, multi-billion pound business conducting some of the most demanding operations in the world and all done remotely with no more than 1 or 2 face to face meetings a year. We have meetings every morning and afternoon with dozens of people involved discussing hugely complex daily operations which cost millions of pounds and involve the lives and safety of thousands of people.
If we can do it then I fail to see why the business community onshore can't do the same.
Edit: Oh and as an aside I am holding this conversation with you from the Atlantic Ocean 120 miles north west of the Shetlands.
I love the technology that allows you to do that. It's wonderful. After all, I make a living (sorta) from it, and my wife develops technology that will allow you to do it faster, cheaper and using less energy.
You should kneel down and pray in front of us. We are your Gods. ;-)
Yet I am all too aware of the limitations the technology has. It's opened up whole new avenues of business, but sadly there is much that cannot be altered. A few months ago I was on an early-morning train from St Neots, talking to a man who was travelling down to a building site in London. There's no way he could telecommute, and the same's true for many other people.
The thing about HS2 that I don't get is that the UK is such a small country the time saving is never going to be much. You can get from London to Edinburgh in just a few hours. What realistic time saving are they proposing? It's not going to be hours from anywhere to anywhere. In a country the size of China or the length of Japan - yeah maybe. But the time saving vs the cost seems puny. The benefit side of a proper cost / benefit analysis and business case seems pitifully thin.
IIUC the main problem it solves is capacity, but if you're going to spend the money opening up a new corridor to carry the extra capacity you get a better return on your investment if you make the trains on it go fast.
@frasernelson: But Balls is right HS2 waste, on economic flatlining and standard of living. Hate to say it, but it's a good speech full of substance.
The PB Tory demographic wont get it of course
Of course he is right on HS2, any idiot can come to the same conclusion. HS2 is a votebuying scheme for the Tories in the midlands. I don't see how it survives after 2015, Lab or Con.
Why is he right? What's the alternative solution to the railway capacity crunch that's coming up (and actually with us in some places)?
There isn't one. And Labour know this as much as everyone. After all, they were the ones who initially saw the need for the project ...
Lateral thinking. There is no need in this day and age why we should be having to have all those businessmen travelling up and down to London for face to face meetings. A fraction of the HS2 cost invested in effective high speed internet and a push for far more meetings to be conducted remotely would be a much better idea. It would not solve the whole issue but it would certainly make a difference.
HS2 wil not achieve the aims set out by the Government. That is being shown time and time again by reports and investigations. It is becoming the ultimate white elephant and will be a sad testament to Cameron's rule if it does, by any freak chance, go ahead.
Let's dissect your lateral thinking. You say high-speed Internet will stop business travel. Well, the Internet (or at least the Web) has been around since 1992. How has railway travel changed during that time?
Oh, passenger journies have nearly doubled, despite t'Internet.
People still want to travel around the country. You may not like rail, but lots of people rely on it. I can't telecommute to do a walk, or visit family and friends.
Which reports and investigations have shown the aims won't be met? Do you mean the IEA report ?
And I call a logical fallacy there Josias. At no point did I say that "high-speed Internet will stop business travel." If you want to try and argue your corner at least do it without setting up straw man arguments which you can then knock down.
I don't think that there is any question that we need substantially more railway capacity and investing in it is a good thing for the economy.
I think that the west coast mainline upgrade was such a disaster in terms of cost and time that most would have a preference for new track rather than seeking to upgrade capacity on the existing tracks.
What I am not at all sure about and would like those better informed to help with is what is the marginal cost of HS2 and the equivalent, electrified conventional track?
If the marginal difference is not great than the very modest time benefits of HS could come into the equation. If conventional track is significantly cheaper then it seems a no brainer to build the new track that we clearly need without the bells and whistles.
Andy JS... So you don't mind 80 million pissed off Germans looking around for a new energy source..and they want it now..
They already have a very ambitious renewables programme. If the Germans were pissed off about it they wouldn't have kicked out the only party that opposes it.
Infrastructure costs, whether it be airport, road or rail capacity. *Any* large infrastructure project has a large number of detractors. The resultant pauses would lead us to doing nothing.
Really daft citing the KPMG report since it has already been so roundly slated by so many experts.
So the real issue is 'do we have enough railway lines' not 'should we build HS rail services'.
How much more does an HS corridor cost than a new 125? And cannot the capacity issues be resolved by putting more trains on the existing rails? It's not as if trains have traffic jams - there's one every 20 mins. Railway lines spend 99% of their time empty. Maybe the money should go on rolling stock and traffic management rather than new corridors. A smart rail system. Driverless? Automated? I suspect we'd get a hugely higher capacity bang the buckgoing down this route than HS2.
Jeez, when is being referred to as a nerd or cat lady going to be criminalised? FFS - Is this really Labour's output from 3yrs of chin-rubbing?
The shadow defence secretary said that too many soldiers “continue to face discrimination” in the UK.
Labour is tabling amendments to the Defence Reform Bill in a bid to increase the punishments given to anyone who commits a crime against service personnel.
Or this! Andy Burnham's yacht in Cannes? Shurely shome mistake?
"Some of Ed’s troops worked hard for their money, though. Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Liam Byrne used to work for those well-known progressives Rothschilds. It’s unlikely he walked out short-changed when he left — and that’s before years of ministerial pay and the pension pot it brings. It’s not just the bankers, property speculators and inherited blue-blood brigade that are kings of the one per cent. The professional politicians are not doing too badly either. Looking at shadow health secretary Andy Burnham and his man-of-the-people, football-loving, one-of-the-lads-drinking-bitter patter, he hardly screams Riviera chic. His wife, however, can be found tweeting about hosting drinks ‘on our boat in Cannes harbour’.
Indeed - it is absolutely outrageous that Burnham's wife should be a successful marketing executive.
7
Not sure what Burnham's wife's got to do with the Labour conference.
No - go on name the good points out of this #Lab13 conference - you're trying to avoid the question I posed.
It's really simple - what are the good news take-aways so far from their conference?
I'm all ears.
There is nothing that can come out of the Labour conference that you will conceivably count as good news, so my answer to you is Nothing. There is No Good News. It Is All Bad. Very, Very Bad. I say this even though I have no idea what is going on there because I am currently in the US, where coverage is zero. And I am still not sure what the company Andy Burnham's wife for has to do with anything. I doubt you do either!
So the real issue is 'do we have enough railway lines' not 'should we build HS rail services'.
How much more does an HS corridor cost than a new 125? And cannot the capacity issues be resolved by putting more trains on the existing rails? It's not as if trains have traffic jams - there's one every 20 mins. Railway lines spend 99% of their time empty. Maybe the money should go on rolling stock and traffic management rather than new corridors. A smart rail system. Driverless? Automated? I suspect we'd get a hugely higher capacity bang the buckgoing down this route than HS2.
That was the idea behind the upgrade of the West-Coast mainline, but it didn't quite work out the way intended.
@frasernelson: But Balls is right HS2 waste, on economic flatlining and standard of living. Hate to say it, but it's a good speech full of substance.
The PB Tory demographic wont get it of course
Of course he is right on HS2, any idiot can come to the same conclusion. HS2 is a votebuying scheme for the Tories in the midlands. I don't see how it survives after 2015, Lab or Con.
Why is he right? What's the alternative solution to the railway capacity crunch that's coming up (and actually with us in some places)?
There isn't one. And Labour know this as much as everyone. After all, they were the ones who initially saw the need for the project ...
Lateral thinking. There is no need in this day and age why we should be having to have all those businessmen travelling up and down to London for face to face meetings. A fraction of the HS2 cost invested in effective high speed internet and a push for far more meetings to be conducted remotely would be a much better idea. It would not solve the whole issue but it would certainly make a difference.
In the future we will all work from home etc etc and we'll all sit under a UV lamp with a virtual head set on showing images of Tuscany in our front room and never take a holiday.
Alternatively face up to it - people in business need face to face meetings - not every day but at regular points in a business relationship - it's human nature.
That's funny. We somehow manage to run a 24 hour a day, 365 day a year, multi-billion pound business conducting some of the most demanding operations
Or this! Andy Burnham's yacht in Cannes? Shurely shome mistake?
"Some of Ed’s troops worked hard for their money, though. Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Liam Byrne used to work for those well-known progressives Rothschilds. It’s unlikely he walked out short-changed when he left — and that’s before years of ministerial pay and the pension pot it brings. It’s not just the bankers, property speculators and inherited blue-blood brigade that are kings of the one per cent. The professional politicians are not doing too badly either. Looking at shadow health secretary Andy Burnham and his man-of-the-people, football-loving, one-of-the-lads-drinking-bitter patter, he hardly screams Riviera chic. His wife, however, can be found tweeting about hosting drinks ‘on our boat in Cannes harbour’.
Indeed - it is absolutely outrageous that Burnham's wife should be a successful marketing executive.
7
Not sure what Burnham's wife's got to do with the Labour conference.
No - go on name the good points out of this #Lab13 conference - you're trying to avoid the question I posed.
It's really simple - what are the good news take-aways so far from their conference?
I'm all ears.
There is nothing that can come out of the Labour conference that you will conceivably count as good news, so my answer to you is Nothing. There is No Good News. It Is All Bad. Very, Very Bad. I say this even though I have no idea what is going on there because I am currently in the US, where coverage is zero. And I am still not sure what the company Andy Burnham's wife for has to do with anything. I doubt you do either!
I love the technology that allows you to do that. It's wonderful. After all, I make a living (sorta) from it, and my wife develops technology that will allow you to do it faster, cheaper and using less energy.
You should kneel down and pray in front of us. We are your Gods. ;-)
Yet I am all too aware of the limitations the technology has. It's opened up whole new avenues of business, but sadly there is much that cannot be altered. A few months ago I was on an early-morning train from St Neots, talking to a man who was travelling down to a building site in London. There's no way he could telecommute, and the same's true for many other people.
No one has claimed anywhere in this debate that no one would have to travel. The problem at the moment is that we have a vast amount of unnecessary business travel and the answer is not to keep encouraging that by building yet more railways. The answer is to provide viable alternatives - and yes they are already available as far as the technology goes - so that far fewer people have to spend their time on journeys to and from unnecessary face to face meetings.
I and about 90 other people on this rig have to make a journey once every three weeks either too or from a rig. That is potentially highly dangerous both in terms of the journey and the final destination. As a result the oil companies have invested money in systems which allow a large amount of the work we do to be conducted from onshore - in fact much of it from anywhere in the world. As a result we need far fewer people actually on the rigs doing the technical support work and the only ones of us who are still out here are those who have to do hands on jobs.
The scope for change is huge. But it won't happen as long as the mindset is one of people having to go into the office every morning to do stuff that could just as easily be done from an office at home or a regional office closer to where they live.
@frasernelson: But Balls is right HS2 waste, on economic flatlining and standard of living. Hate to say it, but it's a good speech full of substance.
The PB Tory demographic wont get it of course
Of course he is right on HS2, any idiot can come to the same conclusion. HS2 is a votebuying scheme for the Tories in the midlands. I don't see how it survives after 2015, Lab or Con.
Why is he right? What's the alternative solution to the railway capacity crunch that's coming up (and actually with us in some places)?
There isn't one. And Labour know this as much as everyone. After all, they were the ones who initially saw the need for the project ...
Solution, allow London City to expand specifically for domestic traffic, London to Birmingham and other cities large and small. Air travel is faster and usually cheaper than rail travel. I have to go to Edinburgh for work related reasons, a taxi at 5am and a day return from LCY is cheaper than the train. So I'm flying. The solution to the nations travel capacity is on the toad and in the air. Long distance rail is a antiquated solution to our problems. The country just isn't big enough to support such huge investment for so little gain.
Indeed - it is absolutely outrageous that Burnham's wife should be a successful marketing executive.
7
Not sure what Burnham's wife's got to do with the Labour conference.
No - go on name the good points out of this #Lab13 conference - you're trying to avoid the question I posed.
It's really simple - what are the good news take-aways so far from their conference?
I'm all ears.
There is nothing that can come out of the Labour conference that you will conceivably count as good news, so my answer to you is Nothing. There is No Good News. It Is All Bad. Very, Very Bad. I say this even though I have no idea what is going on there because I am currently in the US, where coverage is zero. And I am still not sure what the company Andy Burnham's wife for has to do with anything. I doubt you do either!
Great stuff - it was not me who posted a story about a Tweet from Andy Burnham's wife as an example of Labour hypocrisy. That was you. I notice that you still have not explained the link. As I said, it's probably because you can't.
More generally, it's entirely pointless engaging with you - a determined hater of the Labour party - about stuff that might be considered good news from the Labour conference. However, from a distance and not having followed it in any detail, I am pleased about the pledge to reverse the bedroom tax for council tenants and I think that Balls is spot on about HS2. He has also put the Tories on the spot somewhat about the OBR. After the McBride stuff, though, it's not enough to make me vote Labour in 2015.
So the real issue is 'do we have enough railway lines' not 'should we build HS rail services'.
How much more does an HS corridor cost than a new 125? And cannot the capacity issues be resolved by putting more trains on the existing rails? It's not as if trains have traffic jams - there's one every 20 mins. Railway lines spend 99% of their time empty. Maybe the money should go on rolling stock and traffic management rather than new corridors. A smart rail system. Driverless? Automated? I suspect we'd get a hugely higher capacity bang the buckgoing down this route than HS2.
Boy, there's so much that's wrong with that, it's hard to know where to start. A new low-speed line would cost less, but not massively so - and would have many of the disadvantages of a higher-speed line, especially with NIMBYs. At a guess (I've seen figures somewhere) you would still be talking many tens of billions.
Railway lines do not spend 99% of the time empty; at least the ones HS2 will be helping with capacity.
'Traffic management' (aka signalling) is massively complex, especially when combining low-speed freight and passenger services with high-speed ones. Think of a Ferrari trying to follow buses and lorries down a single-track road with occasional passing places. Hundreds of millions were spent on a moving-block signalling system during the farcical WCML upgrade, and it never got anywhere.
How much distance do you think a train weighing 250 tons at 125MPH takes to stop? That's the fundamental question any railway signalling system needs to work with.
@frasernelson: But Balls is right HS2 waste, on economic flatlining and standard of living. Hate to say it, but it's a good speech full of substance.
The PB Tory demographic wont get it of course
Of course he is right on HS2, any idiot can come to the same conclusion. HS2 is a votebuying scheme for the Tories in the midlands. I don't see how it survives after 2015, Lab or Con.
Why is he right? What's the alternative solution to the railway capacity crunch that's coming up (and actually with us in some places)?
There isn't one. And Labour know this as much as everyone. After all, they were the ones who initially saw the need for the project ...
Lateral thinking. There is no need in this day and age why we should be having to have all those businessmen travelling up and down to London for face to face meetings. A fraction of the HS2 cost invested in effective high speed internet and a push for far more meetings to be conducted remotely would be a much better idea. It would not solve the whole issue but it would certainly make a difference.
In the future we will all work from home etc etc and we'll all sit under a UV lamp with a virtual head set on showing images of Tuscany in our front room and never take a holiday.
Alternatively face up to it - people in business need face to face meetings - not every day but at regular points in a business relationship - it's human nature.
That's funny. We somehow manage to run a 24 hour a day, 365 day a year, multi-billion pound business conducting some of the most demanding operations
"Operations" - so nothing customer facing then ?
How many people working in offices in London actually see a 'customer' from one month to the next? Another red herring. .
The Freedom Party seems to be doing well at over 20% in the most recent polls. Just checked and this is the first Austrian election since the death of Jörg Haider, (although that seems like a long time ago). He died 14 days after the previous election, which was held on 28th September 2008.
Let's dissect your lateral thinking. You say high-speed Internet will stop business travel. Well, the Internet (or at least the Web) has been around since 1992. How has railway travel changed during that time?
Oh, passenger journies have nearly doubled, despite t'Internet.
People still want to travel around the country. You may not like rail, but lots of people rely on it. I can't telecommute to do a walk, or visit family and friends.
Which reports and investigations have shown the aims won't be met? Do you mean the IEA report ?
And I call a logical fallacy there Josias. At no point did I say that "high-speed Internet will stop business travel." If you want to try and argue your corner at least do it without setting up straw man arguments which you can then knock down.
You said: "There is no need in this day and age why we should be having to have all those businessmen travelling up and down to London for face to face meetings."
@frasernelson: But Balls is right HS2 waste, on economic flatlining and standard of living. Hate to say it, but it's a good speech full of substance.
The PB Tory demographic wont get it of course
Of course he is right on HS2, any idiot can come to the same conclusion. HS2 is a votebuying scheme for the Tories in the midlands. I don't see how it survives after 2015, Lab or Con.
Why is he right? What's the alternative solution to the railway capacity crunch that's coming up (and actually with us in some places)?
There isn't one. And Labour know this as much as everyone. After all, they were the ones who initially saw the need for the project ...
Lateral thinking. There is no need in this day and age why we should be having to have all those businessmen travelling up and down to London for face to face meetings. A fraction of the HS2 cost invested in effective high speed internet and a push for far more meetings to be conducted remotely would be a much better idea. It would not solve the whole issue but it would certainly make a difference.
In the future we will all work from home etc etc and we'll all sit under a UV lamp with a virtual head set on showing images of Tuscany in our front room and never take a holiday.
Alternatively face up to it - people in business need face to face meetings - not every day but at regular points in a business relationship - it's human nature.
That's funny. We somehow manage to run a 24 hour a day, 365 day a year, multi-billion pound business conducting some of the most demanding operations
"Operations" - so nothing customer facing then ?
How many people working in offices in London actually see a 'customer' from one month to the next? Another red herring. .
I'm pulling your leg. Some industries can survive in this virtual world - others are not there yet - you are lucky if your job doesn't involve endless travel.
How many people working in offices in London actually see a 'customer' from one month to the next? Another red herring. .
I most definitely don't and I work in the heart of London. I suspect many London PBers who work in a London office see few of their customers. External client meetings, however...
SO: "I am pleased about the pledge to reverse the bedroom tax for council tenants"
This is a genuine question. Why wouldn't Labour reverse this tax for tenants receiving housing benefit in the private sector? Surely if it's unfair on the disabled who rent council homes it's just as unfair on the disabled who rent from a private landlord?
"Ed Miliband believes he has discovered why his party is struggling to connect with the voters of Britain. He’s not socialist enough. Or more accurately, he’s not being clear enough about just how much of a socialist he is. He’s been dropping some heavy hints, of course. Flirting with renationalising the railways. Taxing people who live in mansions. Pledging to hang, draw and quarter all those bankers.
But the electorate haven’t picked up on it. Their hunger for a genuine socialist alternative is such that they are just not prepared to accept cheap imitations. They want the real collectivist deal. So this week Ed Miliband has decided to give it to them. On Saturday a random passer-by in Brighton town centre spoke for the nation when he shouted “Why won’t you bring back socialism.” “That’s what we’re doing sir!” he shouted back excitedly. "It is about fighting the battle for economic equality, for social equality and for gender equality too. That is a battle that is not yet won in our country!” He might have added “or any other country, except Cuba and Laos”.
When I saw those comments I thought they were just a bit of a slip of the tongue. One of those stupid things Ed Miliband does occasionally. Or in days of the week that end in “y”. But it’s not a mistake. Apparently, it’s this week’s line to take. “I’ve always used the word socialism. I’ve no problem with that,” Ed Balls told the Today programme, which as we all know is compulsory listening amongst members of the socialist international. “It's a socialism which is rooted in the struggles of working people in the 19th century: fairness, proper rights at work, to have a health service that works for them, education for all; it's about an economy and a society which is not only for the privileged few. I think the thing which is interesting about the Labour Party conference, even though these are new times, people take inspiration also from the past.”
I love the technology that allows you to do that. It's wonderful. After all, I make a living (sorta) from it, and my wife develops technology that will allow you to do it faster, cheaper and using less energy.
You should kneel down and pray in front of us. We are your Gods. ;-)
Yet I am all too aware of the limitations the technology has. It's opened up whole new avenues of business, but sadly there is much that cannot be altered. A few months ago I was on an early-morning train from St Neots, talking to a man who was travelling down to a building site in London. There's no way he could telecommute, and the same's true for many other people.
No one has claimed anywhere in this debate that no one would have to travel. The problem at the moment is that we have a vast amount of unnecessary business travel and the answer is not to keep encouraging that by building yet more railways. The answer is to provide viable alternatives - and yes they are already available as far as the technology goes - so that far fewer people have to spend their time on journeys to and from unnecessary face to face meetings.
I and about 90 other people on this rig have to make a journey once every three weeks either too or from a rig. That is potentially highly dangerous both in terms of the journey and the final destination. As a result the oil companies have invested money in systems which allow a large amount of the work we do to be conducted from onshore - in fact much of it from anywhere in the world. As a result we need far fewer people actually on the rigs doing the technical support work and the only ones of us who are still out here are those who have to do hands on jobs.
The scope for change is huge. But it won't happen as long as the mindset is one of people having to go into the office every morning to do stuff that could just as easily be done from an office at home or a regional office closer to where they live.
That's true for your industry, and you're lucky (albeit at what I suspect is rather large investment costs). It's not the case for many others.
Do you have fibre optics out to the rigs, or is it all satellite, radio or microwave based?
SO: "I am pleased about the pledge to reverse the bedroom tax for council tenants"
This is a genuine question. Why wouldn't Labour reverse this tax for tenants receiving housing benefit in the private sector? Surely if it's unfair on the disabled who rent council homes it's just as unfair on the disabled who rent from a private landlord?
I think you need to look at how many houses in the private rented sector have been specially adapted compared to those in the social housing sector for starters. On of the really mad things about this policy is that adapted flats where one room was used for equipment have been redefined as having a spare bedroom.
Tim: thanks. I don't have those figures. But let's assume that there is a disabled tenant in private accommodation who has a room used for equipment. Under the existing rules that room is redefined as a spare bedroom and HB is cut accordingly. According to Labour this is fine for the private tenant but not fine for the council house tenant.
Why?
Both disabled; both need the room for equipment. But only one gets a cut in HB under Labour's policy.
The BNP have socialist policies. Perhaps he's after their vote too?
Mr Hodges really is irked.
"I distinctly remember Tony Blair, in one of his first speeches after being elected leader, telling his party not to be afraid to talk about its socialism. After which he never mentioned it again. And there was a reason he didn’t mention it. People weren’t all that keen on it. It conjured some negative images. Unburied corpses. Large walls stretching across western Europe. That sort of thing...
After all, it was Ed Miliband who said in his first conference speech, “Red Ed? Come off it.” It was also someone who looked remarkably like Ed Miliband who said “The new generation of Labour is different. Different attitudes, different ideas, different ways of doing politics.” And I’m pretty sure that it was Ed Miliband who told Charles Moore “I believe capitalism is the least worst system we’ve got.”
Then again, that was back in the days when Ed Miliband was relatively fresh, and Labour were still doing pretty well in the polls, and the Tories looked like they were going to hand him victory on a plate. Now Labour is fighting for its life, and Miliband needs something to dynamite the negative perceptions that have set like concrete around his leadership. Feeding the public’s craving for a return to socialism should do the trick. After all, it worked a treat for Enver Hoxha."
'I think you need to look at how many houses in the private rented sector have been specially adapted compared to those in the social housing sector for starters. On of the really mad things about this policy is that adapted flats where one room was used for equipment have been redefined as having a spare bedroom.'
Why would that make any difference,either a spare bedroom is required for equipment or its not.
So the real issue is 'do we have enough railway lines' not 'should we build HS rail services'.
How much more does an HS corridor cost than a new 125? And cannot the capacity issues be resolved by putting more trains on the existing rails? It's not as if trains have traffic jams - there's one every 20 mins. Railway lines spend 99% of their time empty. Maybe the money should go on rolling stock and traffic management rather than new corridors. A smart rail system. Driverless? Automated? I suspect we'd get a hugely higher capacity bang the buckgoing down this route than HS2.
Is this serious?
"It's not as if trains have traffic jams" - of course not, at least not since they invented the ones that magically jump over slower trains in front of them.
Jeez.
If it is in any way reflective of the views of those opposing HS2 I'm not surprised they don't understand the case for it.
Is it worth a game of PB Hodges Bingo for the Tory Conference. People can guess how many links the PB Hodges will produce from their king in one day. Obviously the PB Hodges themselves cannot have a guess as it would be insider dealing. Plus multiple posts or quotes of the same part of the article doesn't count as it happens so often on here we could be in treble figures.
Tim,SO, Neil etc, what do you think the number will be on day one of the Greatest Conservative Conference Ever (well since the last one).
Comments
Alternatively face up to it - people in business need face to face meetings - not every day but at regular points in a business relationship - it's human nature.
If HS2 was achievable for $1bn, would it be worth it, yes, probably. Will it be worth the inevitable $50bn it will cost? Probably not. Or rather, the opportunity cost of (a) taking the money away from people to make their own decisions about how to spend it, or (b) not doing some other infrastructure project, or (c) some mixture of both, will be greater than the amount spent.
That there are so many dissenting voices about an infrastructure project of this nature, given the costs are much more likely to balloon than the opposite, should cause everyone to pause before many, many billions are spent.
CDU/CSU: 41.55%
FDP: 4.76%
AfD: 4.70%
Total: 51.01%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Europe#Future_projects_adjacent_to_existing_high-speed_services
The alternatives - Maglev in particular - have sadly proved to be a dead-end. Witness Germany closing their test track, and China not investing much more in Maglev. Their current shortish line isn't any faster than the fastest high-speed rail for most of the day. Japan is going forward with their plans at glacial speed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train
It's like saying: "Why upgrade Heathrow? Planes are an early-20th Century technology that are already decades out of date."
In the meantime, rail usage for both passengers and freight is soaring, and there are not enough paths. Forcing people and freight onto the roads isn't going to help ...
But the real question that needs asking is why infrastructure projects in the UK routinely cost more than they do in other countries.
To call it 'idiotic' is, frankly, idiotic. The case might not have been made, or at least not to the tune of committing such a huge sum, but that is not the same thing.
If we can do it then I fail to see why the business community onshore can't do the same.
Edit: Oh and as an aside I am holding this conversation with you from the Atlantic Ocean 120 miles north west of the Shetlands.
David Lammy says mood at Labour conference "subdued" - sense of being "tossed around by events." Miliband "not PM in waiting." #wato
http://www.kpmg.com/UK/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Documents/PDF/Market Sector/Building and Construction/hs2-regional-economic-impacts.pdf
Infrastructure costs, whether it be airport, road or rail capacity. *Any* large infrastructure project has a large number of detractors. The resultant pauses would lead us to doing nothing.
By all means say you oppose it; it's the confidence of calling everyone else 'idiots' on something as complex as this which suggests to me the opponents are not looking at this objectively.
Shut up, take it down, if you want more in the future.” Thus began my initiation into the masonic, macho and mediocre world where Westminster politics and journalism meet. I was new to what’s called the Lobby but I wasn’t new to the trade. I had spent a decade reporting on the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet communism, grown-up stories where ideological differences really mattered.
Instead, there I was in the mid-1990s taking down some nonsense from Alastair Campbell. He was dictating to me a new initiative for his master, a piece of regurgitated spin in advance of some breakfast speech by Tony Blair, the man who would be Prime Minister. Instead of acting as stenographer — the assumed job description of Lobby journalists — I peppered Blair’s spinner-in-chief with questions. Campbell seemed genuinely perplexed. This was the first and last time I would receive an official plant — the proper name for most political scoops. Demarcations properly observed, I think he and I got on moderately well. Indeed, once or twice he paid me backhanded compliments about stories that had caused problems for the Blair government.
I would struggle, though, to see any silver lining in the behaviour of Gordon Brown and his Mafia-manqué minions. One of the most curious characteristics of these people was their super-charged determination to destroy anyone or anything that stood in their way. This might have been understandable if, like Lenin or Che Guevara, they had been leading revolutions. But, no, what Brown wanted was petulant revenge over the man who had stitched him up many years before in an Islington bistro. This was the narcissism (and bullying) of small differences.
Cue Damian McBride >>
http://www.railway-technical.com/statistics.shtml
Oh, passenger journies have nearly doubled, despite t'Internet.
People still want to travel around the country. You may not like rail, but lots of people rely on it. I can't telecommute to do a walk, or visit family and friends.
Which reports and investigations have shown the aims won't be met? Do you mean the IEA report ?
At least in our brave new zero hours world there is some mileage in the leftie option
All governments since the 1970s have tried to breathe life into Britain's zombie regions with little success. HS2 is just the latest
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dffa722c-1aff-11e3-a605-00144feab7de.html#axzz2fidxEvPf
And the rail freight industry itself seems to be less than enamored with the whole project
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/10309863/HS2-will-clog-up-the-rail-system-warns-freight-expert.html
You should kneel down and pray in front of us. We are your Gods. ;-)
Yet I am all too aware of the limitations the technology has. It's opened up whole new avenues of business, but sadly there is much that cannot be altered. A few months ago I was on an early-morning train from St Neots, talking to a man who was travelling down to a building site in London. There's no way he could telecommute, and the same's true for many other people.
I think that the west coast mainline upgrade was such a disaster in terms of cost and time that most would have a preference for new track rather than seeking to upgrade capacity on the existing tracks.
What I am not at all sure about and would like those better informed to help with is what is the marginal cost of HS2 and the equivalent, electrified conventional track?
If the marginal difference is not great than the very modest time benefits of HS could come into the equation. If conventional track is significantly cheaper then it seems a no brainer to build the new track that we clearly need without the bells and whistles.
Statement from the Railfreight Group about that HS2 article:
http://www.logisticsmanager.com/Articles/21265/Rail+Freight+Group+reaffirms+backing+for+HS2.html
Basically, they're highly in favour, with some caveats.
So the real issue is 'do we have enough railway lines' not 'should we build HS rail services'.
How much more does an HS corridor cost than a new 125? And cannot the capacity issues be resolved by putting more trains on the existing rails? It's not as if trains have traffic jams - there's one every 20 mins. Railway lines spend 99% of their time empty. Maybe the money should go on rolling stock and traffic management rather than new corridors. A smart rail system. Driverless? Automated? I suspect we'd get a hugely higher capacity bang the buckgoing down this route than HS2.
The shadow defence secretary said that too many soldiers “continue to face discrimination” in the UK.
Labour is tabling amendments to the Defence Reform Bill in a bid to increase the punishments given to anyone who commits a crime against service personnel.
It would put members of the Armed Forces in the same bracket as disabled, gay, transgender and ethnic minority crime victims. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10327874/Labour-new-measures-to-make-insulting-military-personnel-a-criminal-offence.html
That you're trying to divert this yet again about Mrs Burnham is pitiful.
I and about 90 other people on this rig have to make a journey once every three weeks either too or from a rig. That is potentially highly dangerous both in terms of the journey and the final destination. As a result the oil companies have invested money in systems which allow a large amount of the work we do to be conducted from onshore - in fact much of it from anywhere in the world. As a result we need far fewer people actually on the rigs doing the technical support work and the only ones of us who are still out here are those who have to do hands on jobs.
The scope for change is huge. But it won't happen as long as the mindset is one of people having to go into the office every morning to do stuff that could just as easily be done from an office at home or a regional office closer to where they live.
Indeed - it is absolutely outrageous that Burnham's wife should be a successful marketing executive.
7
Not sure what Burnham's wife's got to do with the Labour conference.
No - go on name the good points out of this #Lab13 conference - you're trying to avoid the question I posed.
It's really simple - what are the good news take-aways so far from their conference?
I'm all ears.
There is nothing that can come out of the Labour conference that you will conceivably count as good news, so my answer to you is Nothing. There is No Good News. It Is All Bad. Very, Very Bad. I say this even though I have no idea what is going on there because I am currently in the US, where coverage is zero. And I am still not sure what the company Andy Burnham's wife for has to do with anything. I doubt you do either!
Great stuff - it was not me who posted a story about a Tweet from Andy Burnham's wife as an example of Labour hypocrisy. That was you. I notice that you still have not explained the link. As I said, it's probably because you can't.
More generally, it's entirely pointless engaging with you - a determined hater of the Labour party - about stuff that might be considered good news from the Labour conference. However, from a distance and not having followed it in any detail, I am pleased about the pledge to reverse the bedroom tax for council tenants and I think that Balls is spot on about HS2. He has also put the Tories on the spot somewhat about the OBR. After the McBride stuff, though, it's not enough to make me vote Labour in 2015.
Railway lines do not spend 99% of the time empty; at least the ones HS2 will be helping with capacity.
'Traffic management' (aka signalling) is massively complex, especially when combining low-speed freight and passenger services with high-speed ones. Think of a Ferrari trying to follow buses and lorries down a single-track road with occasional passing places. Hundreds of millions were spent on a moving-block signalling system during the farcical WCML upgrade, and it never got anywhere.
How much distance do you think a train weighing 250 tons at 125MPH takes to stop? That's the fundamental question any railway signalling system needs to work with.
Opinion polls:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalratswahl_in_Österreich_2013#Juli_bis_September_2013
http://www.nationalratswahl.at/umfragen.html
The Freedom Party seems to be doing well at over 20% in the most recent polls. Just checked and this is the first Austrian election since the death of Jörg Haider, (although that seems like a long time ago). He died 14 days after the previous election, which was held on 28th September 2008.
"There is no need in this day and age why we should be having to have all those businessmen travelling up and down to London for face to face meetings."
This is a genuine question. Why wouldn't Labour reverse this tax for tenants receiving housing benefit in the private sector? Surely if it's unfair on the disabled who rent council homes it's just as unfair on the disabled who rent from a private landlord?
I'll get my coat.
"Ed Miliband believes he has discovered why his party is struggling to connect with the voters of Britain. He’s not socialist enough. Or more accurately, he’s not being clear enough about just how much of a socialist he is. He’s been dropping some heavy hints, of course. Flirting with renationalising the railways. Taxing people who live in mansions. Pledging to hang, draw and quarter all those bankers.
But the electorate haven’t picked up on it. Their hunger for a genuine socialist alternative is such that they are just not prepared to accept cheap imitations. They want the real collectivist deal. So this week Ed Miliband has decided to give it to them. On Saturday a random passer-by in Brighton town centre spoke for the nation when he shouted “Why won’t you bring back socialism.” “That’s what we’re doing sir!” he shouted back excitedly. "It is about fighting the battle for economic equality, for social equality and for gender equality too. That is a battle that is not yet won in our country!” He might have added “or any other country, except Cuba and Laos”.
When I saw those comments I thought they were just a bit of a slip of the tongue. One of those stupid things Ed Miliband does occasionally. Or in days of the week that end in “y”. But it’s not a mistake. Apparently, it’s this week’s line to take. “I’ve always used the word socialism. I’ve no problem with that,” Ed Balls told the Today programme, which as we all know is compulsory listening amongst members of the socialist international. “It's a socialism which is rooted in the struggles of working people in the 19th century: fairness, proper rights at work, to have a health service that works for them, education for all; it's about an economy and a society which is not only for the privileged few. I think the thing which is interesting about the Labour Party conference, even though these are new times, people take inspiration also from the past.”
...At the last election 29 million votes were cast, of which 15,333 were for the Communist Party and its various socialist offshoots. For some reason, Labour’s grand plan for the week appears to be to chase those 15,000 hard Left holdouts. Not the 35 per cent strategy but the 0.0586 per cent strategy." http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100237380/has-ed-miliband-really-decided-that-labour-isnt-socialist-enough-for-the-british-people/
Do you have fibre optics out to the rigs, or is it all satellite, radio or microwave based?
Because Labour introduced the bedroom tax for private sector tenants,therefore it must be fair.
Not that it would win Labour any seats
But it gives them a stick to beat Osborne with for wasting money.
Why?
Both disabled; both need the room for equipment. But only one gets a cut in HB under Labour's policy.
"I distinctly remember Tony Blair, in one of his first speeches after being elected leader, telling his party not to be afraid to talk about its socialism. After which he never mentioned it again. And there was a reason he didn’t mention it. People weren’t all that keen on it. It conjured some negative images. Unburied corpses. Large walls stretching across western Europe. That sort of thing...
After all, it was Ed Miliband who said in his first conference speech, “Red Ed? Come off it.” It was also someone who looked remarkably like Ed Miliband who said “The new generation of Labour is different. Different attitudes, different ideas, different ways of doing politics.” And I’m pretty sure that it was Ed Miliband who told Charles Moore “I believe capitalism is the least worst system we’ve got.”
Then again, that was back in the days when Ed Miliband was relatively fresh, and Labour were still doing pretty well in the polls, and the Tories looked like they were going to hand him victory on a plate. Now Labour is fighting for its life, and Miliband needs something to dynamite the negative perceptions that have set like concrete around his leadership. Feeding the public’s craving for a return to socialism should do the trick. After all, it worked a treat for Enver Hoxha."
'I think you need to look at how many houses in the private rented sector have been specially adapted compared to those in the social housing sector for starters.
On of the really mad things about this policy is that adapted flats where one room was used for equipment have been redefined as having a spare bedroom.'
Why would that make any difference,either a spare bedroom is required for equipment or its not.
"It's not as if trains have traffic jams" - of course not, at least not since they invented the ones that magically jump over slower trains in front of them.
Jeez.
If it is in any way reflective of the views of those opposing HS2 I'm not surprised they don't understand the case for it.
Rank arriviste snobbery from Labour.
No Tory would make such a claim. The place to berth one's yacht is Monte Carlo not Cannes.
Marvellous.
Even more nasty and prickly than usual.
Perhaps as an "arch Blairite" he is unhappy as Labour lean ever further to the left.
Tim,SO, Neil etc, what do you think the number will be on day one of the Greatest Conservative Conference Ever (well since the last one).