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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » On his first day as a member of the US Senate WH2012 GOP nominee, Mitt Romney, fires a broadside at Donald Trump
Mitt Romney becomes a US senator today and begins with a broadside against Trump in the Washington Post. https://t.co/TGfyp8xxid pic.twitter.com/sk4eYPxjqZ
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50s is probably decent value
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/us/politics/mitt-romneys-stance-on-china-trade.html
That will be every tweet, then.
I said a month or so back that Romney was worth a small punt as the Republican nominee. Good to see Mike coming round to the idea.
https://nyti.ms/2RwRCe2
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/02/five-reasons-why-guardian-readers-hate-taking-the-train
I am surprised that the capriciousness of ticket pricing doesn't get more criticism (but maybe most people do the same journey all the time)? I have just avoided a train fare of over £100 London to Holyhead by buying it as a package with the Dublin ferry; I want to go to Dublin but if I wanted to go to Holyhead it would still be cheaper to buy a through ticket to Ireland, and throw the boat ticket away. And there's another journey in the South East where buying a ticket to a couple of stations further along the line regularly halves the fare.
https://goo.gl/images/fbfCf2
Hmm. A defeated candidate returning from the political grave... I wonder if Ed Miliband might try the same.
Mr. B2, I've used trains barely a handful of times (only once as an adult) and it seems bloody baffling to me.
The fares seem designed to confuse, baffle and cheat.
Season ticket prices seem to increase more than your pay packet each year.
Good luck getting a seat. If the train isn't cancelled. Or on strike.
BR may have been rubbish, but people got the perception that because it wasn't run by the private sector, there was no deliberate attempt to pick their pockets. It was incompetence rather than malice. That perception is very different now.
I tried to get Shadsy to put up a market on Romney voting to convict in a Trump impeachment, no joy.
I expect Trump is also still closer to voters in the Republican primaries than Trump
Advance purchase tickets are very good.
My only other GOP bet is Pence.
Happy with that.
Edit/ for example for that journey, first class, travel 2 and 4 Feb, its £6.80 cheaper to buy tickets to and from Darlington,
HOW on earth did you find that out?
If Elizabeth Warren is selected as Democratic candidate she must surely start as favourite to become the first female POTUS. A formidable intellect she seems to know how to reach out to those in society she would never have met had she not been a politician.
I would love to see Romney v Warren. It could possibly lead to a campaign which has more policy and less hatred unlike recent contests. I have to declare that Mitt Romney is a distant cousin. His family hails from Dalton-in-Furness.
https://twitter.com/joshhalliday/status/1080099000798404611?s=21
(though it's generally only an argument between people who *really* care about teh inutae of ticketing and fares.)
Bottom line is, those that travel by rail would like those who don't to subsidize them more.
One occurring has drifted to 2.37, from 2.25, one not occurring has shortened from 1.66 to 1.57.
At the moment, comfortable with having backed one not happening at 1.75, having previously backed, and tipped, one happening at 6.5.
That is the real heart of the discussion about any publicly-owned service which users partially pay for: how to weight the split between what is paid for by the taxpayer, and what is paid for by the users.
In a country with 9+% unemployment, Macron decides to come down heavy on the unemployed
http://www.lefigaro.fr/conjoncture/2019/01/01/20002-20190101ARTFIG00102-de-nouvelles-sanctions-pour-les-chomeurs.php
should boost employment prospects in popcorn selling
Presumably it is revenue maximising though why it is I have no idea
(Both France and uk use the same process for measuring unemployment)
Just shows how lucky we were to have him.
And there a difference between revenue maximising and malice
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-46727838/new-year-s-eve-beach-bonfire-sparks-firenados-in-the-netherlands
This is one point the pro-renationalisation people need to answer: what management structure would a unified organisation have? If you just shift the DfT people over, you aren't going to fix any problems.
I must disagree with your last sub clause though. It won't just not fix the problems, it will make them considerably worse.
"The problem of the public sector is that they're perceived as often inefficient. The problem of the private sector is that they're perceived to often want to rip you off."
Fairly accurate. But what is a natural monopoly? Water supply, yes, but I'm not sure trains are in this category. They are a from of transport but competing with other forms. The government provide roads free of charge, the car manufacturers don't pay for their upkeep.
The advantage of nationalisation is a consistent pricing structure, the disadvantage is the price may well be higher.
I don't think that's Romney's calculation. He's positioning himself to pick up the pieces if Mueller makes it impossible for Trump to run again (note, I am not mentioning impeachment) - and the odds on that are pretty good.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/02/australian-man-screaming-at-spider-why-dont-you-die-triggers-full-police-response
No injuries sighted (except to spider).
I’m going to stop describing myself as working class.
It’s much more fun when people work it out for themselves.
It can't work for everywhere and especially more rural places it will be very difficult without a car but I think we should make not owning a car a more realistic option for more people.
It would get more cars off the road which would make travelling easier for the remaining drivers at peak times. It will making living further from where you work a more realistic option by reducing the time and cost of doing so. Not to mention the environmental benefits of less cars on the road.
If you were to encourage more people to use public transport by doing this then you would need to invest even more to increase capacity to handle it but I think this would be worth it for the other benefits.
Edit: Obviously wildly unrealistic for a lot of people but by reducing cars on the road we could help encourage more of those that could to cycle to work.
IMO a big problem is that the Office of Rail Regulation it is now called the Office for Rail and Road, a massive dilution of its focus. The change won't improve things for road or rail.
And the 'old' ORR was nowhere near as good as the Strategic Rail Authority.
Although that might have had something to do with the proximity to the New Year celebrations.
Only a few of the larger railway stations - pre-eminently London St. Pancras - are places you’d want to spend any time. Most of them are draughty and depressing.
And yet architecturally we have a wonderful network of stations, and no shortage of railway enthusiasts in this country. Perhaps they should all be managed by a sort of National Trust for the railways.
A financially rational call, not malice
Of course the SNP government* could have decided it was important to have a lower fare on that route at that time and used taxpayer money to subsidise the journey
(I’ve no idea if trains are a devolved power but given the Scotrail name have assumed that it is)
Even if you do a round trip (never leave the airport) 4 hours saves about £1,000 so worthwhile in my view
* was only an issue when my plane back from the US was cancelled and they insisted on trying to rebook me on a flight to Paris via Chicago
George Osborne CH would not have given Corbyn and a McDonnell a free pass on the economy at GE2017.
It might be that the new train is timetabled to arrive into Glasgow much more than 1 minute earlier. If so, that would weaken the case for maintaining it as an off-peak service.
Grayling has managed to have not one, not two, but THREE crises in the space of one fortnight's holiday.
There were Labour leafletters at my station this morning handing out literature putting the boot in over the 3% fair rise.
Plus the only time the Tories have a won a majority this millennium is after five years of austerity.
Although as a pedant I’d point out government spending increased under Osborne.
The Conservatives might want to remember that and mention it every now and then.
A more skilled Transport Secretary might be able to ride out the storm, if they weren't already deep in the shit.
Grayling is not that man.
It isn't really fair to blame Osborne for the centre failing to hold. Centrism is dying across the planet.
http://trains.im/ppm/SW
That's what happens when everyone's on holiday.
If I murder a child and set fire to an oil refinery and then have a cheese sandwich, the first two crimes don't make the third an illegal act.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/11/19/austerity-swung-voters-to-brexit-and-now-they-are-changing-their-minds/
If Trump is still alive in this situation then his endorsement becomes important; Obviously Pence is possible, but Trump will want somebody who's shown loyalty to him personally, in which case the obvious choice is Newt Gingrich.