Here's one for you all, was Sir Edward Heath of working class heritage?
A father who was a carpenter & mother who was a maid, I'd say working class but I've occasionally seen him described as coming from a lower middle class family?
Works with hands and a servant, how can they be anything except Working Class?
The only definition of class that has any political utility is the Marxist one; the relation to the means of production.
I don't know why there is still a discussion on this. Surely it is well-established case law that you are working-class if you have your dinner at lunch time, middle-class if you have your dinner at dinner time, and upper class if you have your dinner whenever the hell you feel like having it.
Everyone has their dinner at dinner time. Except you think I have y dinner at lunchtime, and I think you have your dinner at teatime.
Anyway, I've identified a new differentiator - wheelie bins:
House number stickers - Middle Class House number painted on - Working Class
No house number (just a name) - Upper Class
Another trait in restaurants where they serve breads as appetisers.
The Working class ask for margarine.
The Middle class ask for butter.
My mother, aspirational working class, insisted we called the main communal room the 'sitting room' because "they only have lounges on boats".
Here's one for you all, was Sir Edward Heath of working class heritage?
A father who was a carpenter & mother who was a maid, I'd say working class but I've occasionally seen him described as coming from a lower middle class family?
Heath was working class, Thatcher was lower middle class her father being a shop owner
Hmm. Wouldn't a carpenter be an artisan, lower middle class?
No, a carpenter is a manual labourer who works with his hands and by definition working class, skilled working class C2.
Shop keepers, small business owners, office admin staff, the police and nurses etc are lower middle class
Doctors/surgeons work with their hands, thus they are working class.
I told you all I was from a working class family.
Donald Trump also 'works with his hands'. Working Class?
No he works in an office, is an Ivy League graduate and a billionaire, he is upper class in US terms (though upper middle class in UK terms as he is not royal or aristocracy)
Jeez, are we all still talking about HS2? If we’d spent the last decade building it instead of arguing about it, it would be close to opening now.
Ditto the third runway at Heathrow, would someone like to estimate how much excess carbon emissions come from having hundreds of planes going round in circles every day waiting for landing slots?
Government needs to get a serious grip on these infrastructure projects, both in terms of JFDI and ensuring that the works are completed on time and budget.
The ability to JFDI is something that Boris needs to ensure this Parliamentary Session fixes (note this session, not 3 years hence).
Jeez, are we all still talking about HS2? If we’d spent the last decade building it instead of arguing about it, it would be close to opening now.
Ditto the third runway at Heathrow, would someone like to estimate how much excess carbon emissions come from having hundreds of planes going round in circles every day waiting for landing slots?
Government needs to get a serious grip on these infrastructure projects, both in terms of JFDI and ensuring that the works are completed on time and budget.
I was in / around Heathrow yesterday late afternoon. The air quality in some places was dire in my unscientific opinion.
Here's one for you all, was Sir Edward Heath of working class heritage?
A father who was a carpenter & mother who was a maid, I'd say working class but I've occasionally seen him described as coming from a lower middle class family?
Works with hands and a servant, how can they be anything except Working Class?
The only definition of class that has any political utility is the Marxist one; the relation to the means of production.
I don't know why there is still a discussion on this. Surely it is well-established case law that you are working-class if you have your dinner at lunch time, middle-class if you have your dinner at dinner time, and upper class if you have your dinner whenever the hell you feel like having it.
Everyone has their dinner at dinner time. Except you think I have y dinner at lunchtime, and I think you have your dinner at teatime.
Anyway, I've identified a new differentiator - wheelie bins:
House number stickers - Middle Class House number painted on - Working Class
No house number (just a name) - Upper Class
Another trait in restaurants where they serve breads as appetisers.
The Working class ask for margarine.
The Middle class ask for butter.
You go to restaurants that allow margarine on the premises.
Not a single vote in Northern Ireland assembly yesterday for Johnson's NI Brexit "solution". All five major parties are adamantly opposed. Yet Johnson claims Northern Ireland consent.
I'm sure amongst all BJ's bullshit platitudes, 'uniting the country' must have been one of them. Presumably uniting the constituent nations of the UK individually wasn't quite what he meant.
The SDLP is not the largest party in Northern Ireland and more Northern Irish voters voted for Unionist parties at the general election rather than Nationalist parties, Wales voted Leave like England and most Scots also voted for Unionist parties
Bob McLennan apparently died at the weekend. I acted as his minder when he visited the Winchester by election (not sure what I was minding him from). He was really nice. Seemed quite shy and admitted to me he hated canvassing and appeared useless at it, spending ages on each doorstep. Suspect he was more at home in his rural Scottish constituency.
Not a single vote in Northern Ireland assembly yesterday for Johnson's NI Brexit "solution". All five major parties are adamantly opposed. Yet Johnson claims Northern Ireland consent.
I'm sure amongst all BJ's bullshit platitudes, 'uniting the country' must have been one of them. Presumably uniting the constituent nations of the UK individually wasn't quite what he meant.
The SDLP is not the largest party in Northern Ireland and more Northern Irish voters voted for Unionist parties at the general election rather than Nationalist parties, Wales voted Leave like England and most Scots also voted for Unionist parties
But all those other parties oppose Johnson's deal too. There was not a single vote in favour of an arrangement that is supposed to come with Northern Ireland consent.
Irrelevant, Northern Ireland still has more Unionist than Nationalist voters so what the UK government decides is definitive (plus the GFA is being protected under the Boris Deal when Northern Ireland leaves the EU)
You don't think the fact that no-one at all supports an arrangement that directly affects them, zilch, nada, is a teeny weeny bit relevant, particularly when they are supposed to be giving consent?
For ii surely even that would depend on how much and how quickly they purchased your house?
It's safe to say that John Bishop hasn't done badly out of it.
Yes. Quick purchase at market value would probably get my support. Especially if I didn't like the place anyway. But in any case, this being not a factor, I'm in.
For ii surely even that would depend on how much and how quickly they purchased your house?
It's safe to say that John Bishop hasn't done badly out of it.
From memory (of a conversation I had with a friend who does this the other day) it's ex-ante market value plus 20% or 50% grant to stay there and do what you want (many stay).
Edit: oh and all the costs you can shake a stick at.
Here's one for you all, was Sir Edward Heath of working class heritage?
A father who was a carpenter & mother who was a maid, I'd say working class but I've occasionally seen him described as coming from a lower middle class family?
Works with hands and a servant, how can they be anything except Working Class?
The only definition of class that has any political utility is the Marxist one; the relation to the means of production.
I don't know why there is still a discussion on this. Surely it is well-established case law that you are working-class if you have your dinner at lunch time, middle-class if you have your dinner at dinner time, and upper class if you have your dinner whenever the hell you feel like having it.
Everyone has their dinner at dinner time. Except you think I have y dinner at lunchtime, and I think you have your dinner at teatime.
Anyway, I've identified a new differentiator - wheelie bins:
House number stickers - Middle Class House number painted on - Working Class
No house number (just a name) - Upper Class
Another trait in restaurants where they serve breads as appetisers.
The Working class ask for margarine.
The Middle class ask for butter.
I ask for oil and balsamic. Don't you?
Balsamic vinegar is mingin'.
Have you tried chips with salt 'n' sauce in Edinburgh? The sauce resembles a kind of (very) poor man's balsamic.
Here's one for you all, was Sir Edward Heath of working class heritage?
A father who was a carpenter & mother who was a maid, I'd say working class but I've occasionally seen him described as coming from a lower middle class family?
Works with hands and a servant, how can they be anything except Working Class?
The only definition of class that has any political utility is the Marxist one; the relation to the means of production.
I don't know why there is still a discussion on this. Surely it is well-established case law that you are working-class if you have your dinner at lunch time, middle-class if you have your dinner at dinner time, and upper class if you have your dinner whenever the hell you feel like having it.
Everyone has their dinner at dinner time. Except you think I have y dinner at lunchtime, and I think you have your dinner at teatime.
Anyway, I've identified a new differentiator - wheelie bins:
House number stickers - Middle Class House number painted on - Working Class
No house number (just a name) - Upper Class
Another trait in restaurants where they serve breads as appetisers.
The Working class ask for margarine.
The Middle class ask for butter.
You go to restaurants that allow margarine on the premises.
INKSPE
No, but they do occasionally let in rowdy peasants who ask for margarine.
Usually they are barred from the establishment for life.
The Senior Starmer's have already been accused, apparently, of owning an Aga. Although it rather looks as they're both dead. Starmer was born in 1962, so his parents would, if still alive, be in their late 70's/early 80's
Being dead in no way refutes the charge of owning an Aga.
Be interesting to see how Starmer deals with this one if he wins the leadership. First big test.
Not a single vote in Northern Ireland assembly yesterday for Johnson's NI Brexit "solution". All five major parties are adamantly opposed. Yet Johnson claims Northern Ireland consent.
I'm sure amongst all BJ's bullshit platitudes, 'uniting the country' must have been one of them. Presumably uniting the constituent nations of the UK individually wasn't quite what he meant.
The SDLP is not the largest party in Northern Ireland and more Northern Irish voters voted for Unionist parties at the general election rather than Nationalist parties, Wales voted Leave like England and most Scots also voted for Unionist parties
But all those other parties oppose Johnson's deal too. There was not a single vote in favour of an arrangement that is supposed to come with Northern Ireland consent.
Irrelevant, Northern Ireland still has more Unionist than Nationalist voters so what the UK government decides is definitive (plus the GFA is being protected under the Boris Deal when Northern Ireland leaves the EU)
You don't think the fact that no-one at all supports an arrangement that directly affects them, zilch, nada, is a teeny weeny bit relevant, particularly when they are supposed to be giving consent?
No it is completely irrelevant as the UK government decides on policy for Northern Ireland in foreign affairs and EU relations provided the Good Friday Agreement is respected as the Boris Deal does and Unionist parties won more votes in Northern Ireland than Nationalist parties at the election held after the Boris Deal was agreed
Have you tried chips with salt 'n' sauce in Edinburgh? The sauce resembles a kind of (very) poor man's balsamic.
I've seen it, but not tried it.
Having seen the after effects of my then Scottish boss ordering a Haggis Pakora I've been very wary of exotic Scottish food ideas.
We caught the train from Edinburgh to Manchester the next day and he spent most of the journey on the toilet dropping the foulest waste Europe has seen since Chernobyl, whilst simultaneously complaining of infernal heartburn and that his arse looked like the flag of Japan.
Bob McLennan apparently died at the weekend. I acted as his minder when he visited the Winchester by election (not sure what I was minding him from). He was really nice. Seemed quite shy and admitted to me he hated canvassing and appeared useless at it, spending ages on each doorstep. Suspect he was more at home in his rural Scottish constituency.
The Senior Starmer's have already been accused, apparently, of owning an Aga. Although it rather looks as they're both dead. Starmer was born in 1962, so his parents would, if still alive, be in their late 70's/early 80's
Being dead in no way refutes the charge of owning an Aga.
Be interesting to see how Starmer deals with this one if he wins the leadership. First big test.
Hi dad invented the Aga, or so I am led to believe.
Another trait in restaurants where they serve breads as appetisers.
The Working class ask for margarine.
The Middle class ask for butter.
I ask for oil and balsamic. Don't you?
I eat what I'm given (butter, margarine, oil, nothing) without complaint, and if asked say "That was very nice, thank you". If I don't like it, I don't eat there again. That's a British rather than a class thing.
Not a single vote in Northern Ireland assembly yesterday for Johnson's NI Brexit "solution". All five major parties are adamantly opposed. Yet Johnson claims Northern Ireland consent.
I'm sure amongst all BJ's bullshit platitudes, 'uniting the country' must have been one of them. Presumably uniting the constituent nations of the UK individually wasn't quite what he meant.
The SDLP is not the largest party in Northern Ireland and more Northern Irish voters voted for Unionist parties at the general election rather than Nationalist parties, Wales voted Leave like England and most Scots also voted for Unionist parties
Now, I know I'm not comparing like for like exactly and all that, and I know that land acquisition is more expensive in England, but as a physicist I was taught to check that the order of magnitude of a figure looked right. So here we go:
French high-speed rail projects: Less than €20m per kilometer HS2: £200m per kilometer.
What on earth is being done in this country to warrant such mahoosive cost per kilometre.
Exactly. Maybe there is a good reason, no doubt the figures are not directly comparable, etc, etc, but the number one question, which has to be answered before one can say whether HS2 is a good project or not, is why on earth it is so expensive, and what if anything could be done to make it more affordable.
I suspect the people who think this must be done under all circumstances are why costs are so massive. If you have no fear of your project being cancelled, you have no incentive to control costs.
It's actually the opposite incentive they have been following - spend as much as possible as quickly as possible, so that when someone suggests cancelling it they can point to all the money that would be wasted if it doesn't go ahead.
Apparently sunk costs are not well understood by politicians/the public.
Not a single vote in Northern Ireland assembly yesterday for Johnson's NI Brexit "solution". All five major parties are adamantly opposed. Yet Johnson claims Northern Ireland consent.
I'm sure amongst all BJ's bullshit platitudes, 'uniting the country' must have been one of them. Presumably uniting the constituent nations of the UK individually wasn't quite what he meant.
The SDLP is not the largest party in Northern Ireland and more Northern Irish voters voted for Unionist parties at the general election rather than Nationalist parties, Wales voted Leave like England and most Scots also voted for Unionist parties
But all those other parties oppose Johnson's deal too. There was not a single vote in favour of an arrangement that is supposed to come with Northern Ireland consent.
Irrelevant, Northern Ireland still has more Unionist than Nationalist voters so what the UK government decides is definitive (plus the GFA is being protected under the Boris Deal when Northern Ireland leaves the EU)
You don't think the fact that no-one at all supports an arrangement that directly affects them, zilch, nada, is a teeny weeny bit relevant, particularly when they are supposed to be giving consent?
No it is completely irrelevant as the UK government decides on policy for Northern Ireland in foreign affairs and EU relations provided the Good Friday Agreement is respected as the Boris Deal does and Unionist parties won more votes in Northern Ireland than Nationalist parties at the election held after the Boris Deal was agreed
Can I introduce you to a couple of very helpful chaps?
Another trait in restaurants where they serve breads as appetisers.
The Working class ask for margarine.
The Middle class ask for butter.
I ask for oil and balsamic. Don't you?
I eat what I'm given (butter, margarine, oil, nothing) without complaint, and if asked say "That was very nice, thank you". If I don't like it, I don't eat there again. That's a British rather than a class thing.
Yes, needlessly unhelpful. Suppose they have all those things and all they need is for you to ask. But instead you stay silent and penalise them for your inaction.
The Senior Starmer's have already been accused, apparently, of owning an Aga. Although it rather looks as they're both dead. Starmer was born in 1962, so his parents would, if still alive, be in their late 70's/early 80's
Being dead in no way refutes the charge of owning an Aga.
Be interesting to see how Starmer deals with this one if he wins the leadership. First big test.
Hi dad invented the Aga, or so I am led to believe.
Interesting backstory!
Keir Starmer: Aga Saga (you'll find it under "Trashy Fiction"....)
The Senior Starmer's have already been accused, apparently, of owning an Aga. Although it rather looks as they're both dead. Starmer was born in 1962, so his parents would, if still alive, be in their late 70's/early 80's
Being dead in no way refutes the charge of owning an Aga.
Be interesting to see how Starmer deals with this one if he wins the leadership. First big test.
Hi dad invented the Aga, or so I am led to believe.
Interesting backstory!
You may have been led astray!
"the Aga cooker was invented in 1922 by the Nobel Prize–winning Swedish physicist Gustaf Dalén (1869–1937), who was employed as the chief engineer of the Swedish AGA company (Swedish Aktiebolaget Svenska Gasaccumulator, English Swedish Gas Accumulator, Limited). Dalén lost his sight in an explosion while developing his earlier invention, a porous substrate for storing gases, Agamassan. Forced to stay at home, Dalén discovered that his wife was exhausted by cooking. Although blind, he set out to develop a new stove that was capable of a range of culinary techniques and easy to use."
The Senior Starmer's have already been accused, apparently, of owning an Aga. Although it rather looks as they're both dead. Starmer was born in 1962, so his parents would, if still alive, be in their late 70's/early 80's
Being dead in no way refutes the charge of owning an Aga.
Be interesting to see how Starmer deals with this one if he wins the leadership. First big test.
Hi dad invented the Aga, or so I am led to believe.
Interesting backstory!
Keir Starmer: Aga Saga (you'll find it under "Trashy Fiction"....)
Now, I know I'm not comparing like for like exactly and all that, and I know that land acquisition is more expensive in England, but as a physicist I was taught to check that the order of magnitude of a figure looked right. So here we go:
French high-speed rail projects: Less than €20m per kilometer HS2: £200m per kilometer.
What on earth is being done in this country to warrant such mahoosive cost per kilometre.
Exactly. Maybe there is a good reason, no doubt the figures are not directly comparable, etc, etc, but the number one question, which has to be answered before one can say whether HS2 is a good project or not, is why on earth it is so expensive, and what if anything could be done to make it more affordable.
I suspect the people who think this must be done under all circumstances are why costs are so massive. If you have no fear of your project being cancelled, you have no incentive to control costs.
It's actually the opposite incentive they have been following - spend as much as possible as quickly as possible, so that when someone suggests cancelling it they can point to all the money that would be wasted if it doesn't go ahead.
Apparently sunk costs are not well understood by politicians/the public.
Nor by me, if you are suggesting that there should never be any debate about writing them off. The paradigm case is watching the rest of a film after you have decided it is shit, but few other cases are like that. Watching the film has zero utility, completing hs2 has greater than zero. So there is a plausible argument: if hs2 looked value at cost-of-hs2 it must look value at cost-of-hs2-minus-sums-already-spent.
Those who oppose it need to reflect on why there has been such a broad cross-party consensus on this for such a long time, why most people in the rail industry recognise it’s needed, and why northern businessman and politicians are so desperate for it.
This to me has a touch of the global warmings about it. It is irrational not to accept a broad expert consensus on a matter unless you both disagree and are an expert in it yourself. And this remains the case regardless of whether the consensus turns out to be true or not.
Yes I’d say so. It only really is a talking point because Labour candidates, and their fans, are desperate to make them working class. Even if they were, working class graduates who go on to become metropolitan lawyers with PC attitudes are far less popular with working class voters than privately educated toffs I reckon, so it doesn’t matter anyway.
PC attitudes? This simply means not racist or homophobic or sexist. I thought this battle had been comprehensively won but it would appear not. There's a backlash on. I now know how the Tories feel about private enterprise (being better than central state ownership and planning). You know, when they complain that they thought that battle had been fought and won - and the matter settled for good - long ago.
Ah well.
The fight is oh yes on. Woke culture and utter stupidity of critical race theory means it is back.
The Senior Starmer's have already been accused, apparently, of owning an Aga. Although it rather looks as they're both dead. Starmer was born in 1962, so his parents would, if still alive, be in their late 70's/early 80's
Being dead in no way refutes the charge of owning an Aga.
Be interesting to see how Starmer deals with this one if he wins the leadership. First big test.
Hi dad invented the Aga, or so I am led to believe.
Interesting backstory!
In that case I think his Dad was Swedish and his Mum blind, as rumour has it that a Swede invented the Aga as a cooker with no dials or buttons for his blind wife.
Edit: I see the correct information is given down thread.
Bob McLennan apparently died at the weekend. I acted as his minder when he visited the Winchester by election (not sure what I was minding him from). He was really nice. Seemed quite shy and admitted to me he hated canvassing and appeared useless at it, spending ages on each doorstep. Suspect he was more at home in his rural Scottish constituency.
The last leader of the SDP.
And of course 1st (joint) leader of the LDs. I am very much a liberal and not a social democrat, but I can tolerate social democrats
If the new Tory cohort is against HS2 it’s dead. Maybe if months of trailed comments being negative about it had not taken place that wouldn’t be a death knell, but it has. That group are currently very powerful as Boris is grateful to the north.
Best make up for it by letting people die in fires in the name of equality. If Lozza isn’t ok with this, his acting in Endeavour just got even worse
“ West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service wants 60% of new recruits to be women, and 35% to be from black and minority ethnic groups by 2021.
In a bid to reach the target, they have altered the pass rates to make it easier for people from those groups to get through the test.
Women and men from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups only have to score 60% on verbal and numerical tests – where as white men have to score 70%.“
It's actually the opposite incentive they have been following - spend as much as possible as quickly as possible, so that when someone suggests cancelling it they can point to all the money that would be wasted if it doesn't go ahead.
Apparently sunk costs are not well understood by politicians/the public.
Nor by me, if you are suggesting that there should never be any debate about writing them off. The paradigm case is watching the rest of a film after you have decided it is shit, but few other cases are like that. Watching the film has zero utility, completing hs2 has greater than zero. So there is a plausible argument: if hs2 looked value at cost-of-hs2 it must look value at cost-of-hs2-minus-sums-already-spent.
No, the money that has already been irretrievably spent, ie the sunk costs, should be ignored when deciding whether to proceed. The question is are the benefits worth the money we still have to spend, because that is the choice we have now - nothing we do can bring back the money already spent.
What you're missing is that the budget has been rapidly increasing. HS2 needed fudging to make it appear value for money at £40ish billion - there is no way it is value at £100 billion. Also, if you believe that it will come in at today's budget you're a fool - if we proceed it will continue to increase as it has been doing for however long the farce has been running.
The problem with sunk costs is that politicians don't want to be accused of wasting money, so will tend to throw good money after bad, as I fear we are going to see hear. Just another reason why giving politicians power and money is a bad idea.
If the new Tory cohort is against HS2 it’s dead. Maybe if months of trailed comments being negative about it had not taken place that wouldn’t be a death knell, but it has. That group are currently very powerful as Boris is grateful to the north.
They're even more grateful, on an individual level, to Johnson, for giving them a fair chance at seats that wouldn't have been close to in-play in any other election in recent history. I suspect Johnson can do whatever he wants on HS2 and they would mostly shrug and go off to find ways to sell that locally without too much fuss.
I find it incredibly frustrating that we don't just get on with things in this country. We have been arguing about an additional runway at Heathrow for more than 20 years. It feels like we might end doing the same with HS2. The (non) dualling of the A1 north of Morpeth is absolutely ridiculous and was highlighted in Cummings famous advert as a job needing done quickly. The M8 is still 2 lanes only for most of its distance and frequently resembles a slightly scary car park. It must impact on Livingston which is one of the fastest growing parts of Scotland.
We see the same ineptitude in public sector IT systems, everything the MoD ever touches and in so many public sector building contracts. In Scotland we wince about the Parliament building and the trams.
I accept my attitude is being driven by frustration as much as by a detailed cost benefit analysis and no doubt (if you ignore another 20 years of planning delays) there might be better uses for the money if we look hard enough. But just f****** do it. Now.
It's hard to disagree with this. We as a country are a like a rabbit in the headlights whenever an investment decision has to be taken. We're so scared of making the wrong decision, that we end up making no decision. And so our infrastructure remains in the (mid) 20th Century, while around us the French and Germans and Spanish continue to improve theirs.
Cancelling HS2 will not immediately see the breaking of ground on a new trans-Pennine Express. It will simply see the country again enter into an extended planning period. And yet another opportunity to invest in infrastructure will have been wasted.
Mr. kle4, I'd guess he's genuinely ignorant, unwittingly so.
A straightforward correction based on historical sources will either show him to be honestly wrong and change his mind (although that's easier to say than do), or just plain wrong.
Worth noting there's a lot of historical ignorance about. People thinking Canute believed he could turn back the tide would be a classic. Or making the wretched mistake of claiming Julius Caesar was the first emperor of Rome.
Best make up for it by letting people die in fires in the name of equality. If Lozza isn’t ok with this, his acting in Endeavour just got even worse
“ West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service wants 60% of new recruits to be women, and 35% to be from black and minority ethnic groups by 2021.
In a bid to reach the target, they have altered the pass rates to make it easier for people from those groups to get through the test.
Women and men from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups only have to score 60% on verbal and numerical tests – where as white men have to score 70%.“
Now, I know I'm not comparing like for like exactly and all that, and I know that land acquisition is more expensive in England, but as a physicist I was taught to check that the order of magnitude of a figure looked right. So here we go:
French high-speed rail projects: Less than €20m per kilometer HS2: £200m per kilometer.
The fight is oh yes on. Woke culture and utter stupidity of critical race theory means it is back.
It's back because the white western male is no pussy. He will not let privilege go without a fight.
It's so easy when you reduce the argument to this, that daft woman on question time generates more awareness of the stupidity of it. My only fear is that the backlash might go too far. But that will be on your head. It will be interesting to watch.
Now, I know I'm not comparing like for like exactly and all that, and I know that land acquisition is more expensive in England, but as a physicist I was taught to check that the order of magnitude of a figure looked right. So here we go:
French high-speed rail projects: Less than €20m per kilometer HS2: £200m per kilometer.
What on earth is being done in this country to warrant such mahoosive cost per kilometre.
Exactly. Maybe there is a good reason, no doubt the figures are not directly comparable, etc, etc, but the number one question, which has to be answered before one can say whether HS2 is a good project or not, is why on earth it is so expensive, and what if anything could be done to make it more affordable.
I think the 2017 Lords' report might still be relevant ? https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201719/ldselect/ldeconaf/359/359.pdf 7. We do not believe that asking business rail travellers hypothetical questions— about how much they would be willing to pay for quicker journeys—is the most robust evidence base on which to base a calculation of the benefits that a £55.7 billion new railway will bring. (Paragraph 71) 8. We are concerned particularly that the time saved by long-distance rail business travellers has increased in value for the purposes of appraisal since our 2015 report, on the strength seemingly of a few hundred interviews carried out on station platforms. (Paragraph 74) 9. We welcome attempts to update the evidence for travel time savings. But the new values are based on unconvincing data. We note that 60 per cent of the estimated benefits of High Speed 2 (£55 billion) relate to business travel....
...15. Our 2015 report recommended that the Government should review the cost saving from lowering the maximum speed of the railway. This work has not been carried out and it is disappointing that the Government’s rejection of the idea remains based on an assessment from 2012. (Paragraph 127) 16. We do not see why High Speed 2 is being built to accommodate trains operating at 400 kilometres per hour when the initial maximum operating speed will be 360 kilometres per hour, which itself is faster than the maximum operating speed of any railway in the world. The differences in journey times between a railway operating at 360 kilometres per hour, and one operating at 300 kilometres per hour, are minimal. (Paragraph 128)...
If capacity, not speed is the justification for the new railway, have they looked at this ?
Having sabotaged the economy and ruined the public finances that way, what better way to continue the damage by hosing huge amounts of money at a bad value infrastructure project?
I take your point. But I would only oppose a major infrastructure investment that had cross party support in the following 2 circumstances, neither of which apply - (i) I disagree as a fully clued up expert.
(ii) It goes through my house.
Those who oppose it need to reflect on why there has been such a broad cross-party consensus on this for such a long time, why most people in the rail industry recognise it’s needed, and why northern businessman and politicians are so desperate for it.
I'd like a citation please on most northern businesses and politicians being desperate for it. Its not even going to reach the North for decades.
My concern is the opposite of NIMBYism. I want more in my own backyard. I'm not not seeing why electrification of northern railways was cancelled, why there is such overcrowding and terrible services on local roads and rail, with little done to solve it due to a lack of funds but there is a blank cheque for dealing with overcrowding between Birmingham and London.
Why is a hundred billion pounds better spent dealing with just a single line dealing with Birmingham to London overcrowding and not better spent locally dealing with many problems of intercity and intracity road and rail overcrowding?
It might have been from a podcast i listened to. I'm not sure he said that in isolation. More ridiculous was not that there werent Sikh soldiers in the fighting of WW1, there was huge numbers, it was the collective delusion that the Devonshire Regiment (the regiment he was looking for) in 1914 seemed to have about 20% black soldiers.
Another trait in restaurants where they serve breads as appetisers.
The Working class ask for margarine.
The Middle class ask for butter.
I ask for oil and balsamic. Don't you?
I eat what I'm given (butter, margarine, oil, nothing) without complaint, and if asked say "That was very nice, thank you". If I don't like it, I don't eat there again. That's a British rather than a class thing.
Yes, needlessly unhelpful. Suppose they have all those things and all they need is for you to ask. But instead you stay silent and penalise them for your inaction.
Quite so, I'm not defending the attitude, merely frankly observing it - there is a middle ground between "pur up with stuff" and "angrily create a fuss" and many of us are not very good at finding it.
That said, the underlying reason in this case is that I don't really care whether I get butter or margarine or nothing with some random bit of bread, and engaging in discussion about it is more trouble than putting up with whatever they want to do. I'm not really likely to switch restaurants as a result.
That's an interesting model. For Iowa, however, it's worth noting that it doesn't deal with second choices at all. What happens to all the voters who came out to cast their vote for Klobuchar or Yang or Gabbard, and find that their candidate is not meeting the 15% precinct minimum? It's why the Monmouth poll from last week was interesting: here are the four candidates polling more than 15% - which one of these gets your vote?
It also assumes that one state's results have no impact on subsequent ones, when all the historical evidence is that early results see candidates leave the race very quickly. If Buttigieg comes in third or fourth in Iowa, does anyone really think he's going to be sticking around to get shellacked in South Carolina? Nope, he's going to exchange his support (and his Iowa delegates) for a cabinet post.
So Sir Keir Starmer is the working class son of a blind Norwegian father and a Finnish mother who loved baking. The Aga was accidentally invented by his grandfather, who worked in a British factory.
Having sabotaged the economy and ruined the public finances that way, what better way to continue the damage by hosing huge amounts of money at a bad value infrastructure project?
I take your point. But I would only oppose a major infrastructure investment that had cross party support in the following 2 circumstances, neither of which apply - (i) I disagree as a fully clued up expert.
(ii) It goes through my house.
Those who oppose it need to reflect on why there has been such a broad cross-party consensus on this for such a long time, why most people in the rail industry recognise it’s needed, and why northern businessman and politicians are so desperate for it.
I'd like a citation please on most northern businesses and politicians being desperate for it. Its not even going to reach the North for decades.
My concern is the opposite of NIMBYism. I want more in my own backyard. I'm not not seeing why electrification of northern railways was cancelled, why there is such overcrowding and terrible services on local roads and rail, with little done to solve it due to a lack of funds but there is a blank cheque for dealing with overcrowding between Birmingham and London.
Why is a hundred billion pounds better spent dealing with just a single line dealing with Birmingham to London overcrowding and not better spent locally dealing with many problems of intercity and intracity road and rail overcrowding?
The railway solution is HS2 but the northern bit between Birmingham and Manchester / Leeds with HS3 between York and at least Manchester if not Liverpool and Hull.
The road overcrowding is a different matter as it's nowhere near as easy due to landscape..
The real question is what can you start now and have finished by the mid-2023 as that is what Boris needs.
It's actually the opposite incentive they have been following - spend as much as possible as quickly as possible, so that when someone suggests cancelling it they can point to all the money that would be wasted if it doesn't go ahead.
Apparently sunk costs are not well understood by politicians/the public.
Nor by me, if you are suggesting that there should never be any debate about writing them off. The paradigm case is watching the rest of a film after you have decided it is shit, but few other cases are like that. Watching the film has zero utility, completing hs2 has greater than zero. So there is a plausible argument: if hs2 looked value at cost-of-hs2 it must look value at cost-of-hs2-minus-sums-already-spent.
No, the money that has already been irretrievably spent, ie the sunk costs, should be ignored when deciding whether to proceed. The question is are the benefits worth the money we still have to spend, because that is the choice we have now - nothing we do can bring back the money already spent.
What you're missing is that the budget has been rapidly increasing. HS2 needed fudging to make it appear value for money at £40ish billion - there is no way it is value at £100 billion. Also, if you believe that it will come in at today's budget you're a fool - if we proceed it will continue to increase as it has been doing for however long the farce has been running.
The problem with sunk costs is that politicians don't want to be accused of wasting money, so will tend to throw good money after bad, as I fear we are going to see hear. Just another reason why giving politicians power and money is a bad idea.
Ishmael is sort of right. We should write off any sunk costs then determine whether it is value at the budget from here. If it is then JFDI, if it isn't, then don't do it.
The Senior Starmer's have already been accused, apparently, of owning an Aga. Although it rather looks as they're both dead. Starmer was born in 1962, so his parents would, if still alive, be in their late 70's/early 80's
Being dead in no way refutes the charge of owning an Aga.
Be interesting to see how Starmer deals with this one if he wins the leadership. First big test.
Hi dad invented the Aga, or so I am led to believe.
Interesting backstory!
You may have been led astray!
"the Aga cooker was invented in 1922 by the Nobel Prize–winning Swedish physicist Gustaf Dalén (1869–1937), who was employed as the chief engineer of the Swedish AGA company (Swedish Aktiebolaget Svenska Gasaccumulator, English Swedish Gas Accumulator, Limited). Dalén lost his sight in an explosion while developing his earlier invention, a porous substrate for storing gases, Agamassan. Forced to stay at home, Dalén discovered that his wife was exhausted by cooking. Although blind, he set out to develop a new stove that was capable of a range of culinary techniques and easy to use."
Not a single vote in Northern Ireland assembly yesterday for Johnson's NI Brexit "solution". All five major parties are adamantly opposed. Yet Johnson claims Northern Ireland consent.
Having sabotaged the economy and ruined the public finances that way, what better way to continue the damage by hosing huge amounts of money at a bad value infrastructure project?
I take your point. But I would only oppose a major infrastructure investment that had cross party support in the following 2 circumstances, neither of which apply - (i) I disagree as a fully clued up expert.
(ii) It goes through my house.
Those who oppose it need to reflect on why there has been such a broad cross-party consensus on this for such a long time, why most people in the rail industry recognise it’s needed, and why northern businessman and politicians are so desperate for it.
I'd like a citation please on most northern businesses and politicians being desperate for it. Its not even going to reach the North for decades.
My concern is the opposite of NIMBYism. I want more in my own backyard. I'm not not seeing why electrification of northern railways was cancelled, why there is such overcrowding and terrible services on local roads and rail, with little done to solve it due to a lack of funds but there is a blank cheque for dealing with overcrowding between Birmingham and London.
Why is a hundred billion pounds better spent dealing with just a single line dealing with Birmingham to London overcrowding and not better spent locally dealing with many problems of intercity and intracity road and rail overcrowding?
From the Lords' report: 4. Representatives from the north were clear they require both High Speed 2 Phase 2b and the Northern Powerhouse Rail Programme. Given the integration of the projects, the Government should consider Phase 2b and Northern Powerhouse Rail as one programme, rather than two separate programmes. A combined programme would allow investment in rail infrastructure in the north to be prioritised where it is needed most. (Paragraph 39) 5. In any case, funding for the Northern Powerhouse Rail needs to be ringfenced and brought forward where possible. Investment in rail infrastructure in the north is required urgently, and we do not see why High Speed 2 and Crossrail 2 are being prioritised over Northern Powerhouse Rail. (Paragraph 40)
It's actually the opposite incentive they have been following - spend as much as possible as quickly as possible, so that when someone suggests cancelling it they can point to all the money that would be wasted if it doesn't go ahead.
Apparently sunk costs are not well understood by politicians/the public.
Nor by me, if you are suggesting that there should never be any debate about writing them off. The paradigm case is watching the rest of a film after you have decided it is shit, but few other cases are like that. Watching the film has zero utility, completing hs2 has greater than zero. So there is a plausible argument: if hs2 looked value at cost-of-hs2 it must look value at cost-of-hs2-minus-sums-already-spent.
No, the money that has already been irretrievably spent, ie the sunk costs, should be ignored when deciding whether to proceed. The question is are the benefits worth the money we still have to spend, because that is the choice we have now - nothing we do can bring back the money already spent.
What you're missing is that the budget has been rapidly increasing. HS2 needed fudging to make it appear value for money at £40ish billion - there is no way it is value at £100 billion. Also, if you believe that it will come in at today's budget you're a fool - if we proceed it will continue to increase as it has been doing for however long the farce has been running.
The problem with sunk costs is that politicians don't want to be accused of wasting money, so will tend to throw good money after bad, as I fear we are going to see hear. Just another reason why giving politicians power and money is a bad idea.
Ishmael is sort of right. We should write off any sunk costs then determine whether it is value at the budget from here. If it is then JFDI, if it isn't, then don't do it.
The sunk costs aren't coming back either way.
If they pull the plug on the whole thing, the government can claw back some money by building some monstrosity of a development on the land at Euston.
Having sabotaged the economy and ruined the public finances that way, what better way to continue the damage by hosing huge amounts of money at a bad value infrastructure project?
I take your point. But I would only oppose a major infrastructure investment that had cross party support in the following 2 circumstances, neither of which apply - (i) I disagree as a fully clued up expert.
(ii) It goes through my house.
Those who oppose it need to reflect on why there has been such a broad cross-party consensus on this for such a long time, why most people in the rail industry recognise it’s needed, and why northern businessman and politicians are so desperate for it.
I'd like a citation please on most northern businesses and politicians being desperate for it. Its not even going to reach the North for decades.
My concern is the opposite of NIMBYism. I want more in my own backyard. I'm not not seeing why electrification of northern railways was cancelled, why there is such overcrowding and terrible services on local roads and rail, with little done to solve it due to a lack of funds but there is a blank cheque for dealing with overcrowding between Birmingham and London.
Why is a hundred billion pounds better spent dealing with just a single line dealing with Birmingham to London overcrowding and not better spent locally dealing with many problems of intercity and intracity road and rail overcrowding?
The railway solution is HS2 but the northern bit between Birmingham and Manchester / Leeds with HS3 between York and at least Manchester if not Liverpool and Hull.
The road overcrowding is a different matter as it's nowhere near as easy due to landscape..
The real question is what can you start now and have finished by the mid-2023 as that is what Boris needs.
Is HS2 the best solution for dealing with northern commuter rail issues, or is it a solution looking for a problem?
Road overcrowding may not be easy, but I suspect £100bn could find quite some bang for buck if spent on roads.
The problem is an almost religious dislike of roads and cars despite that being how most transport is actually done on spurious "environmental" grounds - and I call it spurious because we are not looking at an active service in the North until the mid 2030s and by the mid 2030s we'll likely all be driving electric vehicles anyway so the environmental concerns from cars will largely have gone by then. We should be planning our roads based on cars no longer being an environmental problem but we are doing the exact opposite.
So Sir Keir Starmer is the working class son of a blind Norwegian father and a Finnish mother who loved baking. The Aga was accidentally invented by his grandfather, who worked in a British factory.
The picture gets clearer.
I thought his Uncle, with whom he shares a name, was a little known minor post WW11 Labour politican as well.
It's actually the opposite incentive they have been following - spend as much as possible as quickly as possible, so that when someone suggests cancelling it they can point to all the money that would be wasted if it doesn't go ahead.
Apparently sunk costs are not well understood by politicians/the public.
Nor by me, if you are suggesting that there should never be any debate about writing them off. The paradigm case is watching the rest of a film after you have decided it is shit, but few other cases are like that. Watching the film has zero utility, completing hs2 has greater than zero. So there is a plausible argument: if hs2 looked value at cost-of-hs2 it must look value at cost-of-hs2-minus-sums-already-spent.
No, the money that has already been irretrievably spent, ie the sunk costs, should be ignored when deciding whether to proceed. The question is are the benefits worth the money we still have to spend, because that is the choice we have now - nothing we do can bring back the money already spent.
What you're missing is that the budget has been rapidly increasing. HS2 needed fudging to make it appear value for money at £40ish billion - there is no way it is value at £100 billion. Also, if you believe that it will come in at today's budget you're a fool - if we proceed it will continue to increase as it has been doing for however long the farce has been running.
The problem with sunk costs is that politicians don't want to be accused of wasting money, so will tend to throw good money after bad, as I fear we are going to see hear. Just another reason why giving politicians power and money is a bad idea.
Ishmael is sort of right. We should write off any sunk costs then determine whether it is value at the budget from here. If it is then JFDI, if it isn't, then don't do it.
No, the money that has already been irretrievably spent, ie the sunk costs, should be ignored when deciding whether to proceed. The question is are the benefits worth the money we still have to spend, because that is the choice we have now - nothing we do can bring back the money already spent.
What you're missing is that the budget has been rapidly increasing. HS2 needed fudging to make it appear value for money at £40ish billion - there is no way it is value at £100 billion. Also, if you believe that it will come in at today's budget you're a fool - if we proceed it will continue to increase as it has been doing for however long the farce has been running.
The problem with sunk costs is that politicians don't want to be accused of wasting money, so will tend to throw good money after bad, as I fear we are going to see hear. Just another reason why giving politicians power and money is a bad idea.
You are right but "sunk costs" can logically incentivize completion because the more money has been spent the less money is needed to finish. Example -
At outset benefits are 100 and costs are 50. So go ahead.
Budget balloons to 120. Spent 40 but still needs another 80.
Now the 120 cost exceeds the 100 benefits. Bad project.
But the future spend of 80 is less than the 100 benefits unlocked by finishing.
Thus the project is bad but should be finished unless there is clearly a better way to spend the 80.
Having sabotaged the economy and ruined the public finances that way, what better way to continue the damage by hosing huge amounts of money at a bad value infrastructure project?
I take your point. But I would only oppose a major infrastructure investment that had cross party support in the following 2 circumstances, neither of which apply - (i) I disagree as a fully clued up expert.
(ii) It goes through my house.
Those who oppose it need to reflect on why there has been such a broad cross-party consensus on this for such a long time, why most people in the rail industry recognise it’s needed, and why northern businessman and politicians are so desperate for it.
I'd like a citation please on most northern businesses and politicians being desperate for it. Its not even going to reach the North for decades.
My concern is the opposite of NIMBYism. I want more in my own backyard. I'm not not seeing why electrification of northern railways was cancelled, why there is such overcrowding and terrible services on local roads and rail, with little done to solve it due to a lack of funds but there is a blank cheque for dealing with overcrowding between Birmingham and London.
Why is a hundred billion pounds better spent dealing with just a single line dealing with Birmingham to London overcrowding and not better spent locally dealing with many problems of intercity and intracity road and rail overcrowding?
From the Lords' report: 4. Representatives from the north were clear they require both High Speed 2 Phase 2b and the Northern Powerhouse Rail Programme. Given the integration of the projects, the Government should consider Phase 2b and Northern Powerhouse Rail as one programme, rather than two separate programmes. A combined programme would allow investment in rail infrastructure in the north to be prioritised where it is needed most. (Paragraph 39) 5. In any case, funding for the Northern Powerhouse Rail needs to be ringfenced and brought forward where possible. Investment in rail infrastructure in the north is required urgently, and we do not see why High Speed 2 and Crossrail 2 are being prioritised over Northern Powerhouse Rail. (Paragraph 40)
That's not an answer to my question. Northern businesses want Northern rail issues dealt with according to those paragraphs. From the snippet you quoted they don't seem to care about overcrowding between Birmingham and London, they care about overcrowding in their own areas.
‘The average man is not directly interested in politics, and when he reads, he wants the current struggles of the world to be translated into a simple story about individuals…people worship power in the form in which they are able to understand it.’
George Orwell was the ultimate advocate of process over person. Indeed, through his writings there's a consistent theme of "better a good system, than a great person." (Great people having a habit of pulling down institutions to get things done... which works well for them, but is then a disaster when someone else takes over later.)
So, I'm going to go for: Orwell would have loved the fact that Trump concentrated on the forgotten and the left behind, the people of Ohio, who like the people in the Road to Wigan Pier. But his solution would have been to try and improve the system, not to have the person at the top gain masses of extra powers to try and alleviate their problems.
No, the money that has already been irretrievably spent, ie the sunk costs, should be ignored when deciding whether to proceed. The question is are the benefits worth the money we still have to spend, because that is the choice we have now - nothing we do can bring back the money already spent.
What you're missing is that the budget has been rapidly increasing. HS2 needed fudging to make it appear value for money at £40ish billion - there is no way it is value at £100 billion. Also, if you believe that it will come in at today's budget you're a fool - if we proceed it will continue to increase as it has been doing for however long the farce has been running.
The problem with sunk costs is that politicians don't want to be accused of wasting money, so will tend to throw good money after bad, as I fear we are going to see hear. Just another reason why giving politicians power and money is a bad idea.
You are right but "sunk costs" can logically incentivize completion because the more money has been spent the less money is needed to finish. Example -
At outset benefits are 100 and costs are 50. So go ahead.
Budget balloons to 120. Spent 40 but still needs another 80.
Now the 120 cost exceeds the 100 benefits. Bad project.
But the future spend of 80 is less than the 100 benefits unlocked by finishing.
Thus the project is bad but should be finished unless there is clearly a better way to spend the 80.
The issue here is not the spent 40 but that 100 > 80 so the "from here" view is it is still worth it.
I find it incredibly frustrating that we don't just get on with things in this country. We have been arguing about an additional runway at Heathrow for more than 20 years. It feels like we might end doing the same with HS2. The (non) dualling of the A1 north of Morpeth is absolutely ridiculous and was highlighted in Cummings famous advert as a job needing done quickly. The M8 is still 2 lanes only for most of its distance and frequently resembles a slightly scary car park. It must impact on Livingston which is one of the fastest growing parts of Scotland.
We see the same ineptitude in public sector IT systems, everything the MoD ever touches and in so many public sector building contracts. In Scotland we wince about the Parliament building and the trams.
I accept my attitude is being driven by frustration as much as by a detailed cost benefit analysis and no doubt (if you ignore another 20 years of planning delays) there might be better uses for the money if we look hard enough. But just f****** do it. Now.
It's hard to disagree with this. We as a country are a like a rabbit in the headlights whenever an investment decision has to be taken. We're so scared of making the wrong decision, that we end up making no decision. And so our infrastructure remains in the (mid) 20th Century, while around us the French and Germans and Spanish continue to improve theirs.
Cancelling HS2 will not immediately see the breaking of ground on a new trans-Pennine Express. It will simply see the country again enter into an extended planning period. And yet another opportunity to invest in infrastructure will have been wasted.
The problem is that we seem to have tied ourselves in knots with planning, inquiries etc, so that everything takes far longer than it needs to and costs far more than it should. The Chinese are at one end of the spectrum and we are at the other - I don't think China is a model to aspire to, but somewhere nearer the German/French/Spanish position on that spectrum might be better.
It does prove the abject stupidity of the idea of spending our way out of a recession though with infrastructure projects- the recession will be over before there is anything built.
It's so easy when you reduce the argument to this, that daft woman on question time generates more awareness of the stupidity of it. My only fear is that the backlash might go too far. But that will be on your head. It will be interesting to watch.
I am distilling it down to the core truth. The heart of the matter. No apologies for that.
Have you tried chips with salt 'n' sauce in Edinburgh? The sauce resembles a kind of (very) poor man's balsamic.
I've seen it, but not tried it.
Having seen the after effects of my then Scottish boss ordering a Haggis Pakora I've been very wary of exotic Scottish food ideas.
We caught the train from Edinburgh to Manchester the next day and he spent most of the journey on the toilet dropping the foulest waste Europe has seen since Chernobyl, whilst simultaneously complaining of infernal heartburn and that his arse looked like the flag of Japan.
Deep fried haggis is food of the Gods. Plus, with Burns Night coming up, it counts as seasonal produce.
Another trait in restaurants where they serve breads as appetisers.
The Working class ask for margarine.
The Middle class ask for butter.
I ask for oil and balsamic. Don't you?
I eat what I'm given (butter, margarine, oil, nothing) without complaint, and if asked say "That was very nice, thank you". If I don't like it, I don't eat there again. That's a British rather than a class thing.
Yes, needlessly unhelpful. Suppose they have all those things and all they need is for you to ask. But instead you stay silent and penalise them for your inaction.
Quite so, I'm not defending the attitude, merely frankly observing it - there is a middle ground between "pur up with stuff" and "angrily create a fuss" and many of us are not very good at finding it.
That said, the underlying reason in this case is that I don't really care whether I get butter or margarine or nothing with some random bit of bread, and engaging in discussion about it is more trouble than putting up with whatever they want to do. I'm not really likely to switch restaurants as a result.
Do you like food? Or are you not really that bothered? (I'm guessing the latter)
Now, I know I'm not comparing like for like exactly and all that, and I know that land acquisition is more expensive in England, but as a physicist I was taught to check that the order of magnitude of a figure looked right. So here we go:
French high-speed rail projects: Less than €20m per kilometer HS2: £200m per kilometer.
What on earth is being done in this country to warrant such mahoosive cost per kilometre.
I think the problem is that the construction is being done in kilometers, requiring that we import a large number of continentals to work on the project. If we did it in miles, it would be a lot cheaper.
So Sir Keir Starmer is the working class son of a blind Norwegian father and a Finnish mother who loved baking. The Aga was accidentally invented by his grandfather, who worked in a British factory.
The picture gets clearer.
I thought his Uncle, with whom he shares a name, was a little known minor post WW11 Labour politican as well.
I find it incredibly frustrating that we don't just get on with things in this country. We have been arguing about an additional runway at Heathrow for more than 20 years. It feels like we might end doing the same with HS2. The (non) dualling of the A1 north of Morpeth is absolutely ridiculous and was highlighted in Cummings famous advert as a job needing done quickly. The M8 is still 2 lanes only for most of its distance and frequently resembles a slightly scary car park. It must impact on Livingston which is one of the fastest growing parts of Scotland.
We see the same ineptitude in public sector IT systems, everything the MoD ever touches and in so many public sector building contracts. In Scotland we wince about the Parliament building and the trams.
I accept my attitude is being driven by frustration as much as by a detailed cost benefit analysis and no doubt (if you ignore another 20 years of planning delays) there might be better uses for the money if we look hard enough. But just f****** do it. Now.
It's hard to disagree with this. We as a country are a like a rabbit in the headlights whenever an investment decision has to be taken. We're so scared of making the wrong decision, that we end up making no decision. And so our infrastructure remains in the (mid) 20th Century, while around us the French and Germans and Spanish continue to improve theirs.
Cancelling HS2 will not immediately see the breaking of ground on a new trans-Pennine Express. It will simply see the country again enter into an extended planning period. And yet another opportunity to invest in infrastructure will have been wasted.
The problem is that we seem to have tied ourselves in knots with planning, inquiries etc, so that everything takes far longer than it needs to and costs far more than it should. The Chinese are at one end of the spectrum and we are at the other - I don't think China is a model to aspire to, but somewhere nearer the German/French/Spanish position on that spectrum might be better.
It does prove the abject stupidity of the idea of spending our way out of a recession though with infrastructure projects- the recession will be over before there is anything built.
Maybe the theory is that the immediate spending on management consultants will trickle down?
It might have been from a podcast i listened to. I'm not sure he said that in isolation. More ridiculous was not that there werent Sikh soldiers in the fighting of WW1, there was huge numbers, it was the collective delusion that the Devonshire Regiment (the regiment he was looking for) in 1914 seemed to have about 20% black soldiers.
Actually he might have a point if he was intellectually capable of making one. The recent turgid World on Fire on BBC had an SOE major of Indian heritage, which though not impossible, I would think would be extremely unlikely in England in 1940.
...15. Our 2015 report recommended that the Government should review the cost saving from lowering the maximum speed of the railway. This work has not been carried out and it is disappointing that the Government’s rejection of the idea remains based on an assessment from 2012. (Paragraph 127) 16. We do not see why High Speed 2 is being built to accommodate trains operating at 400 kilometres per hour when the initial maximum operating speed will be 360 kilometres per hour, which itself is faster than the maximum operating speed of any railway in the world. The differences in journey times between a railway operating at 360 kilometres per hour, and one operating at 300 kilometres per hour, are minimal. (Paragraph 128)...
If capacity, not speed is the justification for the new railway, have they looked at this ?
Yes, that is a crucial question. I've no idea whether reducing the top speed would make a big difference to the costings, but I suspect it might (although it might be too late). I believe Lord Berkeley's minority report makes this point amongst others. Given the relatively short distances we are talking about here, reducing the top speed might not make much difference to journey times. Perhaps @Casino_Royale could comment on whether it might save much money?
I know we're all talking in semi-ironic terms, but I can't think of another country in the world where people talk about what class they're from with such keen interest. There is ample polling and actual voting evidence that the electorate doesn't care (cf. B. Johnson). What they want is someone who appears to understand and care about them; whether they come from a similar background is not the point.
The same applies to their religious views (unless applied to policy), their sex lives (or absence thereof, cf. Ted Heath), where they go on holiday and numerous other personal choices.
It wasn't until I travelled abroad a lot that I found out no other country can tell someone's class from their accent. It is a uniquely British thing.
Yes but I'm not sure that Nick is right about class not being important in other countries. It is certainly very important in France, for example, overlaid on to the Paris vs the provinces distinction.
(He's right in his second point about the electorate not caring, though).
My French-Canadian friend had a French-French French teacher at her posh bilingual private school in Montreal. Her teacher's stated goal was to make her students pronounce their vowels like cultured Parisians, because the Quebecois "sound like peasants".
Many years ago I went Interrailing with a girl from Montreal. She was so excited to visit France. But when we got there, people kept responding in English to her French. On day three, she physically dragged me on a train out the country, and swore never to return to France again.
The Senior Starmer's have already been accused, apparently, of owning an Aga. Although it rather looks as they're both dead. Starmer was born in 1962, so his parents would, if still alive, be in their late 70's/early 80's
Being dead in no way refutes the charge of owning an Aga.
Be interesting to see how Starmer deals with this one if he wins the leadership. First big test.
Hi dad invented the Aga, or so I am led to believe.
Interesting backstory!
You may have been led astray!
"the Aga cooker was invented in 1922 by the Nobel Prize–winning Swedish physicist Gustaf Dalén (1869–1937), who was employed as the chief engineer of the Swedish AGA company (Swedish Aktiebolaget Svenska Gasaccumulator, English Swedish Gas Accumulator, Limited). Dalén lost his sight in an explosion while developing his earlier invention, a porous substrate for storing gases, Agamassan. Forced to stay at home, Dalén discovered that his wife was exhausted by cooking. Although blind, he set out to develop a new stove that was capable of a range of culinary techniques and easy to use."
I find it incredibly frustrating that we don't just get on with things in this country. We have been arguing about an additional runway at Heathrow for more than 20 years. It feels like we might end doing the same with HS2. The (non) dualling of the A1 north of Morpeth is absolutely ridiculous and was highlighted in Cummings famous advert as a job needing done quickly. The M8 is still 2 lanes only for most of its distance and frequently resembles a slightly scary car park. It must impact on Livingston which is one of the fastest growing parts of Scotland.
We see the same ineptitude in public sector IT systems, everything the MoD ever touches and in so many public sector building contracts. In Scotland we wince about the Parliament building and the trams.
I accept my attitude is being driven by frustration as much as by a detailed cost benefit analysis and no doubt (if you ignore another 20 years of planning delays) there might be better uses for the money if we look hard enough. But just f****** do it. Now.
It's hard to disagree with this. We as a country are a like a rabbit in the headlights whenever an investment decision has to be taken. We're so scared of making the wrong decision, that we end up making no decision. And so our infrastructure remains in the (mid) 20th Century, while around us the French and Germans and Spanish continue to improve theirs.
Cancelling HS2 will not immediately see the breaking of ground on a new trans-Pennine Express. It will simply see the country again enter into an extended planning period. And yet another opportunity to invest in infrastructure will have been wasted.
The problem is that we seem to have tied ourselves in knots with planning, inquiries etc, so that everything takes far longer than it needs to and costs far more than it should. The Chinese are at one end of the spectrum and we are at the other - I don't think China is a model to aspire to, but somewhere nearer the German/French/Spanish position on that spectrum might be better.
It does prove the abject stupidity of the idea of spending our way out of a recession though with infrastructure projects- the recession will be over before there is anything built.
No, no... it will be timed perfectly the recession after the recession after the recession.
It might have been from a podcast i listened to. I'm not sure he said that in isolation. More ridiculous was not that there werent Sikh soldiers in the fighting of WW1, there was huge numbers, it was the collective delusion that the Devonshire Regiment (the regiment he was looking for) in 1914 seemed to have about 20% black soldiers.
Actually he might have a point if he was intellectually capable of making one. The recent turgid World on Fire on BBC had an SOE major of Indian heritage, which though not impossible, I would think would be extremely unlikely in England in 1940.
It also focused on a two gay men one black one white having an illicit affair in paris. It's the ridiculous of it. We are supposed to just put up with it.
The Senior Starmer's have already been accused, apparently, of owning an Aga. Although it rather looks as they're both dead. Starmer was born in 1962, so his parents would, if still alive, be in their late 70's/early 80's
Being dead in no way refutes the charge of owning an Aga.
Be interesting to see how Starmer deals with this one if he wins the leadership. First big test.
Hi dad invented the Aga, or so I am led to believe.
Interesting backstory!
Keir Starmer: Aga Saga (you'll find it under "Trashy Fiction"....)
It's actually the opposite incentive they have been following - spend as much as possible as quickly as possible, so that when someone suggests cancelling it they can point to all the money that would be wasted if it doesn't go ahead.
Apparently sunk costs are not well understood by politicians/the public.
Nor by me, if you are suggesting that there should never be any debate about writing them off. The paradigm case is watching the rest of a film after you have decided it is shit, but few other cases are like that. Watching the film has zero utility, completing hs2 has greater than zero. So there is a plausible argument: if hs2 looked value at cost-of-hs2 it must look value at cost-of-hs2-minus-sums-already-spent.
No, the money that has already been irretrievably spent, ie the sunk costs, should be ignored when deciding whether to proceed. The question is are the benefits worth the money we still have to spend, because that is the choice we have now - nothing we do can bring back the money already spent.
What you're missing is that the budget has been rapidly increasing. HS2 needed fudging to make it appear value for money at £40ish billion - there is no way it is value at £100 billion. Also, if you believe that it will come in at today's budget you're a fool - if we proceed it will continue to increase as it has been doing for however long the farce has been running.
The problem with sunk costs is that politicians don't want to be accused of wasting money, so will tend to throw good money after bad, as I fear we are going to see hear. Just another reason why giving politicians power and money is a bad idea.
I would have thought that at £40bn, the benefits would have been pretty obvious.
A quick back of the fag packet calculation shows that it increases revenues by c. £1.5-3bn. Now, there will be operating costs, but it should hopefully be cheaper to operate than existing lines (being more modern), so let's chuck it in at a 50% EBITDA margin. We therefore generate - off fares revenues alone - around £1bn in cash flows. This excludes any ancillary benefits to freeing up space for other services on the old line, or adding additional services, or anything like that. Or indeed, economic benefits from adding new infrastructure.
With the government able to borrow at 0.75% for 10 years, this means the cost to the government would be £300m/year.
Now, if the number is £100bn+ (and the fear, surely is that £100bn becomes £150bn or more), then the maths become very different. But at £40bn, I think the economics seem pretty self evident.
It might have been from a podcast i listened to. I'm not sure he said that in isolation. More ridiculous was not that there werent Sikh soldiers in the fighting of WW1, there was huge numbers, it was the collective delusion that the Devonshire Regiment (the regiment he was looking for) in 1914 seemed to have about 20% black soldiers.
While I do not doubt that Sikh soldiers fought and died throughout WW1, look at where and when they were posted.
It might have been from a podcast i listened to. I'm not sure he said that in isolation. More ridiculous was not that there werent Sikh soldiers in the fighting of WW1, there was huge numbers, it was the collective delusion that the Devonshire Regiment (the regiment he was looking for) in 1914 seemed to have about 20% black soldiers.
Actually he might have a point if he was intellectually capable of making one. The recent turgid World on Fire on BBC had an SOE major of Indian heritage, which though not impossible, I would think would be extremely unlikely in England in 1940.
It also focused on a two gay men one black one white having an illicit affair in paris. It's the ridiculous of it. We are supposed to just put up with it.
I'd imagine there were a few black men and white men having illicit affairs in Paris at the time, though I agree as part of a plot line it was a bit duff.
I tend to think if something's good I don't care about stuff like that, but if it isn't good I still don't care, but just see it as another reason why something isn't good. Stephen Poliakoff is a prime example of someone who pumps out this kind of thing.
Comments
(Which is what I was alluding to)
INKSPE
#build-that-railway
They'll outnumber actual miners.
Edit: oh and all the costs you can shake a stick at.
Usually they are barred from the establishment for life.
Be interesting to see how Starmer deals with this one if he wins the leadership. First big test.
I expect Johnson to do the wrong thing on Huawei.
Having seen the after effects of my then Scottish boss ordering a Haggis Pakora I've been very wary of exotic Scottish food ideas.
We caught the train from Edinburgh to Manchester the next day and he spent most of the journey on the toilet dropping the foulest waste Europe has seen since Chernobyl, whilst simultaneously complaining of infernal heartburn and that his arse looked like the flag of Japan.
Interesting backstory!
https://twitter.com/TheScotsman/status/1219598144469635072
Apparently sunk costs are not well understood by politicians/the public.
.
,
"the Aga cooker was invented in 1922 by the Nobel Prize–winning Swedish physicist Gustaf Dalén (1869–1937), who was employed as the chief engineer of the Swedish AGA company (Swedish Aktiebolaget Svenska Gasaccumulator, English Swedish Gas Accumulator, Limited). Dalén lost his sight in an explosion while developing his earlier invention, a porous substrate for storing gases, Agamassan. Forced to stay at home, Dalén discovered that his wife was exhausted by cooking. Although blind, he set out to develop a new stove that was capable of a range of culinary techniques and easy to use."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGA_cooker
Edit: I see the correct information is given down thread.
https://twitter.com/JimMFelton/status/1219593483033378816?s=20
“ West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service wants 60% of new recruits to be women, and 35% to be from black and minority ethnic groups by 2021.
In a bid to reach the target, they have altered the pass rates to make it easier for people from those groups to get through the test.
Women and men from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups only have to score 60% on verbal and numerical tests – where as white men have to score 70%.“
https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/28/fire-service-changes-entrance-test-deliberately-harder-white-men-8402291/
What you're missing is that the budget has been rapidly increasing. HS2 needed fudging to make it appear value for money at £40ish billion - there is no way it is value at £100 billion. Also, if you believe that it will come in at today's budget you're a fool - if we proceed it will continue to increase as it has been doing for however long the farce has been running.
The problem with sunk costs is that politicians don't want to be accused of wasting money, so will tend to throw good money after bad, as I fear we are going to see hear. Just another reason why giving politicians power and money is a bad idea.
Cancelling HS2 will not immediately see the breaking of ground on a new trans-Pennine Express. It will simply see the country again enter into an extended planning period. And yet another opportunity to invest in infrastructure will have been wasted.
A straightforward correction based on historical sources will either show him to be honestly wrong and change his mind (although that's easier to say than do), or just plain wrong.
Worth noting there's a lot of historical ignorance about. People thinking Canute believed he could turn back the tide would be a classic. Or making the wretched mistake of claiming Julius Caesar was the first emperor of Rome.
In Lewis OTOH, opinion is mixed.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/31/worlds-longest-tunnel-to-open-in-switzerland
€11,000 M for a 57 km tunnel is €190 M per km.
Less than £200 M.
Incidentally, the line the tunnel replaces is beautiful - I travelled that way in the 2000s - but not fast.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201719/ldselect/ldeconaf/359/359.pdf
7. We do not believe that asking business rail travellers hypothetical questions— about how much they would be willing to pay for quicker journeys—is the most robust evidence base on which to base a calculation of the benefits that a £55.7 billion new railway will bring. (Paragraph 71)
8. We are concerned particularly that the time saved by long-distance rail business travellers has increased in value for the purposes of appraisal since our 2015 report, on the strength seemingly of a few hundred interviews carried out on station platforms. (Paragraph 74)
9. We welcome attempts to update the evidence for travel time savings. But the new values are based on unconvincing data. We note that 60 per cent of the estimated benefits of High Speed 2 (£55 billion) relate to business travel....
...15. Our 2015 report recommended that the Government should review the cost saving from lowering the maximum speed of the railway. This work has not been carried out and it is disappointing that the Government’s rejection of the idea remains based on an assessment from 2012. (Paragraph 127)
16. We do not see why High Speed 2 is being built to accommodate trains operating at 400 kilometres per hour when the initial maximum operating speed will be 360 kilometres per hour, which itself is faster than the maximum operating speed of any railway in the world. The differences in journey times between a railway operating at 360 kilometres per hour, and one operating at 300 kilometres per hour, are minimal. (Paragraph 128)...
If capacity, not speed is the justification for the new railway, have they looked at this ?
My concern is the opposite of NIMBYism. I want more in my own backyard. I'm not not seeing why electrification of northern railways was cancelled, why there is such overcrowding and terrible services on local roads and rail, with little done to solve it due to a lack of funds but there is a blank cheque for dealing with overcrowding between Birmingham and London.
Why is a hundred billion pounds better spent dealing with just a single line dealing with Birmingham to London overcrowding and not better spent locally dealing with many problems of intercity and intracity road and rail overcrowding?
That said, the underlying reason in this case is that I don't really care whether I get butter or margarine or nothing with some random bit of bread, and engaging in discussion about it is more trouble than putting up with whatever they want to do. I'm not really likely to switch restaurants as a result.
It also assumes that one state's results have no impact on subsequent ones, when all the historical evidence is that early results see candidates leave the race very quickly. If Buttigieg comes in third or fourth in Iowa, does anyone really think he's going to be sticking around to get shellacked in South Carolina? Nope, he's going to exchange his support (and his Iowa delegates) for a cabinet post.
The picture gets clearer.
The road overcrowding is a different matter as it's nowhere near as easy due to landscape..
The real question is what can you start now and have finished by the mid-2023 as that is what Boris needs.
The sunk costs aren't coming back either way.
4. Representatives from the north were clear they require both High Speed 2 Phase 2b and the Northern Powerhouse Rail Programme. Given the integration of the projects, the Government should consider Phase 2b and Northern Powerhouse Rail as one programme, rather than two separate programmes. A combined programme would allow investment in rail infrastructure in the north to be prioritised where it is needed most. (Paragraph 39)
5. In any case, funding for the Northern Powerhouse Rail needs to be ringfenced and brought forward where possible. Investment in rail infrastructure in the north is required urgently, and we do not see why High Speed 2 and Crossrail 2 are being prioritised over Northern Powerhouse Rail. (Paragraph 40)
Pro Free Speech
and
Building Conservative Irish Media
It's like the Irish are listening to the wrong free speech, so she's going to have create some government backed free speech to correct the error.
Road overcrowding may not be easy, but I suspect £100bn could find quite some bang for buck if spent on roads.
The problem is an almost religious dislike of roads and cars despite that being how most transport is actually done on spurious "environmental" grounds - and I call it spurious because we are not looking at an active service in the North until the mid 2030s and by the mid 2030s we'll likely all be driving electric vehicles anyway so the environmental concerns from cars will largely have gone by then. We should be planning our roads based on cars no longer being an environmental problem but we are doing the exact opposite.
At outset benefits are 100 and costs are 50. So go ahead.
Budget balloons to 120. Spent 40 but still needs another 80.
Now the 120 cost exceeds the 100 benefits. Bad project.
But the future spend of 80 is less than the 100 benefits unlocked by finishing.
Thus the project is bad but should be finished unless there is clearly a better way to spend the 80.
Shouldn't be a shock.
So, I'm going to go for: Orwell would have loved the fact that Trump concentrated on the forgotten and the left behind, the people of Ohio, who like the people in the Road to Wigan Pier. But his solution would have been to try and improve the system, not to have the person at the top gain masses of extra powers to try and alleviate their problems.
It does prove the abject stupidity of the idea of spending our way out of a recession though with infrastructure projects- the recession will be over before there is anything built.
Corbyn 71% favourable view
Miliband 70%
Smith 67%
Attlee 66%
Brown 65%
Wilson 62%
Blair 37%
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politic
Correct!
The recent turgid World on Fire on BBC had an SOE major of Indian heritage, which though not impossible, I would think would be extremely unlikely in England in 1940.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1219623989347332097
Because however good a great leader is in the short term, a little while later you end up with Prince Andrew in charge.
A quick back of the fag packet calculation shows that it increases revenues by c. £1.5-3bn. Now, there will be operating costs, but it should hopefully be cheaper to operate than existing lines (being more modern), so let's chuck it in at a 50% EBITDA margin. We therefore generate - off fares revenues alone - around £1bn in cash flows. This excludes any ancillary benefits to freeing up space for other services on the old line, or adding additional services, or anything like that. Or indeed, economic benefits from adding new infrastructure.
With the government able to borrow at 0.75% for 10 years, this means the cost to the government would be £300m/year.
Now, if the number is £100bn+ (and the fear, surely is that £100bn becomes £150bn or more), then the maths become very different. But at £40bn, I think the economics seem pretty self evident.
https://twitter.com/syalrajeev/status/1219626021491814404
I tend to think if something's good I don't care about stuff like that, but if it isn't good I still don't care, but just see it as another reason why something isn't good. Stephen Poliakoff is a prime example of someone who pumps out this kind of thing.