So we finance the railways for 18 months and private companies still make money.
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
The companies aren't making any money.
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
Please care to explain why giving money to private companies is worse than owning them ourselves
Once fully nationalised there will be additional pressure to keep passenger numbers up to make "the railways viable" in the "national interest". As opposed to embracing the home working stuff.
And thats the case with Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, NedRail, TrenItalia is it? All of whom are fully nationalised yet successfully run rail services here on a commercial basis...
Deutsche Bahn failed to run the Tyne and Wear metro successfully.
South Western Failway couldn't run a bath.
And why would they care? They're not accountable to anyone.
And with the new system, they make a profit regardless, this is a genuinely awful idea
It's the same system that TfL use for the overground very successfully. There are inbuilt penalties for late running and loss of contract clauses for poor service levels. There have been years where the private consortium running the overground has ended up making no money because of lateness and staffing issues resulting in major fines.
Having a nationalised country run the railways is a licence for the unions to go on strike every week because they know the government can't live with the bad press. It means higher fares in the long terms because fixed costs will shoot up and eventually that will eat into the capital budget resulting in less investment in tracks and rolling stock.
The only way a nationalised company makes sense is if the whole thing was deunionised.
Just wondering, have you used South Western Failway lately? They're always on strike
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
It’s working exactly as intended, as a check and balance on the small rural states being dictated to by the large coastal states.
If Democrats want a majority in the Senate, they need to convince people in more states.
So if the Democrats want a majority they should represent the minority, like the Republicans already do. Hmmm, great solution
The Democrats had a Senate majority from 2006 to 2014
And in the 1960s the Democrats held every seat in the South. What exactly is your point other than referring to distance political eras?
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
It’s working exactly as intended, as a check and balance on the small rural states being dictated to by the large coastal states.
If Democrats want a majority in the Senate, they need to convince people in more states.
So if the Democrats want a majority they should represent the minority, like the Republicans already do. Hmmm, great solution
The Democrats had a Senate majority from 2006 to 2014
And in the 1960s the Democrats held every seat in the South. What exactly is your point other than referring to distance political eras?
To show that it is utter nonsense the Democrats cannot win a Senate majority, in fact in November it is perfectly possible Trump is re elected, the GOP retake the House but the Democrats retake the Senate on current state polling.
The Senate is there to ensure all states get equal representation while the House is the body which apportions representatives by population, the Senate is not there to ensure there is a permanent Republican majority in it, as proved from 2006 to 2014 when the Democrats had a Senate majority
But Sir Michael Holden, former train operator and Network Rail executive, told the BBC Today programme the new plan was “the worst possible arrangement to run the railways”.
He said: "We’ve got the dead hand of government on the helm, controlling all of the detailed decisions of the railway, and yet they're still paying private-sector operators to run the railway for them.”
Absolutely spot on
Thats increasingly been the case for several years - practically speaking this new announcement doesn't change a lot
So we finance the railways for 18 months and private companies still make money.
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
The companies aren't making any money.
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
Please care to explain why giving money to private companies is worse than owning them ourselves
Once fully nationalised there will be additional pressure to keep passenger numbers up to make "the railways viable" in the "national interest". As opposed to embracing the home working stuff.
And thats the case with Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, NedRail, TrenItalia is it? All of whom are fully nationalised yet successfully run rail services here on a commercial basis...
Deutsche Bahn failed to run the Tyne and Wear metro successfully.
South Western Failway couldn't run a bath.
And why would they care? They're not accountable to anyone.
And with the new system, they make a profit regardless, this is a genuinely awful idea
It's the same system that TfL use for the overground very successfully. There are inbuilt penalties for late running and loss of contract clauses for poor service levels. There have been years where the private consortium running the overground has ended up making no money because of lateness and staffing issues resulting in major fines.
Having a nationalised country run the railways is a licence for the unions to go on strike every week because they know the government can't live with the bad press. It means higher fares in the long terms because fixed costs will shoot up and eventually that will eat into the capital budget resulting in less investment in tracks and rolling stock.
The only way a nationalised company makes sense is if the whole thing was deunionised.
Just wondering, have you used South Western Failway lately? They're always on strike
Yeah because the private company can live with them and want to cut fixed costs by getting rid of the guards. If it was nationalised that wouldn't even be part of the conversation because the government wouldn't be able to live with the bad press. This is why keeping the running of the trains in private hands makes sense, businesses are rational and will push through efficiencies where the state wouldn't be able to. Over time that means the subsidy decreases and makes the whole system more sustainable.
As I said, £130m isn't a massive amount to be worrying over.
Ah, risk segmentation. The siren song of the magical solution.
How does it work? Who staffs the care homes? It's not as if it's easy to get enough staff for them anyway, but what if they cannot now use a) young adults, b) anyone who lives with a young adult or child, c) anyone who works elsewhere as a second job, d) anyone who lives with anyone who works in a school or university, e) maybe even anyone who uses public transport?... What of the elderly, not in care, who live with younger relatives? Who treats elderly patients in hospital, or those with serious risk factors? Who cleans the homes of disabled elderly people who cannot do it themselves?
Ah, making a risk assessment and deciding what level of risk you are comfortable with. The ultimate in self-centered pandemic management.
Of course, this disease poses negligible risk to some people (well, we're not sure about long-term consequences, but those are invisible and uncertain so let's pretend that they are also insignificant). But, if infected, what of the others they infect while asymptomatic? If they fall ill, what of the risk to the delivery people who bring them food, the doctors and nurses that treat them? Every person's infection creates consequential risks for others. For sure, that's not a risk to the person who made the calculation, so I guess that doesn't matter?
Pandemic response exposes our commitment, or lack of it, to the common wellbeing of society. One reason The Swedish Model (TM) works* is that such a commitment is strong there. One reason we seem to be failing is lack of the same. Reasonable people can disagree about the best way forward, but there's too much motivated reasoning around.
The answer is, dramatically up the protection for care homes. Pay the staff more, give them full fat PPE and sheltered living quarters. Ring fence those actually at high risk and let everyone else get on with it.
I was being a little sarcastic about the Swedish model working.
Sheltered living quarters? Separated from their families? For *everyone* who cares for old people, including doctors and nurses and hospital cleaners and homecare workers and ...?
I think your ring fence is full of holes.
--AS
Just invert the situation; say the care homes had spontaneous outbreaks of bubonic plague or zombie virus. I don't think we would have much difficulty in containing the problem.
The best approach is to think we are dealing with two different diseases here. For the elderly this is a smallpox/plague level threat. Treat them accordingly. For everyone else in terms of threat to life and to long term health, it is in the same ballpark (in both risk and severity of consequences) as all the boring consequences of eating/drinking/smoking too much, not exercising, etc. Treat it similarly: advise people of the risks and how to avoid them. The yebbut they are young and fit themselves but they'll infect granny argument is irrelevant, because granny is behaving according to plague/smallpox protocols and not seeing them without donning a spacesuit first.
Ah, risk segmentation. The siren song of the magical solution.
How does it work? Who staffs the care homes? It's not as if it's easy to get enough staff for them anyway, but what if they cannot now use a) young adults, b) anyone who lives with a young adult or child, c) anyone who works elsewhere as a second job, d) anyone who lives with anyone who works in a school or university, e) maybe even anyone who uses public transport?... What of the elderly, not in care, who live with younger relatives? Who treats elderly patients in hospital, or those with serious risk factors? Who cleans the homes of disabled elderly people who cannot do it themselves?
Ah, making a risk assessment and deciding what level of risk you are comfortable with. The ultimate in self-centered pandemic management.
Of course, this disease poses negligible risk to some people (well, we're not sure about long-term consequences, but those are invisible and uncertain so let's pretend that they are also insignificant). But, if infected, what of the others they infect while asymptomatic? If they fall ill, what of the risk to the delivery people who bring them food, the doctors and nurses that treat them? Every person's infection creates consequential risks for others. For sure, that's not a risk to the person who made the calculation, so I guess that doesn't matter?
Pandemic response exposes our commitment, or lack of it, to the common wellbeing of society. One reason The Swedish Model (TM) works* is that such a commitment is strong there. One reason we seem to be failing is lack of the same. Reasonable people can disagree about the best way forward, but there's too much motivated reasoning around.
The answer is, dramatically up the protection for care homes. Pay the staff more, give them full fat PPE and sheltered living quarters. Ring fence those actually at high risk and let everyone else get on with it.
I was being a little sarcastic about the Swedish model working.
Sheltered living quarters? Separated from their families? For *everyone* who cares for old people, including doctors and nurses and hospital cleaners and homecare workers and ...?
I think your ring fence is full of holes.
--AS
"Protective bubbles round the elderly" is the sort of thing that looks fantastic in a consultant's spreadsheet, but it's not workable with real people.
One thing that actually worked was the staff at care homes living* on site, in isolation with the residents.
* In some cases camping in the garden
In the USA in New York state care homes with unionised staff had a 30% lower death rate then non-union care homes.
Paper puts it down to better PPE and lower transient staff in the unionised homes.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
So what, the House seats are allocated on the basis of population and had a Republican majority from 2010 to 2018 including from 2010 to 2014 when the Senate had a Democratic majority. So the idea the Democrats can never win the Senate is absurd.
All you are posting is left liberal whining, totally ignoring the balance of power the founding fathers put into the US constitution to ensure no state was ignored and all states gained equal representation in the Senate and contributed, even if the House seats were determined by population, with the EC being a halfway house, with EC votes awarded by population but every state getting a minimal representation of electors.
California for example has 53 US Representatives, Wyoming just 1.
I know you worship the "founding fathers" as god-like beings, but I don't, and your account of their motivation is just stupid propaganda.
The House also has a pro-Republican bias due to gerrymandering and Democrat voter inefficiency, it does not have PR, or even remotely reasonable boundaries in many cases. So your "point" about the House is moronic.
Are you disputing the facts in the 538 article about the Senate? And if so which ones? I'd love to hear your expertise.
It doesn't matter. The system is the system what is whinging about it going to achieve?
To change the system can't be done with a majority of the House as happened in the UK with the Parliament Actin the Commons. To change the system requires the consent of two-thirds of the States and those States are never under any circumstances going to agree to that.
The Democrats need to find a way of appealing more to the other States - they did when they won a massive majority of the Senate only a few years ago. Whinging about the system won't achieve change.
And in the only example of Covid on a navy ship, sailors died.
It wasn't the only example. HMS QE has had it as well.
She sailed for GROUPEX this week with a complement of 1,700. When the RN were trying to stop the carriers from getting cancelled they swore blind the carrier + air wing would take to sea with less than 700 crew.
Why don’t we sell the carriers to the Japanese ? They have more use for them, they can afford them, and they might even have the aircraft to fly off them.
The Japanese are building their own (Izumo class).
The UK has 18 x F-35B. 3 in the OEU in California (where they will stay forever due to export restrictions on orange wired instrumented a/c), 6 in the OCU and 9 in 617.
They have generated 5 a/c for the GROUPEX and have had to borrow to 10 (plus crew) from VMFA-211 of the USMC. That came with a very high price including a completely separate IT network on the ship that is US only. 5 out of 7 LRIP 15 jets got cancelled for cost purposes so we might get to 48 by 2030.
Aren’t our carriers far more capable ? F35 capable Izumo class will just be modified helicopter carriers. If we don’t allocate sufficient resources to the navy, there seems to be very little practical point in our having them, as they effectively cripple everything else, whereas they’d be of great strategic value to Japan.
I realise it would never happen, but it’s an interesting idea.
Quick. Someone has to let them know that some retired bloke who disagrees with the lockdown thinks it's almost certain that these people don't have the virus.
I'm not sure it's a case of arguing that people 'don't have the virus' - it's what is the degree of acceptable risk of people 'getting the virus', as compared to other risks that we all accept each day as part of daily life.
So we finance the railways for 18 months and private companies still make money.
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
The companies aren't making any money.
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
Please care to explain why giving money to private companies is worse than owning them ourselves
Once fully nationalised there will be additional pressure to keep passenger numbers up to make "the railways viable" in the "national interest". As opposed to embracing the home working stuff.
And thats the case with Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, NedRail, TrenItalia is it? All of whom are fully nationalised yet successfully run rail services here on a commercial basis...
Deutsche Bahn failed to run the Tyne and Wear metro successfully.
South Western Failway couldn't run a bath.
And why would they care? They're not accountable to anyone.
And with the new system, they make a profit regardless, this is a genuinely awful idea
It's the same system that TfL use for the overground very successfully. There are inbuilt penalties for late running and loss of contract clauses for poor service levels. There have been years where the private consortium running the overground has ended up making no money because of lateness and staffing issues resulting in major fines.
Having a nationalised country run the railways is a licence for the unions to go on strike every week because they know the government can't live with the bad press. It means higher fares in the long terms because fixed costs will shoot up and eventually that will eat into the capital budget resulting in less investment in tracks and rolling stock.
The only way a nationalised company makes sense is if the whole thing was deunionised.
Just wondering, have you used South Western Failway lately? They're always on strike
Yeah because the private company can live with them and want to cut fixed costs by getting rid of the guards. If it was nationalised that wouldn't even be part of the conversation because the government wouldn't be able to live with the bad press. This is why keeping the running of the trains in private hands makes sense, businesses are rational and will push through efficiencies where the state wouldn't be able to. Over time that means the subsidy decreases and makes the whole system more sustainable.
As I said, £130m isn't a massive amount to be worrying over.
South Western Failway will never make a profit because it cocked up the original bid. It bid for trains that it can't run because there isn't enough electricity available to run them. This is why the previous operator refused to bid anymore.
Ah, risk segmentation. The siren song of the magical solution.
How does it work? Who staffs the care homes? It's not as if it's easy to get enough staff for them anyway, but what if they cannot now use a) young adults, b) anyone who lives with a young adult or child, c) anyone who works elsewhere as a second job, d) anyone who lives with anyone who works in a school or university, e) maybe even anyone who uses public transport?... What of the elderly, not in care, who live with younger relatives? Who treats elderly patients in hospital, or those with serious risk factors? Who cleans the homes of disabled elderly people who cannot do it themselves?
Ah, making a risk assessment and deciding what level of risk you are comfortable with. The ultimate in self-centered pandemic management.
Of course, this disease poses negligible risk to some people (well, we're not sure about long-term consequences, but those are invisible and uncertain so let's pretend that they are also insignificant). But, if infected, what of the others they infect while asymptomatic? If they fall ill, what of the risk to the delivery people who bring them food, the doctors and nurses that treat them? Every person's infection creates consequential risks for others. For sure, that's not a risk to the person who made the calculation, so I guess that doesn't matter?
Pandemic response exposes our commitment, or lack of it, to the common wellbeing of society. One reason The Swedish Model (TM) works* is that such a commitment is strong there. One reason we seem to be failing is lack of the same. Reasonable people can disagree about the best way forward, but there's too much motivated reasoning around.
The answer is, dramatically up the protection for care homes. Pay the staff more, give them full fat PPE and sheltered living quarters. Ring fence those actually at high risk and let everyone else get on with it.
I was being a little sarcastic about the Swedish model working.
Sheltered living quarters? Separated from their families? For *everyone* who cares for old people, including doctors and nurses and hospital cleaners and homecare workers and ...?
I think your ring fence is full of holes.
--AS
"Protective bubbles round the elderly" is the sort of thing that looks fantastic in a consultant's spreadsheet, but it's not workable with real people.
Yes it is. Biosecurity is a thing, and not one which only works with crash test dummies. Care homes are dead easy. Those living independently can make their own minds up, and if their position is that real grannies wanna hug their grandkids, they can go ahead.
So we finance the railways for 18 months and private companies still make money.
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
The companies aren't making any money.
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
Please care to explain why giving money to private companies is worse than owning them ourselves
Once fully nationalised there will be additional pressure to keep passenger numbers up to make "the railways viable" in the "national interest". As opposed to embracing the home working stuff.
And thats the case with Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, NedRail, TrenItalia is it? All of whom are fully nationalised yet successfully run rail services here on a commercial basis...
Deutsche Bahn failed to run the Tyne and Wear metro successfully.
South Western Failway couldn't run a bath.
And why would they care? They're not accountable to anyone.
And with the new system, they make a profit regardless, this is a genuinely awful idea
It's the same system that TfL use for the overground very successfully. There are inbuilt penalties for late running and loss of contract clauses for poor service levels. There have been years where the private consortium running the overground has ended up making no money because of lateness and staffing issues resulting in major fines.
Having a nationalised country run the railways is a licence for the unions to go on strike every week because they know the government can't live with the bad press. It means higher fares in the long terms because fixed costs will shoot up and eventually that will eat into the capital budget resulting in less investment in tracks and rolling stock.
The only way a nationalised company makes sense is if the whole thing was deunionised.
Just wondering, have you used South Western Failway lately? They're always on strike
Yeah because the private company can live with them and want to cut fixed costs by getting rid of the guards. If it was nationalised that wouldn't even be part of the conversation because the government wouldn't be able to live with the bad press. This is why keeping the running of the trains in private hands makes sense, businesses are rational and will push through efficiencies where the state wouldn't be able to. Over time that means the subsidy decreases and makes the whole system more sustainable.
As I said, £130m isn't a massive amount to be worrying over.
South Western Failway will never make a profit because it cocked up the original bid. It bid for trains that it can't run because there isn't enough electricity available to run them. This is why the previous operator refused to bid anymore.
Guards is re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic
As long as they aren't making a profit it's not an issue is it?
So we finance the railways for 18 months and private companies still make money.
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
The companies aren't making any money.
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
Please care to explain why giving money to private companies is worse than owning them ourselves
Once fully nationalised there will be additional pressure to keep passenger numbers up to make "the railways viable" in the "national interest". As opposed to embracing the home working stuff.
And thats the case with Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, NedRail, TrenItalia is it? All of whom are fully nationalised yet successfully run rail services here on a commercial basis...
Deutsche Bahn failed to run the Tyne and Wear metro successfully.
South Western Failway couldn't run a bath.
And why would they care? They're not accountable to anyone.
And with the new system, they make a profit regardless, this is a genuinely awful idea
It's the same system that TfL use for the overground very successfully. There are inbuilt penalties for late running and loss of contract clauses for poor service levels. There have been years where the private consortium running the overground has ended up making no money because of lateness and staffing issues resulting in major fines.
Having a nationalised country run the railways is a licence for the unions to go on strike every week because they know the government can't live with the bad press. It means higher fares in the long terms because fixed costs will shoot up and eventually that will eat into the capital budget resulting in less investment in tracks and rolling stock.
The only way a nationalised company makes sense is if the whole thing was deunionised.
Just wondering, have you used South Western Failway lately? They're always on strike
Yeah because the private company can live with them and want to cut fixed costs by getting rid of the guards. If it was nationalised that wouldn't even be part of the conversation because the government wouldn't be able to live with the bad press. This is why keeping the running of the trains in private hands makes sense, businesses are rational and will push through efficiencies where the state wouldn't be able to. Over time that means the subsidy decreases and makes the whole system more sustainable.
As I said, £130m isn't a massive amount to be worrying over.
South Western Failway will never make a profit because it cocked up the original bid. It bid for trains that it can't run because there isn't enough electricity available to run them. This is why the previous operator refused to bid anymore.
Guards is re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic
As long as they aren't making a profit it's not an issue is it?
No you misunderstand me, the Government guarantees a profit.
Seems a OK idea to me. Renaming Arsenal to 'Emirates Arsenal' for example - as long as the names aren't silly (and as long as the sponsorship package is worked out with what is going to happen after it expires). Isn't solving the funding crisis for TFL a priority for London?
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
So what, the House seats are allocated on the basis of population and had a Republican majority from 2010 to 2018 including from 2010 to 2014 when the Senate had a Democratic majority. So the idea the Democrats can never win the Senate is absurd.
All you are posting is left liberal whining, totally ignoring the balance of power the founding fathers put into the US constitution to ensure no state was ignored and all states gained equal representation in the Senate and contributed, even if the House seats were determined by population, with the EC being a halfway house, with EC votes awarded by population but every state getting a minimal representation of electors.
California for example has 53 US Representatives, Wyoming just 1.
I know you worship the "founding fathers" as god-like beings, but I don't, and your account of their motivation is just stupid propaganda.
The House also has a pro-Republican bias due to gerrymandering and Democrat voter inefficiency, it does not have PR, or even remotely reasonable boundaries in many cases. So your "point" about the House is moronic.
Are you disputing the facts in the 538 article about the Senate? And if so which ones? I'd love to hear your expertise.
It doesn't matter. The system is the system what is whinging about it going to achieve?
To change the system can't be done with a majority of the House as happened in the UK with the Parliament Actin the Commons. To change the system requires the consent of two-thirds of the States and those States are never under any circumstances going to agree to that.
The Democrats need to find a way of appealing more to the other States - they did when they won a massive majority of the Senate only a few years ago. Whinging about the system won't achieve change.
What on earth makes you think that me pointing out certain facts on this forum is going to "achieve change"? Like I said, it's hard to see how the US becomes a democracy.
Obviously these facts are uncomfortable for certain posters on here, but they remain facts.
Anyone who uses the word "whinging" to describe facts or opinions they don't like obviously has nothing useful to say.
So we finance the railways for 18 months and private companies still make money.
What's the point in that? Just nationalise properly
The companies aren't making any money.
And nationalisation makes matters worse.
Please care to explain why giving money to private companies is worse than owning them ourselves
Once fully nationalised there will be additional pressure to keep passenger numbers up to make "the railways viable" in the "national interest". As opposed to embracing the home working stuff.
And thats the case with Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, NedRail, TrenItalia is it? All of whom are fully nationalised yet successfully run rail services here on a commercial basis...
Deutsche Bahn failed to run the Tyne and Wear metro successfully.
South Western Failway couldn't run a bath.
And why would they care? They're not accountable to anyone.
And with the new system, they make a profit regardless, this is a genuinely awful idea
It's the same system that TfL use for the overground very successfully. There are inbuilt penalties for late running and loss of contract clauses for poor service levels. There have been years where the private consortium running the overground has ended up making no money because of lateness and staffing issues resulting in major fines.
Having a nationalised country run the railways is a licence for the unions to go on strike every week because they know the government can't live with the bad press. It means higher fares in the long terms because fixed costs will shoot up and eventually that will eat into the capital budget resulting in less investment in tracks and rolling stock.
The only way a nationalised company makes sense is if the whole thing was deunionised.
Arriva is nationalised. TrenItalia is nationalised. etc etc
Seems a OK idea to me. Renaming Arsenal to 'Emirates Arsenal' for example - as long as the names aren't silly (and as long as the sponsorship package is worked out with what is going to happen after it expires). Isn't solving the funding crisis for TFL a priority for London?
Indeed. I wonder what CHB's objection to raising non-tax, non-fare revenue for TfL is?
It seems like a very good idea to me. Given the absolutely enormous amounts of advertising hoardings throughout the Tube system its not really free from advertising already - having sponsorship deals for names seems entirely reasonable.
How much money do Football Clubs raise from sponsorship of names?
Look, if anyone wants to offer advice to the US Democratic Party on how to win elections, please do so. There's no point giving that advice to me, as I have no connection to them.
Seems a OK idea to me. Renaming Arsenal to 'Emirates Arsenal' for example - as long as the names aren't silly (and as long as the sponsorship package is worked out with what is going to happen after it expires). Isn't solving the funding crisis for TFL a priority for London?
That's a date. Meet you outside Finger Lickin' Bargain Bucket for an unbelievable just £9.99 Tube station at 6.
I'm not quite sure that 7 day doubling is right, but on the other hand, they only took the graph to mid October, and we have to last far longer than that.
Ah, risk segmentation. The siren song of the magical solution.
How does it work? Who staffs the care homes? It's not as if it's easy to get enough staff for them anyway, but what if they cannot now use a) young adults, b) anyone who lives with a young adult or child, c) anyone who works elsewhere as a second job, d) anyone who lives with anyone who works in a school or university, e) maybe even anyone who uses public transport?... What of the elderly, not in care, who live with younger relatives? Who treats elderly patients in hospital, or those with serious risk factors? Who cleans the homes of disabled elderly people who cannot do it themselves?
Ah, making a risk assessment and deciding what level of risk you are comfortable with. The ultimate in self-centered pandemic management.
Of course, this disease poses negligible risk to some people (well, we're not sure about long-term consequences, but those are invisible and uncertain so let's pretend that they are also insignificant). But, if infected, what of the others they infect while asymptomatic? If they fall ill, what of the risk to the delivery people who bring them food, the doctors and nurses that treat them? Every person's infection creates consequential risks for others. For sure, that's not a risk to the person who made the calculation, so I guess that doesn't matter?
Pandemic response exposes our commitment, or lack of it, to the common wellbeing of society. One reason The Swedish Model (TM) works* is that such a commitment is strong there. One reason we seem to be failing is lack of the same. Reasonable people can disagree about the best way forward, but there's too much motivated reasoning around.
The answer is, dramatically up the protection for care homes. Pay the staff more, give them full fat PPE and sheltered living quarters. Ring fence those actually at high risk and let everyone else get on with it.
Absolutely – indeed Professor Carl Heneghan proposes exactly this, along with very high pay for care home staff.
We've seen the knock on of this in Guernsey - no new cases for 3 months, then one two weeks ago (ex-UK arrival, quarantined and detected at Day 7, now clear) then two in the last week (again ex-UK arrival, quarantined, detected at day 7).
Have to say I much prefer this format than where a politician is involved.
Absolutely... although i think the media should be able to ask questions, but it should be the science / health correspondents not the Westminster press pack.
Ah, risk segmentation. The siren song of the magical solution.
How does it work? Who staffs the care homes? It's not as if it's easy to get enough staff for them anyway, but what if they cannot now use a) young adults, b) anyone who lives with a young adult or child, c) anyone who works elsewhere as a second job, d) anyone who lives with anyone who works in a school or university, e) maybe even anyone who uses public transport?... What of the elderly, not in care, who live with younger relatives? Who treats elderly patients in hospital, or those with serious risk factors? Who cleans the homes of disabled elderly people who cannot do it themselves?
Ah, making a risk assessment and deciding what level of risk you are comfortable with. The ultimate in self-centered pandemic management.
Of course, this disease poses negligible risk to some people (well, we're not sure about long-term consequences, but those are invisible and uncertain so let's pretend that they are also insignificant). But, if infected, what of the others they infect while asymptomatic? If they fall ill, what of the risk to the delivery people who bring them food, the doctors and nurses that treat them? Every person's infection creates consequential risks for others. For sure, that's not a risk to the person who made the calculation, so I guess that doesn't matter?
Pandemic response exposes our commitment, or lack of it, to the common wellbeing of society. One reason The Swedish Model (TM) works* is that such a commitment is strong there. One reason we seem to be failing is lack of the same. Reasonable people can disagree about the best way forward, but there's too much motivated reasoning around.
The answer is, dramatically up the protection for care homes. Pay the staff more, give them full fat PPE and sheltered living quarters. Ring fence those actually at high risk and let everyone else get on with it.
As we discussed before the weekend:
Full lockdown: no one gets to hug granny Partial lockdown: no one gets to hug granny but everyone gets on with their lives
Full lockdown: carers don't get to go to the pub Partial lockdown: carers don't get to go to the pub but...well see above for everyone else.
So what about carers who live with children/have second job/has flatmates/etc?
How did they handle it previously? From segregation in their own homes (yes have heard of that) to no segregation in their own homes. Testing and PPE are your friend here.
Ah, risk segmentation. The siren song of the magical solution.
How does it work? Who staffs the care homes? It's not as if it's easy to get enough staff for them anyway, but what if they cannot now use a) young adults, b) anyone who lives with a young adult or child, c) anyone who works elsewhere as a second job, d) anyone who lives with anyone who works in a school or university, e) maybe even anyone who uses public transport?... What of the elderly, not in care, who live with younger relatives? Who treats elderly patients in hospital, or those with serious risk factors? Who cleans the homes of disabled elderly people who cannot do it themselves?
Ah, making a risk assessment and deciding what level of risk you are comfortable with. The ultimate in self-centered pandemic management.
Of course, this disease poses negligible risk to some people (well, we're not sure about long-term consequences, but those are invisible and uncertain so let's pretend that they are also insignificant). But, if infected, what of the others they infect while asymptomatic? If they fall ill, what of the risk to the delivery people who bring them food, the doctors and nurses that treat them? Every person's infection creates consequential risks for others. For sure, that's not a risk to the person who made the calculation, so I guess that doesn't matter?
Pandemic response exposes our commitment, or lack of it, to the common wellbeing of society. One reason The Swedish Model (TM) works* is that such a commitment is strong there. One reason we seem to be failing is lack of the same. Reasonable people can disagree about the best way forward, but there's too much motivated reasoning around.
The answer is, dramatically up the protection for care homes. Pay the staff more, give them full fat PPE and sheltered living quarters. Ring fence those actually at high risk and let everyone else get on with it.
I was being a little sarcastic about the Swedish model working.
Sheltered living quarters? Separated from their families? For *everyone* who cares for old people, including doctors and nurses and hospital cleaners and homecare workers and ...?
I think your ring fence is full of holes.
--AS
"Protective bubbles round the elderly" is the sort of thing that looks fantastic in a consultant's spreadsheet, but it's not workable with real people.
One thing that actually worked was the staff at care homes living* on site, in isolation with the residents.
* In some cases camping in the garden
Yes, it worked. We need imaginative policy-making, rather than reactionary garbage (apartheid! killers! fantasists!) ever time someone suggests a stratified approach to covid protection.
We knew this was going to happen, look across the Channel. And the Government tried to get people back to the office instead.
"10 times the previous peak" is grade one horseshit. We know that at the time of the previous peak we were only testing hospitalizations (and ministers, royalty and senior government advisers).
We almost certainly had ~100k cases a day at the last peak, but couldn't count them. So, it might be half the previous peak.
As long as they aren't making a profit it's not an issue is it?
No you misunderstand me, the Government guarantees a profit.
Its not "profit". They are paid a management fee. If first/MTR wasn't running the service then it may have to go to "Operator of Last Resort". Which is Arup/Ernst & Young/SNC. Who get paid a management fee.
Its not like you get DfT's time free - thats why they outsource. And with the increasingly stupid decisions DfT have been making you really don't want the civil service running the service directly.
Who are they briefing at 11:00 on a Monday morning? Unless they rerun whole thing this evening all the bulk of the population will get are chosen edited highlights this evening.
It doesn't matter. The system is the system what is whinging about it going to achieve?
To change the system can't be done with a majority of the House as happened in the UK with the Parliament Actin the Commons. To change the system requires the consent of two-thirds of the States and those States are never under any circumstances going to agree to that.
The Democrats need to find a way of appealing more to the other States - they did when they won a massive majority of the Senate only a few years ago. Whinging about the system won't achieve change.
You can add as many states as you like on a simple majority vote, so if you can get general popular acceptance that your whinge is justified and needs to be remedied you can work around the procedural limitations.
My suggestion would be one state per American, that would solve a lot of the problems with their system of government.
I'm guessing that No10 don't think that people trust them too much anymore, so this the old hard facts to make people actually listen from people they will hope will listen to.
Just an FYI - the markets across Europe are down in general, not because of this announcement. They are, however, linked both are happening for the same reason.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
So what, the House seats are allocated on the basis of population and had a Republican majority from 2010 to 2018 including from 2010 to 2014 when the Senate had a Democratic majority. So the idea the Democrats can never win the Senate is absurd.
All you are posting is left liberal whining, totally ignoring the balance of power the founding fathers put into the US constitution to ensure no state was ignored and all states gained equal representation in the Senate and contributed, even if the House seats were determined by population, with the EC being a halfway house, with EC votes awarded by population but every state getting a minimal representation of electors.
California for example has 53 US Representatives, Wyoming just 1.
I know you worship the "founding fathers" as god-like beings, but I don't, and your account of their motivation is just stupid propaganda.
The House also has a pro-Republican bias due to gerrymandering and Democrat voter inefficiency, it does not have PR, or even remotely reasonable boundaries in many cases. So your "point" about the House is moronic.
Are you disputing the facts in the 538 article about the Senate? And if so which ones? I'd love to hear your expertise.
It doesn't matter. The system is the system what is whinging about it going to achieve?
To change the system can't be done with a majority of the House as happened in the UK with the Parliament Actin the Commons. To change the system requires the consent of two-thirds of the States and those States are never under any circumstances going to agree to that.
The Democrats need to find a way of appealing more to the other States - they did when they won a massive majority of the Senate only a few years ago. Whinging about the system won't achieve change.
What on earth makes you think that me pointing out certain facts on this forum is going to "achieve change"? Like I said, it's hard to see how the US becomes a democracy.
Obviously these facts are uncomfortable for certain posters on here, but they remain facts.
Anyone who uses the word "whinging" to describe facts or opinions they don't like obviously has nothing useful to say.
DC and Puerto Rico could have senators - that might help redress the balance.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
So what, the House seats are allocated on the basis of population and had a Republican majority from 2010 to 2018 including from 2010 to 2014 when the Senate had a Democratic majority. So the idea the Democrats can never win the Senate is absurd.
All you are posting is left liberal whining, totally ignoring the balance of power the founding fathers put into the US constitution to ensure no state was ignored and all states gained equal representation in the Senate and contributed, even if the House seats were determined by population, with the EC being a halfway house, with EC votes awarded by population but every state getting a minimal representation of electors.
California for example has 53 US Representatives, Wyoming just 1.
I know you worship the "founding fathers" as god-like beings, but I don't, and your account of their motivation is just stupid propaganda.
The House also has a pro-Republican bias due to gerrymandering and Democrat voter inefficiency, it does not have PR, or even remotely reasonable boundaries in many cases. So your "point" about the House is moronic.
Are you disputing the facts in the 538 article about the Senate? And if so which ones? I'd love to hear your expertise.
It doesn't matter. The system is the system what is whinging about it going to achieve?
To change the system can't be done with a majority of the House as happened in the UK with the Parliament Actin the Commons. To change the system requires the consent of two-thirds of the States and those States are never under any circumstances going to agree to that.
The Democrats need to find a way of appealing more to the other States - they did when they won a massive majority of the Senate only a few years ago. Whinging about the system won't achieve change.
What on earth makes you think that me pointing out certain facts on this forum is going to "achieve change"? Like I said, it's hard to see how the US becomes a democracy.
Obviously these facts are uncomfortable for certain posters on here, but they remain facts.
Anyone who uses the word "whinging" to describe facts or opinions they don't like obviously has nothing useful to say.
I apologise for the intemperate language, but the point behind it remains.
I want the Democrats to win - or more importantly I want Trump's GOP to be smashed. But many who support the Democrats seem to think that saying that it is "so unfair" like a Harry Enfield Kevin and Perry sketch is more productive than the Democrats actually figuring out how to win in the States they need to win in.
The USA is a Democracy, it is a Federal Democracy of States though. The Democrats need to figure out how to win across the Federation and not just in the high populace States.
As long as they aren't making a profit it's not an issue is it?
No you misunderstand me, the Government guarantees a profit.
Its not "profit". They are paid a management fee. If first/MTR wasn't running the service then it may have to go to "Operator of Last Resort". Which is Arup/Ernst & Young/SNC. Who get paid a management fee.
Its not like you get DfT's time free - thats why they outsource. And with the increasingly stupid decisions DfT have been making you really don't want the civil service running the service directly.
Management fee is a guaranteed profit, no? They get paid, even if they do a piss poor job. In the long run they might lose the fee but they get a paid a fee.
Who are they briefing at 11:00 on a Monday morning? Unless they rerun whole thing this evening all the bulk of the population will get are chosen edited highlights this evening.
This will be on continuously all day and night across the media
Who are they briefing at 11:00 on a Monday morning? Unless they rerun whole thing this evening all the bulk of the population will get are chosen edited highlights this evening.
This is the starter for the shit sandwich we're going to have to eat tomorrow from Boris.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
So what, the House seats are allocated on the basis of population and had a Republican majority from 2010 to 2018 including from 2010 to 2014 when the Senate had a Democratic majority. So the idea the Democrats can never win the Senate is absurd.
All you are posting is left liberal whining, totally ignoring the balance of power the founding fathers put into the US constitution to ensure no state was ignored and all states gained equal representation in the Senate and contributed, even if the House seats were determined by population, with the EC being a halfway house, with EC votes awarded by population but every state getting a minimal representation of electors.
California for example has 53 US Representatives, Wyoming just 1.
I know you worship the "founding fathers" as god-like beings, but I don't, and your account of their motivation is just stupid propaganda.
The House also has a pro-Republican bias due to gerrymandering and Democrat voter inefficiency, it does not have PR, or even remotely reasonable boundaries in many cases. So your "point" about the House is moronic.
Are you disputing the facts in the 538 article about the Senate? And if so which ones? I'd love to hear your expertise.
It doesn't matter. The system is the system what is whinging about it going to achieve?
To change the system can't be done with a majority of the House as happened in the UK with the Parliament Actin the Commons. To change the system requires the consent of two-thirds of the States and those States are never under any circumstances going to agree to that.
The Democrats need to find a way of appealing more to the other States - they did when they won a massive majority of the Senate only a few years ago. Whinging about the system won't achieve change.
What on earth makes you think that me pointing out certain facts on this forum is going to "achieve change"? Like I said, it's hard to see how the US becomes a democracy.
Obviously these facts are uncomfortable for certain posters on here, but they remain facts.
Anyone who uses the word "whinging" to describe facts or opinions they don't like obviously has nothing useful to say.
DC and Puerto Rico could have senators - that might help redress the balance.
There is no justification for them not being States and absolutely 100% if the Democrats win a majority then they 100% must make Statehood for those before the Midterms a #1 priority for them to act on swiftly. Don't leave it until its too late.
Who are they briefing at 11:00 on a Monday morning? Unless they rerun whole thing this evening all the bulk of the population will get are chosen edited highlights this evening.
As long as they aren't making a profit it's not an issue is it?
No you misunderstand me, the Government guarantees a profit.
Its not "profit". They are paid a management fee. If first/MTR wasn't running the service then it may have to go to "Operator of Last Resort". Which is Arup/Ernst & Young/SNC. Who get paid a management fee.
Its not like you get DfT's time free - thats why they outsource. And with the increasingly stupid decisions DfT have been making you really don't want the civil service running the service directly.
Management fee is a guaranteed profit, no? They get paid, even if they do a piss poor job. In the long run they might lose the fee but they get a paid a fee.
I just say, cut out the middle man altogether.
No its not.
And there will be fees paid even if it is brought in house. Indeed the fees may cost even more by bringing it into State control.
As long as they aren't making a profit it's not an issue is it?
No you misunderstand me, the Government guarantees a profit.
Its not "profit". They are paid a management fee. If first/MTR wasn't running the service then it may have to go to "Operator of Last Resort". Which is Arup/Ernst & Young/SNC. Who get paid a management fee.
Its not like you get DfT's time free - thats why they outsource. And with the increasingly stupid decisions DfT have been making you really don't want the civil service running the service directly.
Management fee is a guaranteed profit, no? They get paid, even if they do a piss poor job. In the long run they might lose the fee but they get a paid a fee.
I just say, cut out the middle man altogether.
No its not.
And there will be fees paid even if it is brought in house. Indeed the fees may cost even more by bringing it into State control.
It is a guaranteed profit, at least in the short term.
We're paying them a fee to run it, what's the point? Just don't pay the fee and run it ourselves.
Boris Johnson should resign after briefing we should get back to the office just a few weeks ago. What an absolute dick
You are just being silly again
Are you calling Sturgeon, Drakeford, Foster, Macron, Merkel and everyone else to go as this is across all the UK and even worse at present in Europe
It's sad you're now Johnson's fanboy again, each time you flip flop just makes your next flip look even less convincing
You really need to grow up
I'm only stating how I see it, there's no need to be rude Big G.
You do tend to flip flop on Johnson, you've often "lost faith" and called for him to go, before then flip flopping back to supporting him.
Just because I have pointed that out, there's no need to respond in this way. I've only been respectful to you, please do the same for me.
Do not confuse my support for the conservative party and government with my desire to see Boris replaced
Both are true
But then you just asked me to grow up and were rude to me, please apologise. I called for Johnson to go as he was saying get back to the office, I don't recall any other leader saying that.
There must be conservatives on the supreme court who are worried that the majority of americans lose all faith in the supreme court as an institution who must be against pushing through a nomination.
There is one - Roberts. Thomas and Alito ? You’re joking. Kavanaugh clearly doesn’t give much of a damn about public opinion; Gorsuch, unlikely, but time will tell.
If the Republicans seat another Justice after what they pulled with Garland, because it’s ‘within their rights’, I think it almost certain a Democratic Senate majority will expand the court, since that is equally ‘within their rights’.
Doubt Dems would get 50 senators lined up on that.
I think it's a pretty simple decision for a man with no scruples. Mitch is going to make sure there's a conservative majority.
Why do you doubt that? Seems to be an increasingly mainstream view in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been trampling on conventions for years, now its time for the Dems to play dirty otherwise their legislative agenda will just be picked apart by the court for years to come.
Oh I agree that the democrats *should* wake up and realize they are playing by rules the other side have been ignoring for years. But they aren't going to.
Biden said he wouldn't try it last year. Even if he changes his mind, they would need to win the Senate AND have basically all Democratic senators on board. The likes of Joe Manchin are just not going to go along with it.
The conservative minority in america effectively has a blocking majority in the Senate, it's effectively the same as the 19th Century conservative blocking majority in the House of Lords, which only (mostly) ended when the Liberals won general elections fought on the issue of reducing the power of the HoL in 1910, and passed the subsequent 1911 Parliament Act.
It's hard to see how the US can become a democracy though.
Hardly, the Democrats had a huge Senate majority of 57 to just 41 for the Republicans as recently as 2008.
The fact West Virginia is a socially conservative state that only elects socially conservative Democrats, a similar situation to most border and southern states, does not mean the Democrats cannot get a big majority there however it simply reflects the fact that most Americans are not social liberals, that is not a problem of democracy however
Totally wrong. And: try reading the article. "Because there are a lot of largely rural, low-population states, the average state — which reflects the composition of the Senate — has 35 percent of its population in rural areas and only 14 percent in urban core areas, even though the country as a whole — including dense, high-population states like New York, Texas and California — has about 25 percent of the population in each group. That’s a pretty serious skew. It means that the Senate, de facto, has two or three times as much rural representation as urban core representation … even though there are actually about an equal number of voters in each bucket nationwide.
And of course, this has all sorts of other downstream consequences. Since rural areas tend to be whiter, it means the Senate represents a whiter population, too. In the U.S. as a whole, 60 percent of the population is non-Hispanic white and 40 percent of the population is nonwhite.1 But in the average state, 68 percent of people are white and 32 percent are nonwhite."
"the Senate is effectively 6 to 7 percentage points redder than the country as a whole, which means that Democrats are likely to win it only in the event of a near-landslide in their favor nationally. That’s likely to make the Republican majority on the Supreme Court pretty durable."
not only is the Senate anti-democratic, it is also anti-democratic in a racist way.
So what, the House seats are allocated on the basis of population and had a Republican majority from 2010 to 2018 including from 2010 to 2014 when the Senate had a Democratic majority. So the idea the Democrats can never win the Senate is absurd.
All you are posting is left liberal whining, totally ignoring the balance of power the founding fathers put into the US constitution to ensure no state was ignored and all states gained equal representation in the Senate and contributed, even if the House seats were determined by population, with the EC being a halfway house, with EC votes awarded by population but every state getting a minimal representation of electors.
California for example has 53 US Representatives, Wyoming just 1.
I know you worship the "founding fathers" as god-like beings, but I don't, and your account of their motivation is just stupid propaganda.
The House also has a pro-Republican bias due to gerrymandering and Democrat voter inefficiency, it does not have PR, or even remotely reasonable boundaries in many cases. So your "point" about the House is moronic.
Are you disputing the facts in the 538 article about the Senate? And if so which ones? I'd love to hear your expertise.
It doesn't matter. The system is the system what is whinging about it going to achieve?
To change the system can't be done with a majority of the House as happened in the UK with the Parliament Actin the Commons. To change the system requires the consent of two-thirds of the States and those States are never under any circumstances going to agree to that.
The Democrats need to find a way of appealing more to the other States - they did when they won a massive majority of the Senate only a few years ago. Whinging about the system won't achieve change.
What on earth makes you think that me pointing out certain facts on this forum is going to "achieve change"? Like I said, it's hard to see how the US becomes a democracy.
Obviously these facts are uncomfortable for certain posters on here, but they remain facts.
Anyone who uses the word "whinging" to describe facts or opinions they don't like obviously has nothing useful to say.
I apologise for the intemperate language, but the point behind it remains.
I want the Democrats to win - or more importantly I want Trump's GOP to be smashed. But many who support the Democrats seem to think that saying that it is "so unfair" like a Harry Enfield Kevin and Perry sketch is more productive than the Democrats actually figuring out how to win in the States they need to win in.
The USA is a Democracy, it is a Federal Democracy of States though. The Democrats need to figure out how to win across the Federation and not just in the high populace States.
OK, but I am not in the US, nor posting on a US forum, so whatever I write is hardly likely to be productive nor unproductive. My opinion remains that the US is a highly flawed democracy, certainly compared to the least-flawed democracies (eg Scandinavian countries), and that the way an increasingly small minority can keep a majority in the Senate is part of the problem. This does not constitute advice to the Dems on how to win the next election!
Boris Johnson should resign after briefing we should get back to the office just a few weeks ago. What an absolute dick
You are just being silly again
Are you calling Sturgeon, Drakeford, Foster, Macron, Merkel and everyone else to go as this is across all the UK and even worse at present in Europe
It's sad you're now Johnson's fanboy again, each time you flip flop just makes your next flip look even less convincing
You really need to grow up
I'm only stating how I see it, there's no need to be rude Big G.
You do tend to flip flop on Johnson, you've often "lost faith" and called for him to go, before then flip flopping back to supporting him.
Just because I have pointed that out, there's no need to respond in this way. I've only been respectful to you, please do the same for me.
Do not confuse my support for the conservative party and government with my desire to see Boris replaced
Both are true
But then you just asked me to grow up and were rude to me, please apologise. I called for Johnson to go as he was saying get back to the office, I don't recall any other leader saying that.
Please can you show me a video of Boris saying get back to the office as opposed to get back to work.
As long as they aren't making a profit it's not an issue is it?
No you misunderstand me, the Government guarantees a profit.
Its not "profit". They are paid a management fee. If first/MTR wasn't running the service then it may have to go to "Operator of Last Resort". Which is Arup/Ernst & Young/SNC. Who get paid a management fee.
Its not like you get DfT's time free - thats why they outsource. And with the increasingly stupid decisions DfT have been making you really don't want the civil service running the service directly.
Management fee is a guaranteed profit, no? They get paid, even if they do a piss poor job. In the long run they might lose the fee but they get a paid a fee.
I just say, cut out the middle man altogether.
1. Its costs money to manage stuff 2. The choices are pay the incumbent a fee to run things, or pay set up costs and then pay the OLR partnership to run them, or pay set up costs to hire/staff/pay civil servants to run them 3. The "piss poor job" is usually directly related to the cretins in the DfT. The very last people who should be in direct charge are the people responsible for the various timetable fiascos and train procurement fiascos etc
As long as they aren't making a profit it's not an issue is it?
No you misunderstand me, the Government guarantees a profit.
Its not "profit". They are paid a management fee. If first/MTR wasn't running the service then it may have to go to "Operator of Last Resort". Which is Arup/Ernst & Young/SNC. Who get paid a management fee.
Its not like you get DfT's time free - thats why they outsource. And with the increasingly stupid decisions DfT have been making you really don't want the civil service running the service directly.
Management fee is a guaranteed profit, no? They get paid, even if they do a piss poor job. In the long run they might lose the fee but they get a paid a fee.
I just say, cut out the middle man altogether.
No its not.
And there will be fees paid even if it is brought in house. Indeed the fees may cost even more by bringing it into State control.
It is a guaranteed profit, at least in the short term.
We're paying them a fee to run it, what's the point? Just don't pay the fee and run it ourselves.
We'd just pay that civil servants who are impossible to fire if we brought it in house. I'm not sure it really makes a difference.
We knew this was going to happen, look across the Channel. And the Government tried to get people back to the office instead.
"10 times the previous peak" is grade one horseshit. We know that at the time of the previous peak we were only testing hospitalizations (and ministers, royalty and senior government advisers).
We almost certainly had ~100k cases a day at the last peak, but couldn't count them. So, it might be half the previous peak.
I think they tried to mitigate the innumerate analysis that with the line about 200 deaths per day would be consistent with this # of cases.
As long as they aren't making a profit it's not an issue is it?
No you misunderstand me, the Government guarantees a profit.
Its not "profit". They are paid a management fee. If first/MTR wasn't running the service then it may have to go to "Operator of Last Resort". Which is Arup/Ernst & Young/SNC. Who get paid a management fee.
Its not like you get DfT's time free - thats why they outsource. And with the increasingly stupid decisions DfT have been making you really don't want the civil service running the service directly.
Management fee is a guaranteed profit, no? They get paid, even if they do a piss poor job. In the long run they might lose the fee but they get a paid a fee.
I just say, cut out the middle man altogether.
No its not.
And there will be fees paid even if it is brought in house. Indeed the fees may cost even more by bringing it into State control.
It is a guaranteed profit, at least in the short term.
We're paying them a fee to run it, what's the point? Just don't pay the fee and run it ourselves.
We'd just pay that civil servants who are impossible to fire if we brought it in house. I'm not sure it really makes a difference.
It does make a difference Max.
It would make matters much, much worse. For reasons you touched upon already.
Eat Out To Help Out, I am afraid, has been a very poor decision in hindsight.
That's not the source of transmission though, it's large groups of people in houses that are the problem. House parties and religious gatherings are responsible for this.
Boris Johnson should resign after briefing we should get back to the office just a few weeks ago. What an absolute dick
You are just being silly again
Are you calling Sturgeon, Drakeford, Foster, Macron, Merkel and everyone else to go as this is across all the UK and even worse at present in Europe
It's sad you're now Johnson's fanboy again, each time you flip flop just makes your next flip look even less convincing
You really need to grow up
I'm only stating how I see it, there's no need to be rude Big G.
You do tend to flip flop on Johnson, you've often "lost faith" and called for him to go, before then flip flopping back to supporting him.
Just because I have pointed that out, there's no need to respond in this way. I've only been respectful to you, please do the same for me.
Do not confuse my support for the conservative party and government with my desire to see Boris replaced
Both are true
But then you just asked me to grow up and were rude to me, please apologise. I called for Johnson to go as he was saying get back to the office, I don't recall any other leader saying that.
Please can you show me a video of Boris saying get back to the office as opposed to get back to work.
Comments
I'll get me coat...
The Senate is there to ensure all states get equal representation while the House is the body which apportions representatives by population, the Senate is not there to ensure there is a permanent Republican majority in it, as proved from 2006 to 2014 when the Democrats had a Senate majority
https://twitter.com/mrianleslie/status/1307758790037602306?s=20
As I said, £130m isn't a massive amount to be worrying over.
The best approach is to think we are dealing with two different diseases here. For the elderly this is a smallpox/plague level threat. Treat them accordingly. For everyone else in terms of threat to life and to long term health, it is in the same ballpark (in both risk and severity of consequences) as all the boring consequences of eating/drinking/smoking too much, not exercising, etc. Treat it similarly: advise people of the risks and how to avoid them. The yebbut they are young and fit themselves but they'll infect granny argument is irrelevant, because granny is behaving according to plague/smallpox protocols and not seeing them without donning a spacesuit first.
Paper puts it down to better PPE and lower transient staff in the unionised homes.
To change the system can't be done with a majority of the House as happened in the UK with the Parliament Actin the Commons. To change the system requires the consent of two-thirds of the States and those States are never under any circumstances going to agree to that.
The Democrats need to find a way of appealing more to the other States - they did when they won a massive majority of the Senate only a few years ago. Whinging about the system won't achieve change.
If we don’t allocate sufficient resources to the navy, there seems to be very little practical point in our having them, as they effectively cripple everything else, whereas they’d be of great strategic value to Japan.
I realise it would never happen, but it’s an interesting idea.
Guards is re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic
We knew this was going to happen, look across the Channel. And the Government tried to get people back to the office instead.
It seems clear to me, we need another lockdown
Seems a OK idea to me. Renaming Arsenal to 'Emirates Arsenal' for example - as long as the names aren't silly (and as long as the sponsorship package is worked out with what is going to happen after it expires). Isn't solving the funding crisis for TFL a priority for London?
Obviously these facts are uncomfortable for certain posters on here, but they remain facts.
Anyone who uses the word "whinging" to describe facts or opinions they don't like obviously has nothing useful to say.
It seems like a very good idea to me. Given the absolutely enormous amounts of advertising hoardings throughout the Tube system its not really free from advertising already - having sponsorship deals for names seems entirely reasonable.
How much money do Football Clubs raise from sponsorship of names?
We expect more. "Zero COVID" is a fool's errand.
Are you calling Sturgeon, Drakeford, Foster, Macron, Merkel and everyone else to go as this is across all the UK and even worse at present in Europe
Full lockdown: no one gets to hug granny
Partial lockdown: no one gets to hug granny but everyone gets on with their lives
Full lockdown: carers don't get to go to the pub
Partial lockdown: carers don't get to go to the pub but...well see above for everyone else.
So what about carers who live with children/have second job/has flatmates/etc?
How did they handle it previously? From segregation in their own homes (yes have heard of that) to no segregation in their own homes. Testing and PPE are your friend here.
We almost certainly had ~100k cases a day at the last peak, but couldn't count them. So, it might be half the previous peak.
Its not like you get DfT's time free - thats why they outsource. And with the increasingly stupid decisions DfT have been making you really don't want the civil service running the service directly.
My suggestion would be one state per American, that would solve a lot of the problems with their system of government.
I want the Democrats to win - or more importantly I want Trump's GOP to be smashed. But many who support the Democrats seem to think that saying that it is "so unfair" like a Harry Enfield Kevin and Perry sketch is more productive than the Democrats actually figuring out how to win in the States they need to win in.
The USA is a Democracy, it is a Federal Democracy of States though. The Democrats need to figure out how to win across the Federation and not just in the high populace States.
Indeed.
I just say, cut out the middle man altogether.
You do tend to flip flop on Johnson, you've often "lost faith" and called for him to go, before then flip flopping back to supporting him.
Just because I have pointed that out, there's no need to respond in this way. I've only been respectful to you, please do the same for me.
And there will be fees paid even if it is brought in house. Indeed the fees may cost even more by bringing it into State control.
We're paying them a fee to run it, what's the point? Just don't pay the fee and run it ourselves.
Both are true
Speaking loudly to those who haven't been paying attention was the purpose.
Lockdown lite incoming.
2. The choices are pay the incumbent a fee to run things, or pay set up costs and then pay the OLR partnership to run them, or pay set up costs to hire/staff/pay civil servants to run them
3. The "piss poor job" is usually directly related to the cretins in the DfT. The very last people who should be in direct charge are the people responsible for the various timetable fiascos and train procurement fiascos etc
If he did please post a video of him saying that people should get back to the office even if they can work from home. AFAIK he never did.
It would make matters much, much worse. For reasons you touched upon already.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53942542
https://inews.co.uk/news/analysis/coronavirus-latest-boris-johnson-workers-returning-office-lockdown-615080
It's obvious to anyone not off the deep end, he is responsible for this