politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The New Year starts with little cheer for any of the parties
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The New Year starts with little cheer for any of the parties
The above Wikipedia table shows all the final polls of 2017 with the exception of the latest YouGov which had LAB 2% ahead.
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https://twitter.com/AndrewIMarshall/status/947770293577281536
According to Camden Council website, he's an Independent, although he was elected (top of the slate in 2014 as a Conservative.
http://camdennewjournal.com/article/exclusive-former-tory-leader-quits-party-over-brexit
“I simply don’t feel comfortable any more in a party where most are genuinely enthusiastic, even triumphalist, about Brexit, while many of the rest have capitulated and call for unity as they stare at the Emperor’s new clothes,” he says.
Whether the new phalanx of Conservative local candidates, many enthusiastic for Brexit and involved in Andrea Leadsom’s leadership campaign, will find north-west Camden fertile territory, time will tell.”
I'm not sure they'd be wrong.
Also, an interesting one I just noticed, Lay Theresa May at 1.95 to be out first against Cable, Corbyn and Sturgeon. Might be a bit of value there in a thin market.
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/politics/event/28051208/market?marketId=1.132776540
Given their ‘success’ in their jobs it wouldn’t be unreasonable to fire them but would they sulk or would they cause problems? And how could May avoid the latter?
https://twitter.com/damocrat/status/947833140910927872
Or maybe Boris gets PC and Davis does a swap with Gove at DEFRA?
If there are any halfway talented Leavers, she might try promoting them to head off ructions, but halfway talented Leavers seem very thin on the ground.
Me? I'd keep David Davis and dump Boris Johnson. It's not as if he's been loyal to her so she might as well strike first.
I can think of Hunt, Hammond and May, but off-hand I can't think of any others.
It's even more surprising given how few major reshuffles there have been (three, I think) although of course there were a total of six Liberal Democrat ministers in the coalition years.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/fare-rises-mean-commuters-lose-13-of-salary-getting-to-work-dv3j82xrk
13% of your salary, just to get to work.
The tories are taking the piss.
Now that is a good deal Sunil! If only we could be more like our continental cousins.
I suspect the stalemate will indeed continue, although a conspicuously good/bad turn of events might shift things.
Odd Corbyn's so quiet on Iran. He used to love talking about it:
https://twitter.com/holland_tom/status/947881744669212673
One thing that has always puzzled me is that people say London is too crowded and expensive - and yet when you suggest moving elsewhere to them to bring down costs they look at you as if you have grown a second head.
While I can understand that Stoke or Ulveston would not be for everybody, Manchester and Leeds are great cities and far cheaper than London.
Strangely this desire doesn't stop them complaining when farmers spread turkey shit all over their fields.
Would anyone really want to bet on Mrs May or Mr Corbyn screwing up at least once this year?
After all Mrs May's lead on best PM fell yesterday with YouGov to a tepid 6% whilst she trails Corbyn significantly with most if not all pollsters on approval ratings.
While his ticket price on DB is correct for standard class, it should also be noted that the equivalent DB ticket for first class is €7225.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_subsidies
UK policy is to increasingly make passengers pay for their journeys, rather than the costs come from general taxation. The main way to get cheaper tickets for passengers will be to put the costs onto general taxation.
Is that what we want to do on a network that, in places, is at capacity?
Edit - and of course the irony is Chamberlain was an industrialist and an urban politician, although that may be why, like the Chartists, he didn't realise you need more than three acres for a cow.
Economics is not as simple as you, or I, sugggest in our examples.
Personally I'm doubtful, but we'll see.
Germany has 33,000km of railways to GB's 15,000km
Germany has 79 billion passenger km of journeys to GB's 64 billion passenger km
Germany has 2.01bn individual journeys compared to the UK's 1.7 billion individual journeys.
I've worked in various types of teams over 20 years, the best for morale was a remote team that met up once a fortnight for a meeting with beers, but all worked from home several hundred miles from each other the rest of the time.
I spend thousands each year on trains. Money well spent to avoid driving.
I wonder if Cameron and Osborne are thinking "why didn't we make more of an effort two years ago" ?
Because if they had Cameron would still be PM and Osborne would now be planning when to succeed him.
And like Minucius Rufus, the Cunctator's magister equitum, you've completely missed the point. You think it's a good thing we have a Leader of the Opposition that, four years ago, was making the case for Iran's regime?
If a work location has good communications, whether that is rail or road, it will encourage commuting from longer distance.
It is probably one of the few problems facing government which could be solved comparatively easily with determined action, given that the costs of government (or council) borrowing would almost certainly see a positive return on investment.
It seems absurd that we can commit £50bn to an economically marginal HS2, which won't have any significant benefit for a decade, not to mention £20bn plus to the economically absurd Hinckley project, while neglecting housing.
That the media should then obsess over a tiny number of unoccupied properties is simply ridiculous.
Now that really wasn't a case of good communications but as it was a temporary contract on less than generous pay I couldn't move it for it. So I was kind of stuck.
Thar fares should go up every year by at least RPI - IOW an continuously increasing proportion of most commuters' incomes - is unsustainable.
Of course, that looks better than it is, because Germany's population is much more evenly spread across the country than ours - so a medium-sized chunk of our railways in the south-east of England, where one-third of the population lives, gets much more heavily used, while lines in the highlands of Scotland or north and mid Wales are invariably empty.
It's no good giving pensioners free bus travel if their village no longer has a bus service ...
I really doubt I would be able to work anywhere near my potential if I was doing that commute.
Thing is that I was used to it. When I wasn't commuting to Aber to teach I was driving the other way to London to do research. Also I had (have) a biggish diesel that's comfortable and easy to drive.
I will admit however that it was also the final step that pushed me out of academia and into schoolteaching.
At least I've got you lot for company!
Get well soon!
Labour will be wondering why they aren't further ahead?
Lib-Dems remain toxic through the coalition years?
Happy New Year PB.
It should also be noted that hundreds of miles of lines closed before the Beeching report (780 miles in the year before (*)), and that some lines recommended to be closed in the report were kept open (infamously the mid-Wales line).
Hence what people think of as the Beeching cuts are in fact, much more complex, and he often gets blamed for closures that were not his responsibility (not that they were really his responsibility anyway: they were recommendations - the blame with closures lie with the Conservative and Labour governments).
A much greater criticism of the closures IMO is that the lines should have been kept as complete corridors rather than being sold piecemeal.
(*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts#Closures_by_year
Agree; it’s very easy to make simple economic statements and mislead both onself and ones audience.
Politicians do it all the time!
Friend of mine used to have to do a weekly commute Llanberis to Cardiff. There were long stretches, he said, where 40mph was a good speed.
Mind you mine was definitely the 'man' version.
1. I'm not as poorly as my wife was over Christmas - full-on flu with a temperature over 39C.
2. I have avoided having to pay my inflated rail fare today.
The annual kick in the teeth for commuters to start the year - 3.4%, well above my miniscule wage rise so I'm already worse off, thank you Mrs May.
Yet there seems no shortage of people wanting to travel and as Richard T points out, in London the issue is one of capacity at the rail heads. It has been outrageous to see the old Eurostar platforms at Waterloo left derelict and unused for years - five platforms and a nice bit of track linking Waterloo to the SE rail network all just left to rot. Would this have happened with a national rail operator ? Who knows.
The platforms are longer at Waterloo but that's analogous to adding a lane to the M25 - it'll help for a while but it needs South Western Railway to have the carriages to use the extra platform lengths. Instead, they've embarked on a pointless dispute with the staff.
The Underground has similar issues - the project to improve capacity at Bank won't be ready for four years so the nightly scrum down to go through the station will continue as will the periodic gate line closures both there and at many other central London stations.
London has its capacity issues which I suspect are reflected elsewhere but we need much stronger rail services in general - trains to the west country every half hour, trains to Scotland and the North every 15 minutes. If we want to create new communities and build thousands of new homes, access to rail services will be important so new houses means new railways, new stations, new connections and new services.
The rail system has come a long way since the dark days of the early 90s but there remains too much vulnerability to failures in infrastructure at points and signals. It's all very well having nice, modern trains which are no doubt comfortable if you can get a seat but no good if they can't go anywhere.
I take it for the rest of your friend's commute down the A470 20mph was a good speed?
@Sandpit - three hours by the quickest route. Newent, Leominster, Kington is longer than Ross and Hereford but, crucially, there were never any traffic holdups.
@murali_s get well soon mate!
I have to go. Have a good morning.
BTW the actual Brexit bill might well be £60 billion. We don't know. The deal is structured so that there is no explicit upfront figure and the UK government can put whatever figure it likes on the bill without contradiction from the EU side. It naturally lowballs. The point is that the UK government put no effort into negotiating lower actual costs, which it could have done. Its interest was entirely in negotiating with its constituency.
3.4% is a bit above inflation but compared to what seems to be ever-escalating fuel costs, insurance costs etc for driving a mere 3.4% doesn't seem very significant at all.
Essentially what they (the commuters) want is for the rest of us to pay for their lifestyle choice.
(runs for cover)
Train services are still subsidised by billions a year while the reason petrol is so exhorbitantly expensive is due to taxation. Cross the Atlantic and fuel costs less than half what it does here due to the reduced tax burden.
If train commuters think they're hard done by, just imagine if we abolished rail subsidies and fuel duty altogether.
Shedding a tear for those paying £7k to save £500k on their house - boo hoo.
Most season tickets are bought by commuters to London. I wonder how much the high ticket prices are the other side of the coin from the very accommodation costs in London. Are ticket prices higher in the UK than Germany in part because people are travelling further to get affordable housing?
Yes and I don't care.
I drive a car as well and I'm well aware how much of every litre of fuel is covered by taxation and then I consider who mends the roads - Highways England, now, who owns Highways England, aren't they the same as Network Rail ? Local authority highway departments - a really successful history of partnership with Amey, Carillion and the like (giggle).
Drivers have plenty to complain about too but you seem more interested in having a pop at train travellers - how has the price of petrol moved against inflation since 1990 ? As for insurance, wholeheartedly agree, what are we going to do about it ?
IIRC for every pound the government spends on transport in the desolate North, they spend six pounds.
All those price increases for an increasingly worse service oop North.
Of course the roads get mended by Highways England etc but with 69.54 pence in every litre of fuel being fuel duty (inc VAT on fuel duty) without even considering VAT on the actual cost of fuel, Vehicle Excise Duty etc I think it's safe to say the government is making a vast profit on drivers.
Bring back the Northern Powerhouse.
- raise productivity, since convincing evidence shows that people are more productive at home (except those with young kids)
- reduce crowding in public transport
- even out housing demand
- promote general happiness, since people who work from home have higher morale.
It is 2018 now, offices are mostly out of date.