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  • Nigelb said:

    The collapse in German manufacturing has now become frighteningly steep:

    https://www.markiteconomics.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/1f489cd97178420799000583692a1886

    if that keeps rolling, Germany and by extension the Euro is in trouble. Germany needs to do something to get domestic demand rolling, so far Merkel has avoided addressing the issue. Three of Germany;s top 5 export markets are giving it a problem US, China ( trade war slunp ) and UK ( Brexit uncertainty ), not much on the horizon atm to counteract that.
    The switch to electric vehicles is also going to hit their manufacturing sector hard - particularly the components industry.
    Well would you want to be a manufacturer of exhaust systems or fuel tanks knowing your product is dead in about 10-15 years ?

    The other surprising thing I heard on R4 was that all car manufacturers are going to cease producing very small cars such as Peugeot 107 or VW Up as they reckon they will only be able to make money on them (when changed to battery) by charging a price that makes them unaffordable,

    That seems mad as they are generally quite fuel efficient and dont do great mileage as their buyers use them for local trips in the main.
    For local trips you shouldn't be driving anyway.

    But Labour's "Green New Deal" is remarkable for its complete disinterest in active/healthy travel like walking and cycling, and the infrastructure changes required to encourage them. I'd say "remarkable" but Labour transport policy has been a disaster area for many years, save for a brief period of sanity under Lilian Greenwood.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,297
    Roger said:

    Jonathan said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Jonathan said:

    Thomas Cook made one fundamental mistake (on top of countless others)... It wasn't a bank. Deep irony that RBS are the ones behind this closure.

    Thomas Cook has been in trouble for years. And its failure causes no systemic problem for others. Most of the costs will be covered by insurance. Why it is such a big story beats me. You’d think we were airlifting starving children out of a war zone the way journalists are covering it.
    When a big high st name goes tits up its big news. This one has an extra emotional dimension, because people wait all year for their big annual holiday /honeymoon that gets screwed up. It's big story.
    The first high profile casulty of Brexit.



    No it isn't. They've been in financial trouble for years. The banks should really have pulled the plug ages ago.
  • Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    According to wiki Thomas Cook's CEO is worth over $15 BILLION:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Fankhauser

    If so he could bail it out with his loose change.

    Why would he want to, when it’s losing money hand over fist?
    Here's a naive suggestion.

    For personal honour and a sense of obligation to customers and creditors.

    And after happily taking millions in pay while the company steadily went bankrupt.
    So for how long should he continue to prop up a failing business that’s drowning in debt?

    TC have been talking to potential investors for months now, and none of them see a viable company they wish to invest in.

    If Herr Fankhauser was worth $15bn yesterday, he’s worth an awful lot less than that today.
    To look at it another way if I was committed to working 60 hour weeks for 5+ years running a massive business and could wipe out that businesses debt with two years income from my share portfolio I would do so without a seconds thought - or would have left to do something different.

    I think it is irrelevant to the case of Fankhauser and Thomas Cook.

    I thought his statement and apology today were excellent compared to most of the non apologies we see generally from the real "elite" (not graduates living in cities who happen to like avocado).
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,297

    Cyclefree said:

    Jonathan said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Jonathan said:

    Thomas Cook made one fundamental mistake (on top of countless others)... It wasn't a bank. Deep irony that RBS are the ones behind this closure.

    Thomas Cook has been in trouble for years. And its failure causes no systemic problem for others. Most of the costs will be covered by insurance. Why it is such a big story beats me. You’d think we were airlifting starving children out of a war zone the way journalists are covering it.
    When a big high st name goes tits up its big news. This one has an extra emotional dimension, because people wait all year for their big annual holiday /honeymoon that gets screwed up. It's big story.
    I don’t feel sorry for people who have an annual honeymoon, I must say.

    :)
    I do. But then that's vey bigamy.....
    😏
  • According to wiki Thomas Cook's CEO is worth over $15 BILLION:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Fankhauser

    If so he could bail it out with his loose change.

    That information was added in an edit that also stated he's married to Ed Sheeran, so I suspect it may not be 100% accurate.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_Fankhauser&diff=917308681&oldid=917300677
    I suspected the possibility which is why I used the word 'if' in my original comment.

    Do people who add false info to wiki get banned from the website ?
    Sometimes, but Wikipedia doesn't require you to log in to make an edit, so any ban is by IP address and easily circumvented.
    That seems a bit lax for a website which is so widely used.
    It also means innocent people are barred when they are later dynamically allocated the IP address of the original miscreant. The system barely worked when most people had static addresses (and even then, they'd commonly be shared across an institution).
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,064
    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_P said:
    Grammar schools? How infra dig. Seamus Milne and James Schneider are proud Wykehamists. Or possibly ashamed Wykehamists. Anyway, they went to Wykeham Wycombe Winchester, not some lousy grammar where even poor children could get in. As did Buffy-creator Joss Whedon while his mother taught there on an exchange scheme.
    If we do remain in the E.U., would Labour’s proposed policy even be legal ?
    No idea. Bits of it, perhaps. Next question is which sections will get as far as the manifesto. The policy (at least at a broadbrush level) seems to me to be socially desirable but electorally stupid, as it will repel voters with a vested interest but not attract any new ones (unless, given Cameron's, Boris's and Jacob Rees-Mogg's alma mater, there is a recently-founded Conservative Campaign for the Abolition of Eton).
    Certainly removing charitable status wouldn't be a problem.

    But outlawing private education entirely, and expropriating assets ?
    Removing charitable status certainly would be a problem as it would reduce the number of scholarships and bursaries and shared facilities private schools can provide and make them even more unequal so if you are going to attack private schools you may as well go the whole hog for full abolition as Corbyn Labour have now done.

    Like most Tories I of course support private schools with charitable status
    Inequality is not reduced by having scholarships.The number of scholarships is a small percentage of the total number of school pupils. The negative effect on state schools caused by public finances subsidising private schools rather than putting this money into the state sector has a far more detrimental effect long term than is gained by the scolarships.

    It is not just the charitable status of private schools that is hindering the state sector there are many areas where public money is financing private schools. Another example is that almost all teachers had their higher education including teacher training in the public sector, this cost is not reimbursed by private schools.

    The private schools should be operating fully in the private sector and not subsidised by the public purse. The parents of private school children should be paying the full market cost.

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,925

    Nigelb said:

    The collapse in German manufacturing has now become frighteningly steep:

    https://www.markiteconomics.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/1f489cd97178420799000583692a1886

    if that keeps rolling, Germany and by extension the Euro is in trouble. Germany needs to do something to get domestic demand rolling, so far Merkel has avoided addressing the issue. Three of Germany;s top 5 export markets are giving it a problem US, China ( trade war slunp ) and UK ( Brexit uncertainty ), not much on the horizon atm to counteract that.
    The switch to electric vehicles is also going to hit their manufacturing sector hard - particularly the components industry.
    Well would you want to be a manufacturer of exhaust systems or fuel tanks knowing your product is dead in about 10-15 years ?

    The other surprising thing I heard on R4 was that all car manufacturers are going to cease producing very small cars such as Peugeot 107 or VW Up as they reckon they will only be able to make money on them (when changed to battery) by charging a price that makes them unaffordable,

    That seems mad as they are generally quite fuel efficient and dont do great mileage as their buyers use them for local trips in the main.
    Its quite possible the legacy manufacturers won't, but no doubt someone will be able to make them cheaply. As with most new technologies, it begins at the high end.
    The mechanical complexity of EVs is an order of magnitude less than ICE vehicles - and we know what happens with the price of electronics once a product becomes mass market.
    The other significant cost component - the battery system - is of course much less in a small car, particular for shorter range models.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,081
    Good news! Both me and my betting book like Elizabeth Warren. I will be pleased if she gets the nomination.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,914
    edited September 2019
    It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,677
    edited September 2019

    Roger said:

    Jonathan said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Jonathan said:

    Thomas Cook made one fundamental mistake (on top of countless others)... It wasn't a bank. Deep irony that RBS are the ones behind this closure.

    Thomas Cook has been in trouble for years. And its failure causes no systemic problem for others. Most of the costs will be covered by insurance. Why it is such a big story beats me. You’d think we were airlifting starving children out of a war zone the way journalists are covering it.
    When a big high st name goes tits up its big news. This one has an extra emotional dimension, because people wait all year for their big annual holiday /honeymoon that gets screwed up. It's big story.
    The first high profile casulty of Brexit.



    Perhaps you could explain your reasoning behind that claim.
    The pounds fall in value since the referendum must have given them problems.#https://www.finder.com/uk/brexit-pound
    Yet its not stopped British people spending record amounts on overseas travel:

    2015 £39bn
    2018 £45bn

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/leisureandtourism/timeseries/gmbb/ott
    If you take from the exchange rate chart 2015 1GBP = 1.35 EURO (actually above that for most of the year) and 2018 1GBP = 1.15 EURO (actually below that for much of that year) then the spending equivalent in EURO is 2015 52.65bn; 2018 51.75bn. So in the currency that a majority of costs are in (? hotel costs, food if included, some flights?, fuel? of course also lots of non-Euro foreign costs, but GBP probably slipped against many of those) the total has dropped and that's before we think about inflation.

    To be clear, I think it's simplistic to assign this failure to Brexit, or not. But it's also naive to point to increased spending in GBP and suggest that means there has been no Brexit effects. Falling GBP means that if people are affording to have the same holidays in EU they'll be spending more in GBP.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,755
    It’s a bit sad. We were due to fly from Glasgow the day after the terrorist attack there. We were firstly held at our hotels and then taken in. The queue for the departure area was across the car park and with a small child we seriously thought about just going home. Suddenly there were Thomas Cook reps asking for their customers whom they directed to a second lounge where every desk was manned and a model of efficiency amongst the chaos.

    We took off only a couple of hours late. I have had a soft spot for them ever since but it is an outdated business model and the government is right not to pour money into it.
  • NemtynakhtNemtynakht Posts: 2,329
    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_P said:
    Grammar schools? How infra dig. Seamus Milne and James Schneider are proud Wykehamists. Or possibly ashamed Wykehamists. Anyway, they went to Wykeham Wycombe Winchester, not some lousy grammar where even poor children could get in. As did Buffy-creator Joss Whedon while his mother taught there on an exchange scheme.
    If we do remain in the E.U., would Labour’s proposed policy even be legal ?
    No idea. Bits of it, perhaps. Next question is which sections will get as far as the manifesto. The policy (at least at a broadbrush level) seems to me to be socially desirable but electorally stupid, as it will repel voters with a vested interest but not attract any new ones (unless, given Cameron's, Boris's and Jacob Rees-Mogg's alma mater, there is a recently-founded Conservative Campaign for the Abolition of Eton).
    Certainly removing charitable status wouldn't be a problem.

    But outlawing private education entirely, and expropriating assets ?
    Removing charitable status certainly would be a problem as it would reduce the number of scholarships and bursaries and shared facilities private schools can provide and make them even more unequal so if you are going to attack private schools you may as well go the whole hog for full abolition as Corbyn Labour have now done.

    Like most Tories I of course support private schools with charitable status
    I think the private schools thing might be a vote loser for Labour. It is emblematic of the economic wrong-headedness of their policies. Private Schools banned - 600000 extra pupils need Places in state system - catchment area problems worsened. If anyone wanted an examplar they couldn’t get much better. Even my wife who is generally left of centre was shaking her head this morning

  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,365

    Nigelb said:

    The collapse in German manufacturing has now become frighteningly steep:

    https://www.markiteconomics.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/1f489cd97178420799000583692a1886

    if that keeps rolling, Germany and by extension the Euro is in trouble. Germany needs to do something to get domestic demand rolling, so far Merkel has avoided addressing the issue. Three of Germany;s top 5 export markets are giving it a problem US, China ( trade war slunp ) and UK ( Brexit uncertainty ), not much on the horizon atm to counteract that.
    The switch to electric vehicles is also going to hit their manufacturing sector hard - particularly the components industry.
    Well would you want to be a manufacturer of exhaust systems or fuel tanks knowing your product is dead in about 10-15 years ?

    The other surprising thing I heard on R4 was that all car manufacturers are going to cease producing very small cars such as Peugeot 107 or VW Up as they reckon they will only be able to make money on them (when changed to battery) by charging a price that makes them unaffordable,

    That seems mad as they are generally quite fuel efficient and dont do great mileage as their buyers use them for local trips in the main.
    For local trips you shouldn't be driving anyway.

    But Labour's "Green New Deal" is remarkable for its complete disinterest in active/healthy travel like walking and cycling, and the infrastructure changes required to encourage them. I'd say "remarkable" but Labour transport policy has been a disaster area for many years, save for a brief period of sanity under Lilian Greenwood.
    youre 75, you live in a village, theres no bus service, your doctor or shops are 4 miles away and there isnt much of a taxi service. For lots of people a car is still essential.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,081
    eek said:

    Labour's policy is the correct approach - unfortunately it isn't sellable to a world where everyone is leave or remain....

    Yes. Good policy but tough to sell. The polarization is tedious but it's real.

    https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1175718130766831616
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,854
    Cyclefree said:

    Roger said:

    Jonathan said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Jonathan said:

    Thomas Cook made one fundamental mistake (on top of countless others)... It wasn't a bank. Deep irony that RBS are the ones behind this closure.

    Thomas Cook has been in trouble for years. And its failure causes no systemic problem for others. Most of the costs will be covered by insurance. Why it is such a big story beats me. You’d think we were airlifting starving children out of a war zone the way journalists are covering it.
    When a big high st name goes tits up its big news. This one has an extra emotional dimension, because people wait all year for their big annual holiday /honeymoon that gets screwed up. It's big story.
    The first high profile casulty of Brexit.



    No it isn't. They've been in financial trouble for years. The banks should really have pulled the plug ages ago.
    Correct though had their profits not taken a nosedive largely through the effects of Brexit and the collapse of the pound they could have restructured in an orderly fashion.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,509
    Scott_P said:
    Nope.

    ATOL, travel insurance companies and credit card companies are paying to repatriate 180,000.

    Government is underwriting this effort and will end up paying for the few uninsured travellers, £10m tops.
  • Selebian said:

    Roger said:

    Jonathan said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Jonathan said:

    Thomas Cook made one fundamental mistake (on top of countless others)... It wasn't a bank. Deep irony that RBS are the ones behind this closure.

    Thomas Cook has been in trouble for years. And its failure causes no systemic problem for others. Most of the costs will be covered by insurance. Why it is such a big story beats me. You’d think we were airlifting starving children out of a war zone the way journalists are covering it.
    When a big high st name goes tits up its big news. This one has an extra emotional dimension, because people wait all year for their big annual holiday /honeymoon that gets screwed up. It's big story.
    The first high profile casulty of Brexit.



    Perhaps you could explain your reasoning behind that claim.
    The pounds fall in value since the referendum must have given them problems.#https://www.finder.com/uk/brexit-pound
    Yet its not stopped British people spending record amounts on overseas travel:

    2015 £39bn
    2018 £45bn

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/leisureandtourism/timeseries/gmbb/ott
    If you take from the exchange rate chart 2015 1GBP = 1.35 EURO (actually above that for most of the year) and 2018 1GBP = 1.15 EURO (actually below that for much of that year) then the spending equivalent in EURO is 2015 52.65bn; 2018 51.75bn. So in the currency that a majority of costs are in (? hotel costs, food if included, some flights?, fuel? of course also lots of non-Euro foreign costs, but GBP probably slipped against many of those) the total has dropped and that's before we think about inflation.
    2018 had exceptional weather in the UK (and Europe). Why on earth people were paying to fly from 33 degree UK to 45 degree Southern Europe last summer is beyond me.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,437

    Nigelb said:

    The collapse in German manufacturing has now become frighteningly steep:

    https://www.markiteconomics.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/1f489cd97178420799000583692a1886

    if that keeps rolling, Germany and by extension the Euro is in trouble. Germany needs to do something to get domestic demand rolling, so far Merkel has avoided addressing the issue. Three of Germany;s top 5 export markets are giving it a problem US, China ( trade war slunp ) and UK ( Brexit uncertainty ), not much on the horizon atm to counteract that.
    The switch to electric vehicles is also going to hit their manufacturing sector hard - particularly the components industry.
    Well would you want to be a manufacturer of exhaust systems or fuel tanks knowing your product is dead in about 10-15 years ?

    The other surprising thing I heard on R4 was that all car manufacturers are going to cease producing very small cars such as Peugeot 107 or VW Up as they reckon they will only be able to make money on them (when changed to battery) by charging a price that makes them unaffordable,

    That seems mad as they are generally quite fuel efficient and dont do great mileage as their buyers use them for local trips in the main.
    For local trips you shouldn't be driving anyway.

    But Labour's "Green New Deal" is remarkable for its complete disinterest in active/healthy travel like walking and cycling, and the infrastructure changes required to encourage them. I'd say "remarkable" but Labour transport policy has been a disaster area for many years, save for a brief period of sanity under Lilian Greenwood.
    youre 75, you live in a village, theres no bus service, your doctor or shops are 4 miles away and there isnt much of a taxi service. For lots of people a car is still essential.
    Yeah. The only people who say that sort of thing seem to live in London. Even in the big northern cities public transport is not good.
  • NemtynakhtNemtynakht Posts: 2,329
    Scott_P said:
    Optimistic to think a recommendation from a report in March would be enacted by now
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,755
    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    Labour's policy is the correct approach - unfortunately it isn't sellable to a world where everyone is leave or remain....

    Yes. Good policy but tough to sell. The polarization is tedious but it's real.

    https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1175718130766831616
    I thought we normally had other people declare war on Belgium and then reluctantly got involved.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,482



    For local trips you shouldn't be driving anyway.

    My nearest stores are 7 miles away.

    My nearest bus stop maybe two miles.

    How do I shop? Go to the cinema? Get a haircut?

    Let me guess - you live in a city?
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,437
    edited September 2019



    For local trips you shouldn't be driving anyway.

    My nearest stores are 7 miles away.

    My nearest bus stop maybe two miles.

    How do I shop? Go to the cinema? Get a haircut?

    Let me guess - you live in a city?
    Its not even in a city.

    Take Newcastle which has the Tyne and Wear Metro. Great. But unless you live in the select areas that have a Metro station you’re relying on a rather poor bus service although admittedly it’s still better than in rural areas.

    I live in Newcastle upon Tyne but my nearest Metro station is 45 minutes walk away. I can drive to the City Centre in 25 minutes.

    No city in this country is anywhere near the standard of London. Not even close.
  • Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    Sandpit said:

    Government is underwriting this effort and will end up paying for the few uninsured travellers, £10m tops.

    The Transport secretary disagrees with that figure...
  • NemtynakhtNemtynakht Posts: 2,329
    Roger said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Roger said:

    Jonathan said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Jonathan said:

    Thomas Cook made one fundamental mistake (on top of countless others)... It wasn't a bank. Deep irony that RBS are the ones behind this closure.

    Thomas Cook has been in trouble for years. And its failure causes no systemic problem for others. Most of the costs will be covered by insurance. Why it is such a big story beats me. You’d think we were airlifting starving children out of a war zone the way journalists are covering it.
    When a big high st name goes tits up its big news. This one has an extra emotional dimension, because people wait all year for their big annual holiday /honeymoon that gets screwed up. It's big story.
    The first high profile casulty of Brexit.



    No it isn't. They've been in financial trouble for years. The banks should really have pulled the plug ages ago.
    Correct though had their profits not taken a nosedive largely through the effects of Brexit and the collapse of the pound they could have restructured in an orderly fashion.
    Yes their profitability was clearly severely hit by Brexit in 2011 when they needed emergency financial support from creditors and banks. It clearly isn’t the business model struggling against modern competition.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,755

    Scott_P said:
    Optimistic to think a recommendation from a report in March would be enacted by now
    Optimistic to think that TC would have survived as long as this if they had a preferential creditor in the form of passengers whose flights had to be paid for first. It’s magic money tree thinking without a moment’s thought for the consequences.
  • youre 75, you live in a village, theres no bus service, your doctor or shops are 4 miles away and there isnt much of a taxi service. For lots of people a car is still essential.

    Most of which is fixable. There's no bus because n years of harsh funding settlements mean the local authority has cut bus subsidies. It is a whole bunch cheaper to pay for buses than to fund electric car infrastructure on the scale that Labour is proposing.

    Yeah. The only people who say that sort of thing seem to live in London. Even in the big northern cities public transport is not good.

    Nope. I live in a tiny town (population 3,000) and don't have a car. But I made my decision on where to live partly on the basis of good (public) transport.

    So Peugeot 107s and Citroen C1s are going to become more expensive? Suck it up, I'm afraid. If you choose to live in an unsustainable location, expect to pay a premium for it.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,482

    According to wiki Thomas Cook's CEO is worth over $15 BILLION:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Fankhauser

    If so he could bail it out with his loose change.

    That information was added in an edit that also stated he's married to Ed Sheeran, so I suspect it may not be 100% accurate.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_Fankhauser&diff=917308681&oldid=917300677
    Bored, at an airport, waiting for your Govt. flight home? Wondering how to pass the time? Ah, yes, Wikipeadia edits....
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,667
    edited September 2019
    eristdoof said:

    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_P said:
    Grammar schools? How infra dig. Seamus Milne and James Schneider are proud Wykehamists. Or possibly ashamed Wykehamists. Anyway, they went to Wykeham Wycombe Winchester, not some lousy grammar where even poor children could get in. As did Buffy-creator Joss Whedon while his mother taught there on an exchange scheme.
    If we do remain in the E.U., would Labour’s proposed policy even be legal ?
    No idea. Bits of it, perhaps. Next question is which sections will get as far as the manifesto. The policy (at least at a broadbrush of Eton).
    Certainly removing charitable status wouldn't be a problem.

    But outlawing private education entirely, and expropriating assets ?
    Removing charitable status certainly would be a problem as it would reducenow done.

    Like most Tories I of course support private schools with charitable status
    Inequality is not reduced by having scholarships.The number of scholarships is a small percentage of the total number of school pupils. The negative effect on state schools caused by public finances subsidising private schools rather than putting this money into the state sector has a far more detrimental effect long term than is gained by the scolarships.

    It is not just the charitable status of private schools that is hindering the state sector there are many areas where public money is financing private schools. Another example is that almost all teachers had their higher education including teacher training in the public sector, this cost is not reimbursed by private schools.

    The private schools should be operating fully in the private sector and not subsidised by the public purse. The parents of private school children should be paying the full market cost.

    Utter crap.

    If you have private education the excellence the top private schools provide should be made available to as much talent as possible through scholarships and bursaries.

    Most private sector teachers paid for their degrees at some point too so again complete and utter rubbish.

    Not only that but private school fees paying parents also pay twice and pay for state school funding through tax too.

    At least Corbyn Labour has the position of opposing private schools completely now and proposing their closure, even though I strongly disagree with that policy it is a better one than attacking private schools charitable status leading to them becoming even more unequal
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,437

    youre 75, you live in a village, theres no bus service, your doctor or shops are 4 miles away and there isnt much of a taxi service. For lots of people a car is still essential.

    Most of which is fixable. There's no bus because n years of harsh funding settlements mean the local authority has cut bus subsidies. It is a whole bunch cheaper to pay for buses than to fund electric car infrastructure on the scale that Labour is proposing.

    Yeah. The only people who say that sort of thing seem to live in London. Even in the big northern cities public transport is not good.

    Nope. I live in a tiny town (population 3,000) and don't have a car. But I made my decision on where to live partly on the basis of good (public) transport.

    So Peugeot 107s and Citroen C1s are going to become more expensive? Suck it up, I'm afraid. If you choose to live in an unsustainable location, expect to pay a premium for it.
    Any area with good public transport links is more expensive and tends to be middle class.

    What you are doing is telling poor people to ‘suck it up’ for not being able to live somewhere more expensive.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    Selebian said:

    Roger said:

    Jonathan said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Jonathan said:

    Thomas Cook made one fundamental mistake (on top of countless others)... It wasn't a bank. Deep irony that RBS are the ones behind this closure.

    Thomas Cook has been in trouble for years. And its failure causes no systemic problem for others. Most of the costs will be covered by insurance. Why it is such a big story beats me. You’d think we were airlifting starving children out of a war zone the way journalists are covering it.
    When a big high st name goes tits up its big news. This one has an extra emotional dimension, because people wait all year for their big annual holiday /honeymoon that gets screwed up. It's big story.
    The first high profile casulty of Brexit.



    Perhaps you could explain your reasoning behind that claim.
    The pounds fall in value since the referendum must have given them problems.#https://www.finder.com/uk/brexit-pound
    Yet its not stopped British people spending record amounts on overseas travel:

    2015 £39bn
    2018 £45bn

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/leisureandtourism/timeseries/gmbb/ott
    If you take from the exchange rate chart 2015 1GBP = 1.35 EURO (actually above that for most of the year) and 2018 1GBP = 1.15 EURO (actually below that for much of that year) then the spending equivalent in EURO is 2015 52.65bn; 2018 51.75bn. So in the currency that a majority of costs are in (? hotel costs, food if included, some flights?, fuel? of course also lots of non-Euro foreign costs, but GBP probably slipped against many of those) the total has dropped and that's before we think about inflation.

    To be clear, I think it's simplistic to assign this failure to Brexit, or not. But it's also naive to point to increased spending in GBP and suggest that means there has been no Brexit effects. Falling GBP means that if people are affording to have the same holidays in EU they'll be spending more in GBP.
    Anecdote alert: Talking to sales rep for a drinks distribution company across southern Costa Blanca he told me sales to bars focusing on the UK Immigrants and holiday makers were well over 10% down this summer and the owners of the bars I use say it has been the worst summer since 2008.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,482
    DavidL said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    Labour's policy is the correct approach - unfortunately it isn't sellable to a world where everyone is leave or remain....

    Yes. Good policy but tough to sell. The polarization is tedious but it's real.

    https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1175718130766831616
    I thought we normally had other people declare war on Belgium and then reluctantly got involved.
    No-one actually declares war on Belgium. It's just a neutral ground, so an away game for everybody....
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,854

    It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20

    Thanks for the warning Dinesh. I always thought Nordic girls with pigtails had a leftish squint.
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,064

    Nigelb said:

    The collapse in German manufacturing has now become frighteningly steep:

    https://www.markiteconomics.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/1f489cd97178420799000583692a1886

    if that keeps rolling, Germany and by extension the Euro is in trouble. Germany needs to do something to get domestic demand rolling, so far Merkel has avoided addressing the issue. Three of Germany;s top 5 export markets are giving it a problem US, China ( trade war slunp ) and UK ( Brexit uncertainty ), not much on the horizon atm to counteract that.
    The switch to electric vehicles is also going to hit their manufacturing sector hard - particularly the components industry.
    Well would you want to be a manufacturer of exhaust systems or fuel tanks knowing your product is dead in about 10-15 years ?

    The other surprising thing I heard on R4 was that all car manufacturers are going to cease producing very small cars such as Peugeot 107 or VW Up as they reckon they will only be able to make money on them (when changed to battery) by charging a price that makes them unaffordable,

    That seems mad as they are generally quite fuel efficient and dont do great mileage as their buyers use them for local trips in the main.
    For local trips you shouldn't be driving anyway.

    But Labour's "Green New Deal" is remarkable for its complete disinterest in active/healthy travel like walking and cycling, and the infrastructure changes required to encourage them. I'd say "remarkable" but Labour transport policy has been a disaster area for many years, save for a brief period of sanity under Lilian Greenwood.
    youre 75, you live in a village, theres no bus service, your doctor or shops are 4 miles away and there isnt much of a taxi service. For lots of people a car is still essential.
    Yes, but that is a problem with the local transport infrastructure in rural areas, which is rubbish in much of Germany and a scandal in most of the UK.

    I have recently heard of a system in parts of Brandenburg (a rural state despite itsurrounding Berlin) called "Rufbus": call-a-bus. It is far from perfect, but the idea is that the bus company can provide a much better coverage, if they can avoid empty busses driving around the countryside, and actuall providing the service where and when it is wanted. It is much much cheaper than using a taxi. Variants on this idea are far from new, but the implementation is becoming much easier.
  • Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    Good job he prorogued Parliament and avoided answering questions at the liaison committee...
  • NemtynakhtNemtynakht Posts: 2,329
    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    Labour's policy is the correct approach - unfortunately it isn't sellable to a world where everyone is leave or remain....

    Yes. Good policy but tough to sell. The polarization is tedious but it's real.

    https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1175718130766831616
    I’m not normally in agreement with Jones, but he is switched on to northern working class voters in a way that a lot of politicians aren’t. I’ve started to look at Brexit through the 5 stages of grief model. Unfortunately significant numbers of remainers are still at stage 1
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,437
    eristdoof said:

    Nigelb said:

    The collapse in German manufacturing has now become frighteningly steep:

    https://www.markiteconomics.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/1f489cd97178420799000583692a1886

    if that keeps rolling, Germany and by extension the Euro is in trouble. Germany needs to do something to get domestic demand rolling, so far Merkel has avoided addressing the issue. Three of Germany;s top 5 export markets are giving it a problem US, China ( trade war slunp ) and UK ( Brexit uncertainty ), not much on the horizon atm to counteract that.
    The switch to electric vehicles is also going to hit their manufacturing sector hard - particularly the components industry.
    Well would you want to be a manufacturer of exhaust systems or fuel tanks knowing your product is dead in about 10-15 years ?

    The other surprising thing I heard on R4 was that all car manufacturers are going to cease producing very small cars such as Peugeot 107 or VW Up as they reckon they will only be able to make money on them (when changed to battery) by charging a price that makes them unaffordable,

    That seems mad as they are generally quite fuel efficient and dont do great mileage as their buyers use them for local trips in the main.
    For local trips you shouldn't be driving anyway.

    But Labour's "Green New Deal" is remarkable for its complete disinterest in active/healthy travel like walking and cycling, and the infrastructure changes required to encourage them. I'd say "remarkable" but Labour transport policy has been a disaster area for many years, save for a brief period of sanity under Lilian Greenwood.
    youre 75, you live in a village, theres no bus service, your doctor or shops are 4 miles away and there isnt much of a taxi service. For lots of people a car is still essential.
    Yes, but that is a problem with the local transport infrastructure in rural areas, which is rubbish in much of Germany and a scandal in most of the UK.

    I have recently heard of a system in parts of Brandenburg (a rural state despite itsurrounding Berlin) called "Rufbus": call-a-bus. It is far from perfect, but the idea is that the bus company can provide a much better coverage, if they can avoid empty busses driving around the countryside, and actuall providing the service where and when it is wanted. It is much much cheaper than using a taxi. Variants on this idea are far from new, but the implementation is becoming much easier.
    That’s fine and a reasonable solution. Telling people to ‘suck it up’ because they cant afford to live near a train station isn’t.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483

    Selebian said:

    Roger said:

    Jonathan said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Jonathan said:

    Thomas Cook made one fundamental mistake (on top of countless others)... It wasn't a bank. Deep irony that RBS are the ones behind this closure.

    Thomas Cook has been in trouble for years. And its failure causes no systemic problem for others. Most of the costs will be covered by insurance. Why it is such a big story beats me. You’d think we were airlifting starving children out of a war zone the way journalists are covering it.
    When a big high st name goes tits up its big news. This one has an extra emotional dimension, because people wait all year for their big annual holiday /honeymoon that gets screwed up. It's big story.
    The first high profile casulty of Brexit.



    Perhaps you could explain your reasoning behind that claim.
    The pounds fall in value since the referendum must have given them problems.#https://www.finder.com/uk/brexit-pound
    Yet its not stopped British people spending record amounts on overseas travel:

    2015 £39bn
    2018 £45bn

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/leisureandtourism/timeseries/gmbb/ott
    If you take from the exchange rate chart 2015 1GBP = 1.35 EURO (actually above that for most of the year) and 2018 1GBP = 1.15 EURO (actually below that for much of that year) then the spending equivalent in EURO is 2015 52.65bn; 2018 51.75bn. So in the currency that a majority of costs are in (? hotel costs, food if included, some flights?, fuel? of course also lots of non-Euro foreign costs, but GBP probably slipped against many of those) the total has dropped and that's before we think about inflation.
    2018 had exceptional weather in the UK (and Europe). Why on earth people were paying to fly from 33 degree UK to 45 degree Southern Europe last summer is beyond me.
    ..
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,509
    Scott_P said:

    Sandpit said:

    Government is underwriting this effort and will end up paying for the few uninsured travellers, £10m tops.

    The Transport secretary disagrees with that figure...
    Link?

    The total cost of the repatriation effort is estimated at £80-100m - c.£600 per passenger.

    Everyone on a ‘package’ holiday has ATOL insurance (that £2.50 everyone complains about on their holiday bill). Most others will have some other private travel insurance, or will have paid by credit card for their flight, in which case those companies will pay the bill.

    In practice, on the ground the CAA is organising the effort, so all bills will be initially paid by government contingency funds and then claimed back from the other parties over time. The actual net cost to government is likely to be seven figures rather than eight, at the end of the process.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,899
    Sandpit said:

    Scott_P said:
    Nope.

    ATOL, travel insurance companies and credit card companies are paying to repatriate 180,000.

    Government is underwriting this effort and will end up paying for the few uninsured travellers, £10m tops.
    Simon Calder made a similar point that the government wouldn't forced to pick up the "£600 million" cost. Where that figure originates I don't know, as it seems to have little substance.
  • NooNoo Posts: 2,380

    It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20

    Fuck's sake.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,667

    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_P said:
    Grammar schools? How infra dig. Seamus Milne and James Schneider are proud Wykehamists. Or possibly ashamed Wykehamists. Anyway, they went to Wykeham Wycombe Winchester, not some lousy grammar where even poor children could get in. As did Buffy-creator Joss Whedon while his mother taught there on an exchange scheme.
    If we do remain in the E.U., would Labour’s proposed policy even be legal ?
    No idea. Bits of it, perhaps. Next question is which sections will get as far as the manifesto. The policy (at least at a broadbrush level) seems to me to be socially desirable but electorally stupid, as it will repel voters with a vested interest but not attract any new ones (unless, given Cameron's, Boris's and Jacob Rees-Mogg's alma mater, there is a recently-founded Conservative Campaign for the Abolition of Eton).
    Certainly removing charitable status wouldn't be a problem.

    But outlawing private education entirely, and expropriating assets ?
    Removing charitable status certainly would be a problem as it would reduce the number of scholarships and bursaries and shared facilities private schools can provide and make them even more unequal so if you are going to attack private schools you may as well go the whole hog for full abolition as Corbyn Labour have now done.

    Like most Tories I of course support private schools with charitable status
    I think the private schools thing might be a vote loser for Labour. It is emblematic of the economic wrong-headedness of their policies. Private Schools banned - 600000 extra pupils need Places in state system - catchment area problems worsened. If anyone wanted an examplar they couldn’t get much better. Even my wife who is generally left of centre was shaking her head this morning

    Likely to be a further shift from Labour to LD agreed
  • HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_P said:
    Grammar schools? How infra dig. Seamus Milne and James Schneider are proud Wykehamists. Or possibly ashamed Wykehamists. Anyway, they went to Wykeham Wycombe Winchester, not some lousy grammar where even poor children could get in. As did Buffy-creator Joss Whedon while his mother taught there on an exchange scheme.
    If we do remain in the E.U., would Labour’s proposed policy even be legal ?
    No idea. Bits of it, perhaps. Next question is which sections will get as far as the manifesto. The policy (at least at a broadbrush level) seems to me to be socially desirable but electorally stupid, as it will repel voters with a vested interest but not attract any new ones (unless, given Cameron's, Boris's and Jacob Rees-Mogg's alma mater, there is a recently-founded Conservative Campaign for the Abolition of Eton).
    Certainly removing charitable status wouldn't be a problem.

    But outlawing private education entirely, and expropriating assets ?
    Removing charitable status certainly would be a problem as it would reduce the number of scholarships and bursaries and shared facilities private schools can provide and make them even more unequal so if you are going to attack private schools you may as well go the whole hog for full abolition as Corbyn Labour have now done.

    Like most Tories I of course support private schools with charitable status
    I think the private schools thing might be a vote loser for Labour. It is emblematic of the economic wrong-headedness of their policies. Private Schools banned - 600000 extra pupils need Places in state system - catchment area problems worsened. If anyone wanted an examplar they couldn’t get much better. Even my wife who is generally left of centre was shaking her head this morning

    Not many at all think private schools should be banned.
    Not many think private schools should have their assets stolen.

    but

    By 74-15 people are in favour of abolishing charitable status or tying it to partnering with state schools

    http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/sx0xopiuqb/InternalResults_141126_private_schools_Website.pdf

    It is a classic far left overreach, identify problem, come up with solutions and then choose the ones that cannot gather public support, so in the end nothing is done in real life.

    A simpler policy of changing charitable status rules and business rates exemptions would be fine for Labour but when they get into stealing assets they lose the vast majority of the centre ground very quickly.
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,064

    DavidL said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    Labour's policy is the correct approach - unfortunately it isn't sellable to a world where everyone is leave or remain....

    Yes. Good policy but tough to sell. The polarization is tedious but it's real.

    https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1175718130766831616
    I thought we normally had other people declare war on Belgium and then reluctantly got involved.
    No-one actually declares war on Belgium. It's just a neutral ground, so an away game for everybody....
    MerqueeMark: thankyou for changing your avatar. Your previous one made me think wasp nests all the time.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,509

    According to wiki Thomas Cook's CEO is worth over $15 BILLION:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Fankhauser

    If so he could bail it out with his loose change.

    That information was added in an edit that also stated he's married to Ed Sheeran, so I suspect it may not be 100% accurate.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_Fankhauser&diff=917308681&oldid=917300677
    Bored, at an airport, waiting for your Govt. flight home? Wondering how to pass the time? Ah, yes, Wikipeadia edits....
    Sitting at home or in the pub, upset at having just lost your job...
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,152
    glw said:

    Sandpit said:

    Scott_P said:
    Nope.

    ATOL, travel insurance companies and credit card companies are paying to repatriate 180,000.

    Government is underwriting this effort and will end up paying for the few uninsured travellers, £10m tops.
    Simon Calder made a similar point that the government wouldn't forced to pick up the "£600 million" cost. Where that figure originates I don't know, as it seems to have little substance.
    It's the money paid for future bookings.
  • TheJezziahTheJezziah Posts: 3,840
    https://twitter.com/miqdaad/status/1176047126024994816

    Shocked to learn that oil seems to be a much bigger factor in British foreign policy than innocent lives.
  • Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    Sandpit said:

    The total cost of the repatriation effort is estimated at £80-100m

    That is the figure he has been using this morning
  • eekeek Posts: 28,264
    Sandpit said:

    Scott_P said:

    Sandpit said:

    Government is underwriting this effort and will end up paying for the few uninsured travellers, £10m tops.

    The Transport secretary disagrees with that figure...
    Link?

    The total cost of the repatriation effort is estimated at £80-100m - c.£600 per passenger.

    Everyone on a ‘package’ holiday has ATOL insurance (that £2.50 everyone complains about on their holiday bill). Most others will have some other private travel insurance, or will have paid by credit card for their flight, in which case those companies will pay the bill.

    In practice, on the ground the CAA is organising the effort, so all bills will be initially paid by government contingency funds and then claimed back from the other parties over time. The actual net cost to government is likely to be seven figures rather than eight, at the end of the process.
    I suspect the cost is £80-100m not the £10m you claim as the Government didn't have much luck recovering money for monarch see https://www.ttgmedia.com/news/news/government-yet-to-recoup-60m-monarch-repatriation-costs-14925
  • youre 75, you live in a village, theres no bus service, your doctor or shops are 4 miles away and there isnt much of a taxi service. For lots of people a car is still essential.

    Most of which is fixable. There's no bus because n years of harsh funding settlements mean the local authority has cut bus subsidies. It is a whole bunch cheaper to pay for buses than to fund electric car infrastructure on the scale that Labour is proposing.

    Yeah. The only people who say that sort of thing seem to live in London. Even in the big northern cities public transport is not good.

    Nope. I live in a tiny town (population 3,000) and don't have a car. But I made my decision on where to live partly on the basis of good (public) transport.

    So Peugeot 107s and Citroen C1s are going to become more expensive? Suck it up, I'm afraid. If you choose to live in an unsustainable location, expect to pay a premium for it.
    Any area with good public transport links is more expensive and tends to be middle class.

    What you are doing is telling poor people to ‘suck it up’ for not being able to live somewhere more expensive.
    No, I'm saying that Government should fund good public transport links (as, indeed, they used to) so that people who are unable to make their short-distance everyday journeys by active means can catch an affordable bus or train.

    A vast number of everyday trips could be made by active means and aren't. Given all the negative externalities - congestion, air pollution, sedentary lifestyles, road safety, car-dominated streetscapes etc. etc. - Government shouldn't be facilitating private car use for these journeys. EVs address air pollution (if the energy came from a sustainable source in the first place, which is a big "if") but not the other issues.

    Around here, FWIW, the areas with poor public transport are the more affluent ones - the posh villages, basically. The towns have pretty good public transport, including night services.
  • It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20

    When you invoke the Nazis you've lost the debate.
    She's a girl who is concerned about a threat to the world and has done what she can about it.
    Why is it a Left vs Right thing to look after our home planet?
  • glwglw Posts: 9,899
    tlg86 said:

    glw said:

    Sandpit said:

    Scott_P said:
    Nope.

    ATOL, travel insurance companies and credit card companies are paying to repatriate 180,000.

    Government is underwriting this effort and will end up paying for the few uninsured travellers, £10m tops.
    Simon Calder made a similar point that the government wouldn't forced to pick up the "£600 million" cost. Where that figure originates I don't know, as it seems to have little substance.
    It's the money paid for future bookings.
    So nothing to with anybody other than creditors.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,509
    Scott_P said:

    Sandpit said:

    The total cost of the repatriation effort is estimated at £80-100m

    That is the figure he has been using this morning
    Yes, but that’s not the cost to government.

    The vast majority of the cost is insured, government are fronting the disaster plan on the basis that they’ll do whatever is needed now (like chartering A380s and paying hoteliers) and work through the finances of it all later.
  • Selebian said:

    Roger said:

    Jonathan said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Jonathan said:

    Thomas Cook made one fundamental mistake (on top of countless others)... It wasn't a bank. Deep irony that RBS are the ones behind this closure.

    Thomas Cook has been in trouble for years. And its failure causes no systemic problem for others. Most of the costs will be covered by insurance. Why it is such a big story beats me. You’d think we were airlifting starving children out of a war zone the way journalists are covering it.
    When a big high st name goes tits up its big news. This one has an extra emotional dimension, because people wait all year for their big annual holiday /honeymoon that gets screwed up. It's big story.
    The first high profile casulty of Brexit.



    Perhaps you could explain your reasoning behind that claim.
    The pounds fall in value since the referendum must have given them problems.#https://www.finder.com/uk/brexit-pound
    Yet its not stopped British people spending record amounts on overseas travel:

    2015 £39bn
    2018 £45bn

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/leisureandtourism/timeseries/gmbb/ott
    If you take from the exchange rate chart 2015 1GBP = 1.35 EURO (actually above that for most of the year) and 2018 1GBP = 1.15 EURO (actually below that for much of that year) then the spending equivalent in EURO is 2015 52.65bn; 2018 51.75bn. So in the currency that a majority of costs are in (? hotel costs, food if included, some flights?, fuel? of course also lots of non-Euro foreign costs, but GBP probably slipped against many of those) the total has dropped and that's before we think about inflation.

    To be clear, I think it's simplistic to assign this failure to Brexit, or not. But it's also naive to point to increased spending in GBP and suggest that means there has been no Brexit effects. Falling GBP means that if people are affording to have the same holidays in EU they'll be spending more in GBP.
    The number of foreign trips has also increased from 66 million in 2015 to 72 million in 2018:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/leisureandtourism/timeseries/gmax/ott

    What the data shows is that there hasn't been a fall in foreign holidays being taken and certainly nothing comparable to the big drop which happened in the recession a decade ago.

    But spending patterns within an industry change and the weaker, more incompetent, more indebted or outmoded businesses within that industry struggle while other businesses thrive.

    Its a fundamental part of free market capitalism.
  • RecidivistRecidivist Posts: 4,679
    eek said:

    egg said:

    I have given it some thought and I like Corbyns brexit policy. In fact all the other political parties should adopt it.

    Ask yourself, does leaving without a deal bring closure? Does revoke and ignoring 2016 bring the needed closure from the crisis allowing the country to move on? No dealers and revokers aren’t offering closure, just more politics, just exploiting the crisis for their own self interest.

    You could call it a fudge, but anything trying to put us on a road to closure would be called a fudge by rivals with a very clear policy (but not one that brings closure) would it not?

    Labour's policy is the correct approach - unfortunately it isn't sellable to a world where everyone is leave or remain....
    I think that's right. Even though I am hardcore remain and won't accept anything other than revocation now, I still have a logical bit of my brain that understands the only way to solve the problem is by a reasonable compromise. But emotion trumps logic.
  • RecidivistRecidivist Posts: 4,679
    Cyclefree said:

    Roger said:

    Jonathan said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Jonathan said:

    Thomas Cook made one fundamental mistake (on top of countless others)... It wasn't a bank. Deep irony that RBS are the ones behind this closure.

    Thomas Cook has been in trouble for years. And its failure causes no systemic problem for others. Most of the costs will be covered by insurance. Why it is such a big story beats me. You’d think we were airlifting starving children out of a war zone the way journalists are covering it.
    When a big high st name goes tits up its big news. This one has an extra emotional dimension, because people wait all year for their big annual holiday /honeymoon that gets screwed up. It's big story.
    The first high profile casulty of Brexit.



    No it isn't. They've been in financial trouble for years. The banks should really have pulled the plug ages ago.
    The slowest zebras will be the first to get eaten. But the herd still shouldn't have got so near the pride of lions.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,509
    eek said:

    Sandpit said:

    Scott_P said:

    Sandpit said:

    Government is underwriting this effort and will end up paying for the few uninsured travellers, £10m tops.

    The Transport secretary disagrees with that figure...
    Link?

    The total cost of the repatriation effort is estimated at £80-100m - c.£600 per passenger.

    Everyone on a ‘package’ holiday has ATOL insurance (that £2.50 everyone complains about on their holiday bill). Most others will have some other private travel insurance, or will have paid by credit card for their flight, in which case those companies will pay the bill.

    In practice, on the ground the CAA is organising the effort, so all bills will be initially paid by government contingency funds and then claimed back from the other parties over time. The actual net cost to government is likely to be seven figures rather than eight, at the end of the process.
    I suspect the cost is £80-100m not the £10m you claim as the Government didn't have much luck recovering money for monarch see https://www.ttgmedia.com/news/news/government-yet-to-recoup-60m-monarch-repatriation-costs-14925
    From your article, 20% of Monarch pax were ATOL-covered. The figure for TC is more like 80%.

    Yes, government could well end up with a bill larger than expected, but the priority now is to get planes in the air.
  • TheJezziahTheJezziah Posts: 3,840

    It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20

    When you invoke the Nazis you've lost the debate.
    She's a girl who is concerned about a threat to the world and has done what she can about it.
    Why is it a Left vs Right thing to look after our home planet?
    Because there are big profits to be made with short term thinking, also if you over the age of 50 and living in the West you are probably going to avoid the worst of the consequences.

    Profit and rubbing all the millenials faces in the mess leftover, how could the likes of Trump, Bolsonaro and Boris resist?

  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,482
    Scott_P said:
    Point and laugh at the Labour Party.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,798
    edited September 2019

    youre 75, you live in a village, theres no bus service, your doctor or shops are 4 miles away and there isnt much of a taxi service. For lots of people a car is still essential.

    Most of which is fixable. There's no bus because n years of harsh funding settlements mean the local authority has cut bus subsidies. It is a whole bunch cheaper to pay for buses than to fund electric car infrastructure on the scale that Labour is proposing.

    Yeah. The only people who say that sort of thing seem to live in London. Even in the big northern cities public transport is not good.

    Nope. I live in a tiny town (population 3,000) and don't have a car. But I made my decision on where to live partly on the basis of good (public) transport.

    So Peugeot 107s and Citroen C1s are going to become more expensive? Suck it up, I'm afraid. If you choose to live in an unsustainable location, expect to pay a premium for it.
    Any area with good public transport links is more expensive and tends to be middle class.

    What you are doing is telling poor people to ‘suck it up’ for not being able to live somewhere more expensive.
    No, I'm saying that Government should fund good public transport links (as, indeed, they used to) so that people who are unable to make their short-distance everyday journeys by active means can catch an affordable bus or train.

    A vast number of everyday trips could be made by active means and aren't. Given all the negative externalities - congestion, air pollution, sedentary lifestyles, road safety, car-dominated streetscapes etc. etc. - Government shouldn't be facilitating private car use for these journeys. EVs address air pollution (if the energy came from a sustainable source in the first place, which is a big "if") but not the other issues.

    Around here, FWIW, the areas with poor public transport are the more affluent ones - the posh villages, basically. The towns have pretty good public transport, including night services.
    For villages of perhaps 1000-4000 size might employing a handful drivers and pool cars for on demand local taxi journeys be a far more effective public subsidy than more buses?

    Could also possibly be done on a co-operative basis without govt funding.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,755
    Scott_P said:
    Lol. Labour are proving an unexpected source of amusement during this interminable end of days.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,509

    Scott_P said:
    Point and laugh at the Labour Party.
    They must be so happy that there’s a bigger story leading the news today. What a shambles of a conference.
  • NooNoo Posts: 2,380
    HYUFD said:

    eristdoof said:

    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_P said:
    Grammar schools? How infra dig. Seamus Milne and James Schneider are proud Wykehamists. Or possibly ashamed Wykehamists. Anyway, they went to Wykeham Wycombe Winchester, not some lousy grammar where even poor children could get in. As did Buffy-creator Joss Whedon while his mother taught there on an exchange scheme.
    If we do remain in the E.U., would Labour’s proposed policy even be legal ?
    No idea. Bits of it, perhaps. Next question is which sections will get as far as the manifesto. The policy (at least at a broadbrush of Eton).
    Certainly removing charitable status wouldn't be a problem.

    But outlawing private education entirely, and expropriating assets ?
    Removing charitable status certainly would be a problem as it would reducenow done.

    Like most Tories I of course support private schools with charitable status
    Inequality is not reduced by having scholarships.The number of scholarships is a small percentage of the total number of school pupils. The negative effect on state schools caused by public finances subsidising private schools rather than putting this money into the state sector has a far more detrimental effect long term than is gained by the scolarships.

    It is not just the charitable status of private schools that is hindering the state sector there are many areas where public money is financing private schools. Another example is that almost all teachers had their higher education including teacher training in the public sector, this cost is not reimbursed by private schools.

    The private schools should be operating fully in the private sector and not subsidised by the public purse. The parents of private school children should be paying the full market cost.

    Utter crap.

    If you have private education the excellence the top private schools provide should be made available to as much talent as possible through scholarships and bursaries.

    Most private sector teachers paid for their degrees at some point too so again complete and utter rubbish.

    Not only that but private school fees paying parents also pay twice and pay for state school funding through tax too.

    At least Corbyn Labour has the position of opposing private schools completely now and proposing their closure, even though I strongly disagree with that policy it is a better one than attacking private schools charitable status leading to them becoming even more unequal
    Drivel from start to finish.
  • youre 75, you live in a village, theres no bus service, your doctor or shops are 4 miles away and there isnt much of a taxi service. For lots of people a car is still essential.

    Most of which is fixable. There's no bus because n years of harsh funding settlements mean the local authority has cut bus subsidies. It is a whole bunch cheaper to pay for buses than to fund electric car infrastructure on the scale that Labour is proposing.

    Yeah. The only people who say that sort of thing seem to live in London. Even in the big northern cities public transport is not good.

    Nope. I live in a tiny town (population 3,000) and don't have a car. But I made my decision on where to live partly on the basis of good (public) transport.

    So Peugeot 107s and Citroen C1s are going to become more expensive? Suck it up, I'm afraid. If you choose to live in an unsustainable location, expect to pay a premium for it.
    Any area with good public transport links is more expensive and tends to be middle class.

    What you are doing is telling poor people to ‘suck it up’ for not being able to live somewhere more expensive.
    No, I'm saying that Government should fund good public transport links (as, indeed, they used to) so that people who are unable to make their short-distance everyday journeys by active means can catch an affordable bus or train.

    A vast number of everyday trips could be made by active means and aren't. Given all the negative externalities - congestion, air pollution, sedentary lifestyles, road safety, car-dominated streetscapes etc. etc. - Government shouldn't be facilitating private car use for these journeys. EVs address air pollution (if the energy came from a sustainable source in the first place, which is a big "if") but not the other issues.

    Around here, FWIW, the areas with poor public transport are the more affluent ones - the posh villages, basically. The towns have pretty good public transport, including night services.
    The 'government' should fund good public transport links ?

    In reality that means taxpayers should fund good public transport links.

    Which taxpayers ?

    And however good public transport links are they will never have the travel flexibility which a car provides in most cases.
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,064
    edited September 2019
    HYUFD said:

    eristdoof said:

    HYUFD said:



    Removing charitable status certainly would be a problem as it would reducenow done.

    Like most Tories I of course support private schools with charitable status

    Inequality is not reduced by having scholarships.The number of scholarships is a small percentage of the total number of school pupils. The negative effect on state schools caused by public finances subsidising private schools rather than putting this money into the state sector has a far more detrimental effect long term than is gained by the scolarships.

    It is not just the charitable status of private schools that is hindering the state sector there are many areas where public money is financing private schools. Another example is that almost all teachers had their higher education including teacher training in the public sector, this cost is not reimbursed by private schools.

    The private schools should be operating fully in the private sector and not subsidised by the public purse. The parents of private school children should be paying the full market cost.

    Utter crap.

    If you have private education the excellence the top private schools provide should be made available to as much talent as possible through scholarships and bursaries.

    Most private sector teachers paid for their degrees at some point too so again complete and utter rubbish.

    Not only that but private school fees paying parents also pay twice and pay for state school funding through tax too.

    At least Corbyn Labour has the position of opposing private schools completely now and proposing their closure, even though I strongly disagree with that policy it is a better one than attacking private schools charitable status leading to them becoming even more unequal
    Of course parents of private school children still pay tax. But the public sector is available to them. It is their choice to pay for their child to be educated outside the state system, so they should be paying the full market cost.

    As I said there is only a small number in relative terms of private school bursaries. The private schools are being subsidised by the state sector which is a big disadvantage to the state school sector.

    I realise that this is a political opinion but so is yours, and the arguement lies along a traditional left/right axis: does the state help most of society vs do we help a small percentage and hope that trickles down to benefit the whole of society? Please do not call my opinion "utter crap".
  • It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20

    When you invoke the Nazis you've lost the debate.
    She's a girl who is concerned about a threat to the world and has done what she can about it.
    Why is it a Left vs Right thing to look after our home planet?
    I'm not the world's greatest fan of Greta Thunberg, but that's quite a disgusting tweet.
  • NemtynakhtNemtynakht Posts: 2,329
    Scott_P said:
    Genius - not covering all the bases with two Brexit positions clearly
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,509

    It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20

    When you invoke the Nazis you've lost the debate.
    She's a girl who is concerned about a threat to the world and has done what she can about it.
    Why is it a Left vs Right thing to look after our home planet?
    I disagree with her stunts, and think she’s being used by people pushing an agenda, but comparing people to Nazis is always wrong and always needs to be called out.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,482
    Sandpit said:

    Scott_P said:

    Sandpit said:

    Government is underwriting this effort and will end up paying for the few uninsured travellers, £10m tops.

    The Transport secretary disagrees with that figure...
    Link?

    The total cost of the repatriation effort is estimated at £80-100m - c.£600 per passenger.

    Everyone on a ‘package’ holiday has ATOL insurance (that £2.50 everyone complains about on their holiday bill). Most others will have some other private travel insurance, or will have paid by credit card for their flight, in which case those companies will pay the bill.

    In practice, on the ground the CAA is organising the effort, so all bills will be initially paid by government contingency funds and then claimed back from the other parties over time. The actual net cost to government is likely to be seven figures rather than eight, at the end of the process.
    If it costs £600 to repatriate each passenger ie half the travel undertaken on a holiday - no wonder TC folded.

    It would be much cheaper for the Govt. to book package holidays in the UK from local providers!
  • It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20

    When you invoke the Nazis you've lost the debate.
    She's a girl who is concerned about a threat to the world and has done what she can about it.
    Why is it a Left vs Right thing to look after our home planet?
    I'm not the world's greatest fan of Greta Thunberg, but that's quite a disgusting tweet.
    The tweet is a double troll, mainly GT but the troll also smuggles in the Nazis were lefties meme in the small print.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,899

    It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20

    When you invoke the Nazis you've lost the debate.
    She's a girl who is concerned about a threat to the world and has done what she can about it.
    Why is it a Left vs Right thing to look after our home planet?
    Because there are big profits to be made with short term thinking, also if you over the age of 50 and living in the West you are probably going to avoid the worst of the consequences.

    Profit and rubbing all the millenials faces in the mess leftover, how could the likes of Trump, Bolsonaro and Boris resist?

    I'm no Boris fan but I don't think you can say he's a climate change denialist like Trump. There was a huge new offshore wind farm deal announced just this Friday, at the lowest ever strike price too. The UK is actually doing very well at adopting renewable energy. There is widespread and cross-party support for renewable energy in the UK, and little opposition. We really shouldn't try to make this into a left versus right issue here.
  • TheJezziahTheJezziah Posts: 3,840
    Scott_P said:
    Unless there are only 3 possible Brexit options (depends how vaguely defined an option is) then presumably we could adopt many more than just 3 Brexit options today?
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208

    Nigelb said:

    The collapse in German manufacturing has now become frighteningly steep:

    https://www.markiteconomics.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/1f489cd97178420799000583692a1886

    if that keeps rolling, Germany and by extension the Euro is in trouble. Germany needs to do something to get domestic demand rolling, so far Merkel has avoided addressing the issue. Three of Germany;s top 5 export markets are giving it a problem US, China ( trade war slunp ) and UK ( Brexit uncertainty ), not much on the horizon atm to counteract that.
    The switch to electric vehicles is also going to hit their manufacturing sector hard - particularly the components industry.
    Well would you want to be a manufacturer of exhaust systems or fuel tanks knowing your product is dead in about 10-15 years ?

    The other surprising thing I heard on R4 was that all car manufacturers are going to cease producing very small cars such as Peugeot 107 or VW Up as they reckon they will only be able to make money on them (when changed to battery) by charging a price that makes them unaffordable,

    That seems mad as they are generally quite fuel efficient and dont do great mileage as their buyers use them for local trips in the main.
    To this is the most interesting electric car right now. Take a small light car with performance no better than it needs be (although it will need to be boosted for Europe relative to this model) and supply it with a very modest battery. The battery is where the cost is and prices are coming down. A side benefit of a highly efficient car in charge/km of range terms is that the car is quick to recharge.

    https://twitter.com/renaultukpr/status/1046819170749468672
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,482

    Scott_P said:
    Unless there are only 3 possible Brexit options (depends how vaguely defined an option is) then presumably we could adopt many more than just 3 Brexit options today?
    Possibly. But they'll settle instead for the three worst, electorally.
  • nico67nico67 Posts: 4,502
    Isn’t it great that the EU brought in legislation to protect package holidays !

    Let’s hope the government continues this when we head for the Sunny Uplands!
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,925

    It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20

    When you invoke the Nazis you've lost the debate.
    She's a girl who is concerned about a threat to the world and has done what she can about it.
    Why is it a Left vs Right thing to look after our home planet?
    I'm not the world's greatest fan of Greta Thunberg, but that's quite a disgusting tweet.
    The tweet is a double troll, mainly GT but the troll also smuggles in the Nazis were lefties meme in the small print.
    D'Souza is a man of consistent charm....
    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/966068560178098176
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,509

    Sandpit said:

    Scott_P said:

    Sandpit said:

    Government is underwriting this effort and will end up paying for the few uninsured travellers, £10m tops.

    The Transport secretary disagrees with that figure...
    Link?

    The total cost of the repatriation effort is estimated at £80-100m - c.£600 per passenger.

    Everyone on a ‘package’ holiday has ATOL insurance (that £2.50 everyone complains about on their holiday bill). Most others will have some other private travel insurance, or will have paid by credit card for their flight, in which case those companies will pay the bill.

    In practice, on the ground the CAA is organising the effort, so all bills will be initially paid by government contingency funds and then claimed back from the other parties over time. The actual net cost to government is likely to be seven figures rather than eight, at the end of the process.
    If it costs £600 to repatriate each passenger ie half the travel undertaken on a holiday - no wonder TC folded.

    It would be much cheaper for the Govt. to book package holidays in the UK from local providers!
    The costs are what they are because the aircraft are last-minute short-term charters (who leaves an A380 sitting idle waiting for someone to rent it?) and they will be flying a lot of empty positioning legs outbound from the UK, burning fuel and paying crew for a plane with no passengers.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,854
    How do you declare a slapper in the register of members interests?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,755
    glw said:

    It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20

    When you invoke the Nazis you've lost the debate.
    She's a girl who is concerned about a threat to the world and has done what she can about it.
    Why is it a Left vs Right thing to look after our home planet?
    Because there are big profits to be made with short term thinking, also if you over the age of 50 and living in the West you are probably going to avoid the worst of the consequences.

    Profit and rubbing all the millenials faces in the mess leftover, how could the likes of Trump, Bolsonaro and Boris resist?

    I'm no Boris fan but I don't think you can say he's a climate change denialist like Trump. There was a huge new offshore wind farm deal announced just this Friday, at the lowest ever strike price too. The UK is actually doing very well at adopting renewable energy. There is widespread and cross-party support for renewable energy in the UK, and little opposition. We really shouldn't try to make this into a left versus right issue here.
    I noticed that the strike price for some of the new windfarms is less than half the guaranteed price for Hinckley Point C. What a disaster that is looking to be.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,925
    FF43 said:

    Nigelb said:

    The collapse in German manufacturing has now become frighteningly steep:

    https://www.markiteconomics.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/1f489cd97178420799000583692a1886

    if that keeps rolling, Germany and by extension the Euro is in trouble. Germany needs to do something to get domestic demand rolling, so far Merkel has avoided addressing the issue. Three of Germany;s top 5 export markets are giving it a problem US, China ( trade war slunp ) and UK ( Brexit uncertainty ), not much on the horizon atm to counteract that.
    The switch to electric vehicles is also going to hit their manufacturing sector hard - particularly the components industry.
    Well would you want to be a manufacturer of exhaust systems or fuel tanks knowing your product is dead in about 10-15 years ?

    The other surprising thing I heard on R4 was that all car manufacturers are going to cease producing very small cars such as Peugeot 107 or VW Up as they reckon they will only be able to make money on them (when changed to battery) by charging a price that makes them unaffordable,

    That seems mad as they are generally quite fuel efficient and dont do great mileage as their buyers use them for local trips in the main.
    To this is the most interesting electric car right now. Take a small light car with performance no better than it needs be (although it will need to be boosted for Europe relative to this model) and supply it with a very modest battery. The battery is where the cost is and prices are coming down. A side benefit of a highly efficient car in charge/km of range terms is that the car is quick to recharge.

    https://twitter.com/renaultukpr/status/1046819170749468672
    And how much does it cost ?

    Alanbrooke is, for now, quite right.
    Small EVs are simply too expensive for the great majority of their target market.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,509
    nico67 said:

    Isn’t it great that the EU brought in legislation to protect package holidays !

    Let’s hope the government continues this when we head for the Sunny Uplands!

    ATOL long predates the EU regulation. It’s been running since 1973.
    https://www.caa.co.uk/ATOL-protection/Consumers/About-ATOL/
  • NooNoo Posts: 2,380
    Roger said:

    How do you declare a slapper in the register of members interests?
    Isn't Boris the slapper?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,482

    youre 75, you live in a village, theres no bus service, your doctor or shops are 4 miles away and there isnt much of a taxi service. For lots of people a car is still essential.

    Most of which is fixable. There's no bus because n years of harsh funding settlements mean the local authority has cut bus subsidies. It is a whole bunch cheaper to pay for buses than to fund electric car infrastructure on the scale that Labour is proposing.

    Yeah. The only people who say that sort of thing seem to live in London. Even in the big northern cities public transport is not good.

    Nope. I live in a tiny town (population 3,000) and don't have a car. But I made my decision on where to live partly on the basis of good (public) transport.

    So Peugeot 107s and Citroen C1s are going to become more expensive? Suck it up, I'm afraid. If you choose to live in an unsustainable location, expect to pay a premium for it.
    Any area with good public transport links is more expensive and tends to be middle class.

    What you are doing is telling poor people to ‘suck it up’ for not being able to live somewhere more expensive.
    No, I'm saying that Government should fund good public transport links (as, indeed, they used to) so that people who are unable to make their short-distance everyday journeys by active means can catch an affordable bus or train.

    A vast number of everyday trips could be made by active means and aren't. Given all the negative externalities - congestion, air pollution, sedentary lifestyles, road safety, car-dominated streetscapes etc. etc. - Government shouldn't be facilitating private car use for these journeys. EVs address air pollution (if the energy came from a sustainable source in the first place, which is a big "if") but not the other issues.

    Around here, FWIW, the areas with poor public transport are the more affluent ones - the posh villages, basically. The towns have pretty good public transport, including night services.
    The 'government' should fund good public transport links ?

    In reality that means taxpayers should fund good public transport links.

    Which taxpayers ?

    And however good public transport links are they will never have the travel flexibility which a car provides in most cases.
    You'd need a ridiculously comprehensive (ie expensive) public transport policy to have one that would be useable for me and many millions like me.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,437
    Roger said:

    How do you declare a slapper in the register of members interests?
    How incredibly offensive.
  • NemtynakhtNemtynakht Posts: 2,329

    It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20

    When you invoke the Nazis you've lost the debate.
    She's a girl who is concerned about a threat to the world and has done what she can about it.
    Why is it a Left vs Right thing to look after our home planet?

    It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20

    When you invoke the Nazis you've lost the debate.
    She's a girl who is concerned about a threat to the world and has done what she can about it.
    Why is it a Left vs Right thing to look after our home planet?
    I don’t want to invoke the Nazis but the media has form on this. Most obviously to me was when the girls from Soham were abducted and all over the papers I lived in Bradford when an Asian girl of the same age went missing, and there was barely any coverage. Probably worth mentioning Madeleine McCann too. If you are cherubic girl you are more likely to drive newspaper sales rather than an ethnic minority. Do we really think a young Nigerian girl would have been able to get a movement started?
  • TheJezziahTheJezziah Posts: 3,840
    glw said:

    It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20

    When you invoke the Nazis you've lost the debate.
    She's a girl who is concerned about a threat to the world and has done what she can about it.
    Why is it a Left vs Right thing to look after our home planet?
    Because there are big profits to be made with short term thinking, also if you over the age of 50 and living in the West you are probably going to avoid the worst of the consequences.

    Profit and rubbing all the millenials faces in the mess leftover, how could the likes of Trump, Bolsonaro and Boris resist?

    I'm no Boris fan but I don't think you can say he's a climate change denialist like Trump. There was a huge new offshore wind farm deal announced just this Friday, at the lowest ever strike price too. The UK is actually doing very well at adopting renewable energy. There is widespread and cross-party support for renewable energy in the UK, and little opposition. We really shouldn't try to make this into a left versus right issue here.
    TBH Boris views can be hard to pin down, many of his followers, which can dictate the way he goes are crazy climate types. The American right also funds and supports lots of right wing stuff over here which again has a big overlap with the Boris gang.

    The Conservatives have been a bit better than the Republicans previously, Boris is the Britain Trump though.
  • DavidL said:

    glw said:

    It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20

    When you invoke the Nazis you've lost the debate.
    She's a girl who is concerned about a threat to the world and has done what she can about it.
    Why is it a Left vs Right thing to look after our home planet?
    Because there are big profits to be made with short term thinking, also if you over the age of 50 and living in the West you are probably going to avoid the worst of the consequences.

    Profit and rubbing all the millenials faces in the mess leftover, how could the likes of Trump, Bolsonaro and Boris resist?

    I'm no Boris fan but I don't think you can say he's a climate change denialist like Trump. There was a huge new offshore wind farm deal announced just this Friday, at the lowest ever strike price too. The UK is actually doing very well at adopting renewable energy. There is widespread and cross-party support for renewable energy in the UK, and little opposition. We really shouldn't try to make this into a left versus right issue here.
    I noticed that the strike price for some of the new windfarms is less than half the guaranteed price for Hinckley Point C. What a disaster that is looking to be.
    George Osborne's vanity project.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,482
    DavidL said:

    glw said:

    It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20

    When you invoke the Nazis you've lost the debate.
    She's a girl who is concerned about a threat to the world and has done what she can about it.
    Why is it a Left vs Right thing to look after our home planet?
    Because there are big profits to be made with short term thinking, also if you over the age of 50 and living in the West you are probably going to avoid the worst of the consequences.

    Profit and rubbing all the millenials faces in the mess leftover, how could the likes of Trump, Bolsonaro and Boris resist?

    I'm no Boris fan but I don't think you can say he's a climate change denialist like Trump. There was a huge new offshore wind farm deal announced just this Friday, at the lowest ever strike price too. The UK is actually doing very well at adopting renewable energy. There is widespread and cross-party support for renewable energy in the UK, and little opposition. We really shouldn't try to make this into a left versus right issue here.
    I noticed that the strike price for some of the new windfarms is less than half the guaranteed price for Hinckley Point C. What a disaster that is looking to be.
    Indeed. But the nuclear lobby is extremely powerful - and embedded into Govt.
  • For villages of perhaps 1000-4000 size might employing a handful drivers and pool cars for on demand local taxi journeys be a far more effective public subsidy than more buses?

    Could also possibly be done on a co-operative basis without govt funding.

    Yeah, very plausibly. There are some interesting experiments in that area. Autonomous vehicles start to make things really interesting because you can basically run Travelling Salesman Problem-type optimisation to cover the greatest number of journeys with the minimum number of vehicles and miles. (Disclaimer: this is part of what I do for a living.)

    Thinking of "buses" as necessarily big things with a Stagecoach logo on the front, diesel fumes belching out the back, and running to an inflexible timetable is the wrong approach. The key bit is that they're communal, shared public transport: the rest is implementation detail.

    The 'government' should fund good public transport links ?

    In reality that means taxpayers should fund good public transport links.

    Which taxpayers ?

    And however good public transport links are they will never have the travel flexibility which a car provides in most cases.

    Government (DfT) pays to build roads, often way beyond provable CBR. Government (DfT) subsidises trains. Government (local authorities from TfL downwards) subsidises buses. It's not a new idea. I could throw in HS2 or the Oxford-Cambridge Expressway here but you get the gist.

    And yes, cars do provide travel flexibility, but with significant externalities. It's well documented that - thanks to the perenially cancelled fuel duty escalator - private motoring has become cheaper while public transport has become more expensive. "Despite regular warnings by car lobbyists of a ‘war on the motorist’, between 1980 and 2014 the cost of motoring fell by 14 per cent – but in the same period, bus fares increased by 58 per cent. Rail travel has also become dramatically more expensive, with comparable ticket prices rising 63 per cent." (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/driving-a-car-is-getting-cheaper-and-cheaper-while-trains-and-buses-just-keep-getting-more-expensive-10363354.html)

    If we make motoring cheaper and buses/trains more expensive, we'll encourage more of those externalities. Given this whole climate thing, that's not a good look right now.
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,064

    It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    I find the Twitter Post with Greta Thunberg sick, which is why I've deleted the link from this comment.

    I realise that this was meant to be a joke, but sick jokes have to be very good jokes otherwise they are just offensive.
  • nico67nico67 Posts: 4,502
    edited September 2019
    Sandpit said:

    nico67 said:

    Isn’t it great that the EU brought in legislation to protect package holidays !

    Let’s hope the government continues this when we head for the Sunny Uplands!

    ATOL long predates the EU regulation. It’s been running since 1973.
    https://www.caa.co.uk/ATOL-protection/Consumers/About-ATOL/
    EU legislation extended the protection and made more holidays able to fall under the package definition . It also helped protect UK consumers who had booked with foreign firms.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,755

    DavidL said:

    glw said:

    It all makes sense now. All those teen eco Nazis are raging because tomorrow no longer belongs to them.

    https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1175848457191510016?s=20

    When you invoke the Nazis you've lost the debate.
    She's a girl who is concerned about a threat to the world and has done what she can about it.
    Why is it a Left vs Right thing to look after our home planet?
    Because there are big profits to be made with short term thinking, also if you over the age of 50 and living in the West you are probably going to avoid the worst of the consequences.

    Profit and rubbing all the millenials faces in the mess leftover, how could the likes of Trump, Bolsonaro and Boris resist?

    I'm no Boris fan but I don't think you can say he's a climate change denialist like Trump. There was a huge new offshore wind farm deal announced just this Friday, at the lowest ever strike price too. The UK is actually doing very well at adopting renewable energy. There is widespread and cross-party support for renewable energy in the UK, and little opposition. We really shouldn't try to make this into a left versus right issue here.
    I noticed that the strike price for some of the new windfarms is less than half the guaranteed price for Hinckley Point C. What a disaster that is looking to be.
    George Osborne's vanity project.
    Mrs May’s deal. Unfortunately this one didn’t need the approval of the HoC. She was just awful in every way. The cost of that deal will make high energy manufacturing in this country comparatively uncompetitive for decades.
  • Mr. Glenn, it'd be fitting if Boris Johnson's libido cost him his career.

    Mr. Jezziah, interesting you cite Saudi Arabia's involvement in the proxy war in Yemen (and entirely legitimately so), yet somehow forget Iran's involvement there.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,207
    Sandpit said:

    nico67 said:

    Isn’t it great that the EU brought in legislation to protect package holidays !

    Let’s hope the government continues this when we head for the Sunny Uplands!

    ATOL long predates the EU regulation. It’s been running since 1973.
    https://www.caa.co.uk/ATOL-protection/Consumers/About-ATOL/
    LOL - they keep trying this crap.
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