There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
That is quite difficult though. My dad is 96. Still lives alone in his house. Admittedly just a small semi detached, so fuel costs not an issue, but he shouldn't be there. Can't get him to move out. He should have been in sheltered housing a decade ago. Stubborn doesn't cover it. Doesn't eat properly, can't wash properly, stairs to negotiate. Won't move.
My parents in their eighties moved recently to a retirement village but are already enjoying it more than their bigger home of many decades. And if their health deteriorates at any point it will be so much more practical for them. They were hesitant of the move even though it all made sense logically.
My parents are desperately waiting for a flat to come up in the retirement village they wish to move to.
Even the developer says if they had known how popular it was going to be they should have made it twice the size.
Nice to know some are more enlightened. I think my dad leads a miserable life and unnecessarily so. He struggles to cope, but as soon as we suggest stuff to make it better he refuses. It took years to get him to accept a gardener and cleaner. He refuses any other type of help. I had to confiscate his car keys a couple of years ago. He won't take a taxi. He tells me all sorts of stories about friends who hate their sheltered housing. When you meet them they love it. He lies to avoid doing stuff and at 96 he isn't good at it, but you just bang your head against the wall to make things better. Nothing is allowed to change. I hope I don't go that way. I want to die attempting the land speed record when I am 134.
Sad but common story, and very hard to know what to do especially if someone has their marbles, they are just stubborn. It's not as though everyone could have the parent move in with them even if both wanted that.
Forget bad old days of BR, what about bad old days of SWR! An hour and a half late, again!
Is BR an improvement on the service we used to get from PT? This for me is the key question. I think it is but just marginally. The scope for improvement is still massive.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
SNCF has existed since after WW2, what other French transport company has there been? I feel like you really don't know what you are talking about
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
Don't be horrible. Too large for one don't mean huge, most people at 80 simply don't have it in them to move house of their own volition, and the helpful neighbours are a knockdown argument. You can't move house and build a brand new support group just like that.
80 old? god help you and me. 80 yr olds these days fly around and are super active. Not all, obvs, but for those then there is help up to and including LPA.
Fine she wants to stay rattling around in her house no problem. Equity release frees up cash, lets her stay there and gives her peace of mind.
We just can't live with people in large houses saying woe is me. Who would you have help her? The family squished into a 2-bed council house? Or someone who is asset rich?
Hope I die before I get old
That's not a bad wish Mr Z! A few months ago I was planning that my wife and I would spend Christmas in Thailand with our son and his family there; now I'm beginning to wonder if I'll be able to spend Christmas in my own home, or whether I'll be in some sort of institution! Or at least having some sort of 'official care'!
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
That is quite difficult though. My dad is 96. Still lives alone in his house. Admittedly just a small semi detached, so fuel costs not an issue, but he shouldn't be there. Can't get him to move out. He should have been in sheltered housing a decade ago. Stubborn doesn't cover it. Doesn't eat properly, can't wash properly, stairs to negotiate. Won't move.
My parents in their eighties moved recently to a retirement village but are already enjoying it more than their bigger home of many decades. And if their health deteriorates at any point it will be so much more practical for them. They were hesitant of the move even though it all made sense logically.
My parents are desperately waiting for a flat to come up in the retirement village they wish to move to.
Even the developer says if they had known how popular it was going to be they should have made it twice the size.
I once had to organise a photoshoot in a retirement 'complex' . Pride of place was a large, airy, well-furnished common room. "Could we arrange for a couple of residents to sit there?" I asked, naively. "You must be joking," came the reply, "they never use it". I should have gone to a model agency for a selection of well-groomed OAPs but the budget didn't stretch. Potemkin springs to mind.
We hold one of our U3a interest groups in such a common room. I gather the management is very happy to have somebody use the room! At time of writing I chair the meeting; I intend to do so for a while yet although as posted earlier I do often feel an uncomfortable, and heavy, hand on my shoulder.
My essential argument is that I do not believe state companies are by necessity, bloated and inefficient.
There are massive state owned companies that are crap.
There are massive privatised companies that are crap.
Both are riddled with red tape and pointless processes and people. But the common thing here is that they are both crap.
I agree with that.
Privatisation helps ensure that the best companies come to the fore, whether those be legacy state owned companies that are actually decent, or the private companies that are decent.
The idea that you can just set up a new nationalised firm and expect it to be decent because EDF is, is the problem. The odds of a new nationalised firm being as good as EDF are miniscule and if you have a good reason why your firm would be there's nothing preventing you from setting it up privately. The fact you're not, probably means EDF have an advantage over you, in which case let competition work and go with EDF unless or until a better alternative arises.
There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Define BR PLC.
"British Railways" ran infrastructure, passenger and freight services, built rolling stock and delivered world-leading research.
I disagree with your proposal because: Infrastructure is already state owned Freight is hugely successful, with state-owned DRS one of the competing operators Some rolling stock is now state owned and is largely all state-procured.
So what is needed is to bring the remaining passenger franchise operations in-house and then spin them off. Leave freight as it is, regulate the rolling stock owners (they literally have no other use for their assets), and leave the InfraCo as a separate body.
And "PLC"? That's privatised. You mean "Ltd".
British Railways Limited would run the passenger operations, British Railways Infra Ltd would be in charge of infrastructure management.
The German model.
If a state-owned French company wishes to run an operation they are welcome to do so, they can either build their own railway and manage it all or they can run their own trains or procure them for use on Infra Ltd infrastructure with no subsidy.
There are also independent living Housing Association flats for the over 55's (sometimes 50), which are purpose built. With communal wardens, social facilities, laundry, gardens and the like. Which takes away many of the day-to-day problems of maintenance and provide company and support. We need more of them (and private ones too obviously). The stigma is of being moved into a "care home". But these places aren't. You just rent or own a manageable sized property in a building with peers. If we could somehow get folk to want to live in these (and it wouldn't suit everyone), it would free up a lot of housing capacity.
I'll have a teenager when I'm 55 lol
I have one at 55 right now! The 55 is the lower entry limit obviously. Most residents are considerably older. As I say, not for everyone, but there are advantages to moving before issues of health and bereavement occur.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
My final point on your absurd attempt to out bollocks even yourself. "Survivor bias". But Today's StateCo rail companies are not remotely the same as they once were.
SNCF used to be state owned and run. Whilst it is still (mostly) state owned, it is split into multiple divisions and subsidiaries which are commercial.
The commercial business running the tram network in Melbourne is not remotely the same business as was when it was just state rail.
So there is no "survivorship" - these are new commercial companies plural, not the state monoliths you are foaming on about.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
That is quite difficult though. My dad is 96. Still lives alone in his house. Admittedly just a small semi detached, so fuel costs not an issue, but he shouldn't be there. Can't get him to move out. He should have been in sheltered housing a decade ago. Stubborn doesn't cover it. Doesn't eat properly, can't wash properly, stairs to negotiate. Won't move.
My parents in their eighties moved recently to a retirement village but are already enjoying it more than their bigger home of many decades. And if their health deteriorates at any point it will be so much more practical for them. They were hesitant of the move even though it all made sense logically.
My parents are desperately waiting for a flat to come up in the retirement village they wish to move to.
Even the developer says if they had known how popular it was going to be they should have made it twice the size.
Yes they are in demand, expensive and not that many of them. Fortunately my parents were extremely flexible on location which won't be true for most.
They should definitely be a bigger part of the housing mix going forward with our demographics. Reading the t&cs some of them were borderline exploitative on charging a percentage of asset value on future sales so think the government could look at capping those.
You tend to get quite a bit of local objection to retirement villages, to my surprise, which probably impacts on scale. I've heard others talk against them on the basis a mixed community works better for the elderly.
Locals object to everything!
They do, but I mean proportionally more than if it was just a regular new development.
That's just anecdote, but I've definitely noted objections due to the nature of retirement villages (or care homes) even when the principle of development on the site is conceded.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
SNCF has existed since after WW2, what other French transport company has there been? I feel like you really don't know what you are talking about
Again the only reason you're talking about SNCF is survivorship bias. Across Europe there have been a plethora of state firms set up but you're not talking about them as they weren't good and have failed.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
Don't be horrible. Too large for one don't mean huge, most people at 80 simply don't have it in them to move house of their own volition, and the helpful neighbours are a knockdown argument. You can't move house and build a brand new support group just like that.
80 old? god help you and me. 80 yr olds these days fly around and are super active. Not all, obvs, but for those then there is help up to and including LPA.
Fine she wants to stay rattling around in her house no problem. Equity release frees up cash, lets her stay there and gives her peace of mind.
We just can't live with people in large houses saying woe is me. Who would you have help her? The family squished into a 2-bed council house? Or someone who is asset rich?
Hope I die before I get old
That's not a bad wish Mr Z! A few months ago I was planning that my wife and I would spend Christmas in Thailand with our son and his family there; now I'm beginning to wonder if I'll be able to spend Christmas in my own home, or whether I'll be in some sort of institution! Or at least having some sort of 'official care'!
All the best OKC. I still prefer Robbie Williams philosophy to The Who's on this.
I actually think the Williams Review on rail achieves what I want, I just object to the bit where we pay the French money to run passenger operations. British Railways Ltd could quite obviously do that bit and then no money would need to leave the country
Forget bad old days of BR, what about bad old days of SWR! An hour and a half late, again!
If you don't like SWR take your business elsewhere. Get a car, work from home, find a different job that doesn't require that commute - nobody forces you to use SWR that's your private choice.
Yeah mate I'll buy a £3000 car cheers
Remember Barty seldom leaves his darkened room so doesn't encounter these transport infrastructure incumberances.
To be committed to privatisation for ideology's sake at a time like this is nuts.
It's time we had a grown up discussion away from "privatisation is always the best option because efficiency" and instead had a discussion about what ought to be in public hands and what not.
Railways clearly. Privatisation has failed on its own terms - and we are now paying private companies to run things in a way we tell them to, so money leaves our country and funds the French's for no tangible benefit at all.
Energy companies are causing people to become homeless or starve. A state provider should be available that is used in times of crisis to stop this. On a purely moral level the debt involved for the government is irrelevant, this is about human lives.
Water. The water companies have done a piss poor job, they either need a massive tax placed on them or they need to be stripped. I note Scotland's water supply is not privatised and I cannot find a single thing the English companies do better.
This is not ideological, this is about what is best for us all. I am not proposing nationalising BP, or BT, or EON, or the National Grid.
On here I've seen robust pushback against rail nationalisation before, but I dont know that I've seen the current water company situation defended.
I'd be very interested in one as from a layman's perspective it's the most obvious in lacking any benefit to the public in service, cost or choice.
Did they use to be worse?
There is no benefit in this country to railway privatisation. It is impossible to defend the new arrangement as anything other than sending money out of this country.
DfT does the timetables, fares, trains and then gives money to a private company to do what they tell them. Utterly pointless and ideological because they won't accept privatisation has failed us all.
Cut out the middle man, setup British Railways Plc as a state company separated from the state but owned 100% by it and have it managed by experts. The German or Swiss model.
"The middle man" is doing a good job, they are experts, which is why they're doing it. What would "state owned" achieve apart from an increase in cost and a deterioration of services?
If its so easy to do the job the experts that have been contracted to do are doing, then set up a private British Railways Plc, there's no need for it to be state owned, and you can make a fortune. Or maybe its not as easy as that.
I wonder why the Swiss haven't privatised their railways, perhaps because they have common sense
Or perhaps because unlike the failure that was British Rail their system was working so they had no need to.
Nationalised industries are in general a terrible idea and almost all flagship firms attempted are failures. There's a few exceptions across time, but the odds of setting up a new flagship in a competitive sector and seeing it succeed is miniscule which is why people don't do it.
That Swiss rail firms are doing a better job now than British Rail did or any private British firm is not a reason to replace the Swiss firm with a newly created British firm. That's just xenophobic, not rational.
You mention "xenophobia". So in the British system we accept that state-run railway companies are a Good Thing. We have companies owned by the French and Dutch and German and Italian governments. But we only allow the UK government to run things when the private contract fails.
I think barring people based on their nationality is xenophobia. In this case self-xenophobia. And not just the trains - how many foreign StateCo operators run our "privatised" buses?
StateCo works. Is literally the model we use for "privatised". I am not proposing that BritCo have a monopoly - that is not how these other governments do it. But barring BritCo from existing to allow FrenchCo / DutchCo free access is "not rational".
Yet you claim rationality whilst stating that StateCo's are a terrible idea and all fail, whilst extolling a private operator system where the majority are StateCos...
No we don't accept that state-run railway companies are a Good Thing, we accept that the best companies available to do the job is a Good Thing, whether that's a surviving legacy state-run company or a privately owned company, or a publicly traded company.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
You keep saying "StateCo's don't work as a general rule" whilst listing StateCo entities which do work.
Even if it is the case they dont work as a general rule but there are clearly some exceptions, why cannot we learn from the exceptional ones? Why would we be incapable of achieving that?
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
SNCF has existed since after WW2, what other French transport company has there been? I feel like you really don't know what you are talking about
Again the only reason you're talking about SNCF is survivorship bias. Across Europe there have been a plethora of state firms set up but you're not talking about them as they weren't good and have failed.
Stop engaging in survivorship bias.
Then name a publicly-owned railway company, post company, or energy company that has failed.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
My final point on your absurd attempt to out bollocks even yourself. "Survivor bias". But Today's StateCo rail companies are not remotely the same as they once were.
SNCF used to be state owned and run. Whilst it is still (mostly) state owned, it is split into multiple divisions and subsidiaries which are commercial.
The commercial business running the tram network in Melbourne is not remotely the same business as was when it was just state rail.
So there is no "survivorship" - these are new commercial companies plural, not the state monoliths you are foaming on about.
But that reinforces my point, it doesn't discredit it.
The commercial businesses are working successfully in the commercial sector. That is privatisation working as intended.
If you're cherrypicking looking at the few state-owned firms and saying "we should do that" there's nothing preventing you from doing that, privately, is there? But the legacy firms with the institutional awareness and success that you don't have, isn't something you can just create overnight.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
Don't be horrible. Too large for one don't mean huge, most people at 80 simply don't have it in them to move house of their own volition, and the helpful neighbours are a knockdown argument. You can't move house and build a brand new support group just like that.
80 old? god help you and me. 80 yr olds these days fly around and are super active. Not all, obvs, but for those then there is help up to and including LPA.
Fine she wants to stay rattling around in her house no problem. Equity release frees up cash, lets her stay there and gives her peace of mind.
We just can't live with people in large houses saying woe is me. Who would you have help her? The family squished into a 2-bed council house? Or someone who is asset rich?
Hope I die before I get old
That's not a bad wish Mr Z! A few months ago I was planning that my wife and I would spend Christmas in Thailand with our son and his family there; now I'm beginning to wonder if I'll be able to spend Christmas in my own home, or whether I'll be in some sort of institution! Or at least having some sort of 'official care'!
I hope you make it to Thailand. Nice and warm.
Sadly MrZ, I am beginning to fear that the odds of me doing that are similar to those of Sir Ed Davey making it to No 10 at the next election!
There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Define BR PLC.
"British Railways" ran infrastructure, passenger and freight services, built rolling stock and delivered world-leading research.
I disagree with your proposal because: Infrastructure is already state owned Freight is hugely successful, with state-owned DRS one of the competing operators Some rolling stock is now state owned and is largely all state-procured.
So what is needed is to bring the remaining passenger franchise operations in-house and then spin them off. Leave freight as it is, regulate the rolling stock owners (they literally have no other use for their assets), and leave the InfraCo as a separate body.
And "PLC"? That's privatised. You mean "Ltd".
British Railways Limited would run the passenger operations, British Railways Infra Ltd would be in charge of infrastructure management.
The German model.
If a state-owned French company wishes to run an operation they are welcome to do so, they can either build their own railway and manage it all or they can run their own trains or procure them for use on Infra Ltd infrastructure with no subsidy.
We're in agreement - was just confused when you seemed to be proposing that (a) we recreate British Rail and then (b) privatise it.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
My final point on your absurd attempt to out bollocks even yourself. "Survivor bias". But Today's StateCo rail companies are not remotely the same as they once were.
SNCF used to be state owned and run. Whilst it is still (mostly) state owned, it is split into multiple divisions and subsidiaries which are commercial.
The commercial business running the tram network in Melbourne is not remotely the same business as was when it was just state rail.
So there is no "survivorship" - these are new commercial companies plural, not the state monoliths you are foaming on about.
But that reinforces my point, it doesn't discredit it.
The commercial businesses are working successfully in the commercial sector. That is privatisation working as intended.
If you're cherrypicking looking at the few state-owned firms and saying "we should do that" there's nothing preventing you from doing that, privately, is there? But the legacy firms with the institutional awareness and success that you don't have, isn't something you can just create overnight.
But SNCF is OWNED by the French Government, are you now disagreeing that publicly owned companies don't work? You are all over the shop.
Are you saying that every single rail company in Europe that is owned by the state is a result of all the others failing? What evidence is there for this?
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
That is quite difficult though. My dad is 96. Still lives alone in his house. Admittedly just a small semi detached, so fuel costs not an issue, but he shouldn't be there. Can't get him to move out. He should have been in sheltered housing a decade ago. Stubborn doesn't cover it. Doesn't eat properly, can't wash properly, stairs to negotiate. Won't move.
My parents in their eighties moved recently to a retirement village but are already enjoying it more than their bigger home of many decades. And if their health deteriorates at any point it will be so much more practical for them. They were hesitant of the move even though it all made sense logically.
My parents are desperately waiting for a flat to come up in the retirement village they wish to move to.
Even the developer says if they had known how popular it was going to be they should have made it twice the size.
I once had to organise a photoshoot in a retirement 'complex' . Pride of place was a large, airy, well-furnished common room. "Could we arrange for a couple of residents to sit there?" I asked, naively. "You must be joking," came the reply, "they never use it". I should have gone to a model agency for a selection of well-groomed OAPs but the budget didn't stretch. Potemkin springs to mind.
At time of writing I chair the meeting; I intend to do so for a while yet although as posted earlier I do often feel an uncomfortable, and heavy, hand on my shoulder.
Is that because you are writing on PB whilst you are chairing at this very moment?
There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Define BR PLC.
"British Railways" ran infrastructure, passenger and freight services, built rolling stock and delivered world-leading research.
I disagree with your proposal because: Infrastructure is already state owned Freight is hugely successful, with state-owned DRS one of the competing operators Some rolling stock is now state owned and is largely all state-procured.
So what is needed is to bring the remaining passenger franchise operations in-house and then spin them off. Leave freight as it is, regulate the rolling stock owners (they literally have no other use for their assets), and leave the InfraCo as a separate body.
And "PLC"? That's privatised. You mean "Ltd".
British Railways Limited would run the passenger operations, British Railways Infra Ltd would be in charge of infrastructure management.
The German model.
If a state-owned French company wishes to run an operation they are welcome to do so, they can either build their own railway and manage it all or they can run their own trains or procure them for use on Infra Ltd infrastructure with no subsidy.
We're in agreement - was just confused when you seemed to be proposing that (a) we recreate British Rail and then (b) privatise it.
No problem.
To be honest I am not sure why these rolling stock companies need to exist, why can't we have a state-owned version of that? These companies seem to produce very little
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
SNCF has existed since after WW2, what other French transport company has there been? I feel like you really don't know what you are talking about
Again the only reason you're talking about SNCF is survivorship bias. Across Europe there have been a plethora of state firms set up but you're not talking about them as they weren't good and have failed.
Stop engaging in survivorship bias.
Then name a publicly-owned railway company, post company, or energy company that has failed.
British Rail.
And good for you for suggesting you will go get a car, unless you were being facetious, that is how the overwhelming majority of the nation travels. If you choose not to, that's a personal choice, I respect your freedom to choose so if you choose to travel by train unlike the overwhelming majority of the country then I respect your freedom to be different.
18 November 2015 – UK becomes first major country to announce coal phase-out
UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd announced that the UK would close all its coal-fired power plants by 2025, with proposals to replace coal power generation with gas and nuclear plants. The announcement came less than two weeks before the start of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which negotiated the Paris Agreement.
LOL
Who though now disputes anthropogenic climate change? And that it is going to be an increasing problem?
Whether we mitigate with infrastructure or attempt to limit emissions it is going to be costly.
The impact on the anthropocene from keeping the UK's coal stations running a while longer whilst we transitioned to sustainable green energy would have been absolubtely MINUTE...
China's going to sh*t on humanity's head regardless of what we do.
We could reach Net Zero in 2045 and it still make jack-all difference to the climate because they are reckless, destructive, dystopian morons.
Looking it up, China's plan is for peak emissions in 2030 and net zero in 2060. In case you say the whole thing is bullshit, their renewables build-out is pretty insanely fast, and they're building nuclear at a rate of knots as well.
Like everyone else they're balancing the need to reduce emissions with economic development, and as they're still in the catch-up phase they're obviously growing their economy much faster than mature western economies, so their power usage goes up every year. You can definitely criticize them for being too slow to transition, but it's not accurate to talk as if the west are doing all the work and the Chinese are doing nothing.
I am criticising them for being too slow to transition.
Xi committed to phasing down coal from 2026 - four years time. I hope that proves to be right.
This leaves me with little confidence.
At the moment I believe China imports a lot of coal from Australia, and they really aren't happy with recent Australian foreign policy moves. So I'd see a move to increase domestic coal production as more relevant for foreign and trade policy than for climate policy.
I always reckon every government could do more, more quickly on the climate, but China has pretty strong incentives to act. Their agriculture is one of the most vulnerable to expected global warming impacts, much more so than North America, or Europe.
I simply cannot see how she wins a majority on this platform.
I don't see how she makes it through the winter on this platform
Very sobering read from those notorious media lefties at... (Checks notes) Talk TV;
Some more reflections on our focus group for @TalkTV in Bury North. In all our recent discussions we've heard sobering stories about people's struggles with the cost of living. But what we heard from this group was a magnitude worse. (1/n)
But if Truss is elected next month, it's hard to see how the Conservatives get shot of her, absent a medical emergency. Changing PM mid-parliament for the third time in a row is already stretching the elastic of democracy to a dangerous degree. Raising and deposing a PM in a year with zero public input would surely be seen as taking the piss.
I don't know much about Tryl, other than he used to be Nicky Morgan's SPAD, but that certainly chimes with my thinking.
The reality is that the shocks to the economy this winter render the debate over Truss's tax cuts irrelevant for the time being. I'm not sure we can afford for the Treasury to be distracted by all of that this autumn. At the moment government is effectively AWOL as far as making serious preparations is concerned.
She just wants to chant Tory tickling soundbites atm - latest being "company profits are not evil". Deep.
The hope is this is just to get the PMship and once she's got it she'll get a grip.
I'm a natural optimist so I'll be clinging to that hope till it's fully and finally and inevitably extinguished by reality.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
SNCF has existed since after WW2, what other French transport company has there been? I feel like you really don't know what you are talking about
Again the only reason you're talking about SNCF is survivorship bias. Across Europe there have been a plethora of state firms set up but you're not talking about them as they weren't good and have failed.
Stop engaging in survivorship bias.
Then name a publicly-owned railway company, post company, or energy company that has failed.
British Rail.
And good for you for suggesting you will go get a car, unless you were being facetious, that is how the overwhelming majority of the nation travels. If you choose not to, that's a personal choice, I respect your freedom to choose so if you choose to travel by train unlike the overwhelming majority of the country then I respect your freedom to be different.
British Rail never failed. It was privatised. I asked for one that failed.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
That is quite difficult though. My dad is 96. Still lives alone in his house. Admittedly just a small semi detached, so fuel costs not an issue, but he shouldn't be there. Can't get him to move out. He should have been in sheltered housing a decade ago. Stubborn doesn't cover it. Doesn't eat properly, can't wash properly, stairs to negotiate. Won't move.
My parents in their eighties moved recently to a retirement village but are already enjoying it more than their bigger home of many decades. And if their health deteriorates at any point it will be so much more practical for them. They were hesitant of the move even though it all made sense logically.
My parents are desperately waiting for a flat to come up in the retirement village they wish to move to.
Even the developer says if they had known how popular it was going to be they should have made it twice the size.
Nice to know some are more enlightened. I think my dad leads a miserable life and unnecessarily so. He struggles to cope, but as soon as we suggest stuff to make it better he refuses. It took years to get him to accept a gardener and cleaner. He refuses any other type of help. I had to confiscate his car keys a couple of years ago. He won't take a taxi. He tells me all sorts of stories about friends who hate their sheltered housing. When you meet them they love it. He lies to avoid doing stuff and at 96 he isn't good at it, but you just bang your head against the wall to make things better. Nothing is allowed to change. I hope I don't go that way. I want to die attempting the land speed record when I am 134.
Sad but common story, and very hard to know what to do especially if someone has their marbles, they are just stubborn. It's not as though everyone could have the parent move in with them even if both wanted that.
If you look in the dictionary under the word stubborn you see a picture of my aunt (aged: 87). She is sharp as a pin. Apart from some hearing diminution which coincided with her Covid vaccination she is totally on the ball.
She is increasingly frail, however, and a fall risk. A combination of family, social workers, friends, and medical practitioners conspired to get her out of her home.
Sometimes there needs to be bullying and sometimes cajoling. At the bottom of it, the stubbornness is fear of the unknown and an acknowledgement that this is the last stop on the journey of life so some degree of sensitivity is required.
It finally worked for her and she is now as happy as possible in a care home with the only real challenge being what if any activities to participate in, and where to store the white wine she receives on a regular basis from Waitrose.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
SNCF has existed since after WW2, what other French transport company has there been? I feel like you really don't know what you are talking about
Again the only reason you're talking about SNCF is survivorship bias. Across Europe there have been a plethora of state firms set up but you're not talking about them as they weren't good and have failed.
Stop engaging in survivorship bias.
Then name a publicly-owned railway company, post company, or energy company that has failed.
British Rail.
And good for you for suggesting you will go get a car, unless you were being facetious, that is how the overwhelming majority of the nation travels. If you choose not to, that's a personal choice, I respect your freedom to choose so if you choose to travel by train unlike the overwhelming majority of the country then I respect your freedom to be different.
Not sure how viable a car is for Horse tbh, he's got all of Sadiq's mad charges to pay for and the last time I was stuck on the M25 I actually wanted to die - it's worse than anything up north, even that really annoying bit when the motorway runs out past Manchester going over to Sheffield. On a sunday evening o_O
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
Don't be horrible. Too large for one don't mean huge, most people at 80 simply don't have it in them to move house of their own volition, and the helpful neighbours are a knockdown argument. You can't move house and build a brand new support group just like that.
80 old? god help you and me. 80 yr olds these days fly around and are super active. Not all, obvs, but for those then there is help up to and including LPA.
Fine she wants to stay rattling around in her house no problem. Equity release frees up cash, lets her stay there and gives her peace of mind.
We just can't live with people in large houses saying woe is me. Who would you have help her? The family squished into a 2-bed council house? Or someone who is asset rich?
Hope I die before I get old
That's not a bad wish Mr Z! A few months ago I was planning that my wife and I would spend Christmas in Thailand with our son and his family there; now I'm beginning to wonder if I'll be able to spend Christmas in my own home, or whether I'll be in some sort of institution! Or at least having some sort of 'official care'!
I hope you make it to Thailand. Nice and warm.
Sadly MrZ, I am beginning to fear that the odds of me doing that are similar to those of Sir Ed Davey making it to No 10 at the next election!
Very sorry to hear that evidently there has been a sudden deterioration in your health. You are still punching hard on PB so keep at that at least.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
SNCF has existed since after WW2, what other French transport company has there been? I feel like you really don't know what you are talking about
Again the only reason you're talking about SNCF is survivorship bias. Across Europe there have been a plethora of state firms set up but you're not talking about them as they weren't good and have failed.
Stop engaging in survivorship bias.
Then name a publicly-owned railway company, post company, or energy company that has failed.
British Rail.
And good for you for suggesting you will go get a car, unless you were being facetious, that is how the overwhelming majority of the nation travels. If you choose not to, that's a personal choice, I respect your freedom to choose so if you choose to travel by train unlike the overwhelming majority of the country then I respect your freedom to be different.
British Rail never failed. It was privatised. I asked for one that failed.
British Rail failed, that's why it was privatised and commuter travel on railways surged post-privatisation.
The fact that the Exchequer keeps bailing out failed industries doesn't mean they're not failures.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
That is quite difficult though. My dad is 96. Still lives alone in his house. Admittedly just a small semi detached, so fuel costs not an issue, but he shouldn't be there. Can't get him to move out. He should have been in sheltered housing a decade ago. Stubborn doesn't cover it. Doesn't eat properly, can't wash properly, stairs to negotiate. Won't move.
My parents in their eighties moved recently to a retirement village but are already enjoying it more than their bigger home of many decades. And if their health deteriorates at any point it will be so much more practical for them. They were hesitant of the move even though it all made sense logically.
My parents are desperately waiting for a flat to come up in the retirement village they wish to move to.
Even the developer says if they had known how popular it was going to be they should have made it twice the size.
I once had to organise a photoshoot in a retirement 'complex' . Pride of place was a large, airy, well-furnished common room. "Could we arrange for a couple of residents to sit there?" I asked, naively. "You must be joking," came the reply, "they never use it". I should have gone to a model agency for a selection of well-groomed OAPs but the budget didn't stretch. Potemkin springs to mind.
At time of writing I chair the meeting; I intend to do so for a while yet although as posted earlier I do often feel an uncomfortable, and heavy, hand on my shoulder.
Is that because you are writing on PB whilst you are chairing at this very moment?
LOL! No, the meeting is next week. I am however about to sign off and attend a zoom U3a meeting! At which I have to make a report on something!
Forget bad old days of BR, what about bad old days of SWR! An hour and a half late, again!
If you don't like SWR take your business elsewhere. Get a car, work from home, find a different job that doesn't require that commute - nobody forces you to use SWR that's your private choice.
You’ve said that before and actually it’s bloody insulting. The government mandates that I work in London and I can’t afford to live there. I can’t really afford a car and even if I could, driving and parking in central London isn’t feasible. Getting a Thameslink train is literally the only choice I have to do a worthwhile job that I love. Should I therefore just swallow whatever shitty, expensive service they give me with good grace?
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
SNCF has existed since after WW2, what other French transport company has there been? I feel like you really don't know what you are talking about
Again the only reason you're talking about SNCF is survivorship bias. Across Europe there have been a plethora of state firms set up but you're not talking about them as they weren't good and have failed.
Stop engaging in survivorship bias.
Then name a publicly-owned railway company, post company, or energy company that has failed.
British Rail.
And good for you for suggesting you will go get a car, unless you were being facetious, that is how the overwhelming majority of the nation travels. If you choose not to, that's a personal choice, I respect your freedom to choose so if you choose to travel by train unlike the overwhelming majority of the country then I respect your freedom to be different.
British Rail never failed. It was privatised. I asked for one that failed.
British Rail failed, that's why it was privatised and commuter travel on railways surged post-privatisation.
The fact that the Exchequer keeps bailing out failed industries doesn't mean they're not failures.
That article is inconsistent, saying she lacks empathy, but “all while judging the public mood minute by minute”.
I don't think that contradictory. The article depicts her as analytical rather than empathetic.
It is possible to be dispassionate, and interpret data without caring as to the people involved. We see it sometimes here, and I certainly see it at work.
How are the patient outcomes for those subjected to colleagues who are dispassionate and interpret data without caring as to the people involved?
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
SNCF has existed since after WW2, what other French transport company has there been? I feel like you really don't know what you are talking about
Again the only reason you're talking about SNCF is survivorship bias. Across Europe there have been a plethora of state firms set up but you're not talking about them as they weren't good and have failed.
Stop engaging in survivorship bias.
Then name a publicly-owned railway company, post company, or energy company that has failed.
British Rail.
And good for you for suggesting you will go get a car, unless you were being facetious, that is how the overwhelming majority of the nation travels. If you choose not to, that's a personal choice, I respect your freedom to choose so if you choose to travel by train unlike the overwhelming majority of the country then I respect your freedom to be different.
British Rail never failed. It was privatised. I asked for one that failed.
British Rail failed, that's why it was privatised and commuter travel on railways surged post-privatisation.
The fact that the Exchequer keeps bailing out failed industries doesn't mean they're not failures.
BR failed, Railtrack failed, various TOCS have failed.
It's just failure all round with the railways tbh.
Forget bad old days of BR, what about bad old days of SWR! An hour and a half late, again!
If you don't like SWR take your business elsewhere. Get a car, work from home, find a different job that doesn't require that commute - nobody forces you to use SWR that's your private choice.
You’ve said that before and actually it’s bloody insulting. The government mandates that I work in London and I can’t afford to live there. I can’t really afford a car and even if I could, driving and parking in central London isn’t feasible. Getting a Thameslink train is literally the only choice I have to do a worthwhile job that I love. Should I therefore just swallow whatever shitty, expensive service they give me with good grace?
Yes you will pay for the French railway expansion - and you will like it!
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
My final point on your absurd attempt to out bollocks even yourself. "Survivor bias". But Today's StateCo rail companies are not remotely the same as they once were.
SNCF used to be state owned and run. Whilst it is still (mostly) state owned, it is split into multiple divisions and subsidiaries which are commercial.
The commercial business running the tram network in Melbourne is not remotely the same business as was when it was just state rail.
So there is no "survivorship" - these are new commercial companies plural, not the state monoliths you are foaming on about.
But that reinforces my point, it doesn't discredit it.
The commercial businesses are working successfully in the commercial sector. That is privatisation working as intended.
If you're cherrypicking looking at the few state-owned firms and saying "we should do that" there's nothing preventing you from doing that, privately, is there? But the legacy firms with the institutional awareness and success that you don't have, isn't something you can just create overnight.
So a StateCo which has the majority of business in France proves that privatisation works? But SNCF isn't privatised....
You keep saying "a few state firms". These are the predominant players in their market, and thanks to being commercially run are minority players in other markets.
StateCo operators are the rule, not the exception. You are simply wrong. The evidence demonstrates you are wrong. So you just change definitions to cling to why you are right after all.
The state can run things very efficiently. As everyone in europe knows. As UK customers of DPD or EDF or Arriva know very well.
The benefits are also clear. In the UK buses are run by the bus companies for profit rather than public service. The company may well be publicly owned (Arriva etc) but local councils cannot say what happens.
Yet in abroad the buses are run for the service they provide *and* generate profits from providing services elsewhere.
You want foreign governments to run your local buses, but won't allow your local government to do so. Which is absurd even for a supposed libertarian free-marketeer like you. Advocate the expulsion of these subsidised rigged operators like Arriva, Abelio, RAPT etc and their replacement by truly free market private companies, or accept the absurdity of your "argument".
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
SNCF has existed since after WW2, what other French transport company has there been? I feel like you really don't know what you are talking about
Again the only reason you're talking about SNCF is survivorship bias. Across Europe there have been a plethora of state firms set up but you're not talking about them as they weren't good and have failed.
Stop engaging in survivorship bias.
Then name a publicly-owned railway company, post company, or energy company that has failed.
British Rail.
And good for you for suggesting you will go get a car, unless you were being facetious, that is how the overwhelming majority of the nation travels. If you choose not to, that's a personal choice, I respect your freedom to choose so if you choose to travel by train unlike the overwhelming majority of the country then I respect your freedom to be different.
And the car thing may be one of the reasons that UK productivity is rubbish.
Cities are more productive than towns the world over. More workers in a smallish space releases all sorts of economic goodies. But that depends on transport into the city that is swift, reliable and doesn't take up much space.
And commuting by car, even if you can make it swift and reliable (not easy), takes up an awful lot of space. Central London simply wouldn't work if you had to provide car parking for every worker.
There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Define BR PLC.
"British Railways" ran infrastructure, passenger and freight services, built rolling stock and delivered world-leading research.
I disagree with your proposal because: Infrastructure is already state owned Freight is hugely successful, with state-owned DRS one of the competing operators Some rolling stock is now state owned and is largely all state-procured.
So what is needed is to bring the remaining passenger franchise operations in-house and then spin them off. Leave freight as it is, regulate the rolling stock owners (they literally have no other use for their assets), and leave the InfraCo as a separate body.
And "PLC"? That's privatised. You mean "Ltd".
British Railways Limited would run the passenger operations, British Railways Infra Ltd would be in charge of infrastructure management.
The German model.
If a state-owned French company wishes to run an operation they are welcome to do so, they can either build their own railway and manage it all or they can run their own trains or procure them for use on Infra Ltd infrastructure with no subsidy.
We're in agreement - was just confused when you seemed to be proposing that (a) we recreate British Rail and then (b) privatise it.
No problem.
To be honest I am not sure why these rolling stock companies need to exist, why can't we have a state-owned version of that? These companies seem to produce very little
We already have one. There is no market in rolling stock provision - the DfT now dictate which stock is to be used. So the (mainly) banks who own them make a fee for maintaining them. It isn't that big an issue any more.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
SNCF has existed since after WW2, what other French transport company has there been? I feel like you really don't know what you are talking about
Again the only reason you're talking about SNCF is survivorship bias. Across Europe there have been a plethora of state firms set up but you're not talking about them as they weren't good and have failed.
Stop engaging in survivorship bias.
Then name a publicly-owned railway company, post company, or energy company that has failed.
British Rail.
And good for you for suggesting you will go get a car, unless you were being facetious, that is how the overwhelming majority of the nation travels. If you choose not to, that's a personal choice, I respect your freedom to choose so if you choose to travel by train unlike the overwhelming majority of the country then I respect your freedom to be different.
And the car thing may be one of the reasons that UK productivity is rubbish.
Cities are more productive than towns the world over. More workers in a smallish space releases all sorts of economic goodies. But that depends on transport into the city that is swift, reliable and doesn't take up much space.
And commuting by car, even if you can make it swift and reliable (not easy), takes up an awful lot of space. Central London simply wouldn't work if you had to provide car parking for every worker.
Well we like our cars up north, and the trillion quid of investment to make public transport realistic in North Notts villages isn't happening any time soon. At the same time, Londoners aren't suddenly going to all leap into cars. It's one of those things we have to accept where things look different depending on where you live.
Why did we privatise Royal Mail? What on Earth did that achieve.
Why are we privatising Channel 4? What on Earth will this achieve.
Ideology from the Tories is so bloody useless. I want results.
Puts Royal Mail on a level playing field with other delivery firms that don't have to deliver free owls or the like on the basis of a gimmick ministerial directive. Less facetious way to put the same point, it can over time devote capital to services that are of value to paying users and not just the most pliable voters on the same basis as DHL and pals.
There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Define BR PLC.
"British Railways" ran infrastructure, passenger and freight services, built rolling stock and delivered world-leading research.
I disagree with your proposal because: Infrastructure is already state owned Freight is hugely successful, with state-owned DRS one of the competing operators Some rolling stock is now state owned and is largely all state-procured.
So what is needed is to bring the remaining passenger franchise operations in-house and then spin them off. Leave freight as it is, regulate the rolling stock owners (they literally have no other use for their assets), and leave the InfraCo as a separate body.
And "PLC"? That's privatised. You mean "Ltd".
British Railways Limited would run the passenger operations, British Railways Infra Ltd would be in charge of infrastructure management.
The German model.
If a state-owned French company wishes to run an operation they are welcome to do so, they can either build their own railway and manage it all or they can run their own trains or procure them for use on Infra Ltd infrastructure with no subsidy.
We're in agreement - was just confused when you seemed to be proposing that (a) we recreate British Rail and then (b) privatise it.
No problem.
To be honest I am not sure why these rolling stock companies need to exist, why can't we have a state-owned version of that? These companies seem to produce very little
We already have one. There is no market in rolling stock provision - the DfT now dictate which stock is to be used. So the (mainly) banks who own them make a fee for maintaining them. It isn't that big an issue any more.
Oh well I wasn't aware of that.
We should also have a state-company that builds these things.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
SNCF has existed since after WW2, what other French transport company has there been? I feel like you really don't know what you are talking about
Again the only reason you're talking about SNCF is survivorship bias. Across Europe there have been a plethora of state firms set up but you're not talking about them as they weren't good and have failed.
Stop engaging in survivorship bias.
Then name a publicly-owned railway company, post company, or energy company that has failed.
British Rail.
And good for you for suggesting you will go get a car, unless you were being facetious, that is how the overwhelming majority of the nation travels. If you choose not to, that's a personal choice, I respect your freedom to choose so if you choose to travel by train unlike the overwhelming majority of the country then I respect your freedom to be different.
British Rail never failed. It was privatised. I asked for one that failed.
British Rail failed, that's why it was privatised and commuter travel on railways surged post-privatisation.
The fact that the Exchequer keeps bailing out failed industries doesn't mean they're not failures.
BR failed, Railtrack failed, various TOCS have failed.
It's just failure all round with the railways tbh.
But BR didn't fail. It wasn't bankrupt, it hadn't failed to provide services. It had the ONLY profitable long-distance rail operation in the world.
State companies can fail - go pop - or be seen to fail. But there is no public bad / private good argument that can be made with actual evidence. Or the other way round.
If SNCF was the old state monolith then I am confident it would be crap compared to the industrial giant it has become. There is nothing wrong with commerce and the market. Its just that you also need strategic and social infrastructure and that means state control. The market won't provide local bus or rail or post or broadband services at a loss because it is nice. It either gets subsidised or regulated to do so. StateCo is the best of both worlds - he strategic and social provided from profits made doing market things.
There are also independent living Housing Association flats for the over 55's (sometimes 50), which are purpose built. With communal wardens, social facilities, laundry, gardens and the like. Which takes away many of the day-to-day problems of maintenance and provide company and support. We need more of them (and private ones too obviously). The stigma is of being moved into a "care home". But these places aren't. You just rent or own a manageable sized property in a building with peers. If we could somehow get folk to want to live in these (and it wouldn't suit everyone), it would free up a lot of housing capacity.
I'll have a teenager when I'm 55 lol
I have one at 55 right now! The 55 is the lower entry limit obviously. Most residents are considerably older. As I say, not for everyone, but there are advantages to moving before issues of health and bereavement occur.
Good morning
My youngest son and his wife are expecting their third child (our 5th grandchild) on the 1st September and our son will be 60 when the little one becomes a teenager
Indeed my son in law was 61 when their son became 13
Why did we privatise Royal Mail? What on Earth did that achieve.
Why are we privatising Channel 4? What on Earth will this achieve.
Ideology from the Tories is so bloody useless. I want results.
Puts Royal Mail on a level playing field with other delivery firms that don't have to deliver free owls or the like on the basis of a gimmick ministerial directive. Less facetious way to put the same point, it can over time devote capital to services that are of value to paying users and not just the most pliable voters on the same basis as DHL and pals.
An alternative could have just been to let the price of a stamp (letter delivery) float to it's proper market rate whilst it stayed nationalised ?
One of the major problems we have as a nation is that we are always focused on ownership rather than delivery. Other countries don't seem so bothered.
Ownership isn't the issue. The same with the current row over utilities. We don't need to own the assets, we just need to regulate them. Thames Water won't be able to put profits ahead of provision if properly regulated.
The other problem we have seen is replacing a public monolith with a private cartel. Add a StateCo into the mix and you remove this problem. Other companies are free to play in the market and innovate and profit. But the market will deliver the strategic and social elements required by the state.
The water companies have done a piss poor job, they either need a massive tax placed on them or they need to be stripped. I note Scotland's water supply is not privatised and I cannot find a single thing the English companies do better.
Where’s the best and worst tap water in the UK?
Best in order of ranking:
Scotland South West Yorkshire and the Humber N Ireland Wales
Worst in order of ranking:
East of England East Midlands South East Greater London West Midlands
We also observed that 56% of Londoners think bottled water is healthier than tap water vs 21% in Scotland and North East.
Since we're dismissing successful foreign state run copies as something we cannot replicate for some reason, if the issue is they can get much profit from operating in other markets, I guess we need to find a British priviate company that operates successfully overseas and just make them our state company.
One of the major problems we have as a nation is that we are always focused on ownership rather than delivery. Other countries don't seem so bothered.
Ownership isn't the issue. The same with the current row over utilities. We don't need to own the assets, we just need to regulate them. Thames Water won't be able to put profits ahead of provision if properly regulated.
The other problem we have seen is replacing a public monolith with a private cartel. Add a StateCo into the mix and you remove this problem. Other companies are free to play in the market and innovate and profit. But the market will deliver the strategic and social elements required by the state.
Which is how everywhere else in Europe does it.
No no no.
They are all wrong, we clearly have the best approach.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
That is quite difficult though. My dad is 96. Still lives alone in his house. Admittedly just a small semi detached, so fuel costs not an issue, but he shouldn't be there. Can't get him to move out. He should have been in sheltered housing a decade ago. Stubborn doesn't cover it. Doesn't eat properly, can't wash properly, stairs to negotiate. Won't move.
My parents in their eighties moved recently to a retirement village but are already enjoying it more than their bigger home of many decades. And if their health deteriorates at any point it will be so much more practical for them. They were hesitant of the move even though it all made sense logically.
My parents are desperately waiting for a flat to come up in the retirement village they wish to move to.
Even the developer says if they had known how popular it was going to be they should have made it twice the size.
Yes they are in demand, expensive and not that many of them. Fortunately my parents were extremely flexible on location which won't be true for most.
They should definitely be a bigger part of the housing mix going forward with our demographics. Reading the t&cs some of them were borderline exploitative on charging a percentage of asset value on future sales so think the government could look at capping those.
You tend to get quite a bit of local objection to retirement villages, to my surprise, which probably impacts on scale. I've heard others talk against them on the basis a mixed community works better for the elderly.
NIMBY objections to anything just focus on the negative not the upside (in nearly all changes to neighbourhoods there is good and bad but residents just focus on the bad for instance
Retirement homes BAD - old biddies make the place boring and full of mobility scooters on the paths GOOD - old people generally are pleasant and not going to have noisy parties
Student digs BAD - make place full of noisy parties and low level social disorder GOOD - the young bring life and energy to a place and are interesting.
Wealthy middle aged BAD- push up house prices so "locals" cannot afford them GOOD - bring affluence , business and events (can afford to ) to the area
Local objections from resident groups will just focus on the BAD of all groups and never the good .
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
That is quite difficult though. My dad is 96. Still lives alone in his house. Admittedly just a small semi detached, so fuel costs not an issue, but he shouldn't be there. Can't get him to move out. He should have been in sheltered housing a decade ago. Stubborn doesn't cover it. Doesn't eat properly, can't wash properly, stairs to negotiate. Won't move.
My parents in their eighties moved recently to a retirement village but are already enjoying it more than their bigger home of many decades. And if their health deteriorates at any point it will be so much more practical for them. They were hesitant of the move even though it all made sense logically.
My parents are desperately waiting for a flat to come up in the retirement village they wish to move to.
Even the developer says if they had known how popular it was going to be they should have made it twice the size.
I once had to organise a photoshoot in a retirement 'complex' . Pride of place was a large, airy, well-furnished common room. "Could we arrange for a couple of residents to sit there?" I asked, naively. "You must be joking," came the reply, "they never use it". I should have gone to a model agency for a selection of well-groomed OAPs but the budget didn't stretch. Potemkin springs to mind.
We hold one of our U3a interest groups in such a common room. I gather the management is very happy to have somebody use the room! At time of writing I chair the meeting; I intend to do so for a while yet although as posted earlier I do often feel an uncomfortable, and heavy, hand on my shoulder.
There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Define BR PLC.
"British Railways" ran infrastructure, passenger and freight services, built rolling stock and delivered world-leading research.
I disagree with your proposal because: Infrastructure is already state owned Freight is hugely successful, with state-owned DRS one of the competing operators Some rolling stock is now state owned and is largely all state-procured.
So what is needed is to bring the remaining passenger franchise operations in-house and then spin them off. Leave freight as it is, regulate the rolling stock owners (they literally have no other use for their assets), and leave the InfraCo as a separate body.
And "PLC"? That's privatised. You mean "Ltd".
British Railways Limited would run the passenger operations, British Railways Infra Ltd would be in charge of infrastructure management.
The German model.
If a state-owned French company wishes to run an operation they are welcome to do so, they can either build their own railway and manage it all or they can run their own trains or procure them for use on Infra Ltd infrastructure with no subsidy.
We're in agreement - was just confused when you seemed to be proposing that (a) we recreate British Rail and then (b) privatise it.
No problem.
To be honest I am not sure why these rolling stock companies need to exist, why can't we have a state-owned version of that? These companies seem to produce very little
We already have one. There is no market in rolling stock provision - the DfT now dictate which stock is to be used. So the (mainly) banks who own them make a fee for maintaining them. It isn't that big an issue any more.
Oh well I wasn't aware of that.
We should also have a state-company that builds these things.
Why? European rail operators buy rolling stock from the private sector as we do. Competition there is a good thing as it drives innovation. As it did back in the BR days when the likes of GEC and Brush and EE drove development.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
That is quite difficult though. My dad is 96. Still lives alone in his house. Admittedly just a small semi detached, so fuel costs not an issue, but he shouldn't be there. Can't get him to move out. He should have been in sheltered housing a decade ago. Stubborn doesn't cover it. Doesn't eat properly, can't wash properly, stairs to negotiate. Won't move.
My parents in their eighties moved recently to a retirement village but are already enjoying it more than their bigger home of many decades. And if their health deteriorates at any point it will be so much more practical for them. They were hesitant of the move even though it all made sense logically.
My parents are desperately waiting for a flat to come up in the retirement village they wish to move to.
Even the developer says if they had known how popular it was going to be they should have made it twice the size.
Nice to know some are more enlightened. I think my dad leads a miserable life and unnecessarily so. He struggles to cope, but as soon as we suggest stuff to make it better he refuses. It took years to get him to accept a gardener and cleaner. He refuses any other type of help. I had to confiscate his car keys a couple of years ago. He won't take a taxi. He tells me all sorts of stories about friends who hate their sheltered housing. When you meet them they love it. He lies to avoid doing stuff and at 96 he isn't good at it, but you just bang your head against the wall to make things better. Nothing is allowed to change. I hope I don't go that way. I want to die attempting the land speed record when I am 134.
Sad but common story, and very hard to know what to do especially if someone has their marbles, they are just stubborn. It's not as though everyone could have the parent move in with them even if both wanted that.
Forget bad old days of BR, what about bad old days of SWR! An hour and a half late, again!
If you don't like SWR take your business elsewhere. Get a car, work from home, find a different job that doesn't require that commute - nobody forces you to use SWR that's your private choice.
You’ve said that before and actually it’s bloody insulting. The government mandates that I work in London and I can’t afford to live there. I can’t really afford a car and even if I could, driving and parking in central London isn’t feasible. Getting a Thameslink train is literally the only choice I have to do a worthwhile job that I love. Should I therefore just swallow whatever shitty, expensive service they give me with good grace?
The government mandates that you work in London?
I didn't realise we had indentured servitude in this country still. You mean that you choose to work in London surely, OK you love it, that's great, but that's your choice still.
The water companies have done a piss poor job, they either need a massive tax placed on them or they need to be stripped. I note Scotland's water supply is not privatised and I cannot find a single thing the English companies do better.
Where’s the best and worst tap water in the UK?
Best in order of ranking:
Scotland South West Yorkshire and the Humber N Ireland Wales
Worst in order of ranking:
East of England East Midlands South East Greater London West Midlands
We also observed that 56% of Londoners think bottled water is healthier than tap water vs 21% in Scotland and North East.
There is no logical reason why British Railways Plc should or could not exist, beyond pointless ideology.
Clearly all of the EU countries and Japan have got it wrong. We know better, so we pay the French...
Define BR PLC.
"British Railways" ran infrastructure, passenger and freight services, built rolling stock and delivered world-leading research.
I disagree with your proposal because: Infrastructure is already state owned Freight is hugely successful, with state-owned DRS one of the competing operators Some rolling stock is now state owned and is largely all state-procured.
So what is needed is to bring the remaining passenger franchise operations in-house and then spin them off. Leave freight as it is, regulate the rolling stock owners (they literally have no other use for their assets), and leave the InfraCo as a separate body.
And "PLC"? That's privatised. You mean "Ltd".
British Railways Limited would run the passenger operations, British Railways Infra Ltd would be in charge of infrastructure management.
The German model.
If a state-owned French company wishes to run an operation they are welcome to do so, they can either build their own railway and manage it all or they can run their own trains or procure them for use on Infra Ltd infrastructure with no subsidy.
We're in agreement - was just confused when you seemed to be proposing that (a) we recreate British Rail and then (b) privatise it.
No problem.
To be honest I am not sure why these rolling stock companies need to exist, why can't we have a state-owned version of that? These companies seem to produce very little
We already have one. There is no market in rolling stock provision - the DfT now dictate which stock is to be used. So the (mainly) banks who own them make a fee for maintaining them. It isn't that big an issue any more.
Oh well I wasn't aware of that.
We should also have a state-company that builds these things.
Why? European rail operators buy rolling stock from the private sector as we do. Competition there is a good thing as it drives innovation. As it did back in the BR days when the likes of GEC and Brush and EE drove development.
What I meant to say is that I don't see why we can't have a state-company that can build, as a competitor in the market.
Why did we privatise Royal Mail? What on Earth did that achieve.
Why are we privatising Channel 4? What on Earth will this achieve.
Ideology from the Tories is so bloody useless. I want results.
Puts Royal Mail on a level playing field with other delivery firms that don't have to deliver free owls or the like on the basis of a gimmick ministerial directive. Less facetious way to put the same point, it can over time devote capital to services that are of value to paying users and not just the most pliable voters on the same basis as DHL and pals.
An alternative could have just been to let the price of a stamp (letter delivery) float to it's proper market rate whilst it stayed nationalised ?
Define proper market rate? Way cheaper for a letter to be collected / delivered in London than in rural places. Should Rural-on-Sticks pay 6x the rate than a city address? Post has a social element which is why it is regulated.
The vast majority of our sub nuclear reactor work is done in Derby. The small reactors will also be designed and manufactured in Derby.
They haven't chosen the site for the SMR factory yet but none of potential ones are in Derbyshire. Regular Truss watchers will not be surprised to hear that she opened her stupid fucking mouth without knowing what she was talking about.
Why did we privatise Royal Mail? What on Earth did that achieve.
Why are we privatising Channel 4? What on Earth will this achieve.
Ideology from the Tories is so bloody useless. I want results.
Puts Royal Mail on a level playing field with other delivery firms that don't have to deliver free owls or the like on the basis of a gimmick ministerial directive. Less facetious way to put the same point, it can over time devote capital to services that are of value to paying users and not just the most pliable voters on the same basis as DHL and pals.
An alternative could have just been to let the price of a stamp (letter delivery) float to it's proper market rate whilst it stayed nationalised ?
Define proper market rate? Way cheaper for a letter to be collected / delivered in London than in rural places. Should Rural-on-Sticks pay 6x the rate than a city address? Post has a social element which is why it is regulated.
BT/Openreach have shown what can be done when a regulator actually regulates.
Hiving off Openreach and making it focussed on infrastructure delivery of FTTP has been a master-stroke. The result now is I think the fastest FTTP rollout in the world. They are building like crazy.
I have no doubt they'll have replaced copper by the 2030s, this seemed impossible even two years ago.
Reading local election results since Johnson resigned, there has been a slight pick up and a stiffening of the Conservative vote. Lib Dems appear to have peaked and starting to slip.
The vast majority of our sub nuclear reactor work is done in Derby. The small reactors will also be designed and manufactured in Derby.
They haven't chosen the site for the SMR factory yet but none of potential ones are in Derbyshire. Regular Truss watchers will not be surprised to hear that she opened her stupid fucking mouth without knowing what she was talking about.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
My final point on your absurd attempt to out bollocks even yourself. "Survivor bias". But Today's StateCo rail companies are not remotely the same as they once were.
SNCF used to be state owned and run. Whilst it is still (mostly) state owned, it is split into multiple divisions and subsidiaries which are commercial.
The commercial business running the tram network in Melbourne is not remotely the same business as was when it was just state rail.
So there is no "survivorship" - these are new commercial companies plural, not the state monoliths you are foaming on about.
But that reinforces my point, it doesn't discredit it.
The commercial businesses are working successfully in the commercial sector. That is privatisation working as intended.
If you're cherrypicking looking at the few state-owned firms and saying "we should do that" there's nothing preventing you from doing that, privately, is there? But the legacy firms with the institutional awareness and success that you don't have, isn't something you can just create overnight.
So a StateCo which has the majority of business in France proves that privatisation works? But SNCF isn't privatised....
You keep saying "a few state firms". These are the predominant players in their market, and thanks to being commercially run are minority players in other markets.
StateCo operators are the rule, not the exception. You are simply wrong. The evidence demonstrates you are wrong. So you just change definitions to cling to why you are right after all.
The state can run things very efficiently. As everyone in europe knows. As UK customers of DPD or EDF or Arriva know very well.
The benefits are also clear. In the UK buses are run by the bus companies for profit rather than public service. The company may well be publicly owned (Arriva etc) but local councils cannot say what happens.
Yet in abroad the buses are run for the service they provide *and* generate profits from providing services elsewhere.
You want foreign governments to run your local buses, but won't allow your local government to do so. Which is absurd even for a supposed libertarian free-marketeer like you. Advocate the expulsion of these subsidised rigged operators like Arriva, Abelio, RAPT etc and their replacement by truly free market private companies, or accept the absurdity of your "argument".
Excuse me? I don't want to forbid local governments from setting up firms to compete if they choose to do so. Many have done, where did I say that MerseyRail should be forbidden? Or TfL?
And if those acorns grow into big oak trees that end up running operations across the globe then I never said that should be forbidden.
But its already not forbidden. So why isn't it already happening, if its so easy? Why isn't TfL or MerseyRail or any other existing firm being the next Arriva? Maybe it could be because its not as easy as clicking your heels three times and having Arriva on your hands.
There are also independent living Housing Association flats for the over 55's (sometimes 50), which are purpose built. With communal wardens, social facilities, laundry, gardens and the like. Which takes away many of the day-to-day problems of maintenance and provide company and support. We need more of them (and private ones too obviously). The stigma is of being moved into a "care home". But these places aren't. You just rent or own a manageable sized property in a building with peers. If we could somehow get folk to want to live in these (and it wouldn't suit everyone), it would free up a lot of housing capacity.
I'll have a teenager when I'm 55 lol
I have one at 55 right now! The 55 is the lower entry limit obviously. Most residents are considerably older. As I say, not for everyone, but there are advantages to moving before issues of health and bereavement occur.
Good morning
My youngest son and his wife are expecting their third child (our 5th grandchild) on the 1st September and our son will be 60 when the little one becomes a teenager
Indeed my son in law was 61 when their son became 13
I spoke to an old friend yesterday, for the first time in a couple of years. He’s in his later 50s and has just had a baby with his much younger wife
I was deeply curious as to how it is going. Because I very nearly made the same life choice for similar reasons
He hates being a new dad (again), and bitterly regrets the decision. Told me: “I’m just too old. I physically can’t do it. And I’ll probably be dead by the time my new daughter is 20”
It gave me some consolation that I made the right, tough choice. But I feel terribly sorry for him of course. And the family
You’re not meant to be a new dad after 50. Your crocked knees are nature’s way of telling you this
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
My final point on your absurd attempt to out bollocks even yourself. "Survivor bias". But Today's StateCo rail companies are not remotely the same as they once were.
SNCF used to be state owned and run. Whilst it is still (mostly) state owned, it is split into multiple divisions and subsidiaries which are commercial.
The commercial business running the tram network in Melbourne is not remotely the same business as was when it was just state rail.
So there is no "survivorship" - these are new commercial companies plural, not the state monoliths you are foaming on about.
But that reinforces my point, it doesn't discredit it.
The commercial businesses are working successfully in the commercial sector. That is privatisation working as intended.
If you're cherrypicking looking at the few state-owned firms and saying "we should do that" there's nothing preventing you from doing that, privately, is there? But the legacy firms with the institutional awareness and success that you don't have, isn't something you can just create overnight.
So a StateCo which has the majority of business in France proves that privatisation works? But SNCF isn't privatised....
You keep saying "a few state firms". These are the predominant players in their market, and thanks to being commercially run are minority players in other markets.
StateCo operators are the rule, not the exception. You are simply wrong. The evidence demonstrates you are wrong. So you just change definitions to cling to why you are right after all.
The state can run things very efficiently. As everyone in europe knows. As UK customers of DPD or EDF or Arriva know very well.
The benefits are also clear. In the UK buses are run by the bus companies for profit rather than public service. The company may well be publicly owned (Arriva etc) but local councils cannot say what happens.
Yet in abroad the buses are run for the service they provide *and* generate profits from providing services elsewhere.
You want foreign governments to run your local buses, but won't allow your local government to do so. Which is absurd even for a supposed libertarian free-marketeer like you. Advocate the expulsion of these subsidised rigged operators like Arriva, Abelio, RAPT etc and their replacement by truly free market private companies, or accept the absurdity of your "argument".
Excuse me? I don't want to forbid local governments from setting up firms to compete if they choose to do so. Many have done, where did I say that MerseyRail should be forbidden? Or TfL?
And if those acorns grow into big oak trees that end up running operations across the globe then I never said that should be forbidden.
But its already not forbidden. So why isn't it already happening, if its so easy? Why isn't TfL or MerseyRail or any other existing firm being the next Arriva? Maybe it could be because its not as easy as clicking your heels three times and having Arriva on your hands.
There are also independent living Housing Association flats for the over 55's (sometimes 50), which are purpose built. With communal wardens, social facilities, laundry, gardens and the like. Which takes away many of the day-to-day problems of maintenance and provide company and support. We need more of them (and private ones too obviously). The stigma is of being moved into a "care home". But these places aren't. You just rent or own a manageable sized property in a building with peers. If we could somehow get folk to want to live in these (and it wouldn't suit everyone), it would free up a lot of housing capacity.
I'll have a teenager when I'm 55 lol
I have one at 55 right now! The 55 is the lower entry limit obviously. Most residents are considerably older. As I say, not for everyone, but there are advantages to moving before issues of health and bereavement occur.
Good morning
My youngest son and his wife are expecting their third child (our 5th grandchild) on the 1st September and our son will be 60 when the little one becomes a teenager
Indeed my son in law was 61 when their son became 13
I spoke to an old friend yesterday, for the first time in a couple of years. He’s in his later 50s and has just had a baby with his much younger wife
I was deeply curious as to how it is going. Because I very nearly made the same life choice for similar reasons
He hates being a new dad (again), and bitterly regrets the decision. Told me: “I’m just too old. I physically can’t do it. And I’ll probably be dead by the time my new daughter is 20”
It gave me some consolation that I made the right, tough choice. But I feel terribly sorry for him of course. And the family
You’re not meant to be a new dad after 50. Your crocked knees are nature’s way of telling you this
It's fine if you are a medieval king, but otherwise probably a bit of hassle.
Trump apparently wants the warrant released . I’m still not convinced , I expect he will say I really wanted that to happen but my lawyers have advised me against that or only certain things should be released .
How strange, the NI railways are publicly owned. They must be a disaster - oh wait, they are not.
Perhaps it was deliberate under-investment and flogging off assets on the cheap that did it for the railways we invented.
You see other countries invest, we cut and sell things to their governments for cheap. They must think we're morons
Because the UK, uniquely, has an NHS, and it’s so much of a national religion that spending and investment on pretty much anything else becomes politically impossible. Fix the NHS model, and the other possibilities will emerge.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
SNCF has existed since after WW2, what other French transport company has there been? I feel like you really don't know what you are talking about
Again the only reason you're talking about SNCF is survivorship bias. Across Europe there have been a plethora of state firms set up but you're not talking about them as they weren't good and have failed.
Stop engaging in survivorship bias.
Then name a publicly-owned railway company, post company, or energy company that has failed.
British Rail.
And good for you for suggesting you will go get a car, unless you were being facetious, that is how the overwhelming majority of the nation travels. If you choose not to, that's a personal choice, I respect your freedom to choose so if you choose to travel by train unlike the overwhelming majority of the country then I respect your freedom to be different.
And the car thing may be one of the reasons that UK productivity is rubbish.
Cities are more productive than towns the world over. More workers in a smallish space releases all sorts of economic goodies. But that depends on transport into the city that is swift, reliable and doesn't take up much space.
And commuting by car, even if you can make it swift and reliable (not easy), takes up an awful lot of space. Central London simply wouldn't work if you had to provide car parking for every worker.
Well we like our cars up north, and the trillion quid of investment to make public transport realistic in North Notts villages isn't happening any time soon. At the same time, Londoners aren't suddenly going to all leap into cars. It's one of those things we have to accept where things look different depending on where you live.
True, but there's a catch.
Small-town working looks like it's less productive than big city working. That seems to be true pretty much everywhere. And ultimately, our national prosperity comes from being more productive.
I can see why people prefer small town living. But it is a bit parasitical on others working in cities and making the money.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
My final point on your absurd attempt to out bollocks even yourself. "Survivor bias". But Today's StateCo rail companies are not remotely the same as they once were.
SNCF used to be state owned and run. Whilst it is still (mostly) state owned, it is split into multiple divisions and subsidiaries which are commercial.
The commercial business running the tram network in Melbourne is not remotely the same business as was when it was just state rail.
So there is no "survivorship" - these are new commercial companies plural, not the state monoliths you are foaming on about.
But that reinforces my point, it doesn't discredit it.
The commercial businesses are working successfully in the commercial sector. That is privatisation working as intended.
If you're cherrypicking looking at the few state-owned firms and saying "we should do that" there's nothing preventing you from doing that, privately, is there? But the legacy firms with the institutional awareness and success that you don't have, isn't something you can just create overnight.
So a StateCo which has the majority of business in France proves that privatisation works? But SNCF isn't privatised....
You keep saying "a few state firms". These are the predominant players in their market, and thanks to being commercially run are minority players in other markets.
StateCo operators are the rule, not the exception. You are simply wrong. The evidence demonstrates you are wrong. So you just change definitions to cling to why you are right after all.
The state can run things very efficiently. As everyone in europe knows. As UK customers of DPD or EDF or Arriva know very well.
The benefits are also clear. In the UK buses are run by the bus companies for profit rather than public service. The company may well be publicly owned (Arriva etc) but local councils cannot say what happens.
Yet in abroad the buses are run for the service they provide *and* generate profits from providing services elsewhere.
You want foreign governments to run your local buses, but won't allow your local government to do so. Which is absurd even for a supposed libertarian free-marketeer like you. Advocate the expulsion of these subsidised rigged operators like Arriva, Abelio, RAPT etc and their replacement by truly free market private companies, or accept the absurdity of your "argument".
Excuse me? I don't want to forbid local governments from setting up firms to compete if they choose to do so. Many have done, where did I say that MerseyRail should be forbidden? Or TfL?
And if those acorns grow into big oak trees that end up running operations across the globe then I never said that should be forbidden.
But its already not forbidden. So why isn't it already happening, if its so easy? Why isn't TfL or MerseyRail or any other existing firm being the next Arriva? Maybe it could be because its not as easy as clicking your heels three times and having Arriva on your hands.
Why not privatise TfL? But what would it achieve?
If it no longer had to answer to dictats from the Mayor of London it would achieve the job of getting it arms length away from the politicians. Since its the plaything of politicians that isn't going to happen any time soon though.
The buses in Warrington, Leigh and surrounding towns are provided not by Arriva or any other foreign state owned firm but by a firm called "Warrington's Own Buses" formerly known as Warrington Borough Transport, whose parent is unsurprisingly Warrington Borough Council.
There's nothing preventing councils from having firms if they want to. Many have tried to set up transport or energy or other firms, if they succeed in the marketplace then I'm OK with that. Its competition that matters the most.
There are also independent living Housing Association flats for the over 55's (sometimes 50), which are purpose built. With communal wardens, social facilities, laundry, gardens and the like. Which takes away many of the day-to-day problems of maintenance and provide company and support. We need more of them (and private ones too obviously). The stigma is of being moved into a "care home". But these places aren't. You just rent or own a manageable sized property in a building with peers. If we could somehow get folk to want to live in these (and it wouldn't suit everyone), it would free up a lot of housing capacity.
I'll have a teenager when I'm 55 lol
I have one at 55 right now! The 55 is the lower entry limit obviously. Most residents are considerably older. As I say, not for everyone, but there are advantages to moving before issues of health and bereavement occur.
Good morning
My youngest son and his wife are expecting their third child (our 5th grandchild) on the 1st September and our son will be 60 when the little one becomes a teenager
Indeed my son in law was 61 when their son became 13
I spoke to an old friend yesterday, for the first time in a couple of years. He’s in his later 50s and has just had a baby with his much younger wife
I was deeply curious as to how it is going. Because I very nearly made the same life choice for similar reasons
He hates being a new dad (again), and bitterly regrets the decision. Told me: “I’m just too old. I physically can’t do it. And I’ll probably be dead by the time my new daughter is 20”
It gave me some consolation that I made the right, tough choice. But I feel terribly sorry for him of course. And the family
You’re not meant to be a new dad after 50. Your crocked knees are nature’s way of telling you this
Bit worrying for me then - wife expecting early Feb, the big 50 for me in October. I am slightly worried, but also hugely excited. This is our first (and almost certainly only).
To be committed to privatisation for ideology's sake at a time like this is nuts.
It's time we had a grown up discussion away from "privatisation is always the best option because efficiency" and instead had a discussion about what ought to be in public hands and what not.
Railways clearly. Privatisation has failed on its own terms - and we are now paying private companies to run things in a way we tell them to, so money leaves our country and funds the French's for no tangible benefit at all.
Energy companies are causing people to become homeless or starve. A state provider should be available that is used in times of crisis to stop this. On a purely moral level the debt involved for the government is irrelevant, this is about human lives.
Water. The water companies have done a piss poor job, they either need a massive tax placed on them or they need to be stripped. I note Scotland's water supply is not privatised and I cannot find a single thing the English companies do better.
This is not ideological, this is about what is best for us all. I am not proposing nationalising BP, or BT, or EON, or the National Grid.
On here I've seen robust pushback against rail nationalisation before, but I dont know that I've seen the current water company situation defended.
I'd be very interested in one as from a layman's perspective it's the most obvious in lacking any benefit to the public in service, cost or choice.
Did they use to be worse?
Much, much worse.
Regulations against polluting the rivers etc were routinely flouted in the past and since it was all state owned, nothing much was done about it, since the vested interests just got in the way of fixing anything.
Post-privatisation pollution led to fines which cut profits, so the profit motive ensured firms worked to preventing pollution etc to reduce the cost of fines.
The quality of our rivers etc dramatically improved post-privatisation.
ROFL the quality of our rivers increased because New Labour passed a whole load of laws that gave out massive fines
Fines existed post-privatisation pre-New Labour and the quality of the rivers was already improving, New Labour built upon the framework that was already working - as things improve from a poor baseline it makes sense to raise expectations which is what New Labour did. Either way though fines only really work as a motivator in a privatised industry.
In a state owned industry where there's no profit motive and all profit or loss is going to the Exchequer anyway, then a "fine" is meaningless.
So even if you want to claim credit for New Labour, New Labour's policy was only viable because of privatisation. Privatisation and fines for pollution worked and has done a great job. 👍
What a load of utter nonsense. The idea only a private company can respond to fines is so silly I laughed reading it.
The proof is in the pudding. The nationalised water pre-privatisation flouted the rules and got away with it.
Privatised water fixed the problem and did a measurably better job.
I'm an idealist and so I can't help but believe that there's a way of collectively owning the water infrastructure so that it is well-run and vast profits aren't extracted for the benefit of Canadian teacher's pensions.
However, though the British water companies are not great, the state-owned Irish Water seems to be a lot worse in a country with even more plentiful water resources than Britain, but much larger problems in terms of security of supply, water quality, river pollution, etc. A comparison between Ireland and Britain would be quite easy to use to make a case for water privatisation.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
My final point on your absurd attempt to out bollocks even yourself. "Survivor bias". But Today's StateCo rail companies are not remotely the same as they once were.
SNCF used to be state owned and run. Whilst it is still (mostly) state owned, it is split into multiple divisions and subsidiaries which are commercial.
The commercial business running the tram network in Melbourne is not remotely the same business as was when it was just state rail.
So there is no "survivorship" - these are new commercial companies plural, not the state monoliths you are foaming on about.
But that reinforces my point, it doesn't discredit it.
The commercial businesses are working successfully in the commercial sector. That is privatisation working as intended.
If you're cherrypicking looking at the few state-owned firms and saying "we should do that" there's nothing preventing you from doing that, privately, is there? But the legacy firms with the institutional awareness and success that you don't have, isn't something you can just create overnight.
So a StateCo which has the majority of business in France proves that privatisation works? But SNCF isn't privatised....
You keep saying "a few state firms". These are the predominant players in their market, and thanks to being commercially run are minority players in other markets.
StateCo operators are the rule, not the exception. You are simply wrong. The evidence demonstrates you are wrong. So you just change definitions to cling to why you are right after all.
The state can run things very efficiently. As everyone in europe knows. As UK customers of DPD or EDF or Arriva know very well.
The benefits are also clear. In the UK buses are run by the bus companies for profit rather than public service. The company may well be publicly owned (Arriva etc) but local councils cannot say what happens.
Yet in abroad the buses are run for the service they provide *and* generate profits from providing services elsewhere.
You want foreign governments to run your local buses, but won't allow your local government to do so. Which is absurd even for a supposed libertarian free-marketeer like you. Advocate the expulsion of these subsidised rigged operators like Arriva, Abelio, RAPT etc and their replacement by truly free market private companies, or accept the absurdity of your "argument".
Excuse me? I don't want to forbid local governments from setting up firms to compete if they choose to do so. Many have done, where did I say that MerseyRail should be forbidden? Or TfL?
And if those acorns grow into big oak trees that end up running operations across the globe then I never said that should be forbidden.
But its already not forbidden. So why isn't it already happening, if its so easy? Why isn't TfL or MerseyRail or any other existing firm being the next Arriva? Maybe it could be because its not as easy as clicking your heels three times and having Arriva on your hands.
Why not privatise TfL? But what would it achieve?
If it no longer had to answer to dictats from the Mayor of London it would achieve the job of getting it arms length away from the politicians. Since its the plaything of politicians that isn't going to happen any time soon though.
The buses in Warrington, Leigh and surrounding towns are provided not by Arriva or any other foreign state owned firm but by a firm called "Warrington's Own Buses" formerly known as Warrington Borough Transport, whose parent is unsurprisingly Warrington Borough Council.
There's nothing preventing councils from having firms if they want to. Many have tried to set up transport or energy or other firms, if they succeed in the marketplace then I'm OK with that. Its competition that matters the most.
We've seen what happens, they propose closing Tube lines down
How strange, the NI railways are publicly owned. They must be a disaster - oh wait, they are not.
Perhaps it was deliberate under-investment and flogging off assets on the cheap that did it for the railways we invented.
You see other countries invest, we cut and sell things to their governments for cheap. They must think we're morons
"Perhaps it was deliberate under-investment "
Time for the PB railways lessons again:
Railway infrastructure investment occur in five-year spans called Control Periods (CP). Currently we are in CP6, between 2019 and 2024.
There are three main types of infrastructure investment on the railways: *) Maintenance: maintaining the existing infrastructure - the bread-and-butter work. *) Renewals: renewing life-expired infrastructure such as tracks, signalling and bridges *) Enhancements: work to improve the network's capacity and performance.
Recent governments have invested massively in our railway infrastructure, and to call it 'deliberate under-investment' is more than wrong. In the 13 years under Blair and Brown's governments, just mine miles of railway were electrified, compared to many hundreds under Thatcher/Major and post-2010.
There are also independent living Housing Association flats for the over 55's (sometimes 50), which are purpose built. With communal wardens, social facilities, laundry, gardens and the like. Which takes away many of the day-to-day problems of maintenance and provide company and support. We need more of them (and private ones too obviously). The stigma is of being moved into a "care home". But these places aren't. You just rent or own a manageable sized property in a building with peers. If we could somehow get folk to want to live in these (and it wouldn't suit everyone), it would free up a lot of housing capacity.
I'll have a teenager when I'm 55 lol
I have one at 55 right now! The 55 is the lower entry limit obviously. Most residents are considerably older. As I say, not for everyone, but there are advantages to moving before issues of health and bereavement occur.
Good morning
My youngest son and his wife are expecting their third child (our 5th grandchild) on the 1st September and our son will be 60 when the little one becomes a teenager
Indeed my son in law was 61 when their son became 13
I spoke to an old friend yesterday, for the first time in a couple of years. He’s in his later 50s and has just had a baby with his much younger wife
I was deeply curious as to how it is going. Because I very nearly made the same life choice for similar reasons
He hates being a new dad (again), and bitterly regrets the decision. Told me: “I’m just too old. I physically can’t do it. And I’ll probably be dead by the time my new daughter is 20”
It gave me some consolation that I made the right, tough choice. But I feel terribly sorry for him of course. And the family
You’re not meant to be a new dad after 50. Your crocked knees are nature’s way of telling you this
Its probably not so bad if it is a novel experience (anything you do for the first time is kinda interesting) but speaking as a fifty something with a grown up daughter from my previous marriage I would defnitely not want to have another kid now -yes you are a little more physically jaded but also more importantly you have done that bought the T-shirt and thus wont be as invested (which is unfair to the kid and mother)
....far more interesting (everything is relative) and decent person than a racist Anglophobe bore who thinks his own country (Scotland ) is so shit that he lives in Sweden
There are also independent living Housing Association flats for the over 55's (sometimes 50), which are purpose built. With communal wardens, social facilities, laundry, gardens and the like. Which takes away many of the day-to-day problems of maintenance and provide company and support. We need more of them (and private ones too obviously). The stigma is of being moved into a "care home". But these places aren't. You just rent or own a manageable sized property in a building with peers. If we could somehow get folk to want to live in these (and it wouldn't suit everyone), it would free up a lot of housing capacity.
I'll have a teenager when I'm 55 lol
I have one at 55 right now! The 55 is the lower entry limit obviously. Most residents are considerably older. As I say, not for everyone, but there are advantages to moving before issues of health and bereavement occur.
Good morning
My youngest son and his wife are expecting their third child (our 5th grandchild) on the 1st September and our son will be 60 when the little one becomes a teenager
Indeed my son in law was 61 when their son became 13
I spoke to an old friend yesterday, for the first time in a couple of years. He’s in his later 50s and has just had a baby with his much younger wife
I was deeply curious as to how it is going. Because I very nearly made the same life choice for similar reasons
He hates being a new dad (again), and bitterly regrets the decision. Told me: “I’m just too old. I physically can’t do it. And I’ll probably be dead by the time my new daughter is 20”
It gave me some consolation that I made the right, tough choice. But I feel terribly sorry for him of course. And the family
You’re not meant to be a new dad after 50. Your crocked knees are nature’s way of telling you this
It's fine if you are a medieval king, but otherwise probably a bit of hassle.
Yes. When you read about a really old new dad it’s usually a billionaire like Mick Jagger who can afford 23 nannies (and will make sure they’re cute)
My friend is not poor so he can afford au pairs etc. But 24/7 armies of servants, no. So it is hard
Also, as he said, “you want to be a real hands-on dad, kids need that physical interaction, but I just can’t do it”. And he’s right
I wince even thinking about it. At my advanced years I do a little sigh every time I have to bend over. I can’t imagine the grind of having to look after a baby. My god
....far more interesting (everything is relative) and decent person than a racist Anglophobe bore who thinks his own country (Scotland ) is so shit that he lives in Sweden
I really don't think it's fair to judge people for living overseas, whoever it is.
Forget bad old days of BR, what about bad old days of SWR! An hour and a half late, again!
If you don't like SWR take your business elsewhere. Get a car, work from home, find a different job that doesn't require that commute - nobody forces you to use SWR that's your private choice.
You’ve said that before and actually it’s bloody insulting. The government mandates that I work in London and I can’t afford to live there. I can’t really afford a car and even if I could, driving and parking in central London isn’t feasible. Getting a Thameslink train is literally the only choice I have to do a worthwhile job that I love. Should I therefore just swallow whatever shitty, expensive service they give me with good grace?
The government mandates that you work in London?
I didn't realise we had indentured servitude in this country still. You mean that you choose to work in London surely, OK you love it, that's great, but that's your choice still.
I work in the Civil Service in a job which needs to be in central London because that’s where Parliament is. Sure I could not work there but if everyone took that attitude then a lot of services would fall over. A combination of shocking house prices in the capital, a London centric attitude among government and businesses and a terrible rail system causes daily misery for a lot of people. You can’t just justify inaction by saying it’s everyone’s choice.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
My final point on your absurd attempt to out bollocks even yourself. "Survivor bias". But Today's StateCo rail companies are not remotely the same as they once were.
SNCF used to be state owned and run. Whilst it is still (mostly) state owned, it is split into multiple divisions and subsidiaries which are commercial.
The commercial business running the tram network in Melbourne is not remotely the same business as was when it was just state rail.
So there is no "survivorship" - these are new commercial companies plural, not the state monoliths you are foaming on about.
But that reinforces my point, it doesn't discredit it.
The commercial businesses are working successfully in the commercial sector. That is privatisation working as intended.
If you're cherrypicking looking at the few state-owned firms and saying "we should do that" there's nothing preventing you from doing that, privately, is there? But the legacy firms with the institutional awareness and success that you don't have, isn't something you can just create overnight.
So a StateCo which has the majority of business in France proves that privatisation works? But SNCF isn't privatised....
You keep saying "a few state firms". These are the predominant players in their market, and thanks to being commercially run are minority players in other markets.
StateCo operators are the rule, not the exception. You are simply wrong. The evidence demonstrates you are wrong. So you just change definitions to cling to why you are right after all.
The state can run things very efficiently. As everyone in europe knows. As UK customers of DPD or EDF or Arriva know very well.
The benefits are also clear. In the UK buses are run by the bus companies for profit rather than public service. The company may well be publicly owned (Arriva etc) but local councils cannot say what happens.
Yet in abroad the buses are run for the service they provide *and* generate profits from providing services elsewhere.
You want foreign governments to run your local buses, but won't allow your local government to do so. Which is absurd even for a supposed libertarian free-marketeer like you. Advocate the expulsion of these subsidised rigged operators like Arriva, Abelio, RAPT etc and their replacement by truly free market private companies, or accept the absurdity of your "argument".
Excuse me? I don't want to forbid local governments from setting up firms to compete if they choose to do so. Many have done, where did I say that MerseyRail should be forbidden? Or TfL?
And if those acorns grow into big oak trees that end up running operations across the globe then I never said that should be forbidden.
But its already not forbidden. So why isn't it already happening, if its so easy? Why isn't TfL or MerseyRail or any other existing firm being the next Arriva? Maybe it could be because its not as easy as clicking your heels three times and having Arriva on your hands.
Why not privatise TfL? But what would it achieve?
If it no longer had to answer to dictats from the Mayor of London it would achieve the job of getting it arms length away from the politicians. Since its the plaything of politicians that isn't going to happen any time soon though.
The buses in Warrington, Leigh and surrounding towns are provided not by Arriva or any other foreign state owned firm but by a firm called "Warrington's Own Buses" formerly known as Warrington Borough Transport, whose parent is unsurprisingly Warrington Borough Council.
There's nothing preventing councils from having firms if they want to. Many have tried to set up transport or energy or other firms, if they succeed in the marketplace then I'm OK with that. Its competition that matters the most.
We've seen what happens, they propose closing Tube lines down
If the Tube is efficient then it ought to be able to be profitable without dictats from politicians and without subsidies.
And if its private and profitable it can reinvest those profits in improving the Tube further to attract even more business and even more profits rather than seeing the money diverted to the NHS or whatever else the politicians are trying to win votes on.
Japan's private rail network is so successful its now has more people commuting via rail than via road, unlike the UK, and without subsidies too.
UK promised, UK delivered! 🇺🇦🤝🇬🇧 More M270 MLRS arrived in Ukraine. Thanks to @BWallaceMP and all the 🇬🇧 people! Your support is amazing and so important for Ukraine. Our #UAarmy will skillfully use this "replenishment" at the battlefield. P.S. More “gifts” will arrive soon.
StateCo doesn't work, as a general rule. The overwhelming majority of StateCo's set up are terrible, terrible failures, but you don't think about them as they don't exist anymore or if they do you don't hear about them, its pure survivorship bias. If you want a BritCo to be set up then go set it up yourself, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but the State shouldn't be doing so that's not rational.
Thinking that StateCo's work because you're looking at the miniscule proportion of legacy StateCo's that had been set up that have survived to the present day and are thriving is as logical as saying that everyone should sign up to play the Squid Game because everyone you've spoken to that has completed the Squid Games have done well from it.
So you're saying every state-owned water company in Europe, every train operator and energy company, postal company, is a terrible failure? This is crazy Bart
No, I never said "every". I said "majority set up".
Survivorship bias means that the majority set up no longer even exist anymore today.
My final point on your absurd attempt to out bollocks even yourself. "Survivor bias". But Today's StateCo rail companies are not remotely the same as they once were.
SNCF used to be state owned and run. Whilst it is still (mostly) state owned, it is split into multiple divisions and subsidiaries which are commercial.
The commercial business running the tram network in Melbourne is not remotely the same business as was when it was just state rail.
So there is no "survivorship" - these are new commercial companies plural, not the state monoliths you are foaming on about.
But that reinforces my point, it doesn't discredit it.
The commercial businesses are working successfully in the commercial sector. That is privatisation working as intended.
If you're cherrypicking looking at the few state-owned firms and saying "we should do that" there's nothing preventing you from doing that, privately, is there? But the legacy firms with the institutional awareness and success that you don't have, isn't something you can just create overnight.
So a StateCo which has the majority of business in France proves that privatisation works? But SNCF isn't privatised....
You keep saying "a few state firms". These are the predominant players in their market, and thanks to being commercially run are minority players in other markets.
StateCo operators are the rule, not the exception. You are simply wrong. The evidence demonstrates you are wrong. So you just change definitions to cling to why you are right after all.
The state can run things very efficiently. As everyone in europe knows. As UK customers of DPD or EDF or Arriva know very well.
The benefits are also clear. In the UK buses are run by the bus companies for profit rather than public service. The company may well be publicly owned (Arriva etc) but local councils cannot say what happens.
Yet in abroad the buses are run for the service they provide *and* generate profits from providing services elsewhere.
You want foreign governments to run your local buses, but won't allow your local government to do so. Which is absurd even for a supposed libertarian free-marketeer like you. Advocate the expulsion of these subsidised rigged operators like Arriva, Abelio, RAPT etc and their replacement by truly free market private companies, or accept the absurdity of your "argument".
Excuse me? I don't want to forbid local governments from setting up firms to compete if they choose to do so. Many have done, where did I say that MerseyRail should be forbidden? Or TfL?
And if those acorns grow into big oak trees that end up running operations across the globe then I never said that should be forbidden.
But its already not forbidden. So why isn't it already happening, if its so easy? Why isn't TfL or MerseyRail or any other existing firm being the next Arriva? Maybe it could be because its not as easy as clicking your heels three times and having Arriva on your hands.
Why not privatise TfL? But what would it achieve?
If it no longer had to answer to dictats from the Mayor of London it would achieve the job of getting it arms length away from the politicians. Since its the plaything of politicians that isn't going to happen any time soon though.
The buses in Warrington, Leigh and surrounding towns are provided not by Arriva or any other foreign state owned firm but by a firm called "Warrington's Own Buses" formerly known as Warrington Borough Transport, whose parent is unsurprisingly Warrington Borough Council.
There's nothing preventing councils from having firms if they want to. Many have tried to set up transport or energy or other firms, if they succeed in the marketplace then I'm OK with that. Its competition that matters the most.
Why? Because its *illegal* for councils to set up new bus companies.
There are also independent living Housing Association flats for the over 55's (sometimes 50), which are purpose built. With communal wardens, social facilities, laundry, gardens and the like. Which takes away many of the day-to-day problems of maintenance and provide company and support. We need more of them (and private ones too obviously). The stigma is of being moved into a "care home". But these places aren't. You just rent or own a manageable sized property in a building with peers. If we could somehow get folk to want to live in these (and it wouldn't suit everyone), it would free up a lot of housing capacity.
I'll have a teenager when I'm 55 lol
I have one at 55 right now! The 55 is the lower entry limit obviously. Most residents are considerably older. As I say, not for everyone, but there are advantages to moving before issues of health and bereavement occur.
Good morning
My youngest son and his wife are expecting their third child (our 5th grandchild) on the 1st September and our son will be 60 when the little one becomes a teenager
Indeed my son in law was 61 when their son became 13
I spoke to an old friend yesterday, for the first time in a couple of years. He’s in his later 50s and has just had a baby with his much younger wife
I was deeply curious as to how it is going. Because I very nearly made the same life choice for similar reasons
He hates being a new dad (again), and bitterly regrets the decision. Told me: “I’m just too old. I physically can’t do it. And I’ll probably be dead by the time my new daughter is 20”
It gave me some consolation that I made the right, tough choice. But I feel terribly sorry for him of course. And the family
You’re not meant to be a new dad after 50. Your crocked knees are nature’s way of telling you this
It's fine if you are a medieval king, but otherwise probably a bit of hassle.
Yes. When you read about a really old new dad it’s usually a billionaire like Mick Jagger who can afford 23 nannies (and will make sure they’re cute)
My friend is not poor so he can afford au pairs etc. But 24/7 armies of servants, no. So it is hard
Also, as he said, “you want to be a real hands-on dad, kids need that physical interaction, but I just can’t do it”. And he’s right
I wince even thinking about it. At my advanced years I do a little sigh every time I have to bend over. I can’t imagine the grind of having to look after a baby. My god
I'm sure it is manageable and turbotubbs will be fine, but it is surely much harder. Prime of life is prime for a reason!
We must ask Boris how he does it, given he is supposedly not hands off, is perpetually skint despite earning shedloads, and has a rather time consuming job.
Comments
At time of writing I chair the meeting; I intend to do so for a while yet although as posted earlier I do often feel an uncomfortable, and heavy, hand on my shoulder.
Privatisation helps ensure that the best companies come to the fore, whether those be legacy state owned companies that are actually decent, or the private companies that are decent.
The idea that you can just set up a new nationalised firm and expect it to be decent because EDF is, is the problem. The odds of a new nationalised firm being as good as EDF are miniscule and if you have a good reason why your firm would be there's nothing preventing you from setting it up privately. The fact you're not, probably means EDF have an advantage over you, in which case let competition work and go with EDF unless or until a better alternative arises.
The German model.
If a state-owned French company wishes to run an operation they are welcome to do so, they can either build their own railway and manage it all or they can run their own trains or procure them for use on Infra Ltd infrastructure with no subsidy.
The 55 is the lower entry limit obviously. Most residents are considerably older.
As I say, not for everyone, but there are advantages to moving before issues of health and bereavement occur.
SNCF used to be state owned and run. Whilst it is still (mostly) state owned, it is split into multiple divisions and subsidiaries which are commercial.
The commercial business running the tram network in Melbourne is not remotely the same business as was when it was just state rail.
So there is no "survivorship" - these are new commercial companies plural, not the state monoliths you are foaming on about.
That's just anecdote, but I've definitely noted objections due to the nature of retirement villages (or care homes) even when the principle of development on the
site is conceded.
Stop engaging in survivorship bias.
I hope I'm old before I die. 🤞🙂
I appreciate Keir Starmer’s definitely-not-a-cult fans are upset by me saying he’s crap, so I want to suggest a peace deal!
I’ll stop calling Keir Starmer crap in exchange for Keir Starmer simply stopping being crap.
I really think that this is a reasonable compromise!
https://twitter.com/owenjones84/status/1558018048711344128
The commercial businesses are working successfully in the commercial sector. That is privatisation working as intended.
If you're cherrypicking looking at the few state-owned firms and saying "we should do that" there's nothing preventing you from doing that, privately, is there? But the legacy firms with the institutional awareness and success that you don't have, isn't something you can just create overnight.
Are you saying that every single rail company in Europe that is owned by the state is a result of all the others failing? What evidence is there for this?
To be honest I am not sure why these rolling stock companies need to exist, why can't we have a state-owned version of that? These companies seem to produce very little
And good for you for suggesting you will go get a car, unless you were being facetious, that is how the overwhelming majority of the nation travels. If you choose not to, that's a personal choice, I respect your freedom to choose so if you choose to travel by train unlike the overwhelming majority of the country then I respect your freedom to be different.
I always reckon every government could do more, more quickly on the climate, but China has pretty strong incentives to act. Their agriculture is one of the most vulnerable to expected global warming impacts, much more so than North America, or Europe.
The hope is this is just to get the PMship and once she's got it she'll get a grip.
I'm a natural optimist so I'll be clinging to that hope till it's fully and finally and inevitably extinguished by reality.
Meanwhile, back on planet earth:
SNP 51%
SCon 22%
SLab 16%
SLD 5%
Grn 4%
Ref 1%
She is increasingly frail, however, and a fall risk. A combination of family, social workers, friends, and medical practitioners conspired to get her out of her home.
Sometimes there needs to be bullying and sometimes cajoling. At the bottom of it, the stubbornness is fear of the unknown and an acknowledgement that this is the last stop on the journey of life so some degree of sensitivity is required.
It finally worked for her and she is now as happy as possible in a care home with the only real challenge being what if any activities to participate in, and where to store the white wine she receives on a regular basis from Waitrose.
Why are we privatising Channel 4? What on Earth will this achieve.
Ideology from the Tories is so bloody useless. I want results.
The fact that the Exchequer keeps bailing out failed industries doesn't mean they're not failures.
Anne Heche, 53, is pretty much dead. They are making plans for organ harvesting. RIP.
The Quebec comparison is interesting since my understanding was the movement crashed from its high after a second referendum.
It's just failure all round with the railways tbh.
You keep saying "a few state firms". These are the predominant players in their market, and thanks to being commercially run are minority players in other markets.
StateCo operators are the rule, not the exception. You are simply wrong. The evidence demonstrates you are wrong. So you just change definitions to cling to why you are right after all.
The state can run things very efficiently. As everyone in europe knows. As UK customers of DPD or EDF or Arriva know very well.
The benefits are also clear. In the UK buses are run by the bus companies for profit rather than public service. The company may well be publicly owned (Arriva etc) but local councils cannot say what happens.
Yet in abroad the buses are run for the service they provide *and* generate profits from providing services elsewhere.
You want foreign governments to run your local buses, but won't allow your local government to do so. Which is absurd even for a supposed libertarian free-marketeer like you. Advocate the expulsion of these subsidised rigged operators like Arriva, Abelio, RAPT etc and their replacement by truly free market private companies, or accept the absurdity of your "argument".
Cities are more productive than towns the world over. More workers in a smallish space releases all sorts of economic goodies. But that depends on transport into the city that is swift, reliable and doesn't take up much space.
And commuting by car, even if you can make it swift and reliable (not easy), takes up an awful lot of space. Central London simply wouldn't work if you had to provide car parking for every worker.
So let's say thank you very much and send them back to run their own railways and we can run ours here.
We should also have a state-company that builds these things.
State companies can fail - go pop - or be seen to fail. But there is no public bad / private good argument that can be made with actual evidence. Or the other way round.
If SNCF was the old state monolith then I am confident it would be crap compared to the industrial giant it has become. There is nothing wrong with commerce and the market. Its just that you also need strategic and social infrastructure and that means state control. The market won't provide local bus or rail or post or broadband services at a loss because it is nice. It either gets subsidised or regulated to do so. StateCo is the best of both worlds - he strategic and social provided from profits made doing market things.
My youngest son and his wife are expecting their third child (our 5th grandchild) on the 1st September and our son will be 60 when the little one becomes a teenager
Indeed my son in law was 61 when their son became 13
The other problem we have seen is replacing a public monolith with a private cartel. Add a StateCo into the mix and you remove this problem. Other companies are free to play in the market and innovate and profit. But the market will deliver the strategic and social elements required by the state.
Which is how everywhere else in Europe does it.
Best in order of ranking:
Scotland
South West
Yorkshire and the Humber
N Ireland
Wales
Worst in order of ranking:
East of England
East Midlands
South East
Greater London
West Midlands
We also observed that 56% of Londoners think bottled water is healthier than tap water vs 21% in Scotland and North East.
https://tappwater.co/en/title-wheres-the-best-and-worst-tap-water-in-the-uk/
They are all wrong, we clearly have the best approach.
Retirement homes
BAD - old biddies make the place boring and full of mobility scooters on the paths
GOOD - old people generally are pleasant and not going to have noisy parties
Student digs
BAD - make place full of noisy parties and low level social disorder
GOOD - the young bring life and energy to a place and are interesting.
Wealthy middle aged
BAD- push up house prices so "locals" cannot afford them
GOOD - bring affluence , business and events (can afford to ) to the area
Local objections from resident groups will just focus on the BAD of all groups and never the good .
😞
https://www.oatridge.co.uk/poems/r/roger-mcgough-let-me-die-a-youngmans-death.php
I didn't realise we had indentured servitude in this country still. You mean that you choose to work in London surely, OK you love it, that's great, but that's your choice still.
Hiving off Openreach and making it focussed on infrastructure delivery of FTTP has been a master-stroke. The result now is I think the fastest FTTP rollout in the world. They are building like crazy.
I have no doubt they'll have replaced copper by the 2030s, this seemed impossible even two years ago.
Happens (nearly) every time.
Starmer is a dud.
And if those acorns grow into big oak trees that end up running operations across the globe then I never said that should be forbidden.
But its already not forbidden. So why isn't it already happening, if its so easy? Why isn't TfL or MerseyRail or any other existing firm being the next Arriva? Maybe it could be because its not as easy as clicking your heels three times and having Arriva on your hands.
I was deeply curious as to how it is going. Because I very nearly made the same life choice for similar reasons
He hates being a new dad (again), and bitterly regrets the decision. Told me: “I’m just too old. I physically can’t do it. And I’ll probably be dead by the time my new daughter is 20”
It gave me some consolation that I made the right, tough choice. But I feel terribly sorry for him of course. And the family
You’re not meant to be a new dad after 50. Your crocked knees are nature’s way of telling you this
Small-town working looks like it's less productive than big city working. That seems to be true pretty much everywhere. And ultimately, our national prosperity comes from being more productive.
I can see why people prefer small town living. But it is a bit parasitical on others working in cities and making the money.
The buses in Warrington, Leigh and surrounding towns are provided not by Arriva or any other foreign state owned firm but by a firm called "Warrington's Own Buses" formerly known as Warrington Borough Transport, whose parent is unsurprisingly Warrington Borough Council.
There's nothing preventing councils from having firms if they want to. Many have tried to set up transport or energy or other firms, if they succeed in the marketplace then I'm OK with that. Its competition that matters the most.
However, though the British water companies are not great, the state-owned Irish Water seems to be a lot worse in a country with even more plentiful water resources than Britain, but much larger problems in terms of security of supply, water quality, river pollution, etc. A comparison between Ireland and Britain would be quite easy to use to make a case for water privatisation.
I'm glad that my in-laws have their own well.
Time for the PB railways lessons again:
Railway infrastructure investment occur in five-year spans called Control Periods (CP). Currently we are in CP6, between 2019 and 2024.
There are three main types of infrastructure investment on the railways:
*) Maintenance: maintaining the existing infrastructure - the bread-and-butter work.
*) Renewals: renewing life-expired infrastructure such as tracks, signalling and bridges
*) Enhancements: work to improve the network's capacity and performance.
Looking at the previous CP5 (2014 to 2019), the following large bits of work were done:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Rail_Control_Periods#Control_Period_5_(CP5):_2014–2019
This is the detail of the current CP6 period. £42 billion is being spent over the five years; and this does not include all the enhancements.
https://www.networkrail.co.uk/who-we-are/publications-and-resources/our-delivery-plan-for-2019-2024/
Recent governments have invested massively in our railway infrastructure, and to call it 'deliberate under-investment' is more than wrong. In the 13 years under Blair and Brown's governments, just mine miles of railway were electrified, compared to many hundreds under Thatcher/Major and post-2010.
My friend is not poor so he can afford au pairs etc. But 24/7 armies of servants, no. So it is hard
Also, as he said, “you want to be a real hands-on dad, kids need that physical interaction, but I just can’t do it”. And he’s right
I wince even thinking about it. At my advanced years I do a little sigh every time I have to bend over. I can’t imagine the grind of having to look after a baby. My god
And if its private and profitable it can reinvest those profits in improving the Tube further to attract even more business and even more profits rather than seeing the money diverted to the NHS or whatever else the politicians are trying to win votes on.
Japan's private rail network is so successful its now has more people commuting via rail than via road, unlike the UK, and without subsidies too.
More M270 MLRS arrived in Ukraine. Thanks to @BWallaceMP and all the 🇬🇧 people! Your support is amazing and so important for Ukraine. Our #UAarmy will skillfully use this "replenishment" at the battlefield.
P.S. More “gifts” will arrive soon.
https://twitter.com/oleksiireznikov/status/1557992937006448640
We must ask Boris how he does it, given he is supposedly not hands off, is perpetually skint despite earning shedloads, and has a rather time consuming job.