LondonLax Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 26 minutes ago, ml1dch said: c/o Popbitch weekly email: Not really a surprise. He’s very good at that sort of publicity generating, similar to Trump. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 Astonishing. The staggering ignorance, the foolish narcissism, the empty-headed nonsense of such a monumentally stupid claim. This person will hold a senior office of state, because she has suppressed any principles she once had, and has kissed the ring. (Ewww). This is how low we have sunk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 3 minutes ago, peterms said: Astonishing. The staggering ignorance, the foolish narcissism, the empty-headed nonsense of such a monumentally stupid claim. This person will hold a senior office of state, because she has suppressed any principles she once had, and has kissed the ring. (Ewww). This is how low we have sunk. Fair's fair - it was just known as that rural suburb of Guildford until around 2008. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 1 minute ago, ml1dch said: Fair's fair - it was just known as that rural suburb of Guildford until around 2008. Mary Beard replied to say she thinks it may have been the Romans who put it on the map. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted July 18, 2019 Moderator Share Posted July 18, 2019 28 minutes ago, peterms said: Astonishing. The staggering ignorance, the foolish narcissism, the empty-headed nonsense of such a monumentally stupid claim. This person will hold a senior office of state, because she has suppressed any principles she once had, and has kissed the ring. (Ewww). This is how low we have sunk. It’s not true though is it. Firstly she never had any principals past, me me me and secondly I really hope she holds as high an office as possible because she's embarrassingly as thick as pigshit and well hasten the speed of the death of the Tory Party along with Boris 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 Quote Exit Failing Grayling: the £3bn master of disaster bows out The future ex-transport secretary will not thank his deputy for saying his ‘track record speaks for itself’... ... What makes Failing Grayling even more of a collector’s item is that he hasn’t just wasted £3bn on one bad call. It wasn’t just a rush of blood to bet the house on a no-deal Brexit. Rather he has worked assiduously to squander the money at regular intervals over a prolonged period: £2bn on the Virgin Trains East Coast franchise in 2018, £437m on a botched privatisation of the probation service in 2014. Nor does he neglect to sweat the small stuff, pissing away £72,000 on a failed legal challenge to his plans to stop prisoners reading books. Say what you like, Chris is a details man. A man who understands his job perfectly. To make all those around him look slightly less half-witted. Grauniad Good riddance. Horrendously incompetent prick. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 It's truly difficult to pick a favourite low light from his career. Banning books? The imaginary ferries? For me it's probably failing to organise a traffic jam on a road that usually has a traffic jam. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 Personally, it's the shitty service on the trains we pay through the nose for. Half an hour late to work was a result with Southern. Then Southwestern tried to outshit them. Millions of man hours lost, millions of pounds lost. HS2 needs stopped or it might eclipse all his other disasters? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted July 19, 2019 Moderator Share Posted July 19, 2019 13 minutes ago, Xann said: Personally, it's the shitty service on the trains we pay through the nose for. tbf fair thats a lot to do with infrastructure and goes all the way back to John Major, it had failed a long time before Grayling was in post and to correct it will take decades and huge amounts of money (and massive inconvenience) 15 minutes ago, Xann said: HS2 needs stopped or it might eclipse all his other disasters? Not really sure why HS2 needs to be stopped if I'm honest. If we build new railways they should be capable of the fastest speeds possible. Building public transport infrastructure is good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted July 19, 2019 Moderator Share Posted July 19, 2019 1 minute ago, snowychap said: It's beyond anything. I'll wager they'll regret it in under that time too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 2 minutes ago, bickster said: tbf fair thats a lot to do with infrastructure and goes all the way back to John Major, it had failed a long time before Grayling was in post and to correct it will take decades and huge amounts of money (and massive inconvenience) Not really sure why HS2 needs to be stopped if I'm honest. If we build new railways they should be capable of the fastest speeds possible. Building public transport infrastructure is good Oh man, where to begin? Who do you think priced the venture? 'Spiraling costs' doesn't quite cover it. The prices for tickets that were banded about were eyewatering, and once again it's private interests that will pick up the dosh and the public purse covering the (potentially huge) shortfall. The Greens, all for public transport infrastructure, are opposed and a pressing for the money to spent in the regions instead. We're also a lot further down the road of empowering private interests against public institutions than we were under Major or Blair. Enter train company sues government into Google. Plenty of it. Read and weep. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted July 19, 2019 Moderator Share Posted July 19, 2019 1 minute ago, Xann said: Oh man, where to begin? Who do you think priced the venture? 'Spiraling costs' doesn't quite cover it. The prices for tickets that were banded about were eyewatering, and once again it's private interests that will pick up the dosh and the public purse covering the (potentially huge) shortfall. The Greens, all for public transport infrastructure, are opposed and a pressing for the money to spent in the regions instead. We're also a lot further down the road of empowering private interests against public institutions than we were under Major or Blair. Enter train company sues government into Google. Plenty of it. Read and weep. Yeah but thats not particularly relevant to what I said. I'm in favour of building railways. HS2 is the first step in a plan to build more railways and upgrade the ones we have, spending more in the regions is pretty mush pissing into the wind, the current infrastructure is at capacity and spending money on existing infrastructure will not bring about much improvement I'm not really interested in costs as I'd nationalise the railways anyway The Green Party is often wrong (even though they are my current party of choice) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 It's not part of a coordinated transport policy, it's a vanity project and a money pit. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted July 19, 2019 Moderator Share Posted July 19, 2019 1 minute ago, Xann said: It's not part of a coordinated transport policy, it's a vanity project and a money pit. I think you've been misinformed. The legislation for HS2 phase 2b (Crewe to Manchester) has been delayed to incorporate changes designed to assist with links to the NPR project (previously HS3) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 (edited) We'll see who's been misinformed when we know how much it's cost? Edited July 19, 2019 by Xann Question mark? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted July 19, 2019 Moderator Share Posted July 19, 2019 50 minutes ago, Xann said: We'll see who's been misinformed when we know how much it's cost? Cost really isn't something that bothers me, it's a government funded capital building project Cost in these things is very much a Tory argument for not doing something Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 Just now, bickster said: Cost really isn't something that bothers me, it's a government funded capital building project Cost in these things is very much a Tory argument for not doing something Part 1 might swallow the budgets for parts 2, 3 and 4. Then it's an expensive and incomplete botch and the money would have been better thrown at electrification and signalling. My journey to Birmingham gets 10 minutes faster for an outlay of billions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted July 19, 2019 Author Moderator Share Posted July 19, 2019 10 minutes ago, Xann said: My journey to Birmingham gets 10 minutes faster for an outlay of billions One thing that's been kind of missed in all this is that currently the "fast" trains, running every half an hour, say, down the West Coast Main Line are sitting in-between local rattlers which stop at every station. By moving the fast trains to the HS2 line, it will reduce delays to them significantly and also increase capacity on the existing lines for more frequent rattlers. That whole argument hasn't been made at all. I think broadly I'm not in favour of HS2, but there are some potential upsides if it does go ahead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 Have our expectations dropped so low? These resources will be better used by others, whose principle concern isn't stuffing public money into private pockets. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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