The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

[Genie]

 

[Xann]

In search of profit the Tories exposed their core vote, the greys, to Delta, which was a killer.

We got a load of useless overpriced shit and thousands dead.

That's the level we're at.

Can really recommend going back to the beginning of this thread and reading through, just as a refresher of how we got here?

51 minutes ago, sidcow said:

I'd love to know what the "improve what we've got" brigade think exactly what can be improved? 

Are you serious? My station is on the Southern network. This is how bad they got.

On 11/11/2020 at 13:33, Xann said:

Clapham Junction is pretty dead, except for one platform, which is really busy and being served up with services of 4 carriages making it impossible to socially distance.

Lives at stake and Southern still scrimping for their shareholders. F***ing scum.

8 carriages was the norm, for refererence.

It's the same as the other privatisation fails. Watch what happens when service > profit?

[sidcow]

5 minutes ago, Xann said:

In search of profit the Tories exposed their core vote, the greys, to Delta, which was a killer.

We got a load of useless overpriced shit and thousands dead.

That's the level we're at.

Can really recommend going back to the beginning of this thread and reading through, just as a refresher of how we got here?

Are you serious? My station is on the Southern network. This is how bad they got.

8 carriages was the norm, for refererence.

It's the same as the other privatisation fails. Watch what happens when service > profit?

Yeah, we should definitely cancel HS2 and invest in betted transport for London.

[Xann]

Just now, sidcow said:

Yeah, we should definitely cancel HS2 and invest in betted transport for London.

Already said a HS network is necessary. I'm totally for it.

If the only builder in town is a cowboy? You don't do the build. The bigger the build the more you don't go there.

Come on, are we really going to keep bumbling into these traps?

They're destroying the state sucking us dry, and their backers are picking up the pieces.

[Dodgyknees]

Mental

 

[bobzy]

Conservative party conference: What would you do as PM?

Young Conservatives tell us whether they'd like to be prime minister and what they'd do if they had a day in the job.

(Link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-66984728)


The chap who says "subsidise Greggs"  

Edited October 3, 2023 by bobzy

[Genie]

30 minutes ago, Xann said:

Already said a HS network is necessary

Do we need a high speed network?

It seems like the bulk of the benefits come from adding extra capacity, improving existing facilities and adding new stations.

I wonder how much of the total cost is related to the trains driving faster. I assume not much as it probably would have gone out of the window a while back if it meant landing everything else.

[chrisp65]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

Yes EXACTLY this.

It's only once the benefits are removed it will dawn on people that 10 minutes quicker to London was the smallest part of it.

So fed up of the "spending the money on improve what we've got" argument.  What we've got cannot be improved anymore, it's at capacity.  And we'll likely spend exactly the same money to upgrade the tracks which are already at capacity anyway whilst adding exactly zero capacity into the system.  No more new local journeys, no more new freight pathways, no more new London and other major city connections to towns that can't currently have them.

I'd love to know what the "improve what we've got" brigade think exactly what can be improved?  It's like Brexit, they don't know what's being offered, they don't know what they're losing, they don't know what they're asking for but they've formed a very strong opinion on what they think should happen.

We’re all trying to guess whether there will be an announcement and if there is, what it will say.

As for it dawning on people that the quick train to London was the least of it, let’s wait and see shall we. Right now, the betting money is that the East Coast line connection for HS2 to Edinburgh and Glasgow, is scrapped. The links to Leeds and Sheffield, are scrapped. It looks like the link to Crewe is scrapped. It looks like the link to Manchester is scrapped. It looks like links with Liverpool and the West Coast line are scrapped. We don’t know for definite how much of that is the case, the tories appear to want it to overshadow their entire conference so good for them.

But if all of the above are scrapped or postponed or put on a 2 year review and are to be re examined for ‘efficiencies’ but we still have a fast train from Birmingham to almost London, then, perhaps London was always the main selling point of HS2 for the Westminster boys? I mean come on, if it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks a bit, it’s probably time to concede it could be a duck.

It needed to start in the north of england and from there it needed to spread north, east, and west and then finally a connection south. That would have been levelling up. What we currently have is years and years and billions and billions being spent connecting Birmingham to North Acton tube station.

I’m not knocking Birmingham or Acton. I’m just wondering what that has to do with levelling up or northern power houses. 

 

[Stevo985]

29 minutes ago, Genie said:

Do we need a high speed network?

It seems like the bulk of the benefits come from adding extra capacity, improving existing facilities and adding new stations.

I wonder how much of the total cost is related to the trains driving faster. I assume not much as it probably would have gone out of the window a while back if it meant landing everything else.

Probably a very small amount

[Genie]

4 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

We’re all trying to guess whether there will be an announcement and if there is, what it will say.

And this is why Rishi saying nothing, because he doesn’t yet know the answers to the follow up questions. 

They’ve made a high level decision to scrap a lot of things and save a chunk of money, just those pesky details that people get upset about.

I hope the people who have totted up the financial benefits of “rescoping” the project are not the same people who were in charge of budgeting HS2 from the start, although it would not surprise me if it was.

I have a feeling in my gut that in years to come we’ll be reading about how scrapping HS2 phase 2 onwards costs more than completing it.

[HKP90]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

The Mirror via MSN

That sounds like the Oxford English Dictionary definition of Xenophobic. 

[bickster]

1 minute ago, HKP90 said:

That sounds like the Oxford English Dictionary definition of Xenophobic. 

Yes, quite

[Chindie]

Infrastructure spending in the UK has been tragic for years.

HS2 is an important thing, it's giving us a new modern line opening up capacity for the parallel lines, which is useful in a world were we need to use more trains for more things and where the infrastructure that is existing has been neglected for decades and run on sustaining rations only.

Unfortunately it's been run with increasing levels of incompetence, with people desperate to get in on the lottery win of the work available, and against a background of nimbys setting the tone of outright derision from the get go.

They should have put the money into giving Birmingham a much needed underground. We'd appreciate it.

[sidcow]

7 minutes ago, Genie said:

I have a feeling in my gut that in years to come we’ll be reading about how scrapping HS2 phase 2 onwards costs more than completing it.

100%.  We could have it finished by now with the full legs to Manchester and Leeds and be talking about HS3 to Scotland for the same price.

It's the same with all major UK infrastructure projects.  Constant delay and changes to scope just adds and adds to cost. Review after review.  Pause, Re-scope.

Same with the MOD and eg new battleships.  Get the quotes then keep messing and adding new tech and bits in the process, each time needing re-design and re-quoting by the suppliers all adding more and more cost.

The Aircraft carriers chopping and changing - cat / no cat / back to cat / then no cat at the same time changing which F-35's we're ordering adding cost for each change of mind.

Eventually ending up spending more money on a less capable carrier with less capable jets for more money,  It's the same every time, they never learn.

[Genie]

7 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Infrastructure spending in the UK has been tragic for years.

HS2 is an important thing, it's giving us a new modern line opening up capacity for the parallel lines, which is useful in a world were we need to use more trains for more things and where the infrastructure that is existing has been neglected for decades and run on sustaining rations only.

Unfortunately it's been run with increasing levels of incompetence, with people desperate to get in on the lottery win of the work available, and against a background of nimbys setting the tone of outright derision from the get go.

They should have put the money into giving Birmingham a much needed underground. We'd appreciate it.

100% this.

We need HS2 as a country

BUT

At some point you have to say enough is enough when the cost and delays are completely out of control. We can’t just keep blindly writing cheques for tens of billions of additional funding every 12 months.

Its the mismanagement which has killed it, not the idea of what it is/was.

[bickster]

16 minutes ago, Chindie said:

They should have put the money into giving Birmingham a much needed underground. We'd appreciate it

For the One City Not The Many

[sidcow]

All this over budget costs.  When was the budget set?  This original price was quoted in 2012.  The actual physical building of much of it will be 3 or 4 years form now, 15 years from the "budget"

Even without incompetence would anyone seriously expect 15 year old figures to still stack up?  Especially as we're currently in a time of higher inflation than we've seen for decades.

[Xela]

21 minutes ago, sidcow said:

100%.  We could have it finished by now with the full legs to Manchester and Leeds and be talking about HS3 to Scotland for the same price.

It's the same with all major UK infrastructure projects.  Constant delay and changes to scope just adds and adds to cost. Review after review.  Pause, Re-scope.

Not forgetting the corruption involved and people making a fortune out of it. We're just not equipped to deliver infrastructure projects in this country anymore. 

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, sidcow said:

All this over budget costs.  When was the budget set?  This original price was quoted in 2012.  The actual physical building of much of it will be 3 or 4 years form now, 15 years from the "budget"

Even without incompetence would anyone seriously expect 15 year old figures to still stack up?  Especially as we're currently in a time of higher inflation than we've seen for decades.

It’s not gone up by ‘inflation’ (which would have been taken in to account to some extent anyway).

You’ll notice they’re currently being very cagey about the cost, I think it’s been a few years since they’ve run a full cost check. I think part of the problem now, is that they have no genuine idea what the cost is. 

It’s following the usual trajectory. Look at electrification of the GWR. Original signed off budget £700 million. Almost as soon as it was signed off and announced, this was revised to £840 million. Mid project, this was corrected to £1.2 Billion. Then £2.8 Billion. BUT! That’s not all the fun. Because the cost quadrupled, they cut the electrification short, they didn’t finish it. BUT! That then means they couldn’t run the electric trains on the line, because the last two stops weren’t ever completed. So they had to create a new hybrid train. 

But it’s not pure incompetence. Everything at the London end, all the extra facilities, the offices, the Hitachi industrial investment, the electrification, everything at the London end was completed. All the saving were made around Bristol and Swansea.

Anybody sensing a theme here?

[meregreen]

Braverman just finished her address to conference. I feel physically sick.

Edited October 3, 2023 by meregreen