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

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, Xann said:

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.

I'm against the funding model for it, the operating model, the destruction of ancient woodland and habitat - all kinds of things massively outweigh the potential upsides.

I think that any stance that says "don't build it, spend the money on electrification of existing lines" will not solve the issue of lack of capacity on the rail network. We need much more capacity for freight and passangers on the railways. It needs to be more affordable and it needs not to be run for excessive profit by the likes of Beardy and Stagecoach.

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, blandy said:

and it needs not to be run for excessive profit by the likes of Beardy and Stagecoach.

And SNCF and DB and....

[bickster]

14 minutes ago, Xann said:

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.

I'd much prefer they were stuffed into publically funded entities to built new railways rather than private, no arguments from me there.

[Xann]

6 minutes ago, blandy said:

I think that any stance that says "don't build it, spend the money on electrification of existing lines" will not solve the issue of lack of capacity on the rail network. We need much more capacity for freight and passengers on the railways. It needs to be more affordable and it needs not to be run for excessive profit by the likes of Beardy and Stagecoach.

Quite.

So let a more progressive (and hopefully competent) administration , free as possible from chums and lobbyists, handle the big projects - Or watch billions disappear.

This whole situation has too many parallels with the US. Where the unscrupulous were trying to buy the land in front of the planned lines cheap, to extort the railway companies later.

[chrisp65]

HS2 is a vehicle to spend billions to get people to London 15 minutes faster.

Absolutely criminal waste of resource.

Meanwhile, the train you commute on costs more than if you drive to work, is often late and usually two carriages too short.

But yeah, London 15 minutes quicker.

[Davkaus]

40 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

HS2 is a vehicle to spend billions to get people to London 15 minutes faster.

Absolutely criminal waste of resource.

Meanwhile, the train you commute on costs more than if you drive to work, is often late and usually two carriages too short.

But yeah, London 15 minutes quicker.

As much about improving capacity as it is speed, isn't it? 

[chrisp65]

9 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

As much about improving capacity as it is speed, isn't it? 

Have you noticed a shortage of capacity between Birmingham and London? Genuine question, I've used it maybe a few dozen times in 20 years, but it's never been full. I may have been lucky (genuinely, not sarcastically).

I just checked out of curiosity, 8:30am next Monday, Birmingham to London takes 1hr 20 mins and costs £57.00

From Bristol, a little cheaper at £50 for the same distance, takes slightly longer.

Newport? That takes 2 hours and costs £117.00. That Newport train has to travel 20 miles further, that'll account for the extra 40 minutes and doubling of the price. You'll almost always be standing on that one. Should it turn up.

A peak time return from Cardiff will see you shell out £250.00 It costs me £31.50 for fuel AND parking to drive the same journey. That's just ridiculous. 

Clearly what was needed most, was billions spent to shave 15 minutes off the Birmingham to London run.

It's a vanity project, light years from being the best use of money. 

[bickster]

Paris to Marseille - 3hr 20 (its nearly 500 miles)

Edinburgh to London - 5hr (its 400 miles)

 

Measuring HS2 in terms of Birmingham to London is silly imo, thats just phase 1, phase 2a gets to Crewe, 2b joins in Manchester and Leeds. The NRP then joins the East Cost to the West

Our railways are an antiquated mess and yiou can keep chucking money at them for decades and decades and they won't get much better

 

Capacity needs greatly increasing we need to get a whole heap of heavy good vehicles off our roads, go anywhere else in Europe and you don't see anywhere near as much HGV traffic on the roads

[peterms]

And it would help speed up the distribution of kippers.

 

[chrisp65]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

Paris to Marseille - 3hr 20 (its nearly 500 miles)

Edinburgh to London - 5hr (its 400 miles)

 

Measuring HS2 in terms of Birmingham to London is silly imo, thats just phase 1, phase 2a gets to Crewe, 2b joins in Manchester and Leeds. The NRP then joins the East Cost to the West

Our railways are an antiquated mess and yiou can keep chucking money at them for decades and decades and they won't get much better

 

Capacity needs greatly increasing we need to get a whole heap of heavy good vehicles off our roads, go anywhere else in Europe and you don't see anywhere near as much HGV traffic on the roads

it's a great plan

we just all need to live walking distance from Birmingham New Street and work in London for it to be the right plan

'cos right now, the trains to get us to the multi billion pound 15 minute quicker hubs, they don't work

 

[peterms]

This is good.  O'Toole writes about a right tool.

Quote

...Here, though, two differences between Trump and Johnson are important. First, Trump has been able to mobilize a visceral American nationalism. Johnson cannot articulate the powerful but inchoate English nationalism that has driven Brexit. In part this is because he is not really a nationalist—born in New York and raised for some of his childhood in Brussels, his fantasy world is much more a reconstituted “global Britain” than the Little England imagined by many of his followers. (This divide is one of the insoluble contradictions of Brexit: its leaders, Johnson included, are globalists, while its followers are English nationalists.) In part, too, it is because Johnson cannot disentangle himself from the United Kingdom. He insists that the “union [of Britain and Northern Ireland] comes first,” even though it is abundantly clear that most of those who voted for Brexit and most Tory party members are quite happy to see Scotland and Northern Ireland depart. There is little sense that Johnson has any idea of how he might channel this English nationalism into a reinvented British patriotism or unleash it without destroying the UK.

Secondly, Trump sustains his base through the relentless repetition of the same slogans. He is brutally consistent. Johnson, especially on the all-consuming question of Brexit, is still “veering all over the place like a shopping trolley.” He was—as a disastrously incompetent foreign secretary—part of the government that negotiated the withdrawal agreement with the EU, including the controversial “backstop” provisions that would prevent the creation of a hard border between the Irish republic and Northern Ireland. He resigned in 2018 and denounced the withdrawal agreement claiming that it would make the EU “our colonial masters.” In March this year he voted in the House of Commons for the withdrawal agreement, backstop, colonial masters, and all. And then he ran for the Tory leadership on a promise to tear up the backstop even if it means a catastrophic no-deal Brexit.

So while Trump’s anarchism shades into authoritarianism, Johnson’s shades into a kind of insouciant nihilism. The joker’s evasiveness that has taken him to the brink of power will be no use to him if he crosses that threshold and has to make fateful decisions. Brexit is finally moving beyond a joke. But what lies ahead for Johnson in those uncharted waters? His best joke was not meant to be one. In November 2016 he claimed that “Brexit means Brexit and we are going to make a titanic success of it.” In this weirdly akratic moment of British history, most of those who support Johnson actually know very well that Brexit is the Titanic and that his evasive actions will be of no avail. But if the ship is going down anyway, why not have some fun with Boris on the upper deck? There is a fatalistic end-of-days pleasure in the idea of Boris doing his Churchill impressions while the iceberg looms ever closer. When things are too serious to be contemplated in sobriety, send in the clown.

 

[snowychap]

Or, on a more serious note, Yikes!

[snowychap]

Mail on Sunday link - Achtung! Achtung!

Quote

After taking my A-levels at Bishop Luffa School in Chichester, I won a place at the London School of Economics but opted instead to make the most of my digital skills.

I worked first as a video journalist for a political website called Westmonster before stints as a digital strategist at the Taxpayers' Alliance and Leave Means Leave campaign. Since April, I have worked for the Brexit Party, helping run its social media feeds.

I appreciate that my CV – and my pro-Brexit views – will inevitably fuel the conspiracy theories but I want to be absolutely clear: the leak of Sir Kim's cables had absolutely nothing to do with the Brexit Party. 

Yep, no conspiracy to see here.

The young chap who claims to have got the story has just worked for Westmonster (Arron Banks), the Taxpayers' Alliance (Matthew Elliott of Vote Leave), Leave Means Leave (Richard Tice of The Brexit Party and Oakeshott's now not so secret partner) and now Farage's company - The Brexit Party.

 

[blandy]

9 hours ago, snowychap said:

Or, on a more serious note, Yikes!

Apart from Patel as home sec, I believe that

Rees-Mogg is lined up for Child-catcher General

Fag to the PM is going to “the Gover”

Dominic Raab is being appointed School Bully

Foreign Secretary will be Mark Francois (because “you’ve got a funny foreign name and it’ll be a wheeze, old thing” according to bj).

Theresa May will take up a new role as “Cabinet Mummy”

Ian Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling are said to be neck and neck in the battle for the position of Regimental Goat.

and in a surprise cross-party move, said to please all sides, Jeremy Corbyn is taking up the position of School pet.

 

[StefanAVFC]

What a load of bunkum. Diplomats aren't impartial, they are biased and loyal towards their home government.

Also, this 19 year kid is just another Grimes. Take the fall. Sickening.

[bickster]

6 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

What a load of bunkum. Diplomats aren't impartial, they are biased and loyal towards their home government.

Also, this 19 year kid is just another Grimes. Take the fall. Sickening.

That was absolutely my take on it too. Impartial diplomat is a non-sequitur

[snowychap]

2 hours ago, blandy said:

Rees-Mogg is lined up for Child-catcher General

Education Secretary?

2 hours ago, blandy said:

Dominic Raab is being appointed School Bully

Chief Whip?

 

[bickster]

My only cabinet prediction is that it'll be the most narcissistic thickest bunch of f**ks ever to be sat round the cabinet table and none of the predictions I've read so far have made me sway from that

[chrisp65]

I'm just curious for the start of the next chapter when they have to quickly look around for the reason why they can't do what they've promised will be so easy.

Will it be the slippery tricky eurocrats trapping us with their clever rules? Will it be the price of oil moved and scuppered our awesome trade deals that were lined up and ready to role? An exceptionally hot September meant  we needed to import more icecream than ferries could cope with?

Looking forward to Francois and Mogg and all those explaining what critical thing changed. Mogg obviously will have to skype in his excuses from somewhere less reliant on sterling and medicines in date.

I don't expect any sort of excuse from Johnson, he'll just stand in a pot of paint or custard pie someone or shit himself. Anything to perpetually change the subject.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

look around for the reason why they can't do what they've promised will be so easy.

Oh, that's an easy one, me sir, me. I can answer sir.

Everything and everyone that isn't them or anything they said or did, Sir - Remainers, the EU, parliament, judges, the media, business, voters, Labour, the Lib Dems - that sort of thing sir. All but the true believers and fantasists.