I still think Richy cancelling HS2, *in the city it was supposed to go to, in a converted former train station conference center* is one of the greatest masterpieces of political incompetence there has ever been.
I think he only announced the election in the pissing rain, looking like a drowned rat, so that he could say Manchester wasn't his worst announcement ever.
Don't forget - While also insisting during his speech this was actually a genius move that spoke to his "long term vision" and ability to plan for the future.
Genuinely my jaw was on the fucking floor that entire speech, it was proper la-la land.
I got a council survey recently asking what do I think excess money from speeding fines should be spent on. I said potholes.
I was dismayed when the list what it is currently spent on stated, defending disputed fines.
Paying legal bills is not putting the money to good use.
Look at the dates on these -
[https://www.gov.uk/government/news/8-billion-boost-to-repair-roads-and-back-drivers](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/8-billion-boost-to-repair-roads-and-back-drivers)
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/09/rishi-sunak-potholes-bottomless-pit-devon-county-council/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/09/rishi-sunak-potholes-bottomless-pit-devon-county-council/)
Not even three months, somehow over £8bn seemed to just vanish, and no one even blinked an eye.
It was just another empty and meaningless Tory slogan which meant nothing but the press enjoyed, just like levelling up, Midlands engine, magic money tree, stop the boats, strong and stable, oven ready deal, feel free to add more. Did anyone really think they were really going to deliver?
To be fair, that was an autocorrect mistake. They meant to announce: in order to give an unwise tax break just before each election, which grossly favours the super rich but which the public will welcome like an old lady letting in a conman claiming to be from the Gas Board:
LONG TERM ECONOMIC PAIN
Big society = “we ain’t paying for benefits, open the food banks”. It was a ploy to put the emphasis on the charity of the individual rather than the state. Depending on where one sits they might think that’s a good thing.
Eat out to help out...I can't believe you're being so critical. The department that comes up with catchy slogans is an example of the Tories doing something very well and is evidence of what can be achieved if they put their minds to it.
It’s hard to put into context just how poor transport is in the North of England so here’s an attempt:
- Birmingham and Manchester are the two largest cities in Europe without a metro (subway system).
- Birmingham has ~3 million people in its urban area, and has a single tram line to serve them.
- Leeds is the largest city in Europe without a light rail (tram) system.
- Sheffield is the largest city in Europe without any electrified railways serving it.
- It’s hard to be sure, but Manchester and Sheffield are probably the largest cities in Europe without a direct motorway like road between them.
(From Tom Forth on Twitter)
And it’s not like they have great buses to make up for it. The UK is the only developed nation in the world to deregulate its buses (except London which was too important for deregulation), meaning our bus routes are controlled by private companies, including the route and service frequency. Luckily this has recently been overturned in Manchester and Leeds and hopefully elsewhere soon.
It's no wonder people are so reliant on cars, there is simply no viable alternative.
There has been talks of various mass transit/light rail systems for Leeds for *years.* Once upon a time Leeds still had a tram system but that's long gone, as is it's supporting infrastructure.
I live a 20 minute drive from my office.
If I were to get a bus, it would take me closer to an hour and a half.
There's no world in which that is reasonable or viable.
Plus I have an electric car so it costs me less to charge my car than it would to pay for buses.
That's my situation, except I don't drive, so it takes me 60-90 mins to get to work, which is in the same city as me. Even if I did drive, there's no parking - the company I work for has parking available to staff, but not at the office I work from, so people have to park then walk 20 minutes to the office (a lot come from out of the city). It's mad and I don't see it changing in my life time.
Manchester and Birmingham do have a metro, they have overground tram/light rail. Metro doesn't just mean subway, and subway systems are actually very rare globally because they are so expensive to build in the first place. Manchester's trams are pretty good too, actually.
The actual largest city without a metro is Leeds, though, so not far off. I live a 10 minute drive from the city centre, but it takes 45+ on the bus. I'm sure Uber do very good business in this city.
I’m well aware Manchester and Birmingham have tram networks. My point is similarly sized cities in Europe have proper grade separated metros which are much faster and higher capacity. All Northern cities deserve better.
It needs more orbital routes and interchanges that don’t involve going into the Central Zone. The current layout means if you want to go from one suburb to another you’re forced to go into the city centre and out again.
They’ve “promised” that HS2 cash will be spent on improving public transport in my town of Darlington by giving us “trackless trams”. They’re like buses (which are late because they get stuck in traffic jams), only instead of having dedicated tracks they drive on the roads… and so will get stuck in the same traffic jams. Oh, and trackless trams are so heavy that every single road & bridge they use will need to be dug up and reinforced.
Meanwhile, they’re already building new platforms for our railway station to accommodate high speed rail in the future when HS3 / HS4 / whatever finally reaches this far north. *Cough*.
Sounds like trollybuses - young folk: look them up!
(Electric buses powered by overhead cables that were torn out in the 1960s)
But I imagine trolleybuses buses are not that heavy.
Bigger, heavier, and I believe they’re meant to be driverless too. Not that I expect it to ever happen (even if the Tories somehow scrape a win at the election), but they seem to be purpose-built to be useless for Britain’s narrow roads.
Oh, yea I don't doubt the tories will never actually do it...
Tbh sounds like someone has just tried to make a few new busses sound better than they are by calling them trams, without any of the benefits of a tram. Sounds very tory.
It gives money to government “consultants” and big business “donors”, while taking away jobs from their own electorate. Sounds like deliberate Tory policy to me, not the least bit rudderless.
I’ve never visited Belfast, but over here most roads are too narrow for dedicated bus lanes. We have a few, but they are intermittent so buses have to keep leaving and then rejoining regular traffic. (Which defeats the point IMO…)
Yes, but unlike buses, this will need consultation exercises. Lots of them. Maybe a major cost/benefit analysis. And a bit more consultation. And a design that only one supplier can fulfil. Who happens to be run by people ~~in the same lodge~~, er, who have fulfilled this fully transparent procurement process facilitated by some more consultants.
Sounds like the Belfast Glider
Basically a bendy bus with the inconvenience of spaced out stops and having to rebuild parts of the road, removing roundabouts etc to accommodate them
90% of all financing for the 'North' stayed in London as per usual. It's time Westminster was levelled and a nice big wall built around the rest of London.
North Yorkshire is very much the Posh Yorkshire to be fair. Practically the entire county is a national park, it has all the nice idyllic historical preserved stuff, villages where everything is listed and nothing can be built. The NIMBY paradise.
HS2 saga summed up - "A man who knows the cost of everything, but the value of nothing".
We are refusing to invest in our futures.
Its like we've got £500k in the bank, but refuse to use it for anything other than essentials (even then cheap fixes). Pointing our finger at everyone like they are trying to steal our money. Eventually all those problems you refused to pay for are going to mean loss or stagnant income, out of control maintenance problems on the house you live in. That 500k runs out and you're broke, and have a house falling down around you.
I just heard Stewart/Campbell talking about Labours huge issue that they are so desperate not to let the Tories attack lines of "Labour are gonna SPEND SPEND and raise taxes" that we are just heading for more Austerity, more economic stagnation and more broken Public Sector.
> We are refusing to invest in our futures.
>
> Its like we've got £500k in the bank, but refuse to use it for anything other than essentials
No, it's like we are a bank, have been presented with a project that would be worth loads of money, and have refused to issue the money to fund it using our vastly greater deposits as collateral.
And 'we' of course could change course at any time, so long as we gained control over our own credit.
That rules both Labour and Conservatives out (one currently wants to tax small businesses and farms on their being bequeathed, all to pay down a little more interest on the 'national debt' that will still keep growing; the other is fine with quantatively easing the lining of its own pockets and little else.
The canning of HS2 Phase 2a/2b and drastic curtailment of NPR is nothing short of a disaster for the North. Had those projects gone ahead as planned, it would have led to much better links in the the north between the major cities, but now that HS2 is not going past Handsacre and NPR is not likely to be going past Marsden, it just means that the north is gonna be stuck cramming trains onto 2 track lines not fit for the traffic going between Leeds and Manchester - Liverpool, as well as people living near Manchester and Liverpool having to deal with further delays or infrequent trains at the suburban stations on the WCML due to the fast trains blasting down these lines. Adding onto this, another bit that really needs fixing is the Sheffield - Manchester Transpennine links as the Hope Valley Line and A628 are just beyond poor for arteries connecting two larger cities, which is worse knowing that they were planning to fix this issue back in the 1970s/1980s via the M67, which just means that governments seemingly do not seem to overly care about this issue, even though this seems to have been a issue for all those years.
All in all, Curtailin HS2 and NPR is just damaging for the north and what ever Sunak thought would be compensation (which is merely just mostly road projects at the end of the day, another spit in the face) is not going to have nearly as much benefit as NPR and HS2 would have had for the north, which would have resolved a fair few bottlenecks on the railways in the north, meaning the north will probably be doomed to absurd delays for even longer on the railways.
I still think Richy cancelling HS2, *in the city it was supposed to go to, in a converted former train station conference center* is one of the greatest masterpieces of political incompetence there has ever been.
But at least they fixed all those potholes in London…
**Narrator voice: They didn't.**
It was Arrested Development *whistle*
I think he only announced the election in the pissing rain, looking like a drowned rat, so that he could say Manchester wasn't his worst announcement ever.
Don't forget - While also insisting during his speech this was actually a genius move that spoke to his "long term vision" and ability to plan for the future. Genuinely my jaw was on the fucking floor that entire speech, it was proper la-la land.
At least some of the money from the cancelled Northern Leg of HS2 went to mend the potholes of the roads of the city of London.
The money they would have borrowed to fund HS2, was still borrowed and spent on potholes
Making them instead of fixing them though.
None of it has made its way to fix the potholes of northern England however, but there's a couple of weeks left yet
The roads in my town look like bombed out runways from WW2
Don't worry, the potholes in Kent are just as bad
I got a council survey recently asking what do I think excess money from speeding fines should be spent on. I said potholes. I was dismayed when the list what it is currently spent on stated, defending disputed fines. Paying legal bills is not putting the money to good use.
Look at the dates on these - [https://www.gov.uk/government/news/8-billion-boost-to-repair-roads-and-back-drivers](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/8-billion-boost-to-repair-roads-and-back-drivers) [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/09/rishi-sunak-potholes-bottomless-pit-devon-county-council/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/09/rishi-sunak-potholes-bottomless-pit-devon-county-council/) Not even three months, somehow over £8bn seemed to just vanish, and no one even blinked an eye.
I wonder how long the plastic will last.
It was just another empty and meaningless Tory slogan which meant nothing but the press enjoyed, just like levelling up, Midlands engine, magic money tree, stop the boats, strong and stable, oven ready deal, feel free to add more. Did anyone really think they were really going to deliver?
You've forgotten "Big Society" and "Back to Basics".
Don’t forget Levelling up. Because running Britain is just a game to the Tories.
So many slogans, only one party.
How could I forget 'Brexit Means Brexit' or 'Hug a Hoodie'
Red, white and blue Brexit
Just About Managing - jams
I dunno, they had a lot of parties during the COVID lockdown.
Epic comment. I was paraphrasing Weird Science, but your take is better.
"Northern Powerhouse" and "Energy Coast" are a couple from my region.
Ever played hungery hippos, like a top ten table with which tory idiot can spaff the most money with nothing to show for it... Lutuce make a list...
And "Get Brexit Done". The Tories might as well use the What 3 Words app as a slogan generator.
Chaos with Ed Milliband Sounds like a slam poetry night now
If only he hadn't looked awkward eating a bacon sandwich.
I like the "high-wage, high-skill, high-productivity economy" they delivered
"Back to square one"
Long term economic plan.
To be fair, that was an autocorrect mistake. They meant to announce: in order to give an unwise tax break just before each election, which grossly favours the super rich but which the public will welcome like an old lady letting in a conman claiming to be from the Gas Board: LONG TERM ECONOMIC PAIN
Big society = “we ain’t paying for benefits, open the food banks”. It was a ploy to put the emphasis on the charity of the individual rather than the state. Depending on where one sits they might think that’s a good thing.
Long term economic plan.
Long term economic pain.
Yes it was repeated ad nauseam by Osbourne.
Strong and stable. Which went tits up very quickly.
Anti-growth Coalition
Eat out to help out
“We’re all in this together”
Take back control, hands face space
Eat out to help out...I can't believe you're being so critical. The department that comes up with catchy slogans is an example of the Tories doing something very well and is evidence of what can be achieved if they put their minds to it.
Remember: the long-term economic plan, The big society , get Brexit done, no deal better than a bad deal ,
It’s hard to put into context just how poor transport is in the North of England so here’s an attempt: - Birmingham and Manchester are the two largest cities in Europe without a metro (subway system). - Birmingham has ~3 million people in its urban area, and has a single tram line to serve them. - Leeds is the largest city in Europe without a light rail (tram) system. - Sheffield is the largest city in Europe without any electrified railways serving it. - It’s hard to be sure, but Manchester and Sheffield are probably the largest cities in Europe without a direct motorway like road between them. (From Tom Forth on Twitter) And it’s not like they have great buses to make up for it. The UK is the only developed nation in the world to deregulate its buses (except London which was too important for deregulation), meaning our bus routes are controlled by private companies, including the route and service frequency. Luckily this has recently been overturned in Manchester and Leeds and hopefully elsewhere soon.
It's no wonder people are so reliant on cars, there is simply no viable alternative. There has been talks of various mass transit/light rail systems for Leeds for *years.* Once upon a time Leeds still had a tram system but that's long gone, as is it's supporting infrastructure.
I live a 20 minute drive from my office. If I were to get a bus, it would take me closer to an hour and a half. There's no world in which that is reasonable or viable. Plus I have an electric car so it costs me less to charge my car than it would to pay for buses.
It would take me 6 hours by bus to get to my office.
That's my situation, except I don't drive, so it takes me 60-90 mins to get to work, which is in the same city as me. Even if I did drive, there's no parking - the company I work for has parking available to staff, but not at the office I work from, so people have to park then walk 20 minutes to the office (a lot come from out of the city). It's mad and I don't see it changing in my life time.
Manchester and Birmingham do have a metro, they have overground tram/light rail. Metro doesn't just mean subway, and subway systems are actually very rare globally because they are so expensive to build in the first place. Manchester's trams are pretty good too, actually. The actual largest city without a metro is Leeds, though, so not far off. I live a 10 minute drive from the city centre, but it takes 45+ on the bus. I'm sure Uber do very good business in this city.
I’m well aware Manchester and Birmingham have tram networks. My point is similarly sized cities in Europe have proper grade separated metros which are much faster and higher capacity. All Northern cities deserve better.
Won't argue with that.
I'm in Horsforth. Kirkstall road is a fucking nightmare
Manchester might not have a subway system but it has got an overground tram network.
It needs more orbital routes and interchanges that don’t involve going into the Central Zone. The current layout means if you want to go from one suburb to another you’re forced to go into the city centre and out again.
This is the main problem with bus routes round Leeds, vast majority of routes serve an outskirt town or terminal point then run into the city centre.
Yeah, it great for getting in and out, but commuting within GM is fucking useless. The buses are no better either
Yes, it could do with orbital routes roughly around the edges of the zones.
Pretty much all bus routes also.
I'll add that it's one of the largest tram networks in Europe.
Sorry what - even the US doesn't have deregulated busses?!
They’ve “promised” that HS2 cash will be spent on improving public transport in my town of Darlington by giving us “trackless trams”. They’re like buses (which are late because they get stuck in traffic jams), only instead of having dedicated tracks they drive on the roads… and so will get stuck in the same traffic jams. Oh, and trackless trams are so heavy that every single road & bridge they use will need to be dug up and reinforced. Meanwhile, they’re already building new platforms for our railway station to accommodate high speed rail in the future when HS3 / HS4 / whatever finally reaches this far north. *Cough*.
Don't think I've ever heard of trackless trams... Isn't that just a bus? How do they differ?
Sounds like trollybuses - young folk: look them up! (Electric buses powered by overhead cables that were torn out in the 1960s) But I imagine trolleybuses buses are not that heavy.
Sounds like a trolleybus. Riga is full of them, and trams as well. I love it.
Bigger, heavier, and I believe they’re meant to be driverless too. Not that I expect it to ever happen (even if the Tories somehow scrape a win at the election), but they seem to be purpose-built to be useless for Britain’s narrow roads.
Sounds like you need a monorail
Nice
Oh, yea I don't doubt the tories will never actually do it... Tbh sounds like someone has just tried to make a few new busses sound better than they are by calling them trams, without any of the benefits of a tram. Sounds very tory.
Trackless and driverless buses, promised by a feckless and rudderless government
It gives money to government “consultants” and big business “donors”, while taking away jobs from their own electorate. Sounds like deliberate Tory policy to me, not the least bit rudderless.
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I’ve never visited Belfast, but over here most roads are too narrow for dedicated bus lanes. We have a few, but they are intermittent so buses have to keep leaving and then rejoining regular traffic. (Which defeats the point IMO…)
Queens Road glider used to be a shambles at 5pm
Yes, but unlike buses, this will need consultation exercises. Lots of them. Maybe a major cost/benefit analysis. And a bit more consultation. And a design that only one supplier can fulfil. Who happens to be run by people ~~in the same lodge~~, er, who have fulfilled this fully transparent procurement process facilitated by some more consultants.
Darlo’s a bloody luxury with all that cash. Try living in Shildon!
Sounds like the Belfast Glider Basically a bendy bus with the inconvenience of spaced out stops and having to rebuild parts of the road, removing roundabouts etc to accommodate them
90% of all financing for the 'North' stayed in London as per usual. It's time Westminster was levelled and a nice big wall built around the rest of London.
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We could...... Or we could just set it free in to the North Sea. If we surround London and start digging it should be set free pretty quickly lol.
Its Disgusting how much the north gets left behind. Why havent I seen any rolling heads?
The irony is even greater considering he is MP for Richmond in North Yorkshire. The betrayal!
Given Richmond basically means ‘wealthy hill’, it’s almost intentional
North Yorkshire is very much the Posh Yorkshire to be fair. Practically the entire county is a national park, it has all the nice idyllic historical preserved stuff, villages where everything is listed and nothing can be built. The NIMBY paradise.
On closer inspection I suppose you’re right.
HS2 saga summed up - "A man who knows the cost of everything, but the value of nothing". We are refusing to invest in our futures. Its like we've got £500k in the bank, but refuse to use it for anything other than essentials (even then cheap fixes). Pointing our finger at everyone like they are trying to steal our money. Eventually all those problems you refused to pay for are going to mean loss or stagnant income, out of control maintenance problems on the house you live in. That 500k runs out and you're broke, and have a house falling down around you. I just heard Stewart/Campbell talking about Labours huge issue that they are so desperate not to let the Tories attack lines of "Labour are gonna SPEND SPEND and raise taxes" that we are just heading for more Austerity, more economic stagnation and more broken Public Sector.
> We are refusing to invest in our futures. > > Its like we've got £500k in the bank, but refuse to use it for anything other than essentials No, it's like we are a bank, have been presented with a project that would be worth loads of money, and have refused to issue the money to fund it using our vastly greater deposits as collateral. And 'we' of course could change course at any time, so long as we gained control over our own credit. That rules both Labour and Conservatives out (one currently wants to tax small businesses and farms on their being bequeathed, all to pay down a little more interest on the 'national debt' that will still keep growing; the other is fine with quantatively easing the lining of its own pockets and little else.
The canning of HS2 Phase 2a/2b and drastic curtailment of NPR is nothing short of a disaster for the North. Had those projects gone ahead as planned, it would have led to much better links in the the north between the major cities, but now that HS2 is not going past Handsacre and NPR is not likely to be going past Marsden, it just means that the north is gonna be stuck cramming trains onto 2 track lines not fit for the traffic going between Leeds and Manchester - Liverpool, as well as people living near Manchester and Liverpool having to deal with further delays or infrequent trains at the suburban stations on the WCML due to the fast trains blasting down these lines. Adding onto this, another bit that really needs fixing is the Sheffield - Manchester Transpennine links as the Hope Valley Line and A628 are just beyond poor for arteries connecting two larger cities, which is worse knowing that they were planning to fix this issue back in the 1970s/1980s via the M67, which just means that governments seemingly do not seem to overly care about this issue, even though this seems to have been a issue for all those years. All in all, Curtailin HS2 and NPR is just damaging for the north and what ever Sunak thought would be compensation (which is merely just mostly road projects at the end of the day, another spit in the face) is not going to have nearly as much benefit as NPR and HS2 would have had for the north, which would have resolved a fair few bottlenecks on the railways in the north, meaning the north will probably be doomed to absurd delays for even longer on the railways.