Your views on how the Tories have handled Coronavirus.

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I think trying to keep businesses afloat and therefore sustaining jobs would be cheaper, dependent on how long the lock down lasts. The economies are all rooted now anyhow.

They were nationalised in 1947 or there abouts and were losing so much money handed back to commercial enterprise during Majors reign. They just didn't get it right and the successive governments have still been paying in more money ever since.

What I find interesting about our trains is (from what I've read in in the papers anyway)we have the most expensive fares in Europe and they're still not very good. The rail franchise system we have in the UK seems to be a licence to print money. How and why do other countries run efficient rail systems and we dont seem to be able to.( @Northern_Brewer knows a lot about trains. Perhaps he would like to share his views )

A personal anecdote; I very rarely catch the train to work as I cycle but 9 times out of 10 of the times I do the trains will be delayed or cancelled. Which goes to show how **** they are even when we have private companies running them
 
I think a lot of peope have seen the potential and benefits of working from home. After the pandemic I think how many people work will change forever

The council my missus works for encourage home working and there is a session as part of induction on how to do it. Saving on overheads and as said elsewhere trying to cut cars going into the city.
 
The council my missus works for encourage home working and there is a session as part of induction on how to do it. Saving on overheads and as said elsewhere trying to cut cars going into the city.

If your job allows you to there's every reason to work from home. BS presenteeism i the only reason I can think of for going into work if you can work from home
 
In Victoria I can travel from Melbourne to Warnambool approx 280 K for 38 GBP return 1/2 price concession. (State govt run)
Metro area is privately run, if a train is late they get a substantial fine, any problems fines are dished out by the state gov ernment, very cheap to get around the metropolitan area.
 
In Victoria I can travel from Melbourne to Warnambool approx 280 K for 38 GBP return 1/2 price concession. (State govt run)
Metro area is privately run, if a train is late they get a substantial fine, any problems fines are dished out by the state gov ernment, very cheap to get around the metropolitan area.

If you then compare London buses with the trains. The buses are run by Transport for London (TFL). Even thought TFL is a private company it's wholly run by the Government. It's £1.50 per bus fare and you can go on as many buses as you like within the space of an hour. If you again compare the bus companies outside of the capital with TFL which are I believe mostly private, you can easily pay £5-£10 per journey and there are lots of areas of the country which dont have bus service as it's been withdrawn because it wasnt profitable (only pensioners with free buspasses using it).
Perhaps a wholly nationalised service wouldnt work but a wholly privatised service just seems to encourage profiteering and high fares. I think something inbetween like TFL is needed
 
If you then compare London buses with the trains. The buses are run by Transport for London (TFL). Even thought TFL is a private company it's wholly run by the Government. It's £1.50 per bus fare and you can go on as many buses as you like within the space of an hour. If you again compare the bus companies outside of the capital with TFL which are I believe mostly private, you can easily pay £5-£10 per journey and there are lots of areas of the country which dont have bus service as it's been withdrawn because it wasnt profitable (only pensioners with free buspasses using it).
Perhaps a wholly nationalised service wouldnt work but a wholly privatised service just seems to encourage profiteering and high fares. I think something inbetween like TFL is needed
Pretty much the same here with the trains metro goes out a fair distance, one could travel all day pretty cheap, its the card logging on and off where the cost is involved. Companies have to tender to get the Metro service so that keeps the fares cheap.
Vic rail which is state owned, I doubt any private consortium would want to run it Victoria is bigger than England with a small population so out lying districts wouldn't carry so many passengers, be very hard to make any money from it, but its a service that has to be provided.
 
If you then compare London buses with the trains. The buses are run by Transport for London (TFL). Even thought TFL is a private company it's wholly run by the Government. It's £1.50 per bus fare and you can go on as many buses as you like within the space of an hour. If you again compare the bus companies outside of the capital with TFL which are I believe mostly private, you can easily pay £5-£10 per journey and there are lots of areas of the country which dont have bus service as it's been withdrawn because it wasnt profitable (only pensioners with free buspasses using it).
Perhaps a wholly nationalised service wouldnt work but a wholly privatised service just seems to encourage profiteering and high fares. I think something inbetween like TFL is needed

In tyne and wear, Nexus run the metro and their service is atrocious. Consistently late or trains out of service. Yet they never issue refunds but put the prices up without fail each year. To travel the equivalent of 3 miles for 10 mins it is about £3.50 one way, if they turn up. As a teacher in the city centre I have at least 2-3 days every week where students are late due to metros. And for a change the students are telling the truth.
 
What I find interesting about our trains is (from what I've read in in the papers anyway)we have the most expensive fares in Europe

We also have some of the most expensive Big Macs in the world - does that mean that McDonald's UK is incompetent and should be nationalised?

Or does it mean that the UK is a relatively expensive place to operate, with relatively high taxes and high wages? Do you think cleaners on the railways should be paid at least £8.72/hour, or should they be paid £2/hour like in Bulgaria?

Another big factor in those kind of headlines is the arbitrary nature of exchange rates, in fact the Economist developed the Big Mac Index above to provide context for currency trading.

But ultimately the price you pay for a ticket is decided by the underlying costs and how much subsidy is provided by taxes. Should a nurse in Halifax face higher taxes to subsidise the daily commute of a hedge fund manager from Surrey?

and they're still not very good.

Define "good" - factors such as punctuality, safety and passenger amenities all come into it. BCG try to summarise all that into their Railway Performance Index (RPI) which puts us at the top of the second group - we do well on safety (relative to eg France or Germany, it's quite nice not dying on the way to work) but less so on punctuality on regional trains (this was based on 2017) and on the fact that relatively less freight goes by rail rather than road, you may or may not think that's important). If you really want expensive but ****, try Latvia.

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The rail franchise system we have in the UK seems to be a licence to print money.
What evidence have you for that? Even the good operators like Virgin only made 1-2% margins, arguably the biggest problem at the moment is that they're a licence to lose money which is why you see all these franchises being handed back to the government. Part of it is the lack of flexibility - operators have to commit to making payments to the government years in advance, based on business plans that include government providing shiny new trains that will be more reliable and more people want to travel on. When the government fails to deliver those trains, the operators can't penalise the government for their failures, but still have to pay as though the new trains had been delivered. That can't be fair.

How and why do other countries run efficient rail systems and we dont seem to be able to.
See above - but the newspapers won't get readers for articles that say "UK railways are pretty decent by European standards, albeit not as good as if we doubled the subsidies to Austrian/Swiss levels".

It's also really hard to compare between countries - mostly shortish commuter routes like the Netherlands/London, lots of long distance expresses like France and our East/West Coast, regional railways, they all have their own challenges and can look good or bad on international comparisons depending which metric you choose. Also the lag times between cash being spent can make countries look good or bad - Belgium has thrown a lot of money at their system in the last 10 years which is only starting to bear fruit, whereas German infrastructure in general is coasting on past glories (and the new Berlin airport is a world-class flustercuck, it hasn't opened yet when it was meant to open in 2011

A personal anecdote; I very rarely catch the train to work as I cycle but 9 times out of 10 of the times I do the trains will be delayed or cancelled. Which goes to show how **** they are even when we have private companies running them

Sure, some companies have had problems, in particular travellers on SWT/Thameslink and Northern have gone through hell in recent years - but the relevant comparison is whether they would be more or less **** if they were nationalised - and usually the problem in London is with the nationalised Network Rail.

But your "9 times out of 10" is not borne out by the current statistics - nationally around 3% are cancelled and 1.6% are more than 15 minutes late, 15.8% are >3 minutes late.
 
Now we are the highest deaths in Europe can people not see that the two highest deaths worldwide are in countries run by buffoons. Both Boris and Trumps incompetence has led to this catastrophe.
 
Now we are the highest deaths in Europe can people not see that the two highest deaths worldwide are in countries run by buffoons. Both Boris and Trumps incompetence has led to this catastrophe.

Can i remind you Boris was not in charge for quiet a while so can we stop blaming Boris its the conservative party not Boris and as i have said many times they were and are taking advice from the WHO.

You keep posting the same thing at every opportunity so go on then how could they have handled this better bearing in mind my point about the WHO above.
 
He's the leader so the buck stops with him. He was in charge at the beginning and he should have had a detailed plan that his government could follow. He's a charlatan, the Wizard of Oz of politics. What will his excuse be for missing PMQT tomorrow.
 
A perfect example of your posting here.

Chippy
It's going around in circles because the government won't admit their errors and therefore information is coming to light from investigation. If they said we f**ked up and this is what we're going to do to fix it then this would stop.

I posted this reply and you never answered


Gove says scientific advisers determined what was held in PPE pandemic stockpile
In the House of Commons, in response to a question from the SNP’s Pete Wishart, the Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove suggested that the government’s scientific advisers bore some responsibility for the shortage of PPE (personal protective equipment).
Asked by Wishart to acknowledge that the government had not stockpiled enough in advance, Gove said:
The stockpile that we had before this pandemic was explicitly designed in accordance with the advice from the scientific advisers the government has - Nervtag (the new and emerging respiratory virus threats advisory group) - and of course it was specifically for a flu pandemic.
The nature of coronavirus is different from a flu pandemic as we all know and we, like every government across the world, have had to respond to this new virus by assuring not just with personal protective equipment, but in every respect, that we are in a position to retool, refit and to upgrade our response.
This exchange can be viewed as an early dry run for the debate that is going to be central to what is now seen as the inevitable public inquiry that will take place into how the government handled the pandemic.



Gove admits he only read key Exercise Cygnus pandemic planning report last week
Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, has admitted that it was only last week that he read a confidential government report on the lessons learnt from a three-day exercise in 2016 modelling what would happen in a pandemic.
Giving evidence to the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee, Gove said that he read the report from Exercise Cygnus last week - although he said he had read recommendations prompted by the report earlier.
His admission is surprising because it has been claimed that Exercise Cygnus gave a prescient insight into the problems the UK is facing now with coronavirus - challenges for which the government has not seemed well prepared. Gove is one of the ministers who attends the daily C-19 meeting in Downing Street, which is referred to by insiders as the coronavirus “war cabinet”, and he chairs a coronavirus implementation committee in charge of “preparedness” across much of the public sector and critical national infrastructure, excluding the NHS.
In an exclusive report on Exercise Cygnus published at the end of March, the Sunday Telegraph said:
The NHS failed a major cross-government test of its ability to handle a severe pandemic but the “terrifying” results were kept secret from the public.
Ministers were informed three years ago that Britain would be quickly overwhelmed by a severe outbreak amid a shortage of critical care beds, morgue capacity and personal protective equipment (PPE), an investigation has discovered ...
Despite the failings exposed by Cygnus, the government never changed its strategic roadmap for a future pandemic, with the last update carried out in 2014.
Summarising the conclusions from the exercise in the Sunday Telegraph, Paul Nuki and Bill Gardner said:
But it was not the pandemic itself that was causing those gathered in Whitehall to grimace but the nation’s woeful preparation. The peak of the epidemic had not yet arrived but local resilience forums, hospitals and mortuaries across the country were already being overwhelmed.
There was not enough personal protective equipment (PPE) for the nation’s doctors and nurses. The NHS was about to “fall over” due to a shortage of ventilators and critical care beds. Morgues were set to overflow, and it had become terrifyingly evident that the government’s emergency messaging was not getting traction with the public.
Gove told the committee he had read the report. But, when pressed by the committee’s chairman William Wragg as to when he had read it, he said last week.
When Wragg expressed surprise about this, Gove said: “Some of the product that flowed from that report I had read beforehand.” Asked what he was referring to, Gove said he was referring to recommendations relating to the need for emergency legislation, to the risk of the NHS being overwhelmed and to the need to de-prioritise non-urgent operations.
Gove said the report had led to the development of an influenza pandemic stockpile. But Exercise Cygnus specifically covered a flu pandemic, and Gove said the fact that coronavirus was a different sort of virus meant that there was a need for “a recalibration of our approach towards PPE [personal protective equipment]”. Echoing what he told the Commons yesterday, Gove said that Nervtag (the new and emerging respiratory virus threats advisory group) was responsible for advising on this.
Asked if he would be willing to publish the Exercise Cygnus report, Gove claimed that he had a “general disposition to share as much as possible” but that he would have to consult with colleagues on this, and that it might not be possible to publish it, to protect the interests of the civil servants who wrote it. He said:
I would have to ask the propriety and ethics team here in the Cabinet Office, because sometimes I’m anxious to share things, but the point is made to me that this is advice that has been offered in confidence, by civil servants, and we have to respect their duty of candour and the safe space in which advice is offered.
 
He's the leader so the buck stops with him. He was in charge at the beginning and he should have had a detailed plan that his government could follow. He's a charlatan, the Wizard of Oz of politics. What will his excuse be for missing PMQT tomorrow.

So are you suggesting Boris should have ignored the WHO and winged it himself taking no advice from anyone you say he had no plan where are you getting this information the tin foil hat times?

To answer your question - IF Boris is not at PMQ's i guess he will be at home with his new born baby are you going to slag him off for that as well?
 
With reference to Boris Johnson we do need to question why the senior politician in the country thought in these times it was wise to shake hands with people infected with Corvid 19. Apart from putting the whole of the cabinet, the Downing St. staff and his family, including an unborn child, at serious risk he also placed a huge extra burden on the hospital and security services as well as take up an intensive care bed. Does he think, like Trump, he is invincible and will not succumb to the illnesses we mere mortals suffer or was it just plain incompetence.
 
With reference to Boris Johnson we do need to question why the senior politician in the country thought in these times it was wise to shake hands with people infected with Corvid 19

No we don't as it's been discussed several times in the thread already as I said earlier this is going round in circles and no one is adding anything new.
 
Exactly. For the worker, no commuting time or costs. Win, win for both employer and employee
My commute costs vs electric, heating & extra loo roll & toiletries are cost neutral for me. However many of my colleagues make use of a works bus for £2 a week. There are a number of them and they start around 15 miles away from the office. The tradeoff here is fixed start and finish times to catch the bus. However Those with longer commutes will be saving money as well.

Even though I live 6-7 miles away I still save 1 hour a day not being in 'the office' 20 mins travel each way and 20 mins to get ready for work. I can have a shave on one or my workstation breaks, the loo is 30 secs away rather than 3 mins... and no queue for kitchen facilities. I can warm the oven up before I finish my shift and be eating a meal before I'd even get back from the office. So that's all good. In work I would share a desk with 3 others. At home no sharing. I can even sneak a quick cycle in during a lunch break as exercise for the day.

The main problem I can see is the isolation. With the current lockdown it can feel like house arrest WFH. It's not been a problem for me with the great weather and being able to cycle but I bet it's not so enjoyable in the winter.

On balance I do think it's a win-win. athumb.. I think there should be some mechanism to turn up at base as required for the wellbeing of those less comfortable with their own company.
 
I only bought it up as you seem to distance Johnson from from any blame because of his illness with this statement.

Can i remind you Boris was not in charge for quiet a while so can we stop blaming Boris its the conservative party not Boris and as i have said many times they were and are taking advice from the WHO.

I suggested his illness affected the efficiency of government due to his incompetence.
 
With reference to Boris Johnson we do need to question why the senior politician in the country thought in these times it was wise to shake hands with people infected with Corvid 19. Apart from putting the whole of the cabinet, the Downing St. staff and his family, including an unborn child, at serious risk he also placed a huge extra burden on the hospital and security services as well as take up an intensive care bed. Does he think, like Trump, he is invincible and will not succumb to the illnesses we mere mortals suffer or was it just plain incompetence.

He made a mistake, a pretty big one, but hey ho - he's human. Although the zip wire photo op was only going to end badly 🤣
 
Now we are the highest deaths in Europe can people not see that the two highest deaths worldwide are in countries run by buffoons. Both Boris and Trumps incompetence has led to this catastrophe.
No good counting bodies until the war is over, long way to go yet. I have said before there are those dying with Covid 19 and those dying because of it. How are countries counting the fallen, not all the same way. The deaths are inevitable, if viewing it as a race then the winner will be the first country out of the traps when this is over. My only real issue with the government is the leniency of the fines for breaking lock down rules, they are the ones causing the most problems.
On balance I do think it's a win-win. athumb.. I think there should be some mechanism to turn up at base as required for the wellbeing of those less comfortable with their own company.
That's very true there are many people who need others around them, can lead to problems with health issues for them.
 
What I find interesting about our trains is (from what I've read in in the papers anyway)we have the most expensive fares in Europe and they're still not very good. The rail franchise system we have in the UK seems to be a licence to print money. How and why do other countries run efficient rail systems and we dont seem to be able to.( @Northern_Brewer knows a lot about trains. Perhaps he would like to share his views )

A personal anecdote; I very rarely catch the train to work as I cycle but 9 times out of 10 of the times I do the trains will be delayed or cancelled. Which goes to show how **** they are even when we have private companies running them

I'm a bit of a rail nut (not a fan of UK rail travel), I've done the Glacier Express, Bernina express etc. My first experience of swiss rail travel was almost missing a connection rail because mine was 7 minutes late. Clearly my expectation of Swiss rail travel were set too high. :oops:

The French train services were the most patchy , with the Belgian and Italians being a bit better , then the Germans and the Swiss being the best. I've not done enough dutch and Spanish trains to comment on their rail system so far.

We traveled 1st class from Berlin to Munich for 30 euros each. - bargain of the millenium. but turn up on the day and that could be 500 euros each. So those who cant plan ahead pay more. German rail is better run than uk rail, but the Germans as they are a more punctual people believe their rail is poor. To them it is no doubt but to us it would be a welcome step up. Generally I'd wager the more you pay for travel the less you are accepting of delays to your journey. (Germans excepted) Cancellations are probably the bug bear here for us. 15 mins late is better than waiting for the next train which is either 30 mins or 1 hour later. When abroad a train is cancelled (yes it does happen) the next train is usually only 15 or 30 mins away.

Myqul - you'd think trains would be immune to the vagaries of incidents road travellers encounter. Alas no - not in the Uk at least. I love trains but hate to use then in the UK.
 

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