Discussion
There's been a lot of politics talked in the P+P over the years, and on odd occasions an interesting discussion breaks out, against the odds.
There seems to be a lot of dyed in the wool tories here, which I find strange as for the most part their other contributions are reasonably intelligent.
There are a lot fewer people that openly support Labour, but every so often one dons their tin hat and pokes their skull above the trench to be shot at for a bit.
Again, I find their rigid adherance to a party line baffling because no one political dogma has all the answers. The only way to make a country really work is to pick the bits that make sense from each party's "idealogy" and cobble them together.
I think the tories historically generally have things right regarding small business, but sometimes they are prone to being a little too lax on big business.
I like the cut of their gib on encouraging strong "family values" for want of a better phrase.
There are so-called Labour values I can see the sense in too though. Certain utilities should be state run - water certainly, if only on grounds of national security, but theres an argument for gas and leccy too...know how many suppliers in this country are French or Russian owned?
The goal of full employment is a good one too in my eyes - the devil makes work for idle hands and all that - I believe if someone's sitting on their arse for no good reason the government should find them something to do for their benefits...now that is a very left wing idealogy, but one I've seen touted on here more times than I can remember by people who otherwise appear to be slightly to the right of Jim Davidson.
Then there's my personal bugbear - the rail network. I'm no trainspotter and rarely take the train myself, but something as fundamentally important to the transport infastructure as the rail network really needs to work properly for the good of the economy. Seems to me from what I've seen of rail networks elsewhere that the only ones which achieve this are at least partly state owned and usually fully. In some otherwise very conservative countries too (big and small C)
The one piece of good I thought might come from Labour getting in was renationalising the railways and sorting them out. Could have been done, and for a f*** site less than it cost to go and play silly war games with the playground bully over the ocean ("bigger boys" made Tony do it, dontcha know...)
But Blair didn't have the balls. Too frightened he might upset all the tories he conned into voting for him.
Would have been great though - I'm sure they'd have still f***ed up the economy, but we would have been able to trot out the immortal line
"At least they made the trains run on time"
There seems to be a lot of dyed in the wool tories here, which I find strange as for the most part their other contributions are reasonably intelligent.
There are a lot fewer people that openly support Labour, but every so often one dons their tin hat and pokes their skull above the trench to be shot at for a bit.
Again, I find their rigid adherance to a party line baffling because no one political dogma has all the answers. The only way to make a country really work is to pick the bits that make sense from each party's "idealogy" and cobble them together.
I think the tories historically generally have things right regarding small business, but sometimes they are prone to being a little too lax on big business.
I like the cut of their gib on encouraging strong "family values" for want of a better phrase.
There are so-called Labour values I can see the sense in too though. Certain utilities should be state run - water certainly, if only on grounds of national security, but theres an argument for gas and leccy too...know how many suppliers in this country are French or Russian owned?
The goal of full employment is a good one too in my eyes - the devil makes work for idle hands and all that - I believe if someone's sitting on their arse for no good reason the government should find them something to do for their benefits...now that is a very left wing idealogy, but one I've seen touted on here more times than I can remember by people who otherwise appear to be slightly to the right of Jim Davidson.
Then there's my personal bugbear - the rail network. I'm no trainspotter and rarely take the train myself, but something as fundamentally important to the transport infastructure as the rail network really needs to work properly for the good of the economy. Seems to me from what I've seen of rail networks elsewhere that the only ones which achieve this are at least partly state owned and usually fully. In some otherwise very conservative countries too (big and small C)
The one piece of good I thought might come from Labour getting in was renationalising the railways and sorting them out. Could have been done, and for a f*** site less than it cost to go and play silly war games with the playground bully over the ocean ("bigger boys" made Tony do it, dontcha know...)
But Blair didn't have the balls. Too frightened he might upset all the tories he conned into voting for him.
Would have been great though - I'm sure they'd have still f***ed up the economy, but we would have been able to trot out the immortal line
"At least they made the trains run on time"
TheEnd said:
Disco_Dale said:
Trains are crap these days
When someone replaces the track, there is uproar about the disruption. When they move the working periods from weekdays to weekends and holidays, then noisy holiday makers start moaning.You just can't win!
The OP confesses to not really being a rail user but feels able to comment on the service level. I daresay he has heard that trains run like clockwork in Switzerland.
Given that successive governments of all persuasions spent decades letting our infrastructure decay and that, each day, we run more services in Kent than the Swiss railways run nationally, it's hardly surprising that a significant period of 'catch-up' is in order.
TheEnd said:
Disco_Dale said:
Trains are crap these days
When someone replaces the track, there is uproar about the disruption. When they move the working periods from weekdays to weekends and holidays, then noisy holiday makers start moaning.You just can't win!
V8mate said:
I wonder why the OP believes that a bunch of civil servants would be any better at delivering a world class railway than the professionals who do today?
Because they did before? The profits that should be used for investment in the network go to shareholders now.And I wasn't thinking of Switzerland as it happens, but Japan.
Disco_Dale said:
V8mate said:
I wonder why the OP believes that a bunch of civil servants would be any better at delivering a world class railway than the professionals who do today?
Because they did before?I think if you talk to anyone who's worked in the industry for long enough you'd find it to be the case.
It was certainly far from perfect before privatisation, which makes even more of a damning indictment of privatisation in this case.
They inherited something a bit mouldy and managed to make it rancid.
At least when it was British Rail the biggest headlines seemed to be about crap food and dodgy coffee. Not a crash with fatalities on a high speed piece of track that hadn't been replaced in 20 years.
I'm sure the coffee is lovely now though.
It was certainly far from perfect before privatisation, which makes even more of a damning indictment of privatisation in this case.
They inherited something a bit mouldy and managed to make it rancid.
At least when it was British Rail the biggest headlines seemed to be about crap food and dodgy coffee. Not a crash with fatalities on a high speed piece of track that hadn't been replaced in 20 years.
I'm sure the coffee is lovely now though.
Disco_Dale said:
"At least they made the trains run on time"
Heil Blair...
Gas and electricity ought to have been kept out of the thieving hand of johnny foreigner, but I bet you never saw them as nationalised industries...
Hopelessly inefficient and costly, much like local authorities are today...
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