[spireitematt]

Looks like HS2 is going to cost upwards of a 100 billion and finish at Birmingham.

It's a waste of money. They should update the current tracks we have and reopen new lines and look at the lines which Beeching shut in the 60s. We need better new and improved trains and not the ancient rattlers. We need to bring back the railways into public ownership and not have European companies running our trains.

One of the reasons why European train travel is so cheap is because British taxpayers subsidise there ticket prices through the profits that companies like Keolis, Arriva and Abellio make from owning British franchises. Keolis is 70% owned by the French Government national rail service SNCF which own 35% of Govia which runs Thameslink, Southern, Southern Eastern and London Midland. Arriva run Chiltern, CrossCountry, Grand Central, Northern, Arriva Rail London and Arriva Trains Wales which is owned by Deutsche Bahn whose sole shareholder is the Federal Republic of Germany. Abellio is the international arm of the state owned by Dutch national rail operator Nederlandse Spoorwegen.

It isn't just trains though, it's public utilities as well and it doesn't matter if we are in the EU or not as it will continue. The fault lies with the Tory party of the 80s/90s because they thought public ownership was bad but thought foreign ownership was good and now it's come to bite them on the arse as we see companies like Northern not being able to run trains on time and the trains which are being run are 40 years old with no heating, no air conditioning and lots of overcrowding but the only thing which seems to be changing is the ticket prices as they seem to increase year on year without any letting up.

I thought the point of HS2 was to facilitate wealthy Londoners and southerners expanding their buy to let property portfolios into the Midlands ? In fact I'm pretty sure its a major factor. You cant accuse the tories of not looking after their own.

But you are right about the joke that is the franchising schemes in the UK rail industry. The tories rail against state ownership, unless it's a foreign state owning our trains where they can sell them off and make a killing.....meanwhile the service goes down the shitter.

Even worse than rail is water being privatised down south - that is an absolute outrage in this day and age.

HS2 in the main was about shaving minutes off journeys for commuters and the fact that the main big London stations like Euston etc will get renovation. HS2 will rip the country in half, affect wildlife and it will mean some people will have to sell their houses to the Government when they start building the tracks around the Midlands and the North of England, not sure how long it will take to connect to Scotland if ever. Boris Johnson said a few years ago that train travel on HS2 could cost around £3.00 a ticket. Considering it costs more on a train to get to certain parts of the country than to fly, I can't see it. I would love to meet the person who works out the fares on the trains because none of them make any logical sense.

If they want people to go more green and drive less cars then we need better transport links, infrastructure, greener trains and buses and cheaper fares.

[0762]

You mean a fully integrated transport system Matt!! That is the same glitzy idea that was enthusiastically "mooted" in the 1990s. However, the people in govt who could've made this happen just were not there to do it - the "doers", not the "talkers" who "talk a good game" but will never deliver!! We've seen over two decades pass us by and look at the "piecemeal" transport provision that describe very well - so much for being proactive and doing it properly as delivered in other Euro countries.

[hibeejim21]

From todays guardian.

A reallocation of council funding could redirect hundreds of millions of pounds from so-called left-behind communities in the north of England to the leafy southern shires, analysis has found, leaving many newly Conservative voting “red wall” areas facing fresh cuts to local services.

Under a review of the local authority funding formula, £320m a year could be shifted out of councils in England’s most deprived areas while Tory-controlled shire councils mainly in the south-east gain £300m.

High-profile losers include many constituencies that elected new Tory MPs in December, including Workington, which would suffer from Cumbria county council’s £5m loss, and Sedgefield, which would feel the impact of £10m being taken out of Durham county council.

An estimated 37 of the 50 new Tory MPs – amounting to 70% of the gains made by the Conservatives at the general election – represent areas that are set to lose millions a year. Other notable losers include Stoke-on-Trent, Redcar, West Bromwich, Bishop Auckland, Grimsby and Leigh.

[0762]

The Tories "see that their own kind are catered for" and that has always been my "rule of thumb" when it comes to voting for these lying, unscrupulous bastards!!! NEVER TRUST A TORY and I must say I'm beyond vilifying the people in many of these areas of England any more - their political naivety surpasses any other criticism of what they have done and being so easily manipulated in such a colossal historical event in British politics..

[0762]

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/brexit-britain...16069.html

This is a "good read" and maybe the Brexit backing chunk of the English population finally deserves the worst outcome emanating from their own govt's economic analysis that covers non-alignment with the single market. The sad side of this impact would still be the fact that a lotta decent free-thinking and unmanipulated people within the population will be "dragged down" with them and that will be the true injustice of this farce from the very beginning when David Cameron conceded to the pressures of his own minority RW group in his political party together with those of Farage and UKIP!!!

[hibeejim21]

Cannae believe he is letting Huawei run the UKs 5G .... Like, nothing can go wrong there eh ?

[0762]

Another dilemma for Johnson - "pulling" Huawei from an already existing and prepared comms infrastructure (4G) will cost the UK a lotta money. But a security risk is fairly evident and emphasised by the US govt! Johnson says he has a "plan"? Or is it another "fudge" but a dangerous one at that!!?
Also what a bizarre alliance in Parliament today watching various senior Tories debating and siding with the SNP and presenting a vanguard of extreme protest against such a deal with Huawei!!! I wonder what Johnson made of that unusual alliance!!

[St Charles Owl]

Another dilemma for Johnson - "pulling" Huawei from an already existing and prepared comms infrastructure (4G) will cost the UK a lotta money. But a security risk is fairly evident and emphasised by the US govt! Johnson says he has a "plan"? Or is it another "fudge" but a dangerous one at that!!?
Also what a bizarre alliance in Parliament today watching various senior Tories debating and siding with the SNP and presenting a vanguard of extreme protest against such a deal with Huawei!!! I wonder what Johnson made of that unusual alliance!!

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51263799

An interesting piece on the dilemma facing the UK over this 5G decision. I also certainly would not trust this current US Administration to make any decision that they say is for the good of the country!!! Trump's decision will come down to market forces only, he is pissed that the Western telecom companies have fallen behind Huawei and he wants to make sure that the company running the 5G can be controlled by him and not any other government. I would also not trust a US company any more than I would a Chinese one, the NSA alone has its fingers in all these companies and lets not forget we are talking about an administration that has been hacked repeatedly by the Russians and still cannot safeguard a simple system like the election machines in the upcoming Presidential election!!

As it says in the article the UK may actually be best placed to be able to monitor Huawei, having done it for a while now already but the reality is I am not sure there are that many telecom companies that can be completely trusted in this global age.

[ritchiebaby]

Following on from matt's post #5 and subsequent posts, the thing I find most worrying about the UK today is the number of companies thought of as being British, when they're actually not British owned. Presumably the fact that money talks has led to this state of affairs and I would imagine it will be almost impossible to reverse.

[0762]

Add in the ownership of land and property Ritchie and discover that there is a "huge presence" of foreign landowners etc"! Scotland is adversely affected in that regard but the same theme applies to many affluent regions of England - been pervading the UK for decades and a quick scan of official registers of land and property will absolutely startle any unsuspecting inquisitor!