[Rich]

Extending the Channel Tunnel - London high speed rail link on to Birmingham was a project worth considering. But high speed rail from London to Birmingham never made sense. What the British rail network needs is its regular speed network expanded in capacity and to a smaller extent in its coverage. In Britain individuals and local communities have greater power. There's an upside and down side to that.

Part of the downside is that it just makes both building high speed rail networks and high speed population expansions unmanageable.

[noemon]

80% is too much honestly. The technology is not there yet so the question is why is everyone doing it in a mandatory way.

It's capitalist consumerism gone insane.

They are shoehorning all these products in the market forcefully in a bid to increase consumerism. Imagine all the VAT receipts for the entire country throwing out their perfectly functioning gas boilers and switching to heat-pumps. Imagine all the VAT on electricity bills that will rise 20 fold by switching from gas to electric to be collected. Imagine all the broker commissions to be had during this festival.

In this country, people have learned to take out a loan every 3 years to buy a new car, to reduce their emissions so they do not have to pay the numerous penalties. This is not just a bonus for car companies selling new cars every 3 years, but also for the banks giving you the loans to buy them(hence why the UK's private debt reached 500% in 2020) and the accountants, and the solicitors and the brokers.

The past 5 years this trend has been slowing down and because of the market being unable to catch up to this enforced demand but also because consumers are getting wiser holding on to their precious things for longer as inflation and the cost of living is skyrocketing.

So the govs have come up with a new plan to provide air to the sails of this cartel and rump up consumption.

[noemon]

In Britain individuals and local communities have grater power. There's an upside and down side to that.

Part of the downside is that it just makes both building high speed rail networks and high speed population expansions unmanageable.

Ah yes, I saw these excuses published on the DT yesterday. That is trying to put lipstick on the pig and prevent people from asking questions.

Where has the money gone? Why is it costing 10, 20 30 times more to build here than in Spain?

It's the question everyone should be asking.

Fuck knows what kind of billion-worth skeletons will be discovered in that closet...

[B0ycey]

But high speed rail from London to Birmingham never made sense.

HS2 was suppose to go the Glasgow. Then Leeds. Then Manchester. And the sense was that if you can cut the time between cities, you didn't need to be London centric. I questioned that logic even back then, but if HS2 only goes to Birmingham, it really doesn't make sense. And whoever came up with the initial cost, that guy needs firing. But in any case, in the age of Zoom and home working, it was always going to be a failure anyway. If the government wants more businesses up north for their 'Northern Power House', the only realistic way to do that is have different business rates between the North and South not high speed rail.

[Rich]

So David Cameron is back as foreign secretary. No its not April 1st.

I think this a very good thing. Its good if Prime Minister's don't see themselves as so elevated that they can never play second fiddle again.

[Beren]

Its good if Prime Minister's don't see themselves as so elevated that they can never play second fiddle again.

Do you mean Sunak?

[Rich]

So as I understand it the response to atrocities must be proportionate under international law. Was bringing back Cameron a proportionate response to Braverman's verbal "atrocities"? Personally I thought Braverman might actually be serving a useful purpose for the establishment. By questioning the legality of carrying Palestinian flags and chanting "From the River to the Sea", she was actually enabling virtue signalling. Making these harmless and futile acts seem much more rebellious and hence virtuous than they really are. These massive lawful, peaceful obedient, Palestinian marches will achieve nothing of substance.

Of course if all people want to do is to virtue signal, then these massive marches are fine. They produce a real feel good effect and they may even shift the rhetoric of the major parties slightly. However substantive change to government policy on an issue very dear to our leaders hearts like the Poll Tax requires violent disorder.

[Beren]

Was bringing back Cameron a proportionate response to Braverman's verbal "atrocities"?

She's only collateral damage hit by the Lord Cameron locomotive casually, which was called back as Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was, for the same reason as he was - to be dictator to rescue a surrounded army. The Conservative Party seems to be in such a dire situation according to opinion polls and especially by-election results that they decided to call back their last pre-Brexit leader while degrading Sunak to de facto acting prime minister and party leader. The so-called cabinet reshuffle was a formation of a new cabinet actually.

[Tainari88]

@Rich wrote:

However substantive change to government policy on an issue very dear to our leaders hearts like the Poll Tax requires violent disorder.

Come on now Rich. Aren't you all for Poll Taxation?

[Potemkin]

So David Cameron is back as foreign secretary. No its not April 1st.

I think this a very good thing. Its good if Prime Minister's don't see themselves as so elevated that they can never play second fiddle again.

Cameron is probably just pathetically grateful that people are actually answering his emails again.

[Negotiator]

Anyway I'm not one of Starmer's greatest fans to put it mildly but this, Labour leader calls for charitable status to end for private schools is a good policy.

How so ?

Because the state needs a monopoly on how to educate children ?

Because poor parents shouldnt be able to send their children to high quality schools, that should only be possible for rich parents ?

Or what other possible reason could one come up that this would ever be a good idea ?

[snapdragon]

You don’t seem to understand how independent schools work, negotiator. It’ll work by stopping independent schools claiming tax breaks by pretending to be a charity.

I’m disappointed , but not surprised so many Labour MPs have stepped down. I believe starmer is right and a ceasefire would embolden hamas and hezbollah and they would use the time to regroup and prepare for more terrorist attacks.

Some of my friends went on the pro Palestine March and were upset that I wouldn’t join them, but it wasn’t a peace March as had they claimed. Not when a huge chunk of marchers were supporting hamas.

[Rich]

How so ?

Because the state needs a monopoly on how to educate children ?

Because poor parents shouldnt be able to send their children to high quality schools, that should only be possible for rich parents ?

Or what other possible reason could one come up that this would ever be a good idea ?

Bring back the Grammar Schools. Lower class and lower middle class children should not have to beg for charity from rich liberals. Grammar Schools worked and still work. I know this because I have relatives who've attended the Grammar schools that survived the Liberal's destruction.

[albionfagan]

You don’t seem to understand how independent schools work, negotiator. It’ll work by stopping independent schools claiming tax breaks by pretending to be a charity.

I’m disappointed , but not surprised so many Labour MPs have stepped down. I believe starmer is right and a ceasefire would embolden hamas and hezbollah and they would use the time to regroup and prepare for more terrorist attacks.

Some of my friends went on the pro Palestine March and were upset that I wouldn’t join them, but it wasn’t a peace March as had they claimed. Not when a huge chunk of marchers were supporting hamas.

There is nothing charitable in what they do. Offering a few scholarships to keep the accusations of elitism at bay does not make it one. They are massive money making machines who cater the wealthy, they spew out entitled, brattish and selfish people who do incredible harm to society. They have no need for charity.

[ingliz]

@snapdragon

I believe Starmer is right

Starmer is a waste of space—a dyed-in-the-wool blue 'One Nation' Tory donkey with a red rosette.

[Negotiator]

You don’t seem to understand how independent schools work, negotiator. It’ll work by stopping independent schools claiming tax breaks by pretending to be a charity.

They arent pretending.

They ARE a charity.

They provide a public service through educating children.

They make NO profit.

They serve the common good.

Thus, charity.

[noemon]

Private schools make profit. They also pay tax. The only tax they are exempt from is VAT which is a luxury tax by definition.

Now Keir, wants them to charge VAT which will only make education more expensive and will achieve nothing else.

VAT is charged on the end-consumer. So private schools will not be paying VAT, they will be charging VAT which they will then be passing to the government.

Grammar schools were something else entirely.

Both the abolition of Grammar Schools and the introduction of VAT in education are seriously demented ideas, for genuinely demented people.

[Nonsense]

They arent pretending.

They ARE a charity.

They provide a public service through educating children.

They make NO profit.

They serve the common good.

Thus, charity.

'Faith, Hope & Charity'.

I always thought that charity was for the poor folks, it's funny in a way just how the Tory types invert the values that most of us take as established, I suppose that the Tories theology is to practice the 'Charity begins at home' type.

It cannot be for the 'common good' can it, that the offspring of the rich or better off amongst us benefit at the expense of those less fortunate-unless the Tories attach themselves as an ammoral force within the body politic & thus care not for the sensitivity of the rest of the populace.

They may be registered as charities for tax purposes, that doesn't make it real though, likewise to say that they don't make a 'profit' is simply a justification for their tax status.

In reality, they are rich institutions, just like the Church of England, they use their profits to enrich themselves from the income they have extracted, with tax reliefs, from the two groups mentioned above.

V.A.T is an expenditure tax, I thoroughly resent having to pay it just like anyone else because once income tax has been paid, it is reprehensible to add aditional taxes on the disposable incomes of anyone, far better to raise income tax revenue & abolish V.A.T- or Purchase Tax as it was once called.

[Rich]

Well I have to say I'm feeling quite inspired by hearing about Rishi Sunak's 36 hour fast each week. I have done a little bit of fasting in the past and have been meaning to do some more for a while but not getting around to it. My big weakness is eating late at night, anyway his example has given me a bit of a boot up the backside, we'll see how it works out.

Overall I think Rishi Sunak is quite an impressive fellow. Now its good to be honest, policy and ideology will always trump character when it comes to choosing a party or leaders. I'd prefer to have someone of bad character of the right ideology than someone of good character of the wrong ideology. Still character is not of no consideration. We desperately need some good leadership when it comes to healthy lifestyles from our public figures. The lockdowns were the epitome of how weak, decadent and corrupted by the pharmaceutical-sickness industrial complex our societies have become.

Both Trump and Biden are teetotal, what ever their faults, and what ever privileges the have been born into they are still exemplars of long productive working lives, even if their achievements jar with our own tastes. While i don't think everyone needs to become tee total, I do think the way alcohol is so indispensable to so much of social life, really does give bad role models and lessons to our children.

[snapdragon]

What on earth do you find impressive about Sunak? If it’s the fasting , then that might explain why he makes such stupid decisions at the beginning of the week. Mind, he makes them day in, day out, but he’s particularly stupid on Mondays and Tuesdays. Hence the refusal to acknowledge Mrs Ghey sitting in the gallery and his offensive so called joke about trans people aimed at starmer. The sooner he’s gone the better