The UK Politics & Brexit Thread

[st13phil]

think the fundamental problem now is lack of blame.

What? Taking personal responsibility? It’ll never catch on…

 

[Darrell]

Did they check you were wearing suitable Underpants as well?

 

[Darrell]

I’m doing a job on Claridges at the moment.

The main contractor has all the usual H&S signage up on the wall but nobody adheres to it meaning we have,

Shorts
Hard hats seem to be optional
Gloves seem to be optional
Safety glasses seem to be optional
I’ve got music on via my Bluetooth radio

The amount of accidents? = None.

If you force H&S down workers throats they become reluctant and scared to work.
If you cut workers some slack and let them use common sense you’ll have a happy a productive workforce.

Take common sense away from guys with 40 years experience on the tools and ram H&S shit down their throats, you may as well close up. (Or try to work on HS2).

 

[ChipChop]

The essentially nationalised, over-regulated, European rail network is renowned for its many fingers in many pies practices.

(I'm a three generation Railway family refugee with various chums in the infrastructure from the strategic signalling to the operational)

(No wonder I drive German cars)

It is a pity ATOC are not over-regulated. Taxpayer funded services they are responsible for ended up being offshored many many years ago.

 

[DSM10000]

 

[DSM10000]

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

View attachment 129985

There's a lot of mileage from this theme, Penny....

 

[ioweddie]

Our Modern Country:
Inflation almost 10%
Hose Pipe Bans Due
Petrol & Diesel Prices Mental
Heating or Eating
Can't see a Doctor
Can't find a Dentist
Be Dead before the Ambulance arrives
Hospitals full up
Covid19
Monkey Pox
Too Bloody Hot...Fires every where
Russia
Idiots blocking the Motorways to save the planet
Road chaos to the channel tunnel..
Have I missed anything...LOL

 

[Swotty]

Our Modern Country:
Inflation almost 10%
Hose Pipe Bans Due
Petrol & Diesel Prices Mental
Heating or Eating
Can't see a Doctor
Can't find a Dentist
Be Dead before the Ambulance arrives
Hospitals full up
Covid19
Monkey Pox
Too Bloody Hot...Fires every where
Russia
Idiots blocking the Motorways to save the planet
Road chaos to the channel tunnel..
Have I missed anything...LOL

Do not eat meat - bugs are good for you.
Farmers being offered more to rewild their land than produce crops; shurely shome mishtake?
Increase your debt in order to chill/heat your home/eat to survive
Worry about saying the wrong thing in case someone you have never met is offended
Penny dropping that travel is no longer for we plebs.
What we really need is more Big State who will look after us when we don't know which way to turn

 

[ioweddie]

Forgot County Lines Apprenticeships

 

[m80]

Increase your debt in order to chill/heat your home/eat to survive

Surely not a conspiracy,
it's only nutters that believe in those.
Unless you visit Davos on the annual occasion.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Our Modern Country:
Inflation almost 10%
Hose Pipe Bans Due
Petrol & Diesel Prices Mental
Heating or Eating
Can't see a Doctor
Can't find a Dentist
Be Dead before the Ambulance arrives
Hospitals full up
Covid19
Monkey Pox
Too Bloody Hot...Fires every where
Russia
Idiots blocking the Motorways to save the planet
Road chaos to the channel tunnel..
Have I missed anything...LOL

Thank god we’re not in the States, France, Italy, Germany, Portugal or Spain…

 

[ChrisHGTV]

Thank god we’re not in the States, France, Italy, Germany, Portugal or Spain…

View attachment 130019

I’ve just got back from a week in the NL (for the 4daagse) and interestingly many of the Dutch we spoke to were ranting about their Govt and the general state of affairs. Very similar to our UK challenges it seems with their politicians, fuel cost, taxes etc etc. A big topic related to farming with the Govt doing a U-turn and now telling farmers they have to halve their head of cattle etc to meet their EU environmental obligations.

One thing is still clear though - they still have much better transport infrastructure.
Interestingly Nijmegen has about 6 times the population density of Guildford, but no air quality issues, no real traffic congestion and no parking issues as so many people rely on bikes. It also means there is no need for huge infrastructure to cater for EVs as the number of personal vehicles (cars) is so low. Why we faff around in the UK when there are good examples of a sensible transport system to copy I have no idea.

From 1934 to 1940 the UK did actually seek guidance from the NL and started to build cycle lanes alongside and integral with new roads. There was around 300 miles created, sadly most is now in disrepair. What a missed opportunity.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Why we faff around in the UK when there are good examples of a sensible transport system to copy I have no idea

Hills, houses and a refusal to knock stuff down.

Cambridge is a great example of a Dutch style solution. Compact, flat with a good mixture of safe bike facilities and buses.

The problem for the rest of us is that we love to live in houses with gardens, refuse to knock down and redevelop and persist in living in stupid places like Hampstead and Guildford where the countryside and housing density messes up the creation of tiny compact towns.

I could go on about the idiocy of packing half the population into the area South and East of Oxford, but I’ll save it for another day.

After decades of being pro-EU, one of the reasons I gave up was our insularity and refusal to look at what’s going on in other countries, especially in Northern Europe and the East. We barely even appreciate what’s going on in the EU7.

 

[DrNick]

Having seen the media’s “enthusiastic” reporting of the traffic problems near Dover, I’m starting to wonder if politicians are capable of solving ANY real problems.
If they can’t sort out some planning and infrastructure for accessing a port, what chance have they got for sorting out inflation and world survival.
In which case, it doesn’t matter who is leader.
Or is it that we’ve not actually got anyone in government who should actually be there?

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Having seen the media’s “enthusiastic” reporting of the traffic problems near Dover, I’m starting to wonder if politicians are capable of solving ANY real problems.
If they can’t sort out some planning and infrastructure for accessing a port, what chance have they got for sorting out inflation and world survival.
In which case, it doesn’t matter who is leader.
Or is it that we’ve not actually got anyone in government who should actually be there?

In government, how would you get a foreign government, such as France, to open more than four out of the twelve passport booths at Dover Port on the busiest weekend of the UK holiday year, as parents of schoolchildren rush off (idiots that they are) to Europe on the first weekend that they can?

The last time we saw such a backlog was one weekend in July 2015. To what extent should we build extra motorways and capacity to handle a once in a seven year event ?

Pause to remember, for example, that Eurotunnel capacity was built with twenty platforms and (I believe) a maximum traffic capacity of 40 trains an hour, and currently (at peak) only uses four platforms to handle four trains an hour.

Ignore, for the minute, the complete carnage on French motorways heading south over the next three weekends, which happens every year, and is never reported in the UK press.

 

[DrNick]

We still have a motorway reconfigured as a car park, and have had for many years. This is not a one off event. The very fact we have a plan to stack lorries says we appreciate there is a serious problem.
It also says that its too hard for us to solve so we are not going to bother. Unless you think turning an expensive motorway into a carpark is the solution we've all been striving for.

This is EXACTLY the sort of thing politicians should be sorting out. Blaming the french is no way to solve this. Again this is EXACTLY the sort of problem politicians should be sorting out.

Your comment
In government, how would you get a foreign government, such as France, to open more than four out of the twelve passport booths at Dover Port on the busiest weekend of the UK holiday year, as parents of schoolchildren rush off (idiots that they are) to Europe on the first weekend that they can?

This is sort of the point of government and diplomacy? Its not like they don't see it coming.

So what is the point of our politicians if they can't solve any problems?

Governments should be held to account. Not have excuses made for them,

Before any one says I can vote for someone else, the point I'm making is that no-one of any political persuasion has solved this (this is just an example) and really it must be one of the solvable ones. Therefore I still conclude that all the leaders we've had recently are ineffective and are therefore the wrong people for the job.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

We still have a motorway reconfigured as a car park, and have had for many years. This is not a one off event. The very fact we have a plan to stack lorries says we appreciate there is a serious problem.
It also says that its too hard for us to solve so we are not going to bother. Unless you think turning an expensive motorway into a carpark is the solution we've all been striving for.

This is EXACTLY the sort of thing politicians should be sorting out. Blaming the french is no way to solve this. Again this is EXACTLY the sort of problem politicians should be sorting out.

Your comment
In government, how would you get a foreign government, such as France, to open more than four out of the twelve passport booths at Dover Port on the busiest weekend of the UK holiday year, as parents of schoolchildren rush off (idiots that they are) to Europe on the first weekend that they can?

This is sort of the point of government and diplomacy? Its not like they don't see it coming.

So what is the point of our politicians if they can't solve any problems?

Governments should be held to account. Not have excuses made for them,

Before any one says I can vote for someone else, the point I'm making is that no-one of any political persuasion has solved this (this is just an example) and really it must be one of the solvable ones. Therefore I still conclude that all the leaders we've had recently are ineffective and are therefore the wrong people for the job.

Why just "recently?" Hasn't that Dover Port issue been there for ever and a day?

For sure, Margaret made it worse when she nodded through the Channel Tunnel which is an even greater terrorist threat as it puts so many import export eggs in one basket.

But if any politician said "Enough, we're going to force half of all passenger traffic to go via Harwich, Ramsgate, Pompey, Southampton and Plymouth," wouldn't there be a massive push back from all and sundry at being forced to pay substantially more for slower and more vomit-making journeys?

Time for tougher taxes on the Dover-Calais route, perhaps?


.

 

[m80]

Maybe we'll learn tonight what our future leader will do, with some benefit of hindsight (not meant in any sexist way), to make our English world a beautiful smooth running place.

They no longer have say in Wales, Scotland and sort of N.I. as they just screw it all up for themselves. And then blame Westminster anyway.

If tonight's debate would have been bare knuckle I would have given Truss the better odds.
But I believe it's just name calling, so it's even's really.

 

[flowrider]

The Dover port authority predicted the level of traffic and had agreements in place with the French border control but the French didn't turn up, thats not the fault of the UK government. The French authorities do what they always do and blame someone else even when the evidence says otherwise.