HS2 Manchester leg scrapped: what should happen now?

[Wolfie]

Maybe so, but party leaders never survive an election loss. Has one ever done?

At least since the 1970s when both Heath and Wilson did so? Churchill also earlier....

 

[Krokodil]

Maybe so, but party leaders never survive an election loss. Has one ever done?

Churchill, Kinnock. Gladstone kept coming back, even if he didn't necessarily stay as party leader in the meantime.

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The Euston scrum is stupid, but for Avanti services outside of severe disruption that's gross hyperbole, it's normally about 5 to 10 minutes.

I'm exaggerating maybe, but not by much. Naturally though I use other ways of finding out the platform and head down to the gate first.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Maybe so, but party leaders never survive an election loss. Has one ever done?

Did this occur in 1951 when Winston Churchill became Prime Minister after losing to the post-WWII war election to Clement Atlee?

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Well I don't actually know his beverage of choice. For a public servant to have been so indiscreet though, he must have been pretty sloshed.

You might very well think that: I couldn't possibly comment....

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Maybe so, but party leaders never survive an election loss. Has one ever done?

Depends which party. Labour and LibDem leaders will do so (most recently, Corbyn in 2017), but the Tories are rather more ruthless about that and I think you'd have to go back to Winston Churchill (the example that others have cited) to find a Tory surviving an election loss. Winston Churchill had just won WWII in Europe at the time so I guess you could argue he had earned enough respect to survive where others wouldn't. I don't think Sunak stands any chance of remaining Tory leader much beyond the next election if Tory poll ratings don't dramatically improve.

EDIT: I'd forgotten about Ted Heath who remained Tory leader after Feb 1974, although that was more of a dead heat than an election loss, and it was obvious there would be another election soon. He didn't survive for too long after losing October 1974.

 

[Bornin1980s]

But of course only the intellectually challenged still think that HS2 is being built 'to knock 15 minutes off a rich businessman's journey from Brum to London'.

I think that's a bit unfair - that's how HS2 is generally represented and few people have the time to look into everything they read to get a more accurate view.

I am sure that I have equally ignorant views on many things where I rely on the media portrayal for my information.

It's not just unfair, it's ableist. In my experience with intellectual disabilities, I think most of them won't care.

 

[21C101]

Maybe so, but party leaders never survive an election loss. Has one ever done?

Yes. Kinnock. Churchill. Wilson and Heath (strictly speaking) among others.

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This particular website is noted for threads with polls prior to election time, with a poor success rate of correct forecasting.

So are the opinion pollsters. See 1992 and 2015 for further details, 2017 and 2019 were not much better.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's not just unfair, it's ableist. In my experience with intellectual disabilities, I think most of them won't care.

Do I hear the RUK Standard Minority being wheeled out again?

Most people who are ignorant are so by choice, primarily through laziness, and I include in that anyone who gets their world view solely from a biased newspaper like the Sun, Mail or Torygraph rather than multiple sources. Most people do not have intellectual disabilities, they are simply too lazy to find out about things, or worse consider it geeky to do so.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Knowing your fondness for using long German words on railway matters, does that country have a special name for those people to whom you allude to above?

 

[tbwbear]

Yes. Kinnock. Churchill. Wilson and Heath (strictly speaking) among others.

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So are the opinion pollsters. See 1992 and 2015 for further details, 2017 and 2019 were not much better.

Heath survived losing in 1966 as well.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Knowing your fondness for using long German words on railway matters, does that country have a special name for those people to whom you allude to above?

Bildzeitungleser?

(The "Bildzeitung" is a newspaper in Germany basically equivalent to the Sun, and "leser" is reader)

 

[Peter Sarf]

Do I hear the RUK Standard Minority being wheeled out again?

Most people who are ignorant are so by choice, primarily through laziness, and I include in that anyone who gets their world view solely from a biased newspaper like the Sun, Mail or Torygraph rather than multiple sources. Most people do not have intellectual disabilities, they are simply too lazy to find out about things, or worse consider it geeky to do so.

Ignorance is not an excuse but..... For the vast majority of people I suspect the detail of HS2 does not interest them and does not affect them. Why would they waste time and energy on such matters. It only interests them when they discover how much it is costing and the rest is just boring detail.

For those interested I would say they can be broken down into
Industry insiders.
Railway enthusiasts.
Those in the North of the UK who believed (not entirely incorrectly) that HS2 was going to improve their lot.
Politicians like Sunak who just have to balance the pros and cons primarily on their parties popularity, secondly on cost and thirdly on the actual benefits.

The cost of HS2 has been allowed to get out of control. Mission creep started it. Nice little headline figures like cost will be counter productive if they get bigger. How did HS1 get done and that was achieved in the crowded South East of Britain - was it true private enterprise with no state interference ?.

 

[stuu]

The cost of HS2 has been allowed to get out of control. Mission creep started it. Nice little headline figures like cost will be counter productive if they get bigger. How did HS1 get done and that was achieved in the crowded South East of Britain - was it true private enterprise with no state interference ?.

HS1 was built by a theoretically private company but that was a fiction, there was also a decade of faffing before construction got going, as well as a fudge to finance it. Of course it cost the same as about 30 miles of HS2 which helped

 

[Norm_D_Ploom]

Do I hear the RUK Standard Minority being wheeled out again?

Most people who are ignorant are so by choice, primarily through laziness, and I include in that anyone who gets their world view solely from a biased newspaper like the Sun, Mail or Torygraph rather than multiple sources. Most people do not have intellectual disabilities, they are simply too lazy to find out about things, or worse consider it geeky to do so.

Interesting that you didn't include the gruniad or the mirror in your list of bias?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

For those interested I would say they can be broken down into
Industry insiders.
Railway enthusiasts.
Those in the North of the UK who believed (not entirely incorrectly) that HS2 was going to improve their lot.
Politicians like Sunak who just have to balance the pros and cons primarily on their parties popularity, secondly on cost and thirdly on the actual benefits.

Noting "industry insiders" above, I would also show both RMT and ASLEF, as if HS2 ever came to fruition, it would be a most attractive entity in which to disrupt it to their hearts delight by industrial inaction.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Interesting that you didn't include the gruniad or the mirror in your list of bias?

The ones I listed are worst, but typing out a list of all newspapers is a bit pointless.

 

[Norm_D_Ploom]

Here's a question for the forum.

1) Did Adonis actually believe HS2 was possible and possible for the budget announced at the time.

2) Or did he know that he was leaving a hospital pass? Or am I crediting him with far more intelligence than he actually has?

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The ones I listed are worst, but typing out a list of all newspapers is a bit pointless.

Not than the Daily Mirror they aren't. Agree re the second point

 

[brad465]

A quick glance at all the topics currently active on the first page of this forum, and I wonder if it should be renamed "Speculative HS2 discussion"?

 

[Sorcerer]

The cost of HS2 has been allowed to get out of control. Mission creep started it. Nice little headline figures like cost will be counter productive if they get bigger. How did HS1 get done and that was achieved in the crowded South East of Britain - was it true private enterprise with no state interference ?.

Rob Holden, Finance Director of London and Continental Railways at the time, claims that he managed to deliver HS1 on time and under budget because only a handful of people were aware of the true budget. Meanwhile with HS2 all the contractors and consultants were wanting the biggest slice of the pie and inflated their prices upon learning of the line's budget before even a single piece of track was laid down.

 

[Austriantrain]

I don't know the geography. Maybe in Stuttgart there are sensible destinations on either side to run long distance services between?

There are - it's a major "crossroads" in the rail network, and as such, few services end there. However, I would not look at Stuttgart as an example. It is very late, over budget, and has been very controversial from the start. There is still doubt it will really be able to absorb the services of the current terminal station (which in reality has lots of capacity - many platforms and a lot of grade separation on the approaches).

A more useful example would be Zurich "Löwenstrasse" station (4 tracks and 2 platforms for long-distance service, a long approach tunnel and plenty of other approach work, which apparently had costs of approx 2 bn SFR), and maybe in future the Frankfurt through station, both of which did/do not replace the terminals but rather complement them to add capacity.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

A quick glance at all the topics currently active on the first page of this forum, and I wonder if it should be renamed "Speculative HS2 discussion"?

The thread is already on the Speculation part of the website, so that should suffice.

 

[Bornin1980s]

Rob Holden, Finance Director of London and Continental Railways at the time, claims that he managed to deliver HS1 on time and under budget because only a handful of people were aware of the true budget. Meanwhile with HS2 all the contractors and consultants were wanting the biggest slice of the pie and inflated their prices upon learning of the line's budget before even a single piece of track was laid down.

Would that have been avoided under BR? Would we already have a high speed line if it wasn't for privatisation?

 

[SuspectUsual]

Surely not? If they are driven to near oblivion in 2024/25 then it would take a truly awful five years under Labour for them to bounce back into being the largest party. I despair at the possibility of that happening

Of course, there's a school of thought that the Tories know the next election has gone now, and their best hope of success in 2029/30 is to leave an utter mess behind and then point out Labour's failure to get everything working properly

The Tories might, but Sunak will be long gone

Of course he will. I'd be amazed if his green card wasn't suddenly reinstated

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Of course he will. I'd be amazed if his green card wasn't suddenly reinstated

Indeed, he is not in a position where loss of status in a political party is going to cause him any financial embarrassment.

 

[Sorcerer]

Would that have been avoided under BR? Would we already have a high speed line if it wasn't for privatisation?

I don't know if BR would've had the luxury, but ultimately I feel like we'd have the same problems. The issue is very much with UK management of big infrastructure projects along with mismanagement. Most of the railway's problems are systematic and could be fixed without nationalisation, so with HS2 privatisation probably wasn't a factor in the spiralling costs.

Of course, there's a school of thought that the Tories know the next election has gone now, and their best hope of success in 2029/30 is to leave an utter mess behind and then point out Labour's failure to get everything working properly

I worry that people will actually believe it. But I expect Labour might just about scrape by in 2029/2030 after a big majority in 2024/2025.

 

[geoffk]

This is a dark day, I expect other countries to be laughing at us right now.

I think they have been for a while.

 

[Krokodil]

Noting "industry insiders" above, I would also show both RMT and ASLEF, as if HS2 ever came to fruition, it would be a most attractive entity in which to disrupt it to their hearts delight by industrial inaction.

Contrary to the viewpoint spread by the Daily Mail, trade unions exist to support their members. They do not take pleasure in disrupting the network and certainly don't walk out for the sake of it.

This is not Carry On At Your Convenience.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Contrary to the viewpoint spread by the Daily Mail, trade unions exist to support their members. They do not take pleasure in disrupting the network and certainly don't walk out for the sake of it.

This is not Carry On At Your Convenience.

I am amazed that so many people feel the need to make reference to the Daily Mail and by doing so, give them free publicity. The days of newspapers being information dissemination bodies have been overtaken by social media and it is those people who cannot move with the times still make references to past icons who need to move with the times. It is not all that long ago on a website that the phrase "costings on the back of a fag packet" was used in a posting, when there has been a reduction of cigarette smoking over recent years.

The other film "I'm All Right, Jack" with a wonderful portrayal of Fred Kite, is still reflected in the RMT top echelon.

 

[52290]

Interesting that you didn't include the gruniad or the mirror in your list of bias?

The correct wrong spelling of the former is the Grauniad.

 

[Norm_D_Ploom]

The correct wrong spelling of the former is the Grauniad.

Thank you

 

[AdamWW]

It is not all that long ago on a website that the phrase "costings on the back of a fag packet" was used in a posting, when there has been a reduction of cigarette smoking over recent years.

I still use the phrase "running out of steam" on occasion though I have only ever once been in a situation where that literally happened. Maybe I need to get with the times and think of something more modern.

The days of newspapers being information dissemination bodies have been overtaken by social media and it is those people who cannot move with the times still make references to past icons who need to move with the times.

Looking at how different newspapers write their headlines for the same piece of news, I wouldn't agree with that. They can't all have become virtues of impartiality. (And neither are they required to be, unlike broadcast news).