Thread 10 Starmer: First Female Chancellor delivers the Budget

[DuncinToffee]

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https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5178726-thread-9-starmer-return-to-westminster?page=40&reply=139304132

Don't they all live in London with great public transport but outraged about ulez?

If the Conservatives had won, then they too would probably have had to reverse this cut to bus fares and that would have been seen as ok by the media

(but probably attacked by Labour though)

Victoria Atkins rolled out on LBC for her unbiased opinion on the Labour MP being questioned about assaulting someone. Horrendous incident and absolutely right that he’s been suspended but surely she isn’t going to know what’s going on? Maybe ask a representative from the Labour Party rather than a Tory talking head ?

It was only ever a temporary prop to help the recovery of privately owned bus companies. Tories commenting on tory actions would rationalise that it had done as much as it could and those companies would have access to other help but if they still struggled would need a better business plan. Commenting on labour's tapering, no doubt they want to keep people housebound, stop working people from getting to work and see these companies fail.

It would be an interesting experiment to give someone a budget change and see how they reacted without context.

Maybe a historic one

I'm going to have another interesting conversation with a drelative on the weekend when they assure me how SYL is being persecuted- sent to prison without a trial for withholding a pin, and charged all his money so he has nothing to pay solicitors that believe he's done nothing wrong.

The establishment is against him, he's innocent and just knows stuff. It could happen to anyone, if you post something anti establishment they will lock you up, just look at all those poor people who just happened to share stuff or stand in the wrong place when people were trying to set buildings alight with people in them. They are ll innocent as well, they only pleaded guilty because their duty solicitor told them to so they could go home.

I sense another day of explaining the legal process and around we go.

Wrestling with a pig comes to mind, @Llttledrummergirl

This is brilliant!

https://x.com/mrhenrymorris/status/1850824031018049857

Hilarious!

I love that. Very clever.

Actually I am a bit annoyed about that. But I do catch the bus as my only means of transport. That’s not the main point of being annoyed about it though. From a green travel point of view it isn’t a great look either.

I’m pretty sure they have other changes planned for bus services but if bus services need to be self sufficient that’s going to be an issue in rural areas and will lead to vital services being cut, Funding needs to come from somewhere.

I’d be interested to see whether the £2 fares increased uptake in any routes and which ones if so. My feeling is that mine is getting busier & busier but without knowing what’s happening for certain the company won’t put back the services they cut.

Yes of course this subsidy was going to end..... but Its quite a hike..... a friends son doesn't drive, uses a bus to get to his nmw wage job, its £10 extra a week he hasn't got and he hasn't got the money up front to pay for a season ticket.

Our local hospital even has its own bus station..... like the WFA, neither strike me as the broadest shoulders.

We used the bus network extensively when on hols in Spain, using an app it was sooo cheap, why is everything so expensive here?

Of course London is immune from this increase, fares already heavily subsidised.

It is going to be a big increase for some people, particularly where they need to change bus and have no suitable day ticket.

I'm quite cynical about the way some bus operators have used the various subsidies, anyhow. With one operator, shorter journeys before the cap eg to town and back (about a mile and a half but on a steep hill and I enjoy walking down but can't walk back up without hip pain, especially with shopping) were £1.70 and they increased them to £2 almost to the day the cap was announced. The same operator recently used the Bus Service Improvement Plan subsidies not to improve their services to people poorly served by public transport but to increase one of its flagship routes from 6 to 8 times per hour.

If anyone here follows Implausible Blog on the different platforms, he has clips from Johnson being interviewed on Australian TV, he is full of delusion and ignorance and gets quite angry grunts like a muted pig

Similar here @PickAChew . £2 sounds great, but it’s one way, so a journey into ‘Town’ in reality costs £4. The Park And Ride is £1.70 and has been for a while, so still cheaper to drive there and get that bus instead. On the rare occasions I go into Town I choose the latter option, despite there being a number of services crisscrossing where I live. Park and Ride is every 20 minutes too and you don’t have to suffer the horrible bus station at the end of it. It’s not a transport infrastructure that encourages you to leave the car behind and the mysterious, ever-changing one way/bus gate/road closed for random digging system is leaving Town increasingly empty of shops.
I’d like to use the bus more. Until I was in my late 20s I used buses and trains frequently and mostly enjoyed it. Long train journeys of old were fantastic and relatively cheap.

Here in Wales we never had the cap in the first place, neither did Scotland. Our fares are a little bit more than the current English price cap where I am and I think even more expensive in other parts of Wales. Plus some of our routes were axed after Covid.

On the other hand travel is free at 60, so swings and roundabouts.

Wow

https://x.com/MarshSongs/status/1851021671869645186

"Bohemian Trumpsody"

I do miss the days when I could decide I fancied a trip up to Edinburgh or down to York, tomorrow, and grab a day return for under £30 and not have to book a seat on a particular service and not then almost definitely end up crammed onto the one after.

That footage from Jan 6th is still shocking isn't it.

I see last night ballot boxes had been set on fire.

The OBR will publish a document on Wednesday that will provide a detailed breakdown of the £22bn 'black hole' Labour says it inherited

Shadow Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has written to the Cabinet Secretary to demand that the OBR delays this report "Why announce the results of that review on the day of the Budget, when the smallest line can be spun as agreeing with the government even if it does not?"

Someone feeling a bit worried?

Isn't he the same Hunt who refused to tell the OBR what his "financial event" would contain ?

The Tories are just pissed because they managed to fuck up their leadership "race" so that it will be Rishi and the Hunt that is Jeremy that will have to respond to the budget.

If you can't run your own miserable little party of a few thousand, then how the hell can you be trusted to run a country of millions ?

Hunt seems to have forgotten he is not in charge now. Hope the OBR tells him to eff off.

My local authority in Wales offers free bus travel in school holdays so families can travel to the tourist attractions nearby without adding to the traffic (or having to pay the extortionate car parking when they get there)

It speaks to the arrogance of the Tories that they think anyone gives a shit what they think now.

I wonder if the media have dialled down their TORY MP BLASTS type headlines as they realise all they do is highlight how they are no longer the party of power.

Either that of my feed has been retrained. I'm also no longer seeing stories about BREXITEER CLAIMS/ATTACKS only to realise it's Ben Habib,

Again.

I'm on holiday and just heard that my Clyde cat, the lovely ginger fool cat has been knocked down and killed.