Thread 24 Starmer -Casting the net wider

[DuncinToffee]

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https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5329855-thread-23-starmer-reflux-remedy?page=40&reply=144419737

In contrast to Birmingham, the Lake District is astonishingly lakelustre (not a word but sums up the situation) for the time of year.
United Utilities website shows the region’s reservoirs are below 60% and Thirlmere is almost 7.5 metres from the top water level:

If only you had civic elders who read the runes and bought a Welsh valley and bought an aqueduct into Birmingham to ensure plentiful supplies of clean water. And it's faster than HS2 !

It delivers enormous quantities of water by gravity across the mid-Wales countryside, through north Herefordshire, south Shropshire and into the West Midlands through eleven major river valleys. The aqueduct is 73 miles (117 km) long, down which the water travels at less than two miles per hour (3 km/h), taking one and a half days to get to Birmingham.

We're doing a little better in the Northeast. It's been cooler here.

I do recall at one point Kielder dam was pouring away more freshwater than would be needed to fill all the reservoirs in the south,

If the Romans - the Romans for fucks sake - could throw up 500+ kilometre aqueducts, then why the hell can't we ?

I repeat for the hard of thinking: water management is the key to civilisation. It's not a "nice to have" or "if only we could".

If more people agreed, we would never have been so cavalier with our resources

We were practically giving it away, at one point, and the rain rarely makes it over the Pennines from the Northwest. Our rain tends to be the horizontal stuff from the north and east.

@SerendipityJane there was a time when the architects of vast civic engineering projects understood it very well. This is a quote on the window of the vast pumping station at Kempton in London

Bit woke innit ?

I loved from our visit to Rome that you could get drinking water everywhere, very much appreciated in the July heat.

You see the problem that that sort of approach is that it totally ignores the needs of the people who want the freedom to be able to sell water. Which in turn impacts on the entire industry devoted to putting water into plastic bottles.

Surely we have all looked at something provided for the public good and felt physically sick at the thought of all that potential profit being wasted ?

I see there is a new vigilante in town.

RoboJenrick!

Is he mad?

www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg9r40p749o

Oh my. Cringe.

I think this is part of his campaign to eventually oust Badenoch.

Honest Bob broke TfL rules, filming without permission

If it had all gone pear shaped the TFL staff would have had to rescue him, putting themselves in danger.

Fair dodging bad.
Richard Desmond dodging community infrastructure levy but coincidentally paying donation to Conservative Party good.

We were at that station at Easter as DS was competing at LAC!

No fare dodging here - not sure there could be any squeezing between the barriers in his wheelchair 🤣

Lots of taking lifts up and down to get over the tracks though!

Shame he isn't so quick to go after tax dodgers.

I've seen police action in fare dodgers and it's noticeable yet subtle.

There's no way that happened within a few hours of filming.

To be honest you do get plenty of gate dodgers on the tube. However, it’s a pathetic fraction of what it once was.

The light is dimming in the Tory Party. More of this and their MPs will start to defect to what looks like a better operation that is more ambitious.

Not being a regular visitor to London I’m not sure how it works but garius on Bluesky is always very good on London Transport issues and had a few things to say about ‘ dumbelling’ ie catching train at a regional station with no barriers, not paying a fare and using an Oyster card to tap out in London.
So all they pay is the maximum Oyster card fee for the day taking the gamble that getting caught and fined now and again is much cheaper than paying full fares or season tickets. Can save thousands apparently it’s been noted that Jenrick isn’t going after these people as they’re likely to be city bankers etc.

Yep. Remember this idiot?

www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/15/ca-ban-43000-fare-dodger-financial-services-industry-blackrock-jonathan-burrows

Jenrick seems to think fare dodging is limited to ‘Khan’s London’.

of course one way to reduce fare dodging is to increase staffing levels. I don’t remember the Conservatives being fans of that.

I can’t understand why it is that anyone who doesn’t live in London gives a shit about Khan. He’s voted in enthusiastically by the people who are actually affected.

Careful, you'll have people feeling sorry for the **s.

"Not with a bang, but a whimper".

There must be some seriously pissed off toffs who have poured generations and untold fortunes into the notion of the Tory Party only to see it fold like a cheap deckchair.

You will find plenty of comments on MN alone - let alone the real world - predicting that if the Tories were stupid enough to try and cash that Brexit cheque, they would be signing their own death warrant.

However it's fitting that the party of venality, greed and corruption was ultimately destroyed by venality, greed and corruption.

I welcome our new Lib Dem overlords 😀

of course one way to reduce fare dodging is to increase staffing levels. I don’t remember the Conservatives being fans of that.

And a ticketing system that is simple and consistent.

We're back to a fundamental difference in world view. For some, public transport is part of the wider picture of moving people around in the most effective, efficient and safe manner. With that in place, people can get to work easily, with access to a wide spread of their locality and further afield. That feeds into less time wasted commuting, increasing productivity and leaving people with a tiny bit more money to spend elsewhere.

For others, it's merely something that makes money. As long as you stack the deck and ensure the regulations deliver the juicy bits to your mates and who wants to go to town after 6pm anyway,

"There is no such thing as society", opined Mrs Thatcher who was not so stupid as to not know how a population with a large number of below intelligent people would understand it.