Westministenders: Canada Plus and the Transition Phase

[RedToothBrush]

As we approach the 31st January, we slowly tick towards exit and transition.

Things are not yet signed off though the No Deal planning has quietly been stood down with no press release and the government have said they won't talk about trade deals post 31st Jan because the public are bored of them and don't understand.

The new EU president has said that the UK doesn't have time to make a full deal with the EU before 31st December with a deadline which isn't flexible.

We still have no idea what the government plans are. We still have many EU citizens feeling very vulnerable.

Perhaps we should start talking about this rather than Royals for a couple of weeks...

Hi speed train track and trains cost is huge the mtce is also very high, plus they need to be positioned far from any populations (if they ran at 200mph plus) short sections of track aren't practical for HS, as the lengths required for accelerating and stopping are very long

A govt report in 2013 showed traditional railways offered better vfm than HS2.

In the December 2009 report to Government “High Speed Rail - London to the West Midlands and Beyond” it notes that:-
2.3.7 … If an HS1 to HS2 link was constructed it would allow trains from other countries to run through the Channel Tunnel and onto our network and vice versa

That clearly isn't going to be happening now.

From that Grimsby Live link

Minister George Eustice, responsible for fisheries, had been due to attend the reception – organised by the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership – but was not present during the speeches

Minister George Eustice, responsible for fisheries, had been due to attend the reception – organised by the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership – but was not present during the speeches

I'm guessing this is setting the SOP for years to come. People - industry organisations, investors, local authorities, local businesses - will be looking for clarity and the government will simply not turn up. Sounds like British colonial policy circa 1775. Can't think what could go wrong.

What is it that makes major infrastructure projects in the U.K. so controversial? Since I moved to France just in the south west region alone we have had an entire new motorway and several new sections of high speed train line.

Several factors:

Land - France is more than twice the size of UK with a smaller population. There is more space to build and greater distances that make TGV cost-effective.

Land - People own it and must be paid handsomely to build a railway or autoroute on it.

The Land - It's the old Code Napoleon. The govt. can do whater the fuck it likes and all you can do is blockade and strike to stop it.

just looked at the last brexit arms.

Odd

To be fair, I think people also criticise the TGV and say that money could have been put into regional trains.

I honestly can't tell whether this is a spoof or not:

twitter.com/SloughForEU/status/1219012465675120640

Stormont rejects the WA. Unanimously.

The Northern Ireland Assembly has passed a motion withholding consent for the UK's withdrawal from the European Union.
All 18 Westminster MPs from Northern Ireland opposed the prime minister's Brexit deal last month.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-northern-ireland-51174448

Stormont rejects the WA. Unanimously.
Didn’t that workout well for everyone.
Peregrina’s suggestion of a new freight only line from London to points north (instead of a high speed line) is so sensible that it wouldn’t ever be considered.

Stormont rejects the WA. Unanimously.

What will this mean? Will it mean anything at all?

It seems as though nothing has any effect any more. This seems like is should be news. www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jan/20/boris-johnson-suffers-first-parliamentary-defeat-since-election

Yet it doesn't seem as though it's going to make any difference and is not actually a defeat at all.

Land - France is more than twice the size of UK with a smaller population. There is more space to build and greater distances that make TGV cost-effective.

No doubt Misti is aware of the comparative size and population of France. It’s not just TGV it’s also motorways, roads in general, and transport in general, ticket prices, public services in general.

I don’t think this is about space but about attitude.

The U.K. is a right wing country - it likes small state and as little money spent on public services and infrastructure as it can get away with, hocking state utilities to the private sector.

It’s mind boggling that the only fast track we have in the U.K. is S.coast to London. Even Italy has a decent TGV network and Italians do spend quite a bit of time faffing about discussing things not getting on with them.

Meanwhile - another defeat where Johnson hasn't a majority, and probably can't even control the Tories there.

The Lords passed an amendment to the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, by 270 votes to 229. It would give EU citizens in the UK the automatic right to stay, rather than having to apply to the Home Office, and would ensure they can get physical proof of their rights.

I imagine this will ping-pong back to the HoC where they won't like it, because the New Tories are determined to kick EU citizens in the teeth. But at least 270 people in the Lords will have clear consciences that they tried to do what was just and fair.

meanwhile the BBC is promoting reporting on the "Tradwife" craze that's sweeping the world

That's the first time I've seen it mentioned on MN (I don't tend to go on the feminist boards). I read an article about it in Stylist magazine a few months ago though. They tried to be admirably balanced on it...

It’s mind boggling that the only fast track we have in the U.K. is S.coast to London.

I wouldn't say that was fully true - the HST126s now phased out and the lines they run on could qualify as High Speed lines.

But with a country run by old Etonians who don't travel by train or bus, what chance do we have to implement a decent transport policy? It would make business sense, but F*ck Business.

meanwhile the BBC is promoting reporting on the "Tradwife" craze that's sweeping the world

About 30 odd years ago, maybe more, there was a book by a fundamentalist American Christian called 'The Total Woman' where the author was full-on about wives submitting to their husbands. Well, she made a whole pile of money out of the book, and as far as I remember, the husband was no longer submitted to, but got the push.

The comparative space in France does make a difference, of course.
But there is ambition, too, that you don't see much in the UK. Look at the A75 and the Millau viaduct, for instance. There were protests, but to little effect.
There are also cockups: the single line track running crossing the densely-populated area between Aix en Provence and Marseille, the country's second-largest town, should have been rethought years ago. It can't be doubled everywhere due to the lie of the land and there is now little available space elsewhere for alternative tracks.
Everyone's on the road and there is an ozone alert every summer. It is, though, a very corrupt area, and one with numerous oil refineries, so I guess there may have been a mixture of inertia, lobbies, backhanders and poor planning.
If this were Germany, there's be an integrated urban light railway and better railway system...

Aix en Provence - Marseille corrupt? You don't say! DS lives in the area....

But then German efficiency - when they went bad in the 1930s they were efficiently bad.

What is the advantage of a high speed train that runs between cities if it doesn't stop at the stations where the commuters live?

I promise not to go to the Arms again

Fishing : Across the whole of the EU, fishing employs 120,000 people
a fraction of those employed writing games such as GTA

I thought that Germany was run chaotically under the Nazis?

Until we have an answer to the climate emergency we don't want HS2 - any increase in long distance travel capacity is bad - we should treat the current 'capacity' of road and rail as a limit - and look at reducing demand. (West Coast line may be at capacity but there is already another London-Birmingham link anyway)

The original 30bn budget for HS2 (now trebled and will obviously be upwards of 150bn before HS3) should be invested in carbon capture / co2 extraction and blue sky aporoaches in a 'moon mission' type programme.

The economic benefits of delivering this technology and exporting to the world - probably as micro devices - would dwarf anything that saving 20mins on London / Birmingham could ever do.

That's the real failure of imagination and ambition - there is a huge problem out there just waiting to be attacked.

I was referring less to German efficiency than to their transport system. They have been ahead of most other European countries in terms of environmental planning for decades and this is part of it.

I found this article rather inspiring
www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/20/how-a-belgian-port-city-inspired-birminghams-car-free-ambitions

So did I, Listening.

Like the town in Spain that has banned cars.
www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-life-spanish-city-banned-cars-pontevedra

The mayor of my small town is killing the centre by ploughing everything into the godawful peripheral "zone d'activité commerciale" and it's really sad to watch the decline.

The comparative space in France does make a difference, of course.
But there is ambition, too, that you don't see much in the UK.

There are plenty of geographical constraints here in the south west. Our night train to/from Paris has to climb to over 1500 metres altitude and it does tens of km in tunnels. The Bordeaux-Toulouse TGV is being built despite space constraints on the existing line. In the last 10-15 years we've had a new motorway and a dual carriageway that goes through a 1.5 kilometre tunnel.

Decent long-distance high-speed trains keep people off the roads and out of the air. I wouldn't dream of driving or flying to Paris to see my daughter and I often travel to the U.K. by train (night train + Eurostar).