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...

Particularly as it seems to be increasing certainty that we're hurtling towards a huge clash with the EU over alignment, with the continued threat of a skeleton deal/no-deal and major economic fallout.
Phew, then.

Or rather diminished uncertainty that we're not.
I have the flu. Brain addled...

It's probably a safe bet to assume that the MSM will continue with a Meghan-bong-Meghan type sandwich for the foreseeable future, removing the "need" to report on progress with Brexit.

I can also see the government moving to play competing factions against each other, meaning farmers will blame fishermen and fishermen will blame farmers and they will all blame remainers anyway with the net result brexiteers are off the hook.

In case Javid's speech at the weekend wasn't clear enough, today he answered a few questions about it.

We have been very clear now for many months, and of course in our recent election as well, as we leave the EU we will not be in the single market, we will not be in the customs union, and we will not be rule takers.
Less uncertainty, certainly.

And then revealing that the cake&eat vibe is alive and well:
At the same time, of course, we want a deep, comprehensive free trade agreement, and that’s what we are working on.

This, though, is the standout bit of vacuous gobshite:
when asked if his comment to the FT about how some firms would not benefit from Brexit meant the government was prepared to “sacrifice some elements of manufacturing and industry”, he replied:

No, not at all. We look forward with confidence as we strike that new free trade agreement with our European friends, as we strike new free trade agreements across the world, it will be a very important time for British business. And I can see a British economy that continues to go from strength to strength.

He must be on some seriously good drugs/looking down the wrong end of his telescope if he can see that.

.

This is extraordinary, people complaining about how nothing gets done and Britain has no "ambition" and when ambition is shown, like by building HS2, people complain about that!

Oh yeh, because that's the real scandal and problem regarding HS2, isn't it @LouiseCollins28 ? The lack of ambition people who are being, or stand to be, shafted by Boris's Brexit are showing.

Ffs

The major routes and the big projects are impressive here in France, but the provision of local transport (at least round here) is dreadful. No rural bus service at all, the nearest train line 30km away, no buses for shoppers in the local town, despite the fact that they have just taken out 300 parking spaces in a redevelopment. All of us out in the countryside have to drive everywhere including over very elderly neighbours in their very elderly diesel cars.
There is, of course, no internet food shopping, though you can order it on line and then drive and collect it. 😱

The real problem I see with HS2 is obvious to me anyhow, (irony on) it isn't happening anywhere near fast enough (irony off)

This is extraordinary, people complaining about how nothing gets done and Britain has no "ambition" and when ambition is shown, like by building HS2, people complain about that!

Actually your reaction is a microcosm of almost everything that is wrong in UK political discourse at the moment - and has been for a long time.

Something must be done

this is "something" -------> .

job done, case closed.

I think it's an inevitable consequence of organisations where layers have been allowed to build up with very little connection between responsibility and authority. It's why you get brain dead initiatives where an "app" solves the housing crisis.

So you reject the possibility that I could simply believe that building a new high speed railway is actually the right thing to do?

I agree with you insofar as believing that "something must be done" is just about the most useless phrase in the English language but I didn't say "something must be done" or anything like it.

but I didn't say "something must be done" or anything like it.

You appeared to imply that because people are proposing HS2, it should shut up naysayers on this thread and in the wider world who are complaining about a lack of imagination and investment in the UK.

But the point is HS2 is a poster child for dull unimaginative and wasteful "thinking". It's the product of years of an education system which simply churns out clones of people with the intellectual firepower of Liz Truss. The only question it appears to answer is "What is the largest amount of money ever spent for the least possible benefit to the country ?". Although Trident would probably still win that.

Where's the 21st century solutions we need for the 21st century. HS2 is the equivalent of the first manager who saw a web page and thought "great, let's put our postal address on that."

Has no one stopped to think that people having to waste any time moving around their own country is so inefficient a way to drive industry that it should be discouraged if not actively prevented? Economists and politicians scratch their heads (and arses) wondering why UK productivity is so poor, when on this very board, you read of 2 hour commutes either way that are the norm.

It may be totally fruitloop (actually it is). But Trumps "space force" does seem to have a kernel of out of the box thinking. Admitted if the box held frogs. But if you have 1,000 whacky ideas, one might just be a diamond. If you have a 1,000 dull ideas, you only have this years UK TV schedules - and Liz Trusses briefing notes.

Maybe we should set up our own Brexit Arms for lightweight conversation, like taking the piss out of terrible music made by racist actors💡

Who wants to be the bartender?

Maybe you're being deliberately contrary DGR I don't know? What I do know is that extra rail capacity is desperately needed, and this delivers lots of it.

I don't know enough about HS2 to have a strong opinion, but the whole thing comes over as very British NIMBY.

If you want people to get off the roads and into trains, you need more capacity (the speed/time saving is secondary).

Maybe you're being deliberately contrary DGR I don't know? What I do know is that extra rail capacity is desperately needed, and this delivers lots of it.

I do try not to be deliberately contrary, unless playing devils advocate.

Here's an idea ... why not see if you can reduce the need for that capacity - at a cost of less than £250 billion, rather than just blunder in and pour more money into transporting people around the country ?

And I reiterate my prediction that in 10 years time, the entire way people move around the UK will be irreversibly changing, and huge fuck-off rail projects will not form part of that change.

I'm allowed to have an opinion on this, as it's my money and my sons money and his great grandchildrens money that is going into this.

If you think HS2 is a good idea, then bully for you. I would be curious to know all the alternative ways you have thought of to get rid of the £150 billion it's going to cost before you settled on it, though.

If you want people to get off the roads and into trains, you need more capacity (the speed/time saving is secondary).

How about wanting to see if you can obviate the need to travel ?

We really are retreading the hammer/nail thing here ... I've got a nice shiny new hammer, isn't it funny how I now keep seeing nails ?

I know this is probably a really daft question , but why could they not just improve the current lines , which the HS2 seems to be following a lot of the time ? Why is it necessary to build new lines so close to the old ones ?

Can you not add more capacity ( and comfort ) by addding more carriages or increasing the number of journeys on existing lines ?

Oops sorry went a bit Raaab with my adding there

Making rail travel cheaper would help too.

Frumpety, the current line also has a lot of commuter and freight trains on it, and the number of commuter trains is increasing. Making the intercity journey on a seperate high speed line gives a large amount of increased capacity on the current.

I wonder how easy/expensive it would be to stack another line over the route of the current one ? We do it with roads (M4 elevated section being the first example that springs to mind).

Or has no one ever looked into it ? If so ... well I reassert my point about lazy thinking.

OK then DGR.

People and goods need to travel right, people to get to work, goods to get to where they are to be sold, things like that.

I am guessing that your "obviate the need for travel" line is something to do with changing this scenario fundamentally? Perhaps you have a very self sufficient life, and/or the luxury of being able to work from home, most people do not. For myself, even if I had this option, which I don't, I wouldn't take it and I don't want it.
Home working works for some people, but not for lots of others.

Perhaps you envision a society where what used to be offices full of colleagues, or classrooms full of school children connect to each other from their homes via the web? Maybe you view that scenario as desirable? I think the loss of real interaction between people that follows from it would be hugely damaging.

As a total aside, I have a new relative in my family who arrived about 6 weeks ago. Seeing her proud new mum and dad holding her on a screen via "facetime" is nice, but it absolutely isn't the same experience as being in their living room, with them and holding her myself.

We need, as an environmental imperative, to stop people flying as much as they do, and to stop people driving as much as they do. High Speed rail with make some headway into both problems. It will also, as stated earlier allow lorries to be removed from the roads.

I honestly can't see how the "obviate the need for travel" or "the entire way people move around the UK will be irreversibly changing" get delivered in 10 years time. Millions of journeys will still be being made in privately owned vehicles (potentially electric or hybrid electric powered ones) but still privately owned vehicles, and still with an now much increased demand for electricity.

So what are the other options I'd consider for £150bn? Putting lots of it into clean electricity generation would allow the needs of electrically powered personal transport to be serviced, but this still has the problem that it is personal transport.

I expect I'm still being dull and unimaginative.