2024 UK politics - now with Labour in charge
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I think we are about mid table overall on that.
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And we seem to want a top 3 level of service.
They (pensioners) get what we pay for.
Ah, I see some of Badenoch's colleagues are already freaking out about her very modest adjustment to the biggest tranche of state benefits. Funny how it's only this one benefit that is good and all the others are bad.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
This is the kind of thing that Labour is up against. I imagine that this is a very significant bill for millions of tenants, and long overdue, but did it make the front pages? If it did, it probably was couched as "War on landlords".
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I suspect it will make it even less attractive to be a private landlord and thus restrict the supply of rented property. There has been a huge push back against private landlords over the last few years.
May be good for those wanting to buy though.
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That argument always comes up. I suspect the landlords that do go will be the worst who want to make a quick buck for minimum work and investment in their properties. The houses will still be there in one form or another.
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I think there are a lot of private landlords who have existed the market, and many of the legislative changes have been designed to drive them out. And it's not just the worst ones going either.
Sure the properties don't go anywhere, but will they remain as renters, or move into the owner occupier sector?
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I guess that no housing/rental market adjustment is going to be comfortable or easy for anyone.
Just your periodic reminder that the £15bn annual housing benefit bill is in effect a subsidy to the rental market, and it doesn't end up in the pockets of the tenants.
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It seems that Labour believes in AI unicorns, unwilling to slay the Brexit unicorn. "Got to move on" suggests that they won't admit the folly of erecting barriers with our nearest biggest market. If they think they're going to get a second term with this woolly thinking, they are going to be disappointed.
I'm still relieved it's not Tories in charge, as they are still simply a reactionary rabble of trolls, but this is leaving the door open for Farage to do his populist thing.
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Even in Clacton, they'd rather the UK prioritised improving trade with the EU than cosying up to Trump. Not sure if it'll have any effect on Starmer and Reeves who seem to be convinced that Brexit can be made to work. Or if they are not convinced, they are doing a darned good impression of being convinced (and cloth-eared).
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Extra runway at the busiest airpot? Madness.
Boost the capacity at the regional airports, improve the connections to them, and trhe whole country benefits from that, rather than yet more London centric infrastructure spending.
Dumb thinking again from Labour.
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They are trying to do both. My read is that if they do try to "undo Brexit" the Tory media will savage them.
On current trajectory, they will achieve neither.
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Yes increasing capacity at an over capacity airport is clearly silly🙄
The regional airport closest to me hasn't bounced back since covid. Not sure why you'd bother increasing capacity.
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Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol are all regional airports. They are all quite large and all continue to increase in passenger numbers. As far as I'm aware, Heathrow is the only UK civilian airport with two parallel runways long enough for airliners. The other runways at, e.g. Edinburgh are used based on wind direction (and I think for smaller aircraft that are more windy sensitive, because it is much shorter).
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So add another runway and associated terminal to any of these and it would create a second long haul UK hub and cut 2-4 hrs transit time between whole swathes of the UK and really quite large parts of the world.
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They're going to savage them anyway, their polling is already poor, but they've got a c.200-seat majority. Add in that Trump is making the US look like a untrustworthy ally, and that the Brexit-backing loons' VIP lounge is already crowded, and I'd suggest that now would be a good time to change the mood music.
Agree, they are trying to balance between two stools, and will actually end up on their collective arse.
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Not if most of the traffic coming in wants to be in London. Why spend money increasing capacity elsewhere and then moving it by road or rail to where it actually wants to be? I get as pissed off as anyone by London-centric spending on infrastructure (a prime example being announcements that curtailed the electrification of the South Wales trainline on either the same day or the day before more expenditure for rail within London was announced a few years ago) but it doesn't need to be an either / or. If regional airports need to expand then expand them too, Bristol is growing rapidly (Cardiff on the other hand may as well be closed as a commercial airport and just be a maintenance facility).
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Interesting the Cardiff-Bristol thing... it was a bone of contention from the 70s onwards (when Bristol was still just basically a fancy shed next to a runway), and initially Cardiff (I think in the 80s) was chosen as the one that was going to be strategically developed. I guess that since then commercial choices by airlines such as Easyjet & Ryanair have changed all that.
My modest proposal would be to divert the railway to the SW to a new tunnel under the Mendips and to have a gert big escalator from the underground Bristol Airport Station up to the airport.
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"Not if most of the traffic coming in wants to be in London. Why spend money increasing capacity elsewhere and then moving it by road or rail to where it actually wants to be?"
Not noticed how busy Heathrow is for domestic flights then? That's people flying to/from somewhere else that have to go via Heathrow.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
the airport is a private company, it'll be paying for the expansion, presumably expecting decent roi, it seems like the market wants it
the taxpayer will no doubt be faced with costs to increase capacity on road/public transport, though the latter is revenue generating and all users would benefit, not only airport users, as london taxpayers subsidise other areas, i have no issue with london getting benefit for what london pays for
other airports are welcome to apply to increase capacity, some have plans in the pipeline, if it makes commercial sense they'll do it, good for them
successive governments have squandered enough time and money, good for labour making a decision to stop wasting time
my bike - faster than god's and twice as shiny1 -
Will there be a direct link to the space elevator and the hyperloop?
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But surely many of them are going to or from London (or the southeast)? How would increasing capacity at Newcastle or Edinburgh help this situation? I doubt many people are travelling from Birmingham to London to fly to Newcastle.
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Exactly - Labour aren't announcing that they are building a new runway with taxpayers money just that they wll support an application by the airport operator. The whole 'they should invest elsewhere' is a complete strawman in this particular case.
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Lots of people are travelling via Heathrow to get between those places and international destinations. A hub closer to them would avoid the internal flight.
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So why aren't the operators of these airports looking to invest in expanding as they are at Heathrow? I'm also not convinced many domestic flights are for connections, most seem to be specific trips between those cities.
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It's not either/or. Heathrow needs a third runway because it is already running at capacity and is the major hub for international flights in a way that Gatwick or Luton are not. As far regional airports, I'm not sure another runway at Lulsgate is going to have quite the same effect.
Manchester is the only regional airport anywhere close to hub status and would still need to more than double in capacity to catch up with the current Heathrow.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Of the constrained airports, I posted on the other thread. Bristol is consulting on its expansion plan, Manchester is in the middle of its expansion (already increased one terminal) and Birmingham has some sort of expansion plan. The big difference is that no one has a chip on their shoulder about those.
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In semi-related news a planning application has finally been approved for Cardiff Parkway railway station (no doubt there will be moans about how all development in Wales is Cardiff centric from those up north).
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I'm not talking about domestic flights, and they are.
Bristol is trying to lengthen it's existing runway to accommodate wide bodied aircraft. But as Brian points out it's more difficult to get to than Pyongyang airport.
Edinburgh airport pretty much doubled in size while I was there.
I don't know Manchester to be honest. It seems to be a collection of terminals they found in a skip.
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Maybe that's something Musk can sort when he's become Supreme World Overlord.
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None of which seems to tie in with the original 'why are they doing it in London AGAIN rather than somewhere else' comment that triggered this discussion.
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