• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)

Bedfordspurs said:
Every country I travel too with a strong economy is self sufficient on utilities, has its own transport system funded and run by its own country and… randomly… well maybe not… only really eat seasonal produce
So the money stays within the country on things that really matter
And those countries are the Nordics and Switzerland
When I tell my colleagues my kids have strawberry’s for their lunch every day they are almost stunned because they can’t get them in country
When we talk cost of electricity… again shock at our prices
Yes there are taxes in those countries but there are benefits from those
If we want to be a real first world country we need to understand what works elsewhere too
And subsidising other countries rail systems is typical of the farce we have created
Click to expand...
You can't compare us to the Nordics and Switzerland. It is far easier to invest to maintain standards with a small population. In fact, population size has been linked in multiple studies to levels of poverty and living standards. It's fairly obvious that the less people there is, the more resources each one will have and the easier the government finds it to invest. If we continue the conversation around rail and water, building a brand new high speed rail line or a brand new sewer pipe to a new treatment works is easy in these countries and actually easier in countries like France and Spain. To build a rail line between London and Birmingham you've got several large cities and towns in the way and the route will be dotted with smaller settlements all with services including roads above and below ground that will need moving or bridging over.

Ww are so densely populated in this country and actually it's something that leaves most foreigners who first come here and travel around totally gobsmacked.
 
Kompakted said:
You can't compare us to the Nordics and Switzerland. It is far easier to invest to maintain standards with a small population. In fact, population size has been linked in multiple studies to levels of poverty and living standards. It's fairly obvious that the less people there is, the more resources each one will have and the easier the government finds it to invest. If we continue the conversation around rail and water, building a brand new high speed rail line or a brand new sewer pipe to a new treatment works is easy in these countries and actually easier in countries like France and Spain. To build a rail line between London and Birmingham you've got several large cities and towns in the way and the route will be dotted with smaller settlements all with services including roads above and below ground that will need moving or bridging over.

Ww are so densely populated in this country and actually it's something that leaves most foreigners who first come here and travel around totally gobsmacked.
Click to expand...
I think the tradition of paying tax is more of a factor. Because we pillaged from empire for 400 years, we've never really paid our way, so have no expectation of covering the cost of services.

Other countries have been doing that much longer (though i appreciate norway and switzerland are artifically boosted by oil and money laundering respectively)
 
Kompakted said:
You can't compare us to the Nordics and Switzerland. It is far easier to invest to maintain standards with a small population. In fact, population size has been linked in multiple studies to levels of poverty and living standards. It's fairly obvious that the less people there is, the more resources each one will have and the easier the government finds it to invest. If we continue the conversation around rail and water, building a brand new high speed rail line or a brand new sewer pipe to a new treatment works is easy in these countries and actually easier in countries like France and Spain. To build a rail line between London and Birmingham you've got several large cities and towns in the way and the route will be dotted with smaller settlements all with services including roads above and below ground that will need moving or bridging over.

Ww are so densely populated in this country and actually it's something that leaves most foreigners who first come here and travel around totally gobsmacked.
Click to expand...
That’s also less People paying tax
But a key is there is much much much less privatisation of key services

These countries I’m talking about have other geographical challenges to us that mean its equally demanding to do things
 
Last edited:
SpurMeUp said:
No it doesn’t matter who owns it, what matters is the output: water quality, treatment etc.

Profit hungry investors care about returns not services. There is no alternative to Thames Water in its region. Same in every other region.

It’s obvious to anyone (who’s not not confined by ideology) that it isn’t an effective free market setup. And private investment in this instance serves profit and not service quality.

But Scara I appreciate you entertaining us with these burner accounts. It’s been fun over these international breaks.
Click to expand...
I think there's a strong argument to be made that rail, utilities etc. aren't good examples of where free market economics can thrive for the reasons you've stated. As I've said I am not arguing for these to remain privatised. I'm arguing AGAINST decisions based on ideology.

"Profit hungry investors care about returns not services" is pure ideology. While you're not wrong as such, investors want greater returns, which means they want their investment to go into modernisation, efficiency, and that ultimately drives better services.

You can argue against privatisation but privatisation has improved some services. I again go back to how crap British Rail was in the 80s/early 90s. And as a kid growing up in the 1980s power cuts were a regular part of life. I can't remember the last time we had a power cut here. Think there's been one since we moved into our house in 2014.

That's not to say that this couldn't have been achieved in public hands, or that privatised services have been super. I again go back to the fact that while private operators have been installed, these are very much still public services. It is not the private operators job to invest in upgrading infrastructure - their job is to maintain existing services and carry out the administration of the services. Think of them more of the government outsourcing their day-to-day duties to a third party

There's so much ideology and misinformation thrown around these services - it actually distracts from analysis of the proper root cause of the issues - a lack of funding and attention from central government.

The sort of gonads that surrounds this issue was illustrated when Zarah Sultana, an actual MP, posted a picture of herself on a LNER service to Leeds that had got stuck and she said "this is why we need our railways in public ownership". LNER had been nationalised ages ago and so she was sat on a publically owned and operated train, staffed by public employees, running on publically owned and operated track. Yet she's blaming her electrical cable malfunction on privatisation!
 
Danishfurniturelover said:
The water companies and particularly the sewage has been an issue for me for years. Back when I lived in the witterings I used to kitesurf and was a member of the action group against the pumping of sewage into the sea.

That was under the previous labour government. No improvements under the tories, we will see if the is any under the new lot.
Click to expand...
It's been a neglected issue for decades. My dad remembers campaigning about sewer discharges into rivers when he was at uni - that was in the 1970s. It's been a ticking time bomb that's been sat on by governments and the can kicked down the road to we are at overspill point - literally.
 
This whole "Musk" hatchet job is a joke surely? Bloke has no interest in investing in the UK but the media want answers at why this weeks event wasn't made all about him against people investing billions into the UK already. Imagine putting serious investors noses out of joint to make it a side show for him.........behave
 
In regards to where I have worked as an ecologist, I have already given you some clues where I have worked.

But here, I get to see some cool stuff, like this little owl, keeping an eye me at a manor house I was doing a bat survey at last year. There was a barn to the right just out of picture that had some tiles missing, which I assume was where it's nest was due to the number of times it entered and left.

I always find it funny when people call me out for lying, but end up being embarrassingly wrong.

Yeah, I am an ecologist and yeah, you people don't know a fraction of what you think you know.

IMG_20230614_215030664.jpg
 
SkipRat said:
In regards to where I have worked as an ecologist, I have already given you some clues where I have worked.

But here, I get to see some cool stuff, like this little owl, keeping an eye me at a manor house I was doing a bat survey at last year. There was a barn to the right just out of picture that had some tiles missing, which I assume was where it's nest was due to the number of times it entered and left.

I always find it funny when people call me out for lying, but end up being embarrassingly wrong.

Yeah, I am an ecologist and yeah, you people don't know a fraction of what you think you know.

View attachment 17807
Click to expand...
Smart owl.....even he's suspicious
 
SkipRat said:
That is your only argument, isn't it... Everyone who has different opinion to you is a burner account.

Unable to argue points, just make accusations.
Click to expand...

Well one thats the first time in the 10+ years on here I have claimed anyone to have a burner account, so you have done well to work out its my only argument.

Secondly a new account appears with two posts in history and has the name "Bat" after you claim to be counting Bats, its just a guess. I don't trust anyone who says "I don't like Farage.....But".............so go figure
 
Grays_1890 said:
Well one thats the first time in the 10+ years on here I have claimed anyone to have a burner account, so you have done well to work out its my only argument.

Secondly a new account appears with two posts in history and has the name "Bat" after you claim to be counting Bats, its just a guess. I don't trust anyone who says "I don't like Farage.....But".............so go figure
Click to expand...


I'm not new. I just forgot my password.

I don't like Farage either. But the guy can survive a plane crash.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back