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Ketara wrote:You wouldn't speak to a stranger in that way out of the blue; please don't presume to do so to me here just because you're behind a computer screen.

Clearly you haven't seen me talk to strangers The door company I worked for did listings like "door supervisors wanted" etc, which was a bit open ended, but in practice they're not out to recruit hundreds of new staff. The amount of people they would take on would still be dwarfed by the number of individual ads put up.

No, you're right there. My mistake.

Fair play to you sire. It's quite a common mistake, mainly because market pressure forces most companies to offer some kind of extended break. Normally the critical factor in why companies offer short shifts is to keep employees wages below the threshold for employers NI contributions (kicks in at gross wage of £157.01 p/week and the starting rate is almost 14%). That gives you just enough room for someone doing 20 hours at the minimum wage, but 16 is often the max dictated down from on high because that gives you a bit of wiggle room for overtime without inadvertantly going into the NI threshold. This is why I think it would be better for Employers NI to be charged against the total sum of an employers wage bill, not the individual wage packets (at least till it can be dispensed with in the future).

And it is luck.

Here I have to vehemently disagree with you. Luck has nothing to do with it. Luck would be bumping into someone at a bus stop who you haven't seen for years who just happens to know a vacancy going that you can apply for. There's nothing lucky about taking time to fix up your CV, going out and getting a bunch of envelopes, putting on your best suit and hitting the bricks to go visit employers, speak to the managers, introduce yourself and make a good impression, hand out the CVs even if it's a "put me on the just in case pile", offering up your time for free to show what you can bring to the table etc.

tneva82 wrote:Funny how he noted "maybe in your area" and that "it's not universal" as in hard to find and you provide just your own place info. You basically strengthen HIS arqument.

Because there seems to be this prevailing trend that everytime I counter someones point people turn around and make excuses about how I must be rich or I live in some perfect part of the country where jobs and houses and everything else abounds in great quantities (you'll see an example of this later). So I made the point that I live fairly close to the most deprived part of our nation, and even there there's work to be found of many varities. If it makes you feel better then just for you I brought up a job search and typed in Doncaster as the location (because why not?) and got much the same result. You'll forgive me if I don't sit here all night trying every town in the country.

Funny. when I was student I had pretty much set schedule for day not much different than I now have at work. Maybe one or two hour more but basically as a student easiness of working was about same as easiness of taking second job now.

A sister of mine is a mature student. Her work load varies with time depending on which assignments she has and how much time she has to spend in the library (history student). So some weeks she has free time between lectures, sometimes very little. I've found the same to be true of most students; sometimes they can work a nice fixed schedule, then a paper comes due and everything goes a bit mental for them.

Whirlwind wrote:Conversely more specialised jobs have to be advertised individually because they need a more precise skill set. As such individual jobs can look more prevalent.

By their nature though something that is highly specialised will be few and far between. Unless you happen to live close to somewhere that does a lot of Marine Engineering then you're not going to see many marine engineering posts advertised. Virtually everywhere you go you'll find everything from shop work, to cleaner, warehouse packer, warehouse assistant, jobs offering training packages, admin work, all kinds of stuff.

You do appear relatively well educated which many people are not. Your CVs will likely give a better impression and stand out more. The CVs of those less fortunate or doing 'menial' jobs likely look far less impressive. I don't think there is any doubt that individuals also have to take responsibility however I think I'd like to understand the jobs offered and the conditions (as I can imagine a sewer worker is not for everyone!).

Appearances can be deceptive I actually bombed out of college in quite spectacular fashion - not once, but twice - through nobodies fault but my own. My GCSEs were decent, some As and Bs, but nothing to write home about (E in French, U for Psychology for example). Debating club paid off though. I've done a bunch of menial stuff, but I've also put a lot of time in to educate myself and learn what I can from people, applied myself pretty well and worked hard to get the little that I have. Hoping to start up a business with a mate at some point next year if we can get all our prep done and gather the funds we need.

I don't think we should just be shoving unemployed people into the first random job that comes along, ideally we want people to find work that they can stick with while they get back on their feet, I just get very frustrated with some of them because I've seen the sort of things they'll turn down and their reasons for doing so. We offer a program in conjuction with the job centre to give people the chance to volunteer for just a few hours a week, nothing crazy. Most come in, do 2-3 hours, talk about how great it is and nod obligingly when I tell them it will look good on their CV and might even translate into a job if they stick at it, then we never see them again.

Magister wrote:I used to work at Waitrose (left this year) and they were just starting to bring in shifts that were 3 3/4 hours long, so they didn't have to give people a break.

As was explained up thread, this is verifiably on account of the minimum working hours to qualify for a break being 6.

... and how the Chairman's renumeration package of c.£1m (fairly cheap as they go, but still outrageous when you consider it) could be justified when people on full time contracts were barely making £16 grand before tax.

I'll never understand why people think this is odd, that the person that is ultimately responsible for a multi-billion pound company, its direction, its performance, its total revenue and profit, should make a sizeable amount of money. If you could bring someone in who could increase your profit from say £100 million to £120 million per year, would someone like that not be worth several million £ to the business in their own right?

Ketara wrote:On a more general note, John Lewis as a whole is feeling the pressure a bit these days. Profits are down by half:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41264277

Profits being down means less of a direct bonus for the staff in January. It doesn't help that unlike most large companies, they pay full tax, which puts them at a competitive disadvantage on branded products.

http://www.itv.com/news/2016-01-06/john-lewis-concerned-amazon-tax-problem-is-creating-an-unfair-fight/

Are they still trying to deflect attention from that (quite recent) incident where they spent six years underpaying their staff and subsequently got hit by a multi-million pound charge?

In its last financial year Amazon booked more than £5.3 billion of British online sales through its operation in Luxembourg. Meanwhile Amazon.co.uk, a British subsidiary, posted a modest profit of £34 million. And paid £11.9 million to the government in Corporation Tax. By comparison, every sale made at John Lewis and Waitrose online and off was booked in Britain. The partnership made a profit of £350m and paid £51m in corporation tax - four times more than Amazon

Hammering Amazon with a big tax bill? Now you have found something I can get behind 100%!! It might brighten peoples day to know that Goldman Sachs has reported they'll have to take a $5 billion hit to their fourth quarter earnings due to the new US tax laws. I'm sure the worlds collective hearts bleed for them.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Smoke, mirrors and typical Tory flim-flammery.

While I'm quite happy to see the boot put in when deserved, zero hours contracts hit the big time under the previous Labour administrations.

Cheers

Andrew

Was 2017 the year British sport lost its way?

Britain's elite athletes have gathered in heaping amounts of gold at recent Olympics, but there has been a cost in terms of brutal coaching affecting individuals.

What is the purpose of a national sports strategy? To get lots of medals? To energise public involvement in sport, leading to fitness and life benefits? Can it be both?

Well it should have a wide net.

When I was a wee nipper, the choice was football or rugby. If it wasn't one of those you were out of luck.


We should get kids involved with all sports at a young age. And then in a decade or two you get the medals.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Well it should have a wide net.

When I was a wee nipper, the choice was football or rugby. If it wasn't one of those you were out of luck.


We should get kids involved with all sports at a young age. And then in a decade or two you get the medals.

That's not how the funding works though. It favours what is successful now rather than what could be successful in the future. Hence if we get lucky and have a few good sports people now in those areas they get more money; this might completely bypass other potential world class competitors for the future though.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/20780450


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bouncingboredom wrote:
By their nature though something that is highly specialised will be few and far between. Unless you happen to live close to somewhere that does a lot of Marine Engineering then you're not going to see many marine engineering posts advertised. Virtually everywhere you go you'll find everything from shop work, to cleaner, warehouse packer, warehouse assistant, jobs offering training packages, admin work, all kinds of stuff.

I wasn't really considering that specialised. An accounting assistant for example would need good maths skills but a business is only likely to need to employ one at a time. Same as with a secretary. These have specific skill sets unique to the job. Conversely we a need a bunch of (say 20) drivers with zero hour contracts can be advertised as one job advert and then after passing a few basic checks can all be included on the roster.

Appearances can be deceptive I actually bombed out of college in quite spectacular fashion - not once, but twice - through nobodies fault but my own. My GCSEs were decent, some As and Bs, but nothing to write home about (E in French, U for Psychology for example). Debating club paid off though. I've done a bunch of menial stuff, but I've also put a lot of time in to educate myself and learn what I can from people, applied myself pretty well and worked hard to get the little that I have. Hoping to start up a business with a mate at some point next year if we can get all our prep done and gather the funds we need.

Educated is educated, doesn't matter how you manage to achieve that. You recognised a weakness and did something about it. The only problem that a lack of non-formal education can bring is analytical detachment. Educating yourself can lead to reinforcement of an individual's own bias (you learn what you want to learn etc).

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Was 2017 the year British sport lost its way?
What is the purpose of a national sports strategy?

To waste taxpayer time and money for national self aggrandisement on aimless activities that leave even the winners physically broken half the time.

Ketara wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Was 2017 the year British sport lost its way?
What is the purpose of a national sports strategy?

To waste taxpayer time and money for national self aggrandisement on aimless activities that leave even the winners physically broken half the time.

Agreed. All that money spent, all them medals, but what did it really achieve aside from the occassional and rather brief feel good moment?

Whirlwind wrote:The only problem that a lack of non-formal education can bring is analytical detachment. Educating yourself can lead to reinforcement of an individual's own bias (you learn what you want to learn etc).

If it helps, I read a lot of the Guardian online even though I'm not a fan of them, purely to see what the "other side" thinks. Every now and again they even have a good idea.

----------

Speaking of the papers:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/12/28/business-growth-picks-strong-end-2017/

Short version;
"Business growth picked up at its fastest pace since 2015 in the final months of 2017"
"Factories, services firms and retailers all reported improved growth in the three months to December"
"... leaves the UK in line for GDP growth of as much as 1.8pc over 2017 as a whole - barely changed from 1.9pc in 2016 - defying fears of a slowdown."
"All sectors expanded in the CBI study, with the proportion of businesses reporting ‘above normal’ levels of output outweighing those reporting sub-par levels by a margin of 19pc - the strongest figure since December 2015."

And just an interesting article from the BBC about a group of businesses around the Greater Manchester area that are trying to revitalise the old textile industry in the region.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42452950

Speaking as a southerner (east of englander?) I'm very disappointed that all the talk of developing a northern powerhouse has been just that, talk. Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds are all primed for exceptional growth if the government would just give them a helping hand to reinforce their success. Manchester is doing so well it might not even need the investment, but it would be nice if the government put a bit of money in, such as funding some of the Atlantic Gateway proposals which could be fantastic for that whole Mersey river region.

bouncingboredom wrote:

And it is luck.

Here I have to vehemently disagree with you. Luck has nothing to do with it. Luck would be bumping into someone at a bus stop who you haven't seen for years who just happens to know a vacancy going that you can apply for. There's nothing lucky about taking time to fix up your CV, going out and getting a bunch of envelopes, putting on your best suit and hitting the bricks to go visit employers, speak to the managers, introduce yourself and make a good impression, hand out the CVs even if it's a "put me on the just in case pile", offering up your time for free to show what you can bring to the table etc.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with your disagreement, having worked in placement agencies and as the hired barrier to entry for 2 firms:

It depends, on at least two days of the week, on whether the HR drone in question did well at GW the night previously.

It also depends on whether Julie in Design can be convinced to shut the hell up, so the stack of 200 CVs dumped in the IN tray on Monday lunchtime can be processed by Tuesday lunchtime's deadline.

You can do everything right and still lose - you can also do everything wrong and still win, by virtue of a terminator's armour save the night previous leading to the owner having enough morale to do unpaid overtime and get to your CV before the deadline is up, or enough attention being paid to realise you've been misfiled.

And that's before we go into CV parsing and automation, which is a whole 'nother kettle of beans.


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 Ketara wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Was 2017 the year British sport lost its way?
What is the purpose of a national sports strategy?

To waste taxpayer time and money for national self aggrandisement on aimless activities that leave even the winners physically broken half the time.

Also known as 'Bread and Circuses'

bouncingboredom wrote:
The door company I worked for did listings like "door supervisors wanted" etc, which was a bit open ended, but in practice they're not out to recruit hundreds of new staff. The amount of people they would take on would still be dwarfed by the number of individual ads put up.

Quite possibly. Or then again, perhaps not. I honestly wouldn't care to estimate or guess either way to be honest. Not enough data. The point was purely that you disagreed (or seemed to) that any real numbers of entry-level/no qualification jobs were switching to zero hours contracts, and cited the comparable lesser numbers of job postings for them compared to others as proof. So I was just noting that it wasn't really the most reliable way of establishing metrics for this sort of thing.

Certainly anecdotally at least, most people I know of have either ended up on the high street or in the zero hour sector when needing an unqualified job pronto regardless of time/age. It was more or less all I could find when I was in that position myself and trawling the job adverts every day, and my younger brother had the same experience not two years ago. The problem (for both of us) was that anything which was entry level, decent, reasonably paid, and required no qualification was vastly oversubscribed. I saw one jobsite which used to note the numbers of applications for a given job, and every office job had literally hundreds of applications. In that sort of scenario, there's always twenty people with experience who top the list for interview, and the people who really do have no experience never even clear the first hurdle.

You can get lucky of course, and spot something that nobody else did, or get in an application for a job that closes after they get 40 applicants or something.

Here I have to vehemently disagree with you. Luck has nothing to do with it. Luck would be bumping into someone at a bus stop who you haven't seen for years who just happens to know a vacancy going that you can apply for. There's nothing lucky about taking time to fix up your CV, going out and getting a bunch of envelopes, putting on your best suit and hitting the bricks to go visit employers, speak to the managers, introduce yourself and make a good impression, hand out the CVs even if it's a "put me on the just in case pile", offering up your time for free to show what you can bring to the table etc.

I might not have been clear. Doing those things isn't the lucky part. The lucky part is finding that one manager who's got five minutes to talk and the independent scope to give you an trial shift (you won't find many bank managers that'll do it, for example). By all means, doing the above is increasing your odd of success, but jobsearching is always ultimately based on luck. You can do everything you've suggested and fail miserably whilst a couch potato happens to be getting their groceries at the moment the local off license manager has a breakdown and shout that they'll hire the next person they see.

If you increase the number of coin flips you do, your odds get better of getting the result you want. But it's all just luck at the end of the day.

Appearances can be deceptive I actually bombed out of college in quite spectacular fashion - not once, but twice - through nobodies fault but my own. My GCSEs were decent, some As and Bs, but nothing to write home about (E in French, U for Psychology for example). Debating club paid off though. I've done a bunch of menial stuff, but I've also put a lot of time in to educate myself and learn what I can from people, applied myself pretty well and worked hard to get the little that I have. Hoping to start up a business with a mate at some point next year if we can get all our prep done and gather the funds we need.

I don't think we should just be shoving unemployed people into the first random job that comes along, ideally we want people to find work that they can stick with while they get back on their feet, I just get very frustrated with some of them because I've seen the sort of things they'll turn down and their reasons for doing so. We offer a program in conjuction with the job centre to give people the chance to volunteer for just a few hours a week, nothing crazy. Most come in, do 2-3 hours, talk about how great it is and nod obligingly when I tell them it will look good on their CV and might even translate into a job if they stick at it, then we never see them again.

No, I know that feeling. I used to sift the CV's at Travelodge, and it often felt like for every one that was worthwhile, there were six that hadn't been run through a basic spellcheck. Then the interviews came, and for every worthwhile applicant there was, there were three who seemed to just be in there because they needed to tick off the Job Centre minimum requirement and slobbed in wearing a tracksuit.

That being said, you'd still be left with three or four solid applicants at the end and rolling a D6. (1 and 6 are rerolls).

I think it's important not to do the self-made man thing though. I come from a poor working class background myself, but I try to remember that I still got a good upbringing and brain, and not everybody else is so lucky. It's very easy to look at your own accomplishments, link it to your hard work, and then say 'if others worked as hard as me, they could get somewhere too'. Harder to remember that you could have worked just as hard and gotten nowhere, or a lot easier and gotten further. Luck is always a factor.

 Ketara wrote:
...I think it's important not to do the self-made man thing though. I come from a poor working class background myself, but I try to remember that I still got a good upbringing and brain, and not everybody else is so lucky. It's very easy to look at your own accomplishments, link it to your hard work, and then say 'if others worked as hard as me, they could get somewhere too'. Harder to remember that you could have worked just as hard and gotten nowhere, or a lot easier and gotten further. Luck is always a factor.

Absolutely spot on.
Hard work is important, but good luck really makes the difference. Every entrepreneur, every star, every success had their "big break", whether that was support from family connections, or from just being in the right place at the right time. Hard work only gets you so far. You can graft every day in a menial job, and still get absolutely no where, and to say that hard work is all that matters is to deny the real world.

Luck, and without that, connections, are what makes the difference, but conservatives like to ignore that so that they can morally justify their actions to themselves. If you can blame a poor work ethic, and cite a few examples on benefits street, you can justify cutting the life support mechanism for when people's luck fail, because, in the conservative mind, it's their own moral failings that have caused their downfall, and nothing else.

 r_squared wrote:

Absolutely spot on.
Hard work is important, but good luck really makes the difference. Every entrepreneur, every star, every success had their "big break", whether that was support from family connections, or from just being in the right place at the right time. Hard work only gets you so far. You can graft every day in a menial job, and still get absolutely no where, and to say that hard work is all that matters is to deny the real world.

Luck, and without that, connections, are what makes the difference, but conservatives like to ignore that so that they can morally justify their actions to themselves. If you can blame a poor work ethic, and cite a few examples on benefits street, you can justify cutting the life support mechanism for when people's luck fail, because, in the conservative mind, it's their own moral failings that have caused their downfall, and nothing else.

It's not luck, it's statistics! We can see the successful people but at the same time there are thousands that don't meet the same level for one reason or another. However from a population perspective it is inevitable that some will be very successful and some won't. However...who gets to be successful is dependent on the resources an individual has available. If you have to 'scrap' for every meal it likely means you do not have the time or money to invest heavily in an idea. Therefore those that have this then have an advantage from the start. That time and resource allows people to develop connections and influence that ensures they have a better chance of succeeding. I once read an article that stated for children one of the largest factor for their success was their parents. The professional parents generally don't let their children fall too far, they'll find them a job that allows them to develop. For specific break through or changes then being in the right place at the right time (e.g.discovering facebook, or a medicine cure) as inevitably they would be found by someone else given time. However for general management it largely goes with who you know (or who you parents know).

Agree with the comments on the Tories. Their view is that if you aren't successful you are just lazy; but rather it's their complete misunderstanding of statistical variations. You can see this when some MPs state things like 'ensuring every school is above average' (Gove).

Luck is the way individuals experience the operation of statistics.

It's the usual 'High Tory' thing of confusing their own good fortune for sheer hard graft.

As I've said many times before, I've got no issue or beef with privilege. Someone is bound to get lucky. But when said privilege is confused with superiority and being more deserving, that's when I get honked off.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It's the usual 'High Tory' thing of confusing their own good fortune for sheer hard graft.

As I've said many times before, I've got no issue or beef with privilege. Someone is bound to get lucky. But when said privilege is confused with superiority and being more deserving, that's when I get honked off.

Well I think it is more they recognise they have somehow managed to lie their way to the top and now will do anything to stay there (which means supporting the wealthy and punishing the poor).

I see that Grayling tried to sneak out the changes to the East Coast Rail line effectively giving the current operators over a £1bn 'gift' by allowing them to exit the contract early. All over the same days when rail commuters are looking at a 3.6% increase to their fares.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/lord-adonis-chris-grayling-quit-resign-virgin-east-coast-rail-franchise-bailout-a8135221.html

There's also some interesting manufacting data released today as well.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/business-42538954?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=5a4b5c1be4b06f06e8399f98%26Manufacturing%20growth%20%27will%20be%20hard%20to%20sustain%20in%202018%27%26&ns_fee=0#post_5a4b5c1be4b06f06e8399f98

Since 2009 our manufacturing output growth has been systematically higher then the EUs (apart from a few small periods). Since the Wrexit vote this has reveresed and our growth is diverging and becoming signficantly worse overall. That's despite a lower value in the £. Effectively we are increasingly lagging behind the EU in benefiting from renewed global growth.

Good news: I'm back

Happy New Year to you all. Hope you had a good Christmas/New Year

Most people are probably aware that rising rail fares is dominating the news...again!

but I'm getting an element of schadenfreude here when I see Tory voters complaining about getting exactly what they voted for, in regard to rip-off rail fares and privitization.

My sympathies to fellow dakka members who are getting fleeced by these pirates.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

but I'm getting an element of schadenfreude here when I see Tory voters complaining about getting exactly what they voted for, in regard to rip-off rail fares and privitization.

My sympathies to fellow dakka members who are getting fleeced by these pirates.

We don't know the voting intentions. I would agree that if you are voting Tory then you can't really complain about increased hikes on rail fairs, worsening NHS, education, public sector etc. On the other hand the majority of conservative supporters are in affluent, rural areas that don't likely use the trains as they mainly service the main towns. I wonder just how many are actual Tory voters or just the younger generation being fleeced because of where the work is. Rolling people blockades of Westminster tube station anyone?

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Good news: I'm back

Happy New Year to you all. Hope you had a good Christmas/New Year

Most people are probably aware that rising rail fares is dominating the news...again!

but I'm getting an element of schadenfreude here when I see Tory voters complaining about getting exactly what they voted for, in regard to rip-off rail fares and privitization.

My sympathies to fellow dakka members who are getting fleeced by these pirates.

Does remind one of some of the recently declassified memos about the Poll Tax.

It's the usual 'High Tory' thing of confusing their own good fortune for sheer hard graft.

Toby "friendship is dead"/captin Bellend Young here being a prime example of this.

 Whirlwind wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

but I'm getting an element of schadenfreude here when I see Tory voters complaining about getting exactly what they voted for, in regard to rip-off rail fares and privitization.

My sympathies to fellow dakka members who are getting fleeced by these pirates.

We don't know the voting intentions. I would agree that if you are voting Tory then you can't really complain about increased hikes on rail fairs, worsening NHS, education, public sector etc. On the other hand the majority of conservative supporters are in affluent, rural areas that don't likely use the trains as they mainly service the main towns. I wonder just how many are actual Tory voters or just the younger generation being fleeced because of where the work is. Rolling people blockades of Westminster tube station anyone?

This is purely anecdotal, but on the radio phone ins this morning, people were moaning about rail fares, and a lot of them were from the Home Counties, which as you know, lean heavily towards Tory, and have done so for many years.

True, voting Tory doesn't preclude you from moaning about trains, but like those people who were flooded down in England a few years back, and then voted Tory at the next election (despite Tory cuts to flood defences) I often wonder at their rational.

Yeah, my car's floating past my house, but better that than Corbyn's Venezuela or something like that.


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 reds8n wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Good news: I'm back

Happy New Year to you all. Hope you had a good Christmas/New Year

Most people are probably aware that rising rail fares is dominating the news...again!

but I'm getting an element of schadenfreude here when I see Tory voters complaining about getting exactly what they voted for, in regard to rip-off rail fares and privitization.

My sympathies to fellow dakka members who are getting fleeced by these pirates.

Does remind one of some of the recently declassified memos about the Poll Tax.

It's the usual 'High Tory' thing of confusing their own good fortune for sheer hard graft.

Toby "friendship is dead"/captin Bellend Young here being a prime example of this.

I thought there was a standing order against mentioning Toby Young's name on this thread, much in the same way that you know who in the White House is banned from these forums?

But yeah, Young is another person who really ought to be exiled to British Antarctic territory.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

My sympathies to fellow dakka members who are getting fleeced by these pirates.

3.66% increase for me by the looks of it. I thought it was meant to be capped at 3.4% but that seems to be the average.

Glad to know the Dutch citizens are getting the benefit of my hard earned :(

There is a good article on The Independent about the railways.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/labour-rail-privatised-price-rise-nationalise-companies-jeremy-corbyn-service-strikes-cost-a8138106.html


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I don't commute by train any more, but my daughter does and I have to pay for her season ticket.

My view on the price of tickets is firstly, that the purpose of the railways is to enable people to move about the country and do stuff, and secondly, that it's unfair to expect today's passengers to pay for the improvements that yesterday's passengers didn't pay for and tomorrow's passengers won't have to pay for.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There is a good article on The Independent about the railways.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/labour-rail-privatised-price-rise-nationalise-companies-jeremy-corbyn-service-strikes-cost-a8138106.html


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I don't commute by train any more, but my daughter does and I have to pay for her season ticket.

My view on the price of tickets is firstly, that the purpose of the railways is to enable people to move about the country and do stuff, and secondly, that it's unfair to expect today's passengers to pay for the improvements that yesterday's passengers didn't pay for and tomorrow's passengers won't have to pay for.

Doesn't Corbyn's rail plan depend on us being out of the EU and free from their rules on nationalisation and state subsidies or something?

Herzlos wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

My sympathies to fellow dakka members who are getting fleeced by these pirates.

3.66% increase for me by the looks of it. I thought it was meant to be capped at 3.4% but that seems to be the average.

Glad to know the Dutch citizens are getting the benefit of my hard earned :(

According to this:

http://nieuws.ns.nl/tarieven-2018/

They are increasing their tickets a mere 1,22%, so below inflation. I'm sure your monthly contribution helps to keep those communting in the Netherlands as low as possible.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There is a good article on The Independent about the railways.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/labour-rail-privatised-price-rise-nationalise-companies-jeremy-corbyn-service-strikes-cost-a8138106.html


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I don't commute by train any more, but my daughter does and I have to pay for her season ticket.

My view on the price of tickets is firstly, that the purpose of the railways is to enable people to move about the country and do stuff, and secondly, that it's unfair to expect today's passengers to pay for the improvements that yesterday's passengers didn't pay for and tomorrow's passengers won't have to pay for.

Doesn't Corbyn's rail plan depend on us being out of the EU and free from their rules on nationalisation and state subsidies or something?

No.


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I can expand on that if you want.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


We don't know the voting intentions. I would agree that if you are voting Tory then you can't really complain about increased hikes on rail fairs, worsening NHS, education, public sector etc. On the other hand the majority of conservative supporters are in affluent, rural areas that don't likely use the trains as they mainly service the main towns. I wonder just how many are actual Tory voters or just the younger generation being fleeced because of where the work is. Rolling people blockades of Westminster tube station anyone?

This is purely anecdotal, but on the radio phone ins this morning, people were moaning about rail fares, and a lot of them were from the Home Counties, which as you know, lean heavily towards Tory, and have done so for many years.

True, voting Tory doesn't preclude you from moaning about trains, but like those people who were flooded down in England a few years back, and then voted Tory at the next election (despite Tory cuts to flood defences) I often wonder at their rational.

Funny, Mr Young mentions Munchausen Syndrome, given there's a surprising slice of the electorate who vote Tory despite not actually being wealthy or white!

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There is a good article on The Independent about the railways.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/labour-rail-privatised-price-rise-nationalise-companies-jeremy-corbyn-service-strikes-cost-a8138106.html


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I don't commute by train any more, but my daughter does and I have to pay for her season ticket.

My view on the price of tickets is firstly, that the purpose of the railways is to enable people to move about the country and do stuff, and secondly, that it's unfair to expect today's passengers to pay for the improvements that yesterday's passengers didn't pay for and tomorrow's passengers won't have to pay for.

Doesn't Corbyn's rail plan depend on us being out of the EU and free from their rules on nationalisation and state subsidies or something?

No.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I can expand on that if you want.

I appreciate the offer, but I think it's way too early in the new year for EU rules and regulations.

I will say to everybody, regardless of where you stand on Brexit, 2018 will be a crucial and fascinating year for Brexit.

It would be foolish to predict anything other than death and taxes.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


I appreciate the offer, but I think it's way too early in the new year for EU rules and regulations.

Too late! Nothing in the EU rules states you can't have state owned organisations. We already have that in the NHS to start with. I work for a public sector body that has just brought some operations in house after being privately run. The only thing the EU states is that if you are to advertise then it has to be a fair and equal process for all the external suppliers.

I will say to everybody, regardless of where you stand on Brexit, 2018 will be a crucial and fascinating year for Brexit.

It would be foolish to predict anything other than death and taxes.

Blimey and I thought I was pessimistic about Wrexit. I'm not predicting everyone will be taxed and die because of it. I think I'd prefer to take my chances with the Zombie Apocalypse (though strictly speaking we do have a government full of them so maybe it has already started!).

 Whirlwind wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


I appreciate the offer, but I think it's way too early in the new year for EU rules and regulations.

Too late! Nothing in the EU rules states you can't have state owned organisations. We already have that in the NHS to start with. I work for a public sector body that has just brought some operations in house after being privately run. The only thing the EU states is that if you are to advertise then it has to be a fair and equal process for all the external suppliers.

I will say to everybody, regardless of where you stand on Brexit, 2018 will be a crucial and fascinating year for Brexit.

It would be foolish to predict anything other than death and taxes.

Blimey and I thought I was pessimistic about Wrexit. I'm not predicting everyone will be taxed and die because of it. I think I'd prefer to take my chances with the Zombie Apocalypse (though strictly speaking we do have a government full of them so maybe it has already started!).

I was referring to the Benjamin Franklin quote that nothing is certain in life but death and taxes, rather than as a prediction for Brexit!

It's foolish to predict anything.

Some of Toby Young’s comments on twitter are astonishing, they’re being discussed quite a bit on twitter and screenshots being circulated as he’s hurriedly been deleting lots of stuff. Can May seriously press ahead with this appointment? Probably yes, if the BBC continue with their toothless silence.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Some of Toby Young’s comments on twitter are astonishing, they’re being discussed quite a bit on twitter and screenshots being circulated as he’s hurriedly been deleting lots of stuff. Can May seriously press ahead with this appointment? Probably yes, if the BBC continue with their toothless silence.

Yes there seems to be a purge going on to remove things that are offensive which is probably a directive from Tory HQ (the twitter remarks on Wikipedia linked earlier have all been 'removed'). However I'm not sure that the Tories really understand the internet as once it's out there you can't really remove them in the way they would like.

This article has a good few of his comments that have been preserved. Please provide anymore you find to preserve them for history!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/toby-young-theresa-may-university-appointment-labour-demand-reverse-decision-a8138906.html

Given the recent issues in parliament about the treatment of women you would think that May would have had some sense to not appoint someone that effectively brings into question her real desire to stamp out such issues.

But yes the BBC have been very quiet on this one. They had an article about it yesterday but it seems to have disappeared after being replaced with one more defending his actions (and not commenting at all on his twitter remarks).