I guess its okay to pay £660m for one tube station Bond Street, budgeted at £110m! But when a Battery company in the NE to pump prime its start-up needs cash! No chance! Still HS2 anybody!
was the budget £110m or was it the quote ? If quote , the incredible thing is next time a tube stations needed , they’ll still give the contract to the same company without questioning how their costings are so far out
To be fair there were the unforseen hazards of it being really really hard to dig a hole that big then find somewhere to take all the rubble ... ... they eventually dumped it on some old abandoned coalyards near Blyth. It's a bit of an eyesore but can't be seen from the train to London so it's the perfect solution.
Transport For London paid for Bond Street Station. Owned by GLA. Controlled by Sadiq Khan. ****ing tories eh?
The opening of a spectacular Elizabeth line station at Bond Street will be Andy Byford’s parting gift before he quits as Transport for London commissioner, he promised on Friday. He said the role at TfL had been the toughest job of his career due to ongoing battles with the Government to secure help during the pandemic. ...“the funding negotiations and discussions were way more protracted and way more consuming than I could have possibly imagined.” He added: “I look back at the fact we got £6 billion out of a government which had their issues with the regime at City Hall. I think that is a pretty good return.”
This analogy encapsulates all that is wrong with British politics, the attitude of those in Parliament, and the attitude of the electorate. Politics isn't a football match at all. It isn't two adversaries trying to out do each other. It is, or should be, different groups of people with slightly differing ideas on how to run the country, coming together to discuss the best way to do that. People have talked about the role of the opposition being to scrutinise the party in power. What happens isn't scrutiny. A large part of what I do for a living is writing books and reports for publication in peer reviewed journals. My work comes under professional and academic scrutiny. If a reviewer just started shouting "you're wrong" and making deliberately contradictory statements, as happens in parliament, I'd ignore them. Instead, my scrutineers offer further information and ideas that challenge my work and help me to improve it, in order to drive understanding of the subject forward for the benefit of everyone. That's what the role of the opposition should be. Scrutiny is not adversarial bickering; it is a thorough examination to achieve to a common goal. This idea amongst the electorate that you should take sides is ridiculous. To my mind it undermines the whole point of democracy and by denying yourself the choice of voting for another party you're just making life that little bit harder. Why does it have to be Labour versus Conservative? It should be the electorate saying "you all work for us, get it right".
Cracking post. I fear democracy has evolved into this current state and wont get back to the aims you outline. It needs a very hard stop, and a very new restart. Only the public can drive that agenda, but I dont believe for 1 minute we have it in us to collectively demand change. We are in a sorry state across all political parties and processes in my opinion. It is not really me I worry for, it is my kids, they look like carrying the can to me.
To secure help during the pandemic. It's in what you quoted. You'd prefer the government left tfl to their fate? Sounds like you hate Labour, and by extension Muslims because Khan's the mayor, to me. Now if I did pick a side, it would be Labour. It's so easy to create sentences like the one above.
And they'll continue to get worse if all we ask of them is to be slightly less **** than the incumbents.
I certainly dont remember a worse group. Both sides seem poor in my opinion. There are exceptions, but not too many. In most walks of life you would say organisations evolve with time and progress. They change to meet the demands of the time. UK political institutions seem an anomoly.
Even on a relatively small site such as this one, the partisan nature of Party Politics stands out, way above any attempt to judge any event or policy, on it's merits. The 'My Party Right Or Wrong' approach, No government has ever had an easy time of it, all the time. '**** happens' is the phrase that comes to mind. And each sides supporters will take up Party positions, irrespective of the merits of any event. It is ironic, (to me at least), that the people who hold Governments and Party's in the palm of their hand, are the relatively small number of 'floating voters'. In MOST General Elections, it's this group who are mainly responsible for who our Government is. Even on here we have a regular poster who brags about the numbers he has on his 'ignore' list. Presumably he is terrified of learning that few debates are straightforward, and most arguments have at least two sides to them. Personally, I don't need to read my own views. If I'm going to learn something or understand things better, I need to know what others think or know. I have no problem with changing my mind on any particular topic. Someone, I think on here, some time ago, put it so well with this quote, -- When the situation Changes, I may change my mind. What do you do?
I agree with every word of this! I think its massively important to be open minded to new ideas and concepts. I think everyone has some opinions that are deeply held but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't allow those views to be challenged.
As with almost everything corrosive, and what takes us away from being a decent, reasonable and basically honest nation, we've imported our current political atmosphere from America. The same goes with the drug gangs and their turf wars, celebrity without talent and the way everyone screams their 'rights' in your face without accepting their responsibilities. Boris Johnson, in my opinion, will eventually be seen as a dreadful mess of a PM who gained power mainly because he was 'a character'. Boring isn't acceptable any more no matter how honest, caring and well meaning a politician may be ... they're all dismissed as 'corrupt and as bad as each other'. Not only do Government ministers avoid answering any inconvenient questions they openly lie to us and ignore inconvenient rules even if they made them and lectured the public that they must obey. Penny Mordaunt recently became 'a credible PM' based, not on policies, plans and proposals, almost entirely on a brief comedy turn at the despatch box. As with our endless TV 'celebrity' competitions, from baking scones to eating worms, mindless game shows, reality programmes and soaps we're now dumbing everything down to base level whereby we're losing sight of decent, but supposedly boring standards and compassion. Our children are taught not to judge or bully yet every other TV show is doing exactly that. The most popular judges are the deliberately 'nasty' ones who insult and denigrate the competitors. And that's reflected in our politics which have become polarised and little more than a pantomime Christopher Biggins would be ashamed to appear in. Sadly I can't see it improving ... ... they always say the public get the government they deserve, perhaps we have.
Cracking post marra, I'm hoping we throw the tories out at the next General Election and Starmer steadies the ship. Loads of things have gone wrong in the past 12 years which will take a long time to put right.
To keep the business running during the pandemic. You know, when nobody could go out except key workers. Tfl had to keep working to provide the service but with a tiny fraction of the usual revenue. https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/how-we-work/how-we-are-funded
