Children Should Go Free On The Buses
This story from the BBC says that the Liberal Democrats want all children to go free on the buses.
Not having been a child for many years and having no contact with any now, I thought that as in London, all children do go free.
But they don’t!
I think it will be a good idea, especially as reports in London recently have shown that this policy has cut the number of children getting injured on the roads.
It is interesting that the BBC illustrates their story with one of the Hackney Eight.
Miliband Gets The Digger Out
In East London, there is TUCA, which I call London’s University of Hole Digging.
Judging my Ed Miliband’s pronouncement in the last few minutes on his party’s relationship with the Trade Unions, he has certainly done the first part of the course at that University.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to have done part two, where you learn how to get out of hole, you’ve just dug!
If Ed Miliband Can’t Run The Labour Party, How Could He Run The Country?
After reading stories like this one about candidate selection in Falkirk, the question in the title of this post has to be asked.
Especually after he has had to call in the Police, to sort the mess out.
Margaret Thatcher Day
The BBC is reporting that some Tory MPs want the August Bank Holiday to be renamed Margaret Thatcher Day in honour of the late former Prime Minister.
I think that not everything about Mrs. Thatcher was either good or bad but even if I was a massive supporter, I would not want to see the renaming.
Renaming the day would set a very dangerous precedent and every interest group would want a day named after their hero, so the arguments would go on ad infinitum, when there are more pressing problems facing the country.
But then most politicians don’t know a bad idea, when they see it!
Putting The Cart Before The Horse
The Standard is reporting tonight, that Lord Mandelson has changed his mind over the building of HS2. Here’s a flavour.
In an extraordinary public U-turn, he confessed the costings were “almost entirely speculative” when Gordon Brown’s Cabinet backed the idea.
Ministers wanted a “bold commitment to modernisation” after the financial crash, he said, and ignored the potential risks of what now looked like “an expensive mistake”.
But then as Gordon Brown didn’t have the financial acumen to run a whelk stall, what do you expect?
I’ve always been slightly cynical about HS2 and feel if it ever gets built, it won’t be as is now envisaged.
But one thought struck me, as I read the article and it gave rise to the title of this post.
My background is in Project Management, which is all about getting things build the right way and in the correct order. Judging by all the arguments about how Heathrow Airport will link in to HS2, it struck me as strange that we are deciding the route of HS2 before we decide if we’re going to build a new airport for London.
Look at any option, with the possible exception of a third runway at Heathrow and we’ll have to revamp the railways around London, to create links to the North.
Strangely in a few years time, when the Midland Main Line is electrified, Sheffield will have the best links to a London airport, of any northern city. I suspect they’ll be running trains from Sheffield to Brighton, which of course will stop at Gatwick.
That just shows how well politicians plan transport networks.
They haven’t really done anything to solve the North-South problems we currently have and what will happen to construction methods in the near future.
HS2 is initially planned to go from London to Birmingham, but that route has one high speed 200 kph line and a convenient slower one. As I found last week, when I went to Birmingham, it’s a good service and a lot of the problems are on their way to being solved. I wonder what amount of traffic, an upgraded and electrified Chiltern Main Line could carry, thus delaying the need for HS2 to Birmingham!
But go North from Birmingham to Manchester, Liverpool and ultimately Scotland and there is a real lack of capacity. Admittedly, Virgin’s lengthened trains and a few new ones will help, but that line will probably be the first part of the West Coast Main Line to get totally overloaded.
So perhaps we should build it from North to South as some have proposed.
A very real problem is the cess-pit at the London end of the line; Euston. It was built on the cheap in the 1960s and needs a complete rebuild. Rebuilding Euston and building HS2 at the same time, would be a recipe for disaster.
And then there’s the problem of freight capacity, which is going to get worse, as some idiot decided to build the UK’s largest container port at London Gateway, in a place which is difficult to get to by rail,as most trains will have to fight their way through London. You could argue that the proposal to run freight trains on the old Grand Central Line by a company called Central Railway, should have been built as a freight spine first.
Building this line, would probably have taken a lot of the freight off the West Coast Main Line, so giving us the extra passenger capacity we need, at least as far as Manchester and Liverpool for a few years.
As with many things in Project Management, you don’t let politicians be involved in the design or choose the order you do something!
I always remember the building of the Lewisham Extension of the Docklands Light Railway. The contractors were told it had to link various holes in the ground and cost under a certain amount. The politicians then stood back and it was delivered on time at an acceptable price. Not like the Jubilee Line Extension, which was built at a similar time and suffered endless interference from politicians.
One of my laws of project management states that the more political or board level interference in a project, the later and more costly the project will be. If however those at the top lay down a feasible specification with rigid time and cost limits, the project will more likely be delivered successfully.
The End Of The Beginning
Last night, I went to the celebration party of the Libel Reform Campaign at the FreeWord Centre in Farringdon. For a start, I liked the board outside the venue.
Free Word Of The Day
Ostensibly it was to celebrate the passing into law of the Defamation Act of 2013.
But there is still work to do. They gave out a flyer last night, which stated these loose ends to be tied.
- We need clarity that the new statutory public interest defence will not lead to the importation of the problems of the Reynolds defence.
- We are still awaiting new court procedures which must provide for early strike out of trivial claims along with the Government’s plans for costs protection.
- We need the regulations and procedures to accompany section 5 on internet publication to deliver an effective defence.
- The Northern Ireland Assembly has failed to adopt the Defamation Act.
My support has only been moral and financial in a small way. But if you read this blog you will find many stories where libel has been inappropriately used to suppress views or information.
As the post yesterday about Nespresso showed, big companies and powerful individuals, are not slow to use the law to protect their interests.
Hopefully though, the Defamation Act 2013 will have removed one of their most effective weapons, the inappropriate and threatening use of the law of libel.
We are in for some interesting times, as the lawyers of the powerful, search for new ways to suppress the truth.
But perhaps the biggest lesson of last night, was that a well-organised campaign, with the support of decent and right-thinking individuals, acting in the public interest, can successfully drive from conception to execution, by using the Internet and the media, and motivating the general public to push their legislators hard.
Similar tactics were used by the Lighter Later campaign, but sadly that well-run campaign I supported, was killed by the dinosaurs in Parliament. The difference was probably that, the Libel Reform Campaign had the backing of all three political parties.
The trouble is that some groups may use similar tactics and methods to stop projects and ideas, that most believe should be implemented. Two that come to mind are the cancer database announced yesterday and HS2.
If I was to propose a campaign, it would be one to make the UK fully metric. That will never happen.
Car Registration NAB 2
This evening, I saw a car with the registration of NAB 2.
This was once owned by the colourful MP; Gerald Nabarro. But he didn’t own just NAB 2, but the whole sequence from one to seven or so. I remember seeing them all lined up in a newspaper picture, with two being used for the gardeners’ mopeds.
One connection to the modern day is that Christine Hamilton was at one time, his secretary.
Balls Loses The Next Election For Labour
It is reported today, that Ed Balls has said he will cut the winter fuel payment to wealthy pensioners.
it wouldn’t bother me, as any extra benefits I get from the government, I make sure goes into my charity pot, where I give money to charities that need it for good causes.
Many of those losing their benefit will be Labour voters and this sends a signal, that perhaps some of their other benefits like excellent pensions from public sector jobs might not be safe. So they might think about not voting and some might abstain or worse, as far is Labour is concerned.
I have this view, that politicians of all persuasions and colours are not to be trusted with my money, as they’ll all find vanity projects to waste it on. I won’t name any projects, as I quite like some of them from all sides of the political spectrum, but obviously not all.
Be Careful What You Tweet
Sally Bercow has dropped herself into it, by a tweet, that she meant to be conversational and mischievous. It’s all here on the BBC.
I might criticise people on this blog, but I’m very careful in criticising them only on subjects that are very much in the public domain and not just innuendo or gossip.
In some ways, I’m more likely to be sued not by a celebrity, but by some quack, who is promoting some scientifically-incorrect, who are I show the error of their ways.
I Don’t Dip In Olive Oil Anyway
This piece of EU legislation reported on the BBC must be the silliest. Here’s the first paragraph.
The European Commission is to ban the use of refillable bottles and dipping bowls of olive oil at restaurant tables from next year.
From 1 January 2014, restaurants may only serve olive oil in tamper-proof packaging, labelled to EU standards.
The Commission, the EU’s executive branch, says the move will protect consumers and improve hygiene.
It won’t improve my hygiene, as I’ve never anything in dipped olive oil and as very few places serve gluten-free bread, it will affect me about as much as the EU saying restaurants couldn’t use light blue tablecloths.
It’s ideas like this that mean UKIP and the other silly parties all over Europe prosper.
Let’s have some serious legislation that says that all restaurants must have a gluten free policy, shown on the menu.
The Anonymous Widower 