2024 General Election - 4th July

[Eastlondoner62]

Jul 9, 2024 20:36:25 GMT yunus said:

I am a bit surprised that nothing much has been said lately if the 2030 EV deadline is 100% to commence following a Labour govt.

Who said that? Because Labour didn't.

[yunus]

Jul 9, 2024 20:39:15 GMT Eastlondoner62 said:

Jul 9, 2024 20:36:25 GMT yunus said:

I am a bit surprised that nothing much has been said lately if the 2030 EV deadline is 100% to commence following a Labour govt.

Who said that? Because Labour didn't.

I mean I was expecting more news to come out if the 2030 deadline is gonna commence with additional funding if it is gonna be secured.

[Eastlondoner62]

Jul 9, 2024 20:40:54 GMT yunus said:

Jul 9, 2024 20:39:15 GMT Eastlondoner62 said:

Who said that? Because Labour didn't.

I mean I was expecting more news to come out if the 2030 deadline is gonna commence with additional funding if it is gonna be secured.

The Tories have wrecked the country from top to bottom, The Chancellor has come out and said the economic state of the country is worse than she thought, they've got an immigration and housing crisis to deal with. They have better things to do than to come into office and think that London needs to be 100% zero emission by 2030 and quite truly it's probably relatively low on their current agenda. 

[southlondonbus]

Jul 9, 2024 20:51:46 GMT Eastlondoner62 said:

Jul 9, 2024 20:40:54 GMT yunus said:

I mean I was expecting more news to come out if the 2030 deadline is gonna commence with additional funding if it is gonna be secured.

The Tories have wrecked the country from top to bottom, The Chancellor has come out and said the economic state of the country is worse than she thought, they've got an immigration and housing crisis to deal with. They have better things to do than to come into office and think that London needs to be 100% zero emission by 2030 and quite truly it's probably relatively low on their current agenda. 

If on the Chancellors mind at all. Her job arguably is to allocated the money to the Department of transport and for the relevant parties to make their case I would guess.

[wirewiper]

Jul 9, 2024 20:40:54 GMT yunus said:

Jul 9, 2024 20:39:15 GMT Eastlondoner62 said:

Who said that? Because Labour didn't.

I mean I was expecting more news to come out if the 2030 deadline is gonna commence with additional funding if it is gonna be secured.

Nothing much is going to happen until the King's Speech on 17th July, that is when the plans for the new Government will be set out in more detail. 

The 2030 all-EV target for London is a devolved issue anyway. 

[wirewiper]

The Department for Transport has issued a Press Release after the new Secretary of State for Transport, Louise Haigh MP, set out 5 key priorities to deliver the biggest overhaul to transport in a generation.

The Secretary of State has mobilised officials in the Department to work 'at pace' on these key priorities:

- Improving performance on the railways and driving forward rail reform.
- Improving bus services and increasing usage throughout the UK.
- Transforming infrastructure to work for the whole country, promoting social mobility and tackling regional inequality.
- Delivering greener transport.
- Better integration of transport networks.

Appointments to the Department are:

- Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill CBE - Rail Minister
- Lilian Greenwood MP - Future of Roads Minister. Greenwood was under-Secretary of State for Transport in 2015-2016 and has more recently been Shadow Minister for Culture, Media and Sport
- Simon Lightwood MP - Local Transport Minister, which includes the brief for buses and coaches. He was previously the Shadow Minister for Local Transport and succeeds Guy Opperman.
- Mike Kane MP - Minister for Aviation, Maritime and Security.

www.gov.uk/government/news/transport-secretary-sets-out-5-key-priorities-to-deliver-the-biggest-overhaul-to-transport-in-a-generation


**********************************************************

More about Simon Lightwood's appointment from RouteOne.net:

www.route-one.net/news/simon-lightwood-takes-ministerial-responsibility-for-coach-and-bus/

[capitalomnibus]

Jul 6, 2024 23:04:09 GMT Eastlondoner62 said:

Jul 6, 2024 19:55:13 GMT southlondon413 said:

Neither was the Sky News team or Rita Ora but they all had parties as well. If you think Boris Johnson was sitting and writing out the rules himself you are deluded.

To be honest they're not good examples, they're just no different to the others as they are private citizens. They don't make the rules and like everyone else who had a party, just disobeyed them instead. 

Boris however is not a private citizen, he is the Prime Minister and needs to lead by example. Whether someone else makes the rules or not, he leads the party so is effectively his seal of approval. It was a case of 'do as I say, not as I do' which is when public opinions on him started to tank. 

Looks like a bit of Joe Biden going on here   Boris Johnson WAS the prime minister 

[capitalomnibus]

Jul 9, 2024 3:16:07 GMT borneobus said:

Jul 8, 2024 10:06:03 GMT Eastlondoner62 said:

To bring this around to transport. Sir Peter Hendy has been appointed as a minister of state for Transport

Thanks for the update, I wanted to read-up a little more about Peter Hendy and I learnt he has a stellar CV and impeccable credentials for the role.

[mostly source Wikipedia]

Peter Gerard Hendy, Baron Hendy of Richmond Hill, CBE

CV

• Born 1953, brought up in Hayes & Harlington
• Educated Latymer Upper School [Hammersmith] and University of Leeds graduating in 1975 in Economics & Geography
• First job London Transport Graduate where he learnt to drive a Routemaster and was a conductor before rising up the ranks
• Appointed MD of CentreWest London Buses Ltd in 1989, managing it under London Transport ownership
• After management buy-out and subsequent takeover by First in 1997 became Deputy Director UK Bus for FirstGroup, responsible for bus operations in London and southern England, bus development, and the operation of Croydon Tramlink
• In 2001, he was appointed to the position of MD of Surface Transport for Transport for London (TfL), under Ken Livingstone's mayoralty of London. During this period, bus ridership in London grew substantially
• In 2006, he took up the position of Commissioner of Transport for London - he continued in post after the election of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London in 2008.
• During the London 2012 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, Hendy chaired the 2012 Games Transport Board, which worked with LOCOG, transport operators, local authorities and others to ensure transportation of athletes, officials, staff, media and spectators across London. He was subsequently knighted for his work at the Games
• In July 2015 he was appointed chair of Network Rail
• On 8 July 2024 it was announced that HM the King had approved his appointment as a minister of state in the Department for Transport

Other Appointments

• Between 2013 and 2015, Hendy was the chairman of International Association of Public Transport
• In July 2017 he was appointed chair of the London Legacy Development Corporation, by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, which is developing the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
• In July 2019 he was appointed by the then Prime Minister Theresa May as a trustee of the Science Museum Group which incorporates the National Railway Museum in York
• In March 2023, Hendy was appointed chairman of the Heritage Railway Association
• He is also the Honorary Chairman of the London Bus Museum
• Hendy owns two roadworthy London AEC Routemaster buses. He is organiser of the 23A scheduled bus service which runs once a year to the isolated and abandoned Wiltshire village of Imber.

In an interview with nla.London Peter Hendy was asked why he has two Routemasters? His answer: “Because one's not enough. We have a good time and I drive them myself. And I love driving. It's one of one of my great relaxations, driving a bus in London.”

*

It’s instructive that he has been appointed/retained by both Labour & Conservative MoL/Ministers.

What a super appointment! We have a SME (Subject Matter Expert) and bus/train enthusiast at the heart of UK transport policy! What’s not to like?

There were a few howlers however.
The advice to the mayor to call all buses off the road in the snow of January 2009 did not go down well.
The bendy bus saga which saw him earn the nickname bendy hendy
The near strikes in 2012 after bus drivers were not going to get the olympic bonus 

[capitalomnibus]

Jul 6, 2024 12:37:03 GMT busman said:

All these Tories with their doomsday predictions and fear mongering makes me laugh. They have screwed the country up over 14 years. What do they have to show for it? The previous Labour (Blair) and Tory (Thatcher) governments for their eventual shortcomings could at least point to a list of achievements. What have the outgoing self-serving bunch of ideologues got to show for 14 years in government? The country is undoubtedly in a worse place on just about every metric.

It really cannot get any worse than it already is. Truss was a nadir for this country and for the same party to issue out warnings over any other party is beyond parody.

Good luck to Starmer, he will need it. He has 5 years to make a positive impact on the lives of those who have been let down and left behind.

We need a run of global stability to settle markets and supply chains, but with populists and dictators in charge of the major countries the outlook doesn’t look great. That is beyond the control of any domestic government, but a policy to become self sustaining in our energy generation and to create a British energy company seems sensible. Much will depend on Labour’s ideas actually working and delivering jobs and better quality of life for everyone.

I’m hoping Labour succeeds, because if they don’t we have 5 years of more failure and before you know it Farage will be Prime Minister. Then we really will be in trouble. It will be like Truss but tenfold worse. Except when people finally realise that foreigners aren’t actually the problem it will be too late, the damage will be done and irreversible as chunks of our national infrastructure are given over to private foreign companies and national debts and interest rates soar through the roof. The kind of circumstances that wars are borne out of.

Reform policies on the surface look enticing to the average person, but once you dig into the details and the consequences they are the threat to the nation that all parties should be warning against. It’s basically Fascism in appeal (the foreigner is our enemy diluting our nation, no to communism, no to globalism, no to liberalism, no to conservatism) and prescribes nationalist (insular, but appeal to the common person - benefits, Brits first approach) and libertarian (dog eat dog, survival of the fittest) medicine for the nation. Yet with a shrunk government and civil service. And the largest budgetary black hole of all the parties. Farage is as big a threat (if not bigger) to national security and stability than Corbyn.

Labour needs to succeed to avoid the spectre of Farage and collaborate with the left, centre and the right (yes Labour voters, the right also have good ideas) to govern in the best interests of the nation and steer us out of 14 straight years of decline. Zero room for complacency - look at Netherlands and now France as examples.

Farage Prime Minister? that is an over exaggeration.

[capitalomnibus]

Biggest-ever gap between number of votes and MPs hits Reform and Greens
The gap between the share of total votes won by the winning party in the 2024 general election and the share of Parliamentary seats won is the largest on record, BBC Verify has found.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c886pl6ldy9o

[wirewiper]

Jul 13, 2024 10:18:42 GMT capitalomnibus said:

Biggest-ever gap between number of votes and MPs hits Reform and Greens
The gap between the share of total votes won by the winning party in the 2024 general election and the share of Parliamentary seats won is the largest on record, BBC Verify has found.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c886pl6ldy9o

 
Ironically the Lib Dems have argued strongly for Proportional Representation in the past because they were the biggest losers under First Past the Post. This time their share of the vote and the number of seats won match almost perfectly! 

[buspete]

I don t argue for proportional Representation as the preferred voting system, as there is no world where I would like to see Laurence Fox I would want to see get into our Parliament as a second choice.

[buspete]

Anyway just a quick wrap up on the election and I have been following opinion polls like a hawk before the election, to see if there was any path for the Liberals to become the official opposition, there were. I also mentioned to a colleague that there is always a big surprise in politics.

As I said I was following the opinion polls and many very marginal seats were forecast to go to Labour, South West Norfolk was not one of them at any stage. The Liberal Democrat’s were forecast to get between 40 and 60 seats in any case they performed much better than expected winning 72. Labour did well with the biggest swing in history, with 411 seats, but the super surge didn’t come and many weak seats like Daventry, Old Bexley &;Sidcup, Romford or Mid Devon switching to Conservative , Another path for Liberals to come the opposition was for Reform to do well and take many Tory seats, they sorely and thankfully underperformed however the forecast surge that Labour would get near on 500 seats never came and that the Tories would become the official opposition.

There were minor shocks with Jonathan Ashworth for Labour unexpectedly losing his seat, where Penny Mordant, Gillian Keenan and Grant Shapps expectantly losing theres. Then at 6:15am and bleary eyed the result from South West Norfolk came in and at no stage was this forecast to switch, it was nailed on blue even with the incumbent MP, they say politics is a cruel mistress and you get what you deserve in politics and this was indeed the case - that the Lady Jane Grey of politics was deposed, so by 620 votes Liz Truss a political career was finished, even being a former Prime Minister couldn’t save her. That was the 1997 Michael Portillo moment.

[southlondonbus]

Jul 13, 2024 11:25:24 GMT buspete said:

I don t argue for proportional Representation as the preferred voting system, as there is no world where I would like to see Laurence Fox I would want to see get into our Parliament as a second choice.

Yes iv always been a believer in whoever gets the most votes (even by just 1) has won.

What I do expect thou is for the percentages to atleast be made known after the election so people don't think the 412 seats necessarily makes Kier Starmer massively popular on only 33% of the vote share.

[southlondon413]

Jul 13, 2024 12:09:25 GMT southlondonbus said:

Jul 13, 2024 11:25:24 GMT buspete said:

I don t argue for proportional Representation as the preferred voting system, as there is no world where I would like to see Laurence Fox I would want to see get into our Parliament as a second choice.

Yes iv always been a believer in whoever gets the most votes (even by just 1) has won.

What I do expect thou is for the percentages to atleast be made known after the election so people don't think the 412 seats necessarily makes Kier Starmer massively popular on only 33% of the vote share.

Labour still would have won with 33% of the vote and would have had the right to form a government but with proportional representation they’d be forced to work with minority parties who’d have a greater say over how the government works. As it stands there is a toss up as to whether Labour will succeed with this huge majority or fall down with a hard to control majority causing divisions on the backbenches.

Personally I feel like we need a form of mixed member representation. So we could still vote for MP using normal FTP but we’d get a second vote based on PR. Look at how the Germans use MMPR to elect their government, it’s definitely something that could work here.