General News/Current Affairs Thread

On t'other hand, you can just hop on the tube and visit the V&A, the Tate, the British Museum or the National Gallery, and you don't have to pay for a hotel or anything! You're not a rich banker but you still get to enjoy all that. We don't.

Another aspect of this is that, if London is too expensive for you, you can't move to do the same job in a cheaper part of the country, because they haven't invested in infrastructure elsewhere to encourage employers to move further afield.
 
Ah but there are still nice things in other cities (and towns, and villages) such as open spaces, and clean air, and a greater illusion of privacy, and affordable food. Nowadays the only real setbacks with doing business outside of London for most types of business are Internet reliability (slowly, slowly improving, but very unevenly across the country) and transport access - which I fully agree needs a lot of work to be less of a national embarrassment.

ayase said:
Here's a fun quote on that subject:
Analysis by the think tank IPPR North in 2011 concluded the government's National Infrastructure Plan allocated £2,731 of transport spending per head in London and the South East, in projects where public funding was involved, compared to £5 per head in the North East.
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I'm pretty sure people don't actually hate your city or its inhabitants Rui (and Chaos, and Vash, and any other Londoners), we're simply sick of how London-centric parliament is. That's a hell of a discrepancy, and our infrastructure is in a massively worse state. The trains that run around here were meant to have been withdrawn by the end of this year because they're so old they don't comply with wheelchair access regulations (but it looks like they won't be) yet we still get ridiculous fare increases every year. Our local airport's transport links are so bad that the owners have purposely run it into the ground in order to develop the site. Only TWO TRAINS A WEEK stop at the airport's station, which was used by a total of 8 people last year. And that's after it was renamed it to carry the name of a place it's nowhere near. There is no motorway that links Newcastle and Edinburgh, or even the North East of England to the North West.

Meanwhile in London: Bore massive underground tunnels across the whole city for new rail lines? Not a problem. Level entire villages and relocate their populations to expand airport capacity? Get on with it already.
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Granted, though to combat the idea that those in London live in some kind of paradise of good public transport compared to everyone else, my daily commute to work takes 90 minutes each way, all standing. I live as close to my work as I can afford to without screwing over my partner; it's just enormously time consuming with all of the changes and poor routing. The sacrifices to quality of life a normal person makes to live here are not something to be envied irrespective of how much money the government fritters away.

It's a mystery how they prioritise the projects they do when transport all over this country is a hideous mess. Things like wheelchair access (also a huge problem on many London-bound lines even after they've spent all this money) should be a top priority for the good of the citizens of the country, not some afterthought which is less important than waging multiple wars overseas and arranging Christmas light displays.

I appreciate they're spending a fortune on London projects (whilst those in power all own two houses to reduce their own commuting problems - hmm) but even doing that the money doesn't seem to be going to the right places, other than the bus infrastructure which I will agree is absolutely marvellous and steadily gets worse for every couple of miles you travel outside of the city until it's mostly non-existent.

(Crossrail completely baffles me; why are they spending so much money improving a part of the system which has already been overhauled plenty of times? If everyone in the country was given more power over choosing priorities I cannot imagine it would be very high up the list for many people, including most Londoners.)

R
 
Rui said:
Granted, though to combat the idea that those in London live in some kind of paradise of good public transport compared to everyone else, my daily commute to work takes 90 minutes each way, all standing. I live as close to my work as I can afford to without screwing over my partner; it's just enormously time consuming with all of the changes and poor routing. The sacrifices to quality of life a normal person makes to live here are not something to be envied irrespective of how much money the government fritters away.

It's a mystery how they prioritise the projects they do when transport all over this country is a hideous mess. Things like wheelchair access (also a huge problem on many London-bound lines even after they've spent all this money) should be a top priority for the good of the citizens of the country, not some afterthought which is less important than waging multiple wars overseas and arranging Christmas light displays.

I appreciate they're spending a fortune on London projects (whilst those in power all own two houses to reduce their own commuting problems - hmm) but even doing that the money doesn't seem to be going to the right places, other than the bus infrastructure which I will agree is absolutely marvellous and steadily gets worse for every couple of miles you travel outside of the city until it's mostly non-existent.

(Crossrail completely baffles me; why are they spending so much money improving a part of the system which has already been overhauled plenty of times? If everyone in the country was given more power over choosing priorities I cannot imagine it would be very high up the list for many people, including most Londoners.)

R
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My last job had me leaving the house just past 6.30am in order to catch a bus which left a few minutes past 7.00am with a journey time of about 75 minutes. Since work started at 9.00 it meant sitting in the recreation area for around 45 minutes. It was only a temporary job, but the commute was a large part of why I left after only week (it was supposed to be a minimum of about 8 weeks). At least I lasted longer than the other temporary worker who started at the same time (she left after only 2 days).

Also I went to Nottingham for a meeting with a rep at a job agency a couple of weeks ago and the bus passed through Beeston where there was road works being done. I have only been to Nottingham a few times but it seems like these road works have been going one for about 6-12 months now.

As for the Scottish independance vote, well done on "no" winning. I hope everyone can get along up there now the voting has finished.
 
mangaman74 said:
My last job had me leaving the house just past 6.30am in order to catch a bus which left a few minutes past 7.00am with a journey time of about 75 minutes. Since work started at 9.00 it meant sitting in the recreation area for around 45 minutes. It was only a temporary job, but the commute was a large part of why I left after only week (it was supposed to be a minimum of about 8 weeks). At least I lasted longer than the other temporary worker who started at the same time (she left after only 2 days).

Also I went to Nottingham for a meeting with a rep at a job agency a couple of weeks ago and the bus passed through Beeston where there was road works being done. I have only been to Nottingham a few times but it seems like these road works have been going one for about 6-12 months now.

As for the Scottish independance vote, well done on "no" winning. I hope everyone can get along up there now the voting has finished.
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That's awful, especially with the role not accommodating the arrival time. It's such a waste to be in limbo between work and home and even worse to have that extra step at the end just to further hammer it home.

I feel grateful that the people of Scotland have managed to bring about a situation where the government is forced to acknowledge the problems (which it should really have done before or during its campaign, but getting a good taste of shame this way around has left a more lasting sting, I imagine). And that they've managed to have a vote on something everyone has some kind of opinion on, because as much as I try it's very difficult to feel hopeful about regular elections where all you're choosing is which out-of-touch loser you would least hate to see on the front pages of newspapers for the next few years.

R
 
It was rumoured that the SDL had a hand in that one. I would also be quick to point out that, having walked through the city centre earlier today, all was calm and utterly business as usual. Hopefully this is a one-off.

By and large, I think the vast majority have taken it all very well and seen it as the beginning of a new dialogue between the people and the politicians who purport to represent them. It just still depresses me to see some of the language (and occasionally burning objects) thrown around by the thuggish few.
 
I feel ashamed, why can't we all just take this gracefully and move on? No voters included.

Everyone seemed to focus on Yes supporters creating trouble, when really it's both sides. Meanwhile, while this was going on, I was out having dinner with 3 friends, who all voted No, while I was a Yes. Not one word was said, we discussed what this means now, the things that have come about from it etc. So why can't everyone else just do the same?
 
I hope Cameron gives the extra powers he promised the Scots.....cause if I was him I'd do it right away.

Pandorahana

I think it's the distrust between the two groups

The yes ( the extreme yeses) sees the nos as traitors and slaves......if seen a few poeple on the net calling the nos slaves......I'm like why are they slaves, why call them that when they chosen to stay british.

The nos ( the extreme nos) sees the yeses as bigots and separatist that don't care what happens to others ...................at least that's what some people are saying on YouTube anyways

WWe all have our own opinions and some people won't like your views and will dismiss them all together.

But I believe we should learn from this and become stronger and work together to make this union better for everyone in it.

Cause if the majority wants to stay then let's work together as the happy dysfunctional family we are.
 
Teeside Airport station, the station which is a fair walk from the terminal building owned by a company with charges passengers to use it.

Its not like the airport has high custom to move the station, with the flights seeming to be oil rig workers to Aberdeen.
 
Kite said:
Teeside Airport station, the station which is a fair walk from the terminal building owned by a company with charges passengers to use it.

Its not like the airport has high custom to move the station, with the flights seeming to be oil rig workers to Aberdeen.
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It had decent passengers numbers and operated package holiday flights until not long ago. Maybe if the transport links were better the owners wouldn't have felt the need to run it into the ground.

And it's only a 15 minute walk for a 300lbs+ asthmatic. It takes longer than that to walk from the entrance to the gates inside Manchester airport. When you go to the continent they have great little airports like this all over the place. My main point stands - The North gets f*ck all investment compared to the London and the South East, spending per head on projects should be equal. I don't imagine the kind of token English Parliament they're talking about wasting more money on (creating more free-loading politicians to spend the people's money arguing and never doing anything worthwhile, joy) would do nothing to change that, dominated as it would be by Tories.
 
It's a shame about that Alan Henning. ISIS is evil. Even true Muslims and people who practice Islam state their actions are not for their religion.
 
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