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Get a NEW Two Together Railcard for you and the person you travel with most, and you'll both enjoy 1/3 off rail fares when you get away together.
The Two Together Railcard will save you both 1/3 off Standard and First Class Anytime, Off-Peak and Advance fares across the entire National Rail network - excluding morning peak times.
It helps, TI, we'd have to travel together in order to use it though. We'd have to travel together. There are times it's not practical. The work I do would be enhanced by my being able to get around this country using public transport. I need to go different places within the country. Mr. Citizen can't always come with me.
I love rail travel, TI. I even like buses. Expensive both. Please know I appreciate everything you've written me tonight - it's one of the most informative days here. Keep your knowledge flowing, please.
Andrew Percy, a Conservative member of the Commons health select committee, said: ‘Labour are complete hypocrites to be making capital about this for three reasons.
‘
First, they allowed GPs to opt out of responsibility for their patients out of hours, leading to an instant jump in people turning up at A&E.
‘Second, they cut 50,000 hospital beds while they were in power, meaning there is not enough capacity. And finally they failed to predict and plan for the demographic expansion, particularly of older, frailer people.
‘This triple whammy has had a huge effect on A&E services which Labour hasn’t apologised for.’
Hasn't managed to explain how come it's taken nearly 5 years for it go get this bad and why his own party haven't done anything about it.
If I'm not here, then I'll be in the library. Or the other library.
Some decent ideas, however I'm slightly concerned by the 'If it's not changed perfectly then it's bad as not changing it at all' approach to party funding. Am I touchy or is this more and more creeping into left wing commentators?
No, you've not touchy. I've respect for many left wing commentators who're apparently waiting for some resurgence of the Knights Templar leading us into Nirvana with halos & purity around they head & heart. We've got as good as it gets & we work on making things better.
Forgive me, this is a catty remark I'm going to make, but I wonder how many of these left wing people wanting it all, wanting it best, right now, are that way because they can afford to do so & it won't be them, for the most part, suffering the consequences of idealistic choices made fragmenting any consensus we do have together.
I'll never ask someone to vote against their conscience. I must constantly remind myself that cultivating my own humility - genuine humility, not subservience or servility, makes my life, the work I do, part of my message to others. I'm largely satisfied with the current Labour party & will work with others seeking cooperation regardless of party affiliation. However, we'll all get nowhere, in my opinion, by dividing our voices when the purpose requires all of our help together. I'll not ask anyone to vote against their conscience. Each of us is just as important as another. It's actually an exciting thing - voting. One ballot, one person, one vote. Please disagree & show me where I may be in error. I promise to listen without shutting down or castigating anyone for their political party affiliation. I may castigate their political party's policies, leadership, words & actions if they're offensive, inaccurate or destructive. Everyone must be civil with each other; we can disagree without abusing anyone.
Weirdly, I was out having a pint the other day and ran into a Times reader who was almost as cynical as me (if slightly less well read, I suspect). I chatted to him for a while and then he told me he was voting UKIP. Very odd. I'm guessing that a Times reader would have been a Tory, so I neither put him off nor told him just who I was. Looking back I should have declared my hand and engaged more closely, but that nagging voice in my head wonders if it's worth it with UKIP supporters, particularly ex Tory voters.
Get a NEW Two Together Railcard for you and the person you travel with most, and you'll both enjoy 1/3 off rail fares when you get away together.
The Two Together Railcard will save you both 1/3 off Standard and First Class Anytime, Off-Peak and Advance fares across the entire National Rail network - excluding morning peak times.
[/quote
Why have all these different types of railcards catering for select groups. If you are a single person in your 40s what rail card can you get? Can get a couple one, an old age one, a family one and a young persons one - why not a middle-aged person who wants to travel alone? Surely this person pays the subsidies as well
Why not one railcard available to all that gives you a discount?
It's unfair, the more so because some groups who benefit may have more flexibility to travel in the first place, so are doubly better off.
Norman Baker always seemed pretty committed to trains and came into office talking about a more universal railcard. I guess he couldn't make a case that it would raise revenues for the Treasury. I would think the cards that exist do so essentially because a marketing case can be made for them.
To Baker's credit, I don't think he's tried to differentiate himself from the Tories with the railcard thing.
Andrew Percy, a Conservative member of the Commons health select committee, said: ‘Labour are complete hypocrites to be making capital about this for three reasons.
‘
First, they allowed GPs to opt out of responsibility for their patients out of hours, leading to an instant jump in people turning up at A&E.
‘Second, they cut 50,000 hospital beds while they were in power, meaning there is not enough capacity. And finally they failed to predict and plan for the demographic expansion, particularly of older, frailer people.
‘This triple whammy has had a huge effect on A&E services which Labour hasn’t apologised for.’
Hasn't managed to explain how come it's taken nearly 5 years for it go get this bad and why his own party haven't done anything about it.
What's Percy doing on health? He's an ex-teacher, who shone a while ago in a debate when he kicked Nick Gibbs arse very stylishly.
Last edited by Tubby Isaacs on Wed 07 Jan, 2015 12:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
howsillyofme1 wrote:I have some sympathy with Tubby's argument saying that privatization is not necessarily the issue but in saying that the whole private good, public bad ethos has damaged the public transport system virtually everywhere outside London so he should be aware of the anger felt by many
I think the main problem was the fragmentation and the lack of coordination across the franchisees as well as the way rolling stock and infrastructure were managed. In essence we are still paying for that botched privatization by major
I think though the companies have expolited the situation to the full to ensure they reap the benefits, probably silently egged on by the Treasury. Labour, as was often the case under Blair, were not courageous enough to do anything and the Tories/Lost Deposits are ideologically favourable to this system.
In the end has privatization gof the railways given many benefits. In my experience no and there is not enough accountability for what happens by the Government.
Public transport systems have to have some sort of oversight but we have seen that thrown out of the window - don't even get me started on the buses
As highlighted earlier those commentators from Londo have to be careful about being too kind about the system. London has an integrate dsystem and all the main line go to one of the trminii there so there are plenty of options. Those of us who have lived elsewhere have a different view and it is not at all positive
That's a very fairminded, balanced post. I apologise for coming across as London centric. It's clearly very silly that we have a populist rightwinger running London with proper powers and Labour councils all over the place who don't have them. And it says something about pitiful public debate that this gets hardly any coverage.
There are some positive signs bus oversight, which I agree are the worst element in public transport policy. Don't know the latest but a few places will be looking at Newcastle.
Tyne and Wear has voted to press ahead with reforms that will mean a bus service outside London being taken back under public control for the first time since privatisation.
This would also get a push from a Labour government.
We'd settle for buses that connect with trains ... or at least some of them ... to be able to do the last hour and a half from the nearest station without a lengthy wait ... or no service at all. Any semblance of connection went with the last round of bus service reforms (cuts) and train timetable changes (cuts).
The Tory-led coalition government & those supporting them are transparently absurd in their ludicrous blaming of the Labour party after almost five years of Tory-LibDem government. It's shocking. It's not funny, it's dangerous, irresponsible & I'm frankly frightened of a government that behaves this way. What won't they do?
Tubby Isaacs wrote:Crossbencher Lord Pannick on good form.
Lord Pannick:
My Lords, I am very grateful to noble Lords who have contributed to this entertaining debate. I remain concerned about the width of Clause 3 but I am not going to divide the House. To use the Minister’s analogy, there is no point in crying over spilt yoghurt.
Mr Grayling, the Lord Chancellor, has told us—and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, has confirmed from his Antarctic experience traversing crevasses—that men and women up and down the land are standing ready to volunteer for social action. They are preparing themselves for acts of heroism, waiting only to receive the message that Parliament has approved this Bill to remove the concerns that they otherwise have about litigation. Then off to the youth clubs and old-age homes they will go to volunteer and into the lakes they will dive to rescue those in danger, and in those circumstances it would be irresponsible of me to delay the Bill any longer.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, was less than complimentary about the Bill, but surely, so long as negligence cases are brought in this land, it will stand as a monument to the jurisprudential and policy achievements of Lord Chancellor Grayling. It is a fitting testament to the Lord Chancellor:
“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”.
This always was and it remains the most ridiculous piece of legislation approved by Parliament in a very long time. However, I pay genuine tribute—I emphasise “genuine tribute”—to the Minister, who has applied his formidable skills of reason and eloquence, and has done so with consummate courtesy, to a text that would barely muster a pass mark in GCSE legal studies, if there is such a thing.
When the noble Lord was appointed to his position on the Front Bench, he would no doubt have looked forward to debating important issues of law and justice, and I doubt that he expected that he would be the straight man in Mr Grayling’s comedy routine, requiring courts to consider whether a defendant has acted heroically. Well, the Minister has heroically dived into the lake created by Mr Grayling’s conference speech. He has rescued this pitiful creature of a Bill—and it is a pitiful creature—and has emerged from the lake with his hair still dry and his suit entirely uncrumpled, he is not even out of breath and he has done it all with a straight face. If I may say so, that is deeply impressive, which is more than can be said for this Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
rebeccariots2 wrote:
We'd settle for buses that connect with trains ... or at least some of them ... to be able to do the last hour and a half from the nearest station without a lengthy wait ... or no service at all. Any semblance of connection went with the last round of bus service reforms (cuts) and train timetable changes (cuts).
I don't know why buses don't connect with trains. Surely it can't make business sense, as much as anything else?
Dugher was talking about bus grant cuts recently. He put around a figure of £139m. I don't know how accurate this is, but it strikes me as something where at least some of it could be restored.
But they've got a bit silly on ruling out restoring small amounts of money. Some genius on Twitter today was hammering home that arts cuts would be made by Labour.
citizenJA wrote:The Tory-led coalition government & those supporting them are transparently absurd in their ludicrous blaming of the Labour party after almost five years of Tory-LibDem government. It's shocking. It's not funny, it's dangerous, irresponsible & I'm frankly frightened of a government that behaves this way. What won't they do?
Tom Blenkinsop @TomBlenkinsop 29m29 minutes ago
Cameron,Hunt and Tories said there was no NHS crisis in December. Now they say there is...oh and it's Labour's fault. Pathetic #ToryFail
He's got it about right. The Tories must be running very frit of all this hideous publicity re problems in the NHS - but the more they keep shouting about it being Labour's fault the more it will backfire on them.
Clive Peedell @cpeedell · 1h 1 hour ago
As Tories try to blame everybody apart from themselves, who covered up Risk Register warning of A+E crisis in 2010?
This should be shouted out at the Tories - and their yellow counterparts - at every opportunity.
Big up the NHS @butNHS 3h3 hours ago
“@LabourEoin: I've put together a list of Hospitals who've declared "Major Incidents" or equivalent due to A&E Crisis pic.twitter.com/idnUiA3a9p
ErnstRemarx wrote:
Weirdly, I was out having a pint the other day and ran into a Times reader who was almost as cynical as me (if slightly less well read, I suspect). I chatted to him for a while and then he told me he was voting UKIP. Very odd. I'm guessing that a Times reader would have been a Tory, so I neither put him off nor told him just who I was. Looking back I should have declared my hand and engaged more closely, but that nagging voice in my head wonders if it's worth it with UKIP supporters, particularly ex Tory voters.
Nah. Every time you hear that nagging voice you need to picture Shirley Williams circa '81 in your mind, and let them get on with it. Even if you can convince them to moderate their views they're only going to end up back at tory. In the meantime....
We really need to see the return of convalescent hospitals at one end and cottage hospitals at the other. All as part of the NHS. May be a bit idealistic to suggest that but, heck, let's try a bit of idealism 'cause pessimism certainly isn't going to help this country maintain (let alone improve) our 'cradle to grave' health service!
This time, I'm gonna be stronger I'm not giving in...
