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I didn't mean car-washers etc should be made unemployed. On the contrary, people on here were complaining that doing something such as the 2017 Labour manifesto would create an overly-tight labour market and so inflation. I was simply meaning if good jobs in eg retrofitting buildings to increase energy conservation, the NHS, driving busses, whatever, enticed workers away from hand-car-washing jobs, then so be it.
Ah I get you, thanks 😊. I think it’s a great idea. My concern is the governments, left and right, reciprocal power and wealth relationship with corporations wouldn’t allow any such policy to happen. What ‘might’ happen is that if the bottom 70% continue to perceive themselves as an alienated and disliked group with no message of hope from politicians, this will pave the way for extremism - left or right - to form a new elite and mobilise the low masses against the middle. At that point decarbonising and retrofitting council houses will be the last thing on people’s minds
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« Last post by Wellsy on Today at 06:23:12 pm »
I think we could substantially improve public transport in this country. More things like TFL in other cities, rail services nationalisation etc would be good. I don't think we could make it free but we probably could make it cheaper and better, and better for the environment.
I don't think anyone here would disagree with that (even if you would never use it, it would benefit you for it to be better and for others to use it), and I think a Labour government is best placed to deliver those improvements. I'm not sure that public transport has ever been something the National Cons have really cared about.
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« Last post by abarro81 on Today at 05:58:27 pm »
If the bus to the tor were free and regular I'd still drive - always gonna be faster (essential for a morning session and getting back to work for the afternoon), can take lots of gear/pads etc. I bet lots of others are the same..
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« Last post by stone on Today at 05:56:18 pm »
I didn't mean car-washers etc should be made unemployed. On the contrary, people on here were complaining that doing something such as the 2017 Labour manifesto would create an overly-tight labour market and so inflation. I was simply meaning if good jobs in eg retrofitting buildings to increase energy conservation, the NHS, driving busses, whatever, enticed workers away from hand-car-washing jobs, then so be it.
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« Last post by Will Hunt on Today at 05:55:34 pm »
I'm also not sure what you'd do with all the young men that would find themselves out of work due to the crackdown on Deliveroo and hand car washes?
Keep up, they're going to be conscripted into driving buses. A nation of bus drivers.
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I'm sincere in thinking we need free public transport. I was very impressed with how that works in Yosemite NP USA of all places. It's car-culture central in California, but in Yosemite people leave their cars and use the free busses. Because they are used by everyone, they are full and very frequent, so you never need to wait. Think of how much car traffic there is through eg the Peak District. If that was on busses, we could have busses with the frequency of London tube trains, so no waiting really, so they would be convenient.
It is extremely hard to convert all cars in the world to electric. Mining the raw materials is desperately hard. Just look at how hard it is proving to open the lithium mine in Serbia as an example (among many). Probably all battery manufacturing capacity is needed for builders vans etc. Decarbonising transport in time depends on a switch from cars to public transport, cycles and less transport.
Railways are already only 50% funded by fares and yet are too expensive for all but the most well off. Seems to me that is less fair than having them completely free for all along with busses. It will be hard to ramp up capacity enough. But all decarbonising options are very hard/unfeasible.
It is a mistake to think of this from a "decarbonise by 2050" perspective. What really matters is how much carbon gets emitted in total before decarbonisation is achieved. Getting people switching out of cars immediately is so much better than a solution some time in the future after a load of CO2 has been emitted.
Regarding being authoritarian, I'm actually arguing for something that I hope would lead people to voluntarily not bother buying a car because they now have a good alternative. That would free up all the resources currently devoted to making all of those cars etc. I see that as much better than eg what was attempted in France, taxing car travel without providing an alternative. That provoked the Yellow Vest stuff.
Regarding inflation etc -yes I do think it is worth having a labour shortage that means hand-car-washes and perhaps even Deliveroo etc become a thing of the past. The Attlee government in the 1950s did dramatic stuff starting from extremely difficult circumstances. They resorted to rationing (eg not allowing second cars etc). I don't think it would need to be as difficult as that.
Hi Stone, I'm still not sure how the current Labour government (in all but name) appeals to the bottom 70% of native brits? I'm also not sure what you'd do with all the young men that would find themselves out of work due to the crackdown on Deliveroo and hand car washes? I agree that people should get off their arses and cook / wash their own cars and that we could even re-industrialise the UK and use the Deliveroo / Amazon, bottom 70% to work in industry, from each according to his ability etc... Is this the plan and if so how do we avoid the problems of the past?
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« Last post by stone on Today at 04:53:54 pm »
It's a shame to hear Yosemite is now gridlocked with cars. It's 30years since I was there. I'm interested in how and why it seemed to work so well then and since has flopped.
Regarding feasibility, how about this for a wacky ridiculous squandering of the world's resources :- everyone has a private vehicle of all sorts of shapes and sizes, as big as they want, gets a free-at-the-point-of-use highway to drive it more-or-less anywhere. Most of those vehicles spend >95% of the time sitting idle by the side of the road. We then intend to transition all of those to being electric despite no one being willing to have a lithium mine built anywhere near where they live.
I'm interested in the car count along main roads through eg the Peak District. Considering how quickly queues form at traffic lights, my impression is that if that transferred onto busses, it would equate to very frequent busses.
Anyway, I was only saying that was what I wished the UK wanted to vote for. In terms of what I'd actually want Labour to now have as their manifesto, something like the 2017 manifesto would be great. Starmer did say that should be seen as Labour's "foundational document" when he was seeking election as Labour Leader in 2020. I'm presuming Sean, you voted for him as Labour leader then. When you heard him say that then, did you wince and hold your nose or did you think that was fine? My impression is that Andrew Fisher etc who wrote that 2017 manifesto say that there is even more need now for those sort of policies than there was back then.
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« Last post by seankenny on Today at 04:49:49 pm »
Kabosu, the dog behind the "doge" meme, has died after 14 years of internet fame: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czkkr8l7jjxo
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« Last post by seankenny on Today at 04:00:17 pm »
Think of how much car traffic there is through eg the Peak District. If that was on busses, we could have busses with the frequency of London tube trains, so no waiting really, so they would be convenient.
Not even London buses run with the frequency of London tube trains! As for Yosemite, have you been there on a Saturday lately? It’s an absolute fucking car culture shit show that makes going to the Peak District look like skiing across Antarctica. It took me as long to drive from Mariposa to the main village as it does to drive from west London to Matlock.
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« Last post by teestub on Today at 03:38:27 pm »
The ‘free’ Yosemite buses cover a grand total of about 5 miles and it costs $20/day to enter the park.
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