UK Politics - General News & Discussion

For discussions on politics and current events.
TheLoneRanger
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Re: UK Politics - General News & Discussion

Post by TheLoneRanger »

SKB wrote: 23 Dec 2022, 20:38
:lol:
Agree - lol - we should enforce paycut as soldiers can do the job better and as we all know they are paid less ( unfortunately ) and then we need to introduce performance based pay that they can go back to their "old" salaries if they can match the current performance of the army?

( and we still need to fix the pay issues for nurses, and soldies ... )

SW1
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Re: UK Politics - General News & Discussion

Post by SW1 »

Caribbean wrote: 12 Jun 2023, 08:05
Poiuytrewq wrote: 11 Jun 2023, 23:57 Britain needs infrastructure investment but it doesn’t need £120bn spent on saving 15 mins journey time between London and Birmingham.
Way off topic, but "saving 15 mins journey time between London and Birmingham" is only a small part of the HS2 plan. Massively increasing the carrying capacity of the existing rail network by moving ALL high-speed trains to a seperate network is the major goal (i.e. beyond HS2). Each high-speed train takes 8-10 times as much track (for safety reasons) as a low-speed train. It's part of the low-carbon plans, as HGVs will slowly be "discouraged" and replaced by (electrified) rail freight
Yes though I can’t help but think maybe it would of been better to connect east and west not north south and let the north south high speed trains use the existing high speed line and build new track lines to take freight and commuter trains off the current high speed network.

Caribbean
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Re: UK Politics - General News & Discussion

Post by Caribbean »

SW1 wrote: 12 Jun 2023, 08:53 maybe it would of been better to connect east and west not north south
Agreed that an East-West link connecting the Northern Conurbation is needed - that can actually be done via upgrading of existing links, but it's actually cheaper to build a single genuine high speed line North-South. The existing "high speed" line isn't really capable of supporting genuine high-speed trains capable of 300kph.

A few years ago, I used the Spanish AVE high-speed line between Seville, Grenada and Cordoba - even at 200-300km/hr, it felt like we were barely moving
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wargame_insomniac
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill

tomuk
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Re: UK Politics - General News & Discussion

Post by tomuk »

SW1 wrote: 12 Jun 2023, 08:53
Caribbean wrote: 12 Jun 2023, 08:05
Poiuytrewq wrote: 11 Jun 2023, 23:57 Britain needs infrastructure investment but it doesn’t need £120bn spent on saving 15 mins journey time between London and Birmingham.
Way off topic, but "saving 15 mins journey time between London and Birmingham" is only a small part of the HS2 plan. Massively increasing the carrying capacity of the existing rail network by moving ALL high-speed trains to a seperate network is the major goal (i.e. beyond HS2). Each high-speed train takes 8-10 times as much track (for safety reasons) as a low-speed train. It's part of the low-carbon plans, as HGVs will slowly be "discouraged" and replaced by (electrified) rail freight
Yes though I can’t help but think maybe it would of been better to connect east and west not north south and let the north south high speed trains use the existing high speed line and build new track lines to take freight and commuter trains off the current high speed network.
Apart from HS1 from London to the tunnel there are no high speed lines in the UK. If you are going to build a new line it is far easier to connect just the major nodes by high speed line than to link all the smaller stations and freight yards which freight and slower services would want to access.

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SKB
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Re: UK Politics - General News & Discussion

Post by SKB »


wargame_insomniac
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Re: UK Politics - General News & Discussion

Post by wargame_insomniac »

Personally I will be sorry to see Ben Wallace go as defence secretary. Apparently he will go at next Cabinet reshuffle as his parliamentary seat is going due to boundary changes.

Listening to him at Defence Select Committee meetings, he seemed to have a good grasp of the various defence issues that UK faced and of the individual services. I suspect we will have two more defence secretaries now in quick succession, with Sunak to apoint Wallace's replacement and then the next General Election. Having new and inexperienced defence secretaries at such a time of increasing tensions with Russia and China makes me nervous and there are a heck of a lot of expensive and complex defence procurement programmes that need to be seen through to fruition.

He has done much also to lead the NATO and allies response to Russian invasion of Ukraine, especially in coordination of arms and equipment from the various nations to Ukraine. I was disappointed when the US did nt sem to want to back him as future NATO Secretary General. I thought Stoltenberg was doing well in leading the NATO response, and I did nt want to see him step down either, so I think it was a sensible step to renew him in post. But it is worrying that Biden would not want to support Wallace even in future (it was rumoured Biden supported Ursula von der Leyen, which would have ben further kick in the teeth for special relationship).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66213245
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dmereifield

new guy
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Re: UK Politics - General News & Discussion

Post by new guy »

EU signs deal to call the Falklands the Islas malvinas
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... ntine-name
The question is what can the UK do diplomatically that isn't too significant that is enough to change the EU's decision.
A method that doesn't hurt the UK as much as it does the EU.

R686
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Re: UK Politics - General News & Discussion

Post by R686 »

new guy wrote: 20 Jul 2023, 11:09 EU signs deal to call the Falklands the Islas malvinas
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... ntine-name
The question is what can the UK do diplomatically that isn't too significant that is enough to change the EU's decision.
A method that doesn't hurt the UK as much as it does the EU.

Nothing.

Just become the elephant with the long memory when te EU wants something from the UK

TheLoneRanger
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Re: UK Politics - General News & Discussion

Post by TheLoneRanger »

R686 wrote: 20 Jul 2023, 11:23
new guy wrote: 20 Jul 2023, 11:09 EU signs deal to call the Falklands the Islas malvinas
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... ntine-name
The question is what can the UK do diplomatically that isn't too significant that is enough to change the EU's decision.
A method that doesn't hurt the UK as much as it does the EU.

Nothing.

Just become the elephant with the long memory when te EU wants something from the UK
The UK should really WALK away from PESCO now ....

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpoli ... f-ukraine/

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SKB
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Re: UK Politics - General News & Discussion

Post by SKB »

Monday 13th November 2023:

1. Home Secretary, Suella Braverman is SACKED.

2. James Cleverly moves from Foreign Office to replace Suella Braverman as the new Home Secretary.

3. Former Prime Minister DAVID CAMERON replaces James Cleverly as the new Foreign Secretary. Cameron isn't an MP and has no seat!*

UPDATE: For David Cameron to be serving in the cabinet, without having an MP's seat, Rishi Sunak has given David Cameron a PEERAGE, so David Cameron is now BARON CAMERON and is a member of the House of Lords!

:wtf:

tomuk
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Re: UK Politics - General News & Discussion

Post by tomuk »

SKB wrote: 13 Nov 2023, 14:04 For David Cameron to be in the cabinet, without having an MP's seat, Rishi Sunak has given David Cameron a PEERAGE, so David Cameron is now BARON CAMERON and is a member of the House of Lords!

:wtf:
It was acceptable in the 80s. :crazy: Lord Carrington was Foreign Secretary. Not to mention the 90/00s with Lord Mandelson in various roles.

SW1
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Re: UK Politics - General News & Discussion

Post by SW1 »

Two times before there was lord as foreign secretary. Lord Halifax on the eve of ww2 and lond carrington on the eve of the Falklands, I hope it doesn’t run in threes…

SW1
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Re: UK Politics - General News & Discussion

Post by SW1 »



The last state in this tweet sums up both political parties perfectly a mess!

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