Go Corbyn

  On 8/23/2016 at 4:51 PM, caze said:

lol

 

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/23/jeremy-corbyn-virgin-trains-disputes-claim-over-lack-of-seats

i've been on that train service going north over the years many times also from the time there was a smoking carriage, (so grim lol)  & had to sit & stand in the corridor etc, although more recently have been more lucky & making sure to reserve a seat.

one thing i find really annoying is the amount of carriages dedicated to first class which are usually pretty much empty,

if you read the full article you realise he isn't lying due to a witnesses account, &  wholly agree with him privatisation really fucked the uk rail system, as its always changing hands & companies & its arguable decades behind other rail networks, which haven't been privatised in other countries 

Not strictly true in my opinion...those of us who remember the old British Rail can attest that it was a hell of a lot worse than it is now and that it has only got better in the last couple of decades. It is not really "decades behind" other countries networks, although there are serious improvements to be made - currently prices are way too high for example, and the whole Southern Rail debacle has been caused by poor management and wasted revenue. I believe that the right balance between private and public investment needs to be found with the focus moved away from immediate profit towards long term gain for both travelers and the companies running things.

I vote BCM

I do take an interest in politics but just enough so it doesn't wind me up or make me too angry, which it would do if I got sucked into it too much. At the end of day my life's alright and my country compared to a shit load of others is also alright. I haven't got much to complain about, then again I cycle to work which costs nothing and takes me 20 minutes! lol. Though I agree with most of what Corbyn probably stands for, in the cold light of day and in the real world I'd never vote for him or his far-left pals. I just don't trust people like them with the responsibility of running the UK. Something about the far-left I just don't trust with having power. Though like I said a lot of what they stand for I agree with. It's a weird one imo.

  On 8/24/2016 at 1:42 PM, BCM said:

Not strictly true in my opinion...those of us who remember the old British Rail can attest that it was a hell of a lot worse than it is now and that it has only got better in the last couple of decades. It is not really "decades behind" other countries networks, although there are serious improvements to be made - currently prices are way too high for example, and the whole Southern Rail debacle has been caused by poor management and wasted revenue. I believe that the right balance between private and public investment needs to be found with the focus moved away from immediate profit towards long term gain for both travelers and the companies running things.

but the focus 'for immediate profit' is only one of the symptoms due to privatisation & most of the time the various, regular changing, companies aren't working together, (if anything against each other) so there is major mis-communication between etc causing delays, from upgrading tracks, signal lights & trains to waiting for a train & no information for passengers etc pretty much everything you stated is due to privatisation

but yeah agree a balance between both is prob a realistic way forward now as its gone in one direction for too long now, although a complete overall could also be a solution 

also have you heard of maglev trains? 

Immediate profit is essential though.

Who wants to run a train company and be responsible for massive debts, you will be kicked out of your job straight away and the board members will not be happy.

The waste within the train network (and the road network) is colossal though.

It is unfortunate that some of the old lines that were sold off can (in most cases) no longer be re-opened due to the land now being used for something else.

Round our way, the old Swindon to Oxford direct line would be a godsend now, the road network cannot cope.

  On 8/24/2016 at 1:42 PM, BCM said:

Not strictly true in my opinion...those of us who remember the old British Rail can attest that it was a hell of a lot worse than it is now and that it has only got better in the last couple of decades. It is not really "decades behind" other countries networks, although there are serious improvements to be made - currently prices are way too high for example, and the whole Southern Rail debacle has been caused by poor management and wasted revenue. I believe that the right balance between private and public investment needs to be found with the focus moved away from immediate profit towards long term gain for both travelers and the companies running things.

Haha, grampa BCM can actually remember old British Rail!

I just resent the eye watering ticket prices when the rail franchisees are a) coining it with subsidies and b) paying out dividends. They can obfuscate it as much as they want but atm it's a mechanism for moving money out of public purse into private pockets. The franchises should just be allowed to expire and network rail assume control of the whole lot. Should've happened after Railtrack was liquidated imo

NI Railways is publicly owned and it's fantastic; reasonably priced and very rarely any trouble with delays, etc. English train services sound absolutely shite in comparison.

choo choo

  On 9/3/2016 at 11:06 PM, Leon Sumbitches said:

NI Railways is publicly owned and it's fantastic; reasonably priced and very rarely any trouble with delays, etc. English train services sound absolutely shite in comparison.

 

choo choo

lol

  On 8/24/2016 at 8:23 PM, Amen Warrior said:

 

  On 8/24/2016 at 1:42 PM, BCM said:

Not strictly true in my opinion...those of us who remember the old British Rail can attest that it was a hell of a lot worse than it is now and that it has only got better in the last couple of decades. It is not really "decades behind" other countries networks, although there are serious improvements to be made - currently prices are way too high for example, and the whole Southern Rail debacle has been caused by poor management and wasted revenue. I believe that the right balance between private and public investment needs to be found with the focus moved away from immediate profit towards long term gain for both travelers and the companies running things.

Haha, grampa BCM can actually remember old British Rail!

I just resent the eye watering ticket prices when the rail franchisees are a) coining it with subsidies and b) paying out dividends. They can obfuscate it as much as they want but atm it's a mechanism for moving money out of public purse into private pockets. The franchises should just be allowed to expire and network rail assume control of the whole lot. Should've happened after Railtrack was liquidated imo

 

 Don't the French and German pension systems own a chunk of the British railway network. It's a funny irony thinking that there is a public deriving a financial benefit from railways in Britain, it's just not the locals. heh.

this is hilarious:

https://twitter.com/MichaelPDeacon/status/772909855602606080

a joint press conference?!?!?

where do Madness stand on this? that's what I want to know

what about Aswad?

surprise appearance by 808 State tho

  On 9/7/2016 at 2:37 PM, BCM said:

what about Aswad?

but also this is a pretty failed attempt at making fun of Corbyn. I mean, look at this shit:

https://www.google.com/amp/mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/us/politics/hillary-clinton-fundraising.amp.html?client=safari

Bon Jovi? Cool hangs with JT? so hip and cool #imwithher

not to mention "Flaubert wrote great sentences" is a pretty miserable attempt at lols.

but yeah caze doesn't like Corbyn so this press conference is somehow worth mentioning.

it's not a failed attempt at making fun of Corbyn, it's very successful, in fact I'm laughing out loud right now thinking about it again. lol.

nice whataboutery attempt, shame I also think Clinton is pretty lame. but even then she didn't actually to do a press conference with bon jovi. politicians meet celebrities all the time, at functions, fund raisers, charity things, policy launches, etc. the fact that Corbyn actually organised a press conference to announce that UB40 were endorsing his campaign for leader is so ridiculously lame it falls off the scale.

I for one am really looking forward to some more cutting and original retorts like "whataboutism" or "conspiracy theory" and some sick burns a la "Flaubert wrote some good sentences."

I'll happily oblige next time Corbyn does something incredibly dumb, and you rush in to the poor man's defence. Watch this space.

I'm not defending Corbyn mate. I'm pointing out your tiresome double standard when it comes to news about him.

Ub40 sucks and the press conference seems pointless and pathetic.

But you don't ever seem to see fit to point out any face palms when your preferred candidate does stupid shit and in fact profer all kinds of trite explanations for her egregious bullshit.

Yes you are, it's painfully obvious. And there's no double standard at all either, I hardly need to point out Clinton's shortcomings (I assume you're referring to her, though I don't know why in a thread about British politics, not sure if I actually have a preferred politician in Britain, they're all terrible, Tim Farron is currently the least-bad leader), it's not like there's any shortage of that kind of thing. No trite explanations of anything either, if you want to point any out and you're reasonings behind it, please do so in the relevant thread. If you really felt this stunt was pointless and pathetic then a 'lol' from you would have sufficed.

you can compare your commentary about hrc in the us prez thread with your commentary about corbyn here. you're familiar with comparisons, correct? Itt you are quick to point out all kinds of flaws and face palms about corbyn and even go so far as to accuse him of using coded language to secretly communicate to his nazi voter base and actively colluding with anti-Semites. Most of your commentary about him is dismissive, condescending and highly critical. you ingerpret his intentions in a uniformly skeptical and mostly condemnatory way and ascribe to him truly nefarious motives even where these are far from obvious. All in all I find this a more or less decent position, provided it's applied consistently to the ruling class more broadly.

on the other hand when one takes a look at your comments in the other thread it is plain as day that you overlook far worse crap coming out of the Clinton campaign and profer up all kinds of half baked and one-dimensional explanations when she or the dnc get themselves into trouble. With Clinton you seem to have a single rule of thumb which is that if her behavior is not illegal than it is merely politics as usual and she can't be blamed for that and you certainly don't have a problem with it. Generally speaking when it comes to the U.S. situation you reserve your bile exclusively for sanders (excepting of course your entirely correct dismissal of trump) and your comments about him in that thread are basically variations on your corbyn stuff.

Even in your recent post you exhibit an obvious double standard when you claim that your hesitation to post about hrc's shortcomings is bc you see no shortage of such information available, so why bother. Are we then to understand that you believe Corbyn's shortcomings are suppressed and marginalized by the mainstream media? I think not.

tbh I find this kind of double standard fairly inevitable if not entirely normal and par for course in politics. People tend to overlook bad shit coming out of their preferred candidate or party while simulateneouly highlighting and even over-emphasizing the crap emerging from their rivals. Limpy's favorite Russophile just wrote a piece about this yesterday. But to be sure this particular election cycle in the U.S. as well as the portrayal of Corbyn in the UK has been quite over the top so perhaps I'm particularly agitated when I happen to see it on my beloved watmms.

But we both know that if Corbyn was charging $10,000 for a copy of a family photo or under investigation by the fbi and was saying shit like "did I while my server with a cloth?" or whatever you'd find it in your heart to post a face palm about it here but somehow you can be relied upon to attempt to discredit people in the other thread for being upset when Clinton does that shit.

And to be sure, I'm not by any means defending Corbyn. Honestly I am often quite dumbfounded by him, sometimes he is just so way off and tone deaf. Like, ub40? I mean how did that even come to be? There are so many steps that had to be made during which that decision was reaffirmed. I find that utterly mystifying lol

  On 9/7/2016 at 8:45 PM, Alcofribas said:

you can compare your commentary about hrc in the us prez thread with your commentary about corbyn here. you're familiar with comparisons, correct? Itt you are quick to point out all kinds of flaws and face palms about corbyn and even go so far as to accuse him of using coded language to secretly communicate to his nazi voter base and actively colluding with anti-Semites. Most of your commentary about him is dismissive, condescending and highly critical. you ingerpret his intentions in a uniformly skeptical and mostly condemnatory way and ascribe to him truly nefarious motives even where these are far from obvious. All in all I find this a more or less decent position, provided it's applied consistently to the ruling class more broadly.

This is partially true, though you're exaggerating the level of criticism I've sent his way, your nazi comments in particular (there are certainly anti-semites on the hard-left, but of course I don't think they make up the entirety, or even the majority, of Corbyn's voter base, and I don't think he's one himself; and I don't think I ever used the word nazi, no need for the Godwinning).

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on the other hand when one takes a look at your comments in the other thread it is plain as day that you overlook far worse crap coming out of the Clinton campaign and profer up all kinds of half baked and one-dimensional explanations when she or the dnc get themselves into trouble. With Clinton you seem to have a single rule of thumb which is that if her behavior is not illegal than it is merely politics as usual and she can't be blamed for that and you certainly don't have a problem with it. Generally speaking when it comes to the U.S. situation you reserve your bile exclusively for sanders (excepting of course your entirely correct dismissal of trump) and your comments about him in that thread are basically variations on your corbyn stuff.

Two problems with this, first off you're not comparing like with like. It's not a double standard if I criticise Corbyn for his inept abilities in the realm of political theatre, and then defend Clinton for claims she's corrupt when there's zero evidence she's actually corrupt. They're two completely different categories of things, you might have a point if I tried to claim Corbyn was corrupt based on some flimsy insinuation, and then defended Clinton on the same charge. That would be a double standard. I've never done that.

Secondly, I never had any bile to send Sanders' way. I like Sanders, disagree with him on enough that I prefer Clinton, but also agree with quite a lot of his policies as well (and where I agree with him it's generally in areas where he's far better than Clinton, mostly social issues, drugs, criminal justice, etc.). Sanders' more rabid fans were the only thing that really annoyed me about his campaign, so there was a certain amount of schadenfreude to be had in his defeat for that reason. He's far less mental than Corbyn btw. If I was american I'd have happily voted for him against Trump (or any other republican), had he won the primary.

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Even in your recent post you exhibit an obvious double standard when you claim that your hesitation to post about hrc's shortcomings is bc you see no shortage of such information available, so why bother. Are we then to understand that you believe Corbyn's shortcomings are suppressed and marginalized by the mainstream media? I think not.

Still not a double standard, because any time I've defended Clinton it's been justifiable, I'm simply counteracting rabid conspiracy theorising for the most part. The Corbyn stuff has been entirely justifiable, and again, mostly when I've slagged him off it's for a separate category of offenses, there's really not enough going on with Clinton in that realm to be worthy of criticism (she's not the most enthusiastic or dynamic of public speakers is about as bad as you can get, doesn't always come across as particularly genuine - though she's a lot better in one-on-one situations, or small gatherings - ultimately though she's an incredibly canny political operator).

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tbh I find this kind of double standard fairly inevitable if not entirely normal and par for course in politics. People tend to overlook bad shit coming out of their preferred candidate or party while simulateneouly highlighting and even over-emphasizing the crap emerging from their rivals. Limpy's favorite Russophile just wrote a piece about this yesterday. But to be sure this particular election cycle in the U.S. as well as the portrayal of Corbyn in the UK has been quite over the top so perhaps I'm particularly agitated when I happen to see it on my beloved watmms.

Everyone has their biases, but mine are based on ideological differences, and I'm not using them as a means to ignore hypothetical failures in people I might be biased towards, mostly because I don't think those things are really the worst thing in the world when it comes down to it. It's all about what you're priorities are I guess.

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But we both know that if Corbyn was charging $10,000 for a copy of a family photo or under investigation by the fbi and was saying shit like "did I while my server with a cloth?" or whatever you'd find it in your heart to post a face palm about it here but somehow you can be relied upon to attempt to discredit people in the other thread for being upset when Clinton does that shit.

I'm sure if Corbyn had a 30 year history of sustained, unjust, partisan - and always futile - attempts to discredit him, I'd have a lot more sympathy for him. Mostly he puttered around in the background of British politics and was ignored by everybody (as he should be), it's just funny now seeing him thrust, completely unprepared, into the limelight.

Well played, Corbyn.

Now try and do something useful with your time. He has basically spent a year fending off the dogs - now he needs to prove his worth pretty quickly.

wd gorbin

yeah, great news. no chance labour of getting anywhere near government for the foreseeable future. 

hopefully the lib dems can capitalise on this now, though even if they do their prospects wouldn't be much better than labour's have been in recent years.

the problem is the electoral system, it ridiculously favours the tories.