"That would explain why he was pestering the BBC to get on, but not why they chose him."
True
He was on Newsnight (UK) again last night!
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
And now? (Not the White Paper thread)
(693 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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Still, I see the management of the Forth bridges has just been privatised. FETA being wounded down and Amey contracted to run them.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Do they spell out what their pie segments are based on?
I wouldn't trust them to spell out anything when their pie charts refer to "Westiminster"...
Posted 9 years ago # -
http://www.midlothian.gov.uk/press/article/1380/by-election_winner_announced
Labour 1st, snp 2nd, reversing positions at last electionPosted 9 years ago # -
Labour's Kenny Young was elected at Stage 5 with 1,682.....Quota: 1,966
Shades of Falkirk...
Posted 9 years ago # -
Further proof that we are in the End of Days;
The Telegraph is now officially backing the Labour party in Scotland. Presumably the People's Party will issue a memo rejecting this support.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Still, I see the management of the Forth bridges has just been privatised. FETA being wounded down and Amey contracted to run them."
Yes, a curious thing that.
Proof, if needed that the SNP are quite prepared to privatise public services. Especially if it allows them to impose centralised control, and score a tribal political victory over Labour dominated local councils.
What about local democracy? I hear you ask. The answer would appear to be that party interest trumps principles every time.
I thought Holyrood was supposed to be different to Westminster?
Posted 9 years ago # -
@crowriver
The SNP are quite a calculating bunch. I'd guess they've figured no one knew what the structure of FETA was (I certainly didn't) and therefore not really object to privatisation and centralisation.
Very interesting that they've picked a fight with the shooting estates, even if it was recommended by the Land Reform Review Group;
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2014/05/2852/0
Andy Wightman's talking in Area C on Wednesday night - should be fun.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"it's been like that for years here, as long as I can remember"
There was a time when some schools did the half day on Wednesdays. It's some years since that was sorted.
Of course once upon a time it was assumed that people would work 4 days a week, or perhaps 3, and everyone would have 'loads of leisure time'.
That was when most households only had one person in full time work too!
So many bills to pay and things to buy.
Posted 9 years ago # -
The privatisation of Forth bridge maintenance was supported by the Labour party in the Scottish Parliament (it was authorised by the Forth Road Bridge Bill, which passed unanimously). The obvious thing to do was to extend the remit of FETA to cover the new bridge - given they have decades of experience of maintaining a road bridge over the Forth.
Pretty sure this was driven by Transport Scotland civil servants, who didn't like the fact that a small part of the trunk road network was controlled by another organisation.
Posted 9 years ago # -
So the SNP are:
* reassuring business - see Nicola's FT 'nothing to fear' interview
* maintaining a social democratic front - land reform
* running down public services - CT freeze, etc.When they said they wanted to replace Labour in Scotland I didn't think they meant it quite so literally.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Ha! Very droll Insto.
Alas, all too true it seems. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss". But more local: a local (Scottish) boss for local (Scottish) people.
The news on Land Reform is welcome, but (as ever) the devil will be in the detail. Tories already howling with outrage in the press about the change to succession law: somehow I can't see that fazing the SNP. It's a measure which I would expect to command widespread cross-party support.
What Nicola and co. really need to get moving on is the replacement for Council Tax. However that has been kicked into the long grass, so don't expect any movement on it before 2016. Meanwhile, austerity in the form of the CT freeze will continue to salami slice local services provision for the next two years...
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Pretty sure this was driven by Transport Scotland civil servants, who didn't like the fact that a small part of the trunk road network was controlled by another organisation."
Perhaps. However one of the first things the SNP did on gaining power was to withdraw funding from Regional Transport Partnerships like SESTrans. In my view, that had more to do with neutering what were perceived as Labour fiefdoms than complying with the desires of civil servants. If their interests coincided with the SNP's then it's a happy coincidence and may indeed have encouraged TS to go for FETA. Surely Strathclyde Transport Partnership must be the next target? Trickier, given its statutory protection (as I understand it).
Posted 9 years ago # -
"When they said they wanted to replace Labour in Scotland I didn't think they meant it quite so literally."
That's why JM (or either of the others) will have a real problem.
Scottish voters seem to like what's on offer and trust the SNP to deliver - more than the others.
JM's version/vision of Labour (in Scotland) is for 'more devolution for/to LAs". Which is something that the SNP ought to want to do.
One of its first actions as a (minority) government was to end 'ring fencing' so councils had fewer restrictions on what they could/had to spend money on - then the SNP froze council tax...
There are all sorts of good reasons to 'reform' local government and alter the council tax system (if only to alter/add to the bands).
But that all seems to be in a drawer marked "too difficult" (possibly in the basement).
Posted 9 years ago # -
"So many bills to pay and things to buy."
You mean you can actually live without:
A house with two spare bedrooms for guests/relatives/excess consumer goods storage.
A garage to put the dishwasher/tumble dryer, pool table, model railway and excess consumer packaging in.
A new car every three years.
A new kitchen/bathroom every five years.
A new three piece suite every five years.
Overseas holidays twice a year.
A huge flat screen telly.
Cable/Satellite and broadband.
A games console.
A laptop/tablet/portable networked device, "upgraded" almost on a yearly basis.
The latest fashions, "refreshed" every three months.
Takeaway coffee/food/ready meals.You can live without all these? That's just not normal. Are you poor and desperate or just weird? Aren't you interested in doing your bit to support the economy?
Of course all households need two breadwinners working full time!
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Aren't you interested in doing your bit to support the economy?"
Which is of course a big part of the problem. The almost universal acceptance that "THE Economy" (and "growing it") is 'the most important thing in the world' - even if that's not particularly good for 'the sort of world we think we want'.
Posted 9 years ago # -
FETA being wounded down and Amey contracted to run them.
I always found FETA a bit of a grandiose misnomer. Should really have been FRBA given it didn't seem to do much else around "transport" (aka motor vehicles) in the "Forth Estuary" (aka the Forth Bridge) than lobby for a new bridge to be built before discovering it didn't really need to be built at all.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"before discovering it didn't really need to be built at all"
Intriguing. What's the story?
Posted 9 years ago # -
"THE threat to the Forth road bridge from corrosion is receding, new checks on its main cables are expected to show. The news would further postpone potential curbs on traffic – but also call into question the need for a new bridge costing as much as £1.6 billion." (2012)
http://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/forth-road-bridge-set-for-a-new-lease-of-life-1-2137760
Posted 9 years ago # -
Ah. Was the whole dry air pumping thing political theatre? Very clever if it was.
Posted 9 years ago # -
kaputnik - when the old Forth Rod Bridge Joint Board became FETA it was given a much broader remit on cross-Forth travel. It produced a pretty decent plan that was to be funded by variable tolls (cheap at night, much more expensive at peak times). The Scottish Government prevented this from happening. They then abolished the tolls and stripped FETA of these wider powers, leaving it dependent on the SG for funding and responsible only for bridge maintenance.
IWRATS - there were two major potential problems with the current bridge that focussed minds in the late 2000s. Corrosion of the main cables, and potential corrosion in the anchorages. A neat dehumidification system was installed to try and deal with the first problem and detailed investigations undertaken into the second.
There was a real possibility that, if these problems were irreparable, then the bridge might have to close (at least for HGVs) towards the end of this decade.
After a couple of years of dehumidification, it looked like the corrosion was being stopped. Despite this, the SG decided to build the second crossing. A decision that could have been delayed - as the earliest potential closure date of the bridge had been pushed back by several years by this point. Enough to allow the full results of the dehumidification system to be known and still allow for a replacement to be built, if required.
Fast forward to today. It turns out the dehumidification has worked and corrosion within the cables has effectively been stopped. The anchorages have been given a clean bill of health.
The current bridge does need some major work done to it, principally new bearings on the road deck and repainting of the box girders. Not enough to require a new bridge though.
Imagine if the SG had spent that £1,450,000,000 on cycling.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Imagine if the SG had spent that £1,450,000,000 on cycling"
Thanks as ever @Morningsider. Actually I can't imagine that. I simply have no idea of what that might look like, so inured am I to normal Edinburgh conditions. In many ways I am not an Amsterdam cyclist but a Stockholm one.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Stockholm syndrome can be strong in cycling.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Imagine if the SG had spent that £1,450,000,000 on cycling
Edinburgh could have built you half a cycle lane from the airport to Leith for that!
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Edinburgh could have built you half a cycle lane from the airport to Leith for that!"
Would it have embedded LEDs to encourage nocturnal ninja dogwalking? I don't use any half cycle lane that doesn't have that.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Ho, ho kappers very droll.
Of course "shared use paths" don't require utilities to be diverted, thus are much cheaper to build than light rail. Indeed, the minute there's an obstacle the typical active travel route will with stop dead or go round the long way.
So 1.4 billion squids would have built a Scottish national network of such half arsed, compromised "facilities" that we could all have been "proud" of. Dunno how much the UK NCN cost when it got big piles of lottery cash just prior to the Millennium End Of Time Day Of Reckoning, but I imagine less that the Forth Resilience Masturbatory Crossing is costing.
Posted 9 years ago # -
The Millennium Commission gave sustrans a grant of £43.5m to build (can't think of better word) the first 10,000 miles of the NCN.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"
I travelled round the country during the referendum. I probably spoke somewhere near you. I saw the beauty and the potential.
Above all, I saw how different we Scots are. We need different solutions in different places. We want to do it for ourselves.
"
No that's NOT from a new manifesto for independence.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/vow-delivered-labour-leadership-candidate-4724901
Posted 9 years ago # -
Above all, I saw how different we Scots are. We need different solutions in different places. We want to do it for ourselves.
Different from each other, as well. I'm sure Holyrood MSPs be queuing up to devolve further powers to the people of the Borders, who need different solutions to Glaswegians, who need different solutions to Orcadians. No?
Posted 9 years ago # -
build
sign? designate? invent? fabricate? imagine?
Posted 9 years ago #
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