2015 Election

[tmcd35]

I'm a fan of schools having more local control, but at the same time the systems for monitoring them is not good enough at the moment. It took from October until last week for a local academy that was put in special measures to have an outside academy chain come in to change things!

 

I think there is a fine line between a state Academy and an Independent school. With many MATs and Free Schools I think the Tory's are purposefully blurring, if not crossing, that line. I personally think Academies in general are good for schools, I agree we have benefited here from more local control and less LA interference. But on the other hand I'm not comfortable with the idea of private companies running state schools.

[tmcd35]

Absolute winner? that sounds like an bright and totally unworkable idea. Its fail on so many levels.

Its like saying renationalise the rail or energy industry, such things would require so much cash its basically pie in the sky.

 

The rail industry wouldn't take so much cash. Not sure of the economics of the energy industry. The rail networks are all on limited franchises, just don't renew them when they are next up. No need for any government buyouts.

 

I don't know the logistics but in principle I'm in favour of renationalising nation infrastructure industries and running them as independent not for profit organisations for the benefit of the people rather than shareholders wallets.

[localzuk]

I think there is a fine line between a state Academy and an Independent school. With many MATs and Free Schools I think the Tory's are purposefully blurring, if not crossing, that line. I personally think Academies in general are good for schools, I agree we have benefited here from more local control and less LA interference. But on the other hand I'm not comfortable with the idea of private companies running state schools.

 

It really depends what you are defining as a private company. Academies, technically, are private companies. I'm 100% against profit making companies being anywhere near schools, be that via profit making schools, profit making companies directly running non-profit schools, or even the PFI/BSF school schemes.

[sted]

The rail industry wouldn't take so much cash. Not sure of the economics of the energy industry. The rail networks are all on limited franchises, just don't renew them when they are next up. No need for any government buyouts.

 

I don't know the logistics but in principle I'm in favour of renationalising nation infrastructure industries and running them as independent not for profit organisations for the benefit of the people rather than shareholders wallets.

 

im not sure the rail would take almost any cash the east coast was government run until recently (against heavy protests from commuters). You just wait until the existing contracts expire and dont put them out to tender and they are back in state hands

[sippo]

[Griff]

Spoil the ballot, politics is a joke absolutely done with it mostly because of the clown pictured above.

[CAM]

im not sure the rail would take almost any cash the east coast was government run until recently (against heavy protests from commuters). You just wait until the existing contracts expire and dont put them out to tender and they are back in state hands

 

I think the companies running the franchise (Called TOCs) have to front the costs of managing stations, staff, rolling stock and commitments to infrastructure upgrades along with fines for delays. (Fun fact, TOCs and Network Rail fine each other constantly for delays depending who "caused" it since it could be anything from a broken down train to an intruder on the tracks). End result is millions of pounds in government coffers followed by the TOCs paying potentially millions more in costs and upgrades. That's a lot of saved money when you consider some rail projects easily exceed £1bn.

[woodham]

I'm all for the sale of council houses but at the full unsubsidised market rate with any profit going into a pot to build more , they shouldn't be a home for life subsidised by the tax payer but a means for people who need one to have a roof over there head and somewhere to get themselves on track to supporting themselves.

[tech_guy]

 

That's ace. It's photoshopped though, isn't it?

[Arreks]

That's ace. It's photoshopped though, isn't it?

 

Yup, the W is overlapping onto his hair - and the T on the left is just copied badly from the T on the right.

[tmcd35]

I'm all for the sale of council houses but at the full unsubsidised market rate with any profit going into a pot to build more , they shouldn't be a home for life subsidised by the tax payer but a means for people who need one to have a roof over there head and somewhere to get themselves on track to supporting themselves.

 

Personally I think the Thatcher era created a strange stigma around rented accommodation that's done as much to harm our society as the miss-implementation of the right to buy scheme. The subsidy is/was a head nod to the fact that people had been renting their homes for decades. As far as I am aware the amount of subsidy is very much dependent on how long you had been renting for prior to opting your right to buy. There's a minimum rental period (my head wants to say 5-years) before right to buy kicks in, and a maximum discount.

 

Correctly run both right to buy and social housing are far from 'tax payer subsidised'. They are paid for through the rent of the hard working people who live in those homes. I have a mortgage, I'd sooner have the opportunity to rent decent social housing and have a rented home with a secure tenancy I can rely on for life. The only thing stopping us being able to provide this is councils don't build nearly enough social housing and haven't since Thatcher. The money from right to buy wasn't allowed to be used to replenish social stock. And now Cameron wants to sell off more council property instead of using them to re-home neady families.

 

Disgraceful!

[6Foot2]

Link: Has your constituency already been won in the 2015 general election? Find out here - Telegraph

 

Does your vote really count? New research shows that more than half of MPs are in safe seats. Find your constituency on this map to discover if you're one of the 25 million people who already know who will be your MP after May 7

[Andrew_C]

Very interesting. Baring in mind that the "Vote Match" quiz thing was in the Torygraph. The results here are for a constituency that is regarded as "safe" for the Nasty Party. If only people would vote on their convictions, rather than tribal "my parents always voted Tory" lines. maybe we could see some real change?

 

[CAM]

I'd vote for Greens if it wasn't for their policies on energy and defence. We need to frack Surrey for the shale gas underneath, we need to extract the oil and we need nuclear power. And we need Trident to be replaced, their hippy vision of world leaders turning missile silos into a fountain of rainbows and happiness will never come to fruition since they have no idea how MAD theory works.

[tmcd35]

@CAM, I agree with you 100% with everything except Trident. The acid test for nuclear weapons should be - "name the circumstances under which you will actually deploy them". Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and to a lesser extent Chernobyl, I don't think there are any circumstances when anyone other than a rogue nation like North Korea would actually press the button. Even if North Korea launched I don't think a rational world leader would use nuclear in retaliation. It's an empty threat, the bad guys know it, and as such it cost too much to maintain. The money is better spent on troops and intelligence to prevent rather than deter. IMHO.

 

 

 

After last nights opposition leaders debate I think I want to move to Scotland just so I can vote SNP.

Edited April 17, 2015 by tmcd35

[CAM]

North Korea haven't even developed a working missile, and what they are currently working on is the technological equivalent of rolling a Ford Cortina off the production line and pulling up at the lights to find your neighbours all have Ferraris and Lambos

 

Your comment actually describes MAD perfectly. There is no circumstance under which you'd deploy them because you can nail the first two subs but the third is somewhere out there ready to fire. All end results lead to nuclear retaliation and the destruction of humanity, so you don't deploy them and neither do your enemies because they fear the same. Mutually Assured Destruction!

[rich_tech]

It reflected badly on Conservatives last night I thought overall not being there, I understand the debate about being "bullied or pressurised" into appearing, though I think that was largely tactical to avoid it.

 

Think its worse though that people don't realise at this stage that votes for certain parties potentially mean bringing the parties they don't want to power.

[tmcd35]

I know North Korea isn't really nuclear capable at the moment, but they are about the only real rogue nation of any concern that is actively developing and would actually deploy. The rest that we might have concerns about are largely keeping stock pile because of MAD - China, Russia, Pakistan, maybe Iran. The threat in this world going forward is gorilla warfare not nuclear. International terror organisations not rogue nuclear states. MAD is a fallacy. I think my comments more point to the fallacy than back up the idea of MAD. Seriously for MAD to work there has to a circumstance when the button would be pushed. Since the end of the cold war I don't think that circumstance exists and won't exist again. Hell there's not even enough nuclear nations for it to be worth our money as a defence strategy. If US, Russia, and China want to face each other off with empty threats, great but why should we feel the need to waste money on an empty threat to be a member of that club? The money is better spent else where.

[CAM]

I don't think North Korea will deploy them, they will simply join the nuclear gun pointing race as a bargaining chip. Their threat is overstated and even then it's limited to the area around them (the whole North Korea could nuke London story was total headline generating tosh). Same with Iran, but the bigger threat there is the volatility of the Middle East and the weapons falling into the wrong hands. Both states shouldn't be developing the weapons in the first place, Iran does it under the guise of nuclear energy and they got hit by Stuxnet as a result. North Korea just doesn't care and takes the sanctions.

[localzuk]

I'd vote for Greens if it wasn't for their policies on energy and defence. We need to frack Surrey for the shale gas underneath, we need to extract the oil and we need nuclear power. And we need Trident to be replaced, their hippy vision of world leaders turning missile silos into a fountain of rainbows and happiness will never come to fruition since they have no idea how MAD theory works.

 

We really don't need to frack anywhere. There is absolutely no need, other than having a short term sticking plaster fix for a major long term issue. I'm with The Guardian on this - keep it in the ground. We do need nuclear power though, and I also agree that reality dictates that we need to keep Trident even though ideologically I want rid of it.

[sonofsanta]

We really don't need to frack anywhere. There is absolutely no need, other than having a short term sticking plaster fix for a major long term issue. I'm with The Guardian on this - keep it in the ground. We do need nuclear power though, and I also agree that reality dictates that we need to keep Trident even though ideologically I want rid of it.

 

The knee-jerk reaction against nuclear is the most annoying thing about the Greens. Reluctance to build more nuclear has meant we've built more coal/gas plants and polluted the atmosphere much more. Nuclear waste isn't ideal, no, but it's a much less pressing issue than CO2 emissions at this point. In terms of CO2, nuclear is as green as wind power, and more green than solar.

 

Arguments about Fukushima - where a design three generations old withstood an earthquake ten times more powerful than it was designed to handle, and a tsunami on top of that, without melting down catastrophically - are particularly irrelevant to our nice, stable continental plate as well. I still can't fathom why Germany stopped building them as a result except that it was a convenient excuse for something they already wanted to do.

[tmcd35]

There's a new solar farm being built 5 minutes up the road from here. We get barely 2 days sunshine all year and they build a solar farm !?! Something silly like 10 acres barely powering the first 5 houses in a village a mile away. But it's okay because sheep are going to mill around the panels eating grass !?!

 

We're also the nations Windmill capital at Lowestoft. They're regularly turned off because - "it's too windy".

 

On a plus note, I think they're still building Sizewell C just down the Suffolk Coast from here so all sanity is not lost...yet.

[localzuk]

There's a new solar farm being built 5 minutes up the road from here. We get barely 2 days sunshine all year and they build a solar farm !?! Something silly like 10 acres barely powering the first 5 houses in a village a mile away. But it's okay because sheep are going to mill around the panels eating grass !?!

 

You don't need "sunshine" to generate power, you need light. You'll be surprised how much that place will generate I'd guess. And yes, the land will be dual use. Animal grazing is still possible on the same land.

 

We're also the nations Windmill capital at Lowestoft. They're regularly turned off because - "it's too windy".

 

And? Nuclear power plants are somewhat regularly turned off also, coal plants regularly seem to set on fire as well. Every single generation technology has disadvantages. In 2013, 15% of all power generation in the UK came from renewables, with the vast majority coming from wind (9%). To put that in perspective - nuclear generated 20%.

 

On a plus note, I think they're still building Sizewell C just down the Suffolk Coast from here so all sanity is not lost...yet.

 

Its an important part of the energy mix, definitely.

[CAM]

Power plant operation is quite complex, they are always switching things around and importing energy where needed to meet peaks and turn things off during troughs. The news showed them sitting at their control panels ready for action in the evening with a soap opera or major sporting event on TV. When the advert break hits, they direct energy from standby plants to the grid to meet the demand of kettles turning on over the country. Then after the break, plants are stood down or switched off until the next big peak.

[pcstru]

Arguments about Fukushima - where a design three generations old withstood an earthquake ten times more powerful than it was designed to handle, and a tsunami on top of that, without melting down catastrophically - are particularly irrelevant to our nice, stable continental plate as well. I still can't fathom why Germany stopped building them as a result except that it was a convenient excuse for something they already wanted to do.

That may be the specifics, but what actually failed in a spectacular way was the overall risk management. If the nuclear industry can fail to manage risk appropriately in Japan, they can fail elsewhere (and they have). The costs of the Fukashima failure are estimated between $250 and $500 billion - in about the same ballpark as the modern banking crisis - you know the one that happened around 2007 and which we we will be paying for for the next few decades. While fossil fuels might be a bad idea, the risk factors of an individual dinosaur fuelled power station are not anywhere close; it is only when we talk about global use of fossil fuels that the risks approach (and go beyond) that magnitude.

 

I'm not specifically anti-nuclear but it is only up for consideration because we have failed to make the correct investments (which begin with efficiency and using less energy to start with) and now find ourselves without much choice. On the upside, last year the world deployed more renewable generation capacity than either fossil fuel or Nuclear. If we can solve the storage (or sharing) issues, then there is perhaps some hope for the future.