Budget verdict

Generali

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

You do not pay for specific services with taxation. It all goes into one pot. There probabilty is that I will never get cancer, but I would want those services to be available.

A lot of railway services are a) essential b) inherently unprofitable (suburban trains have never been very profitable owing to peaked demand) and c) natural monopolies so it cannot be left to the market.

There are other hidden subsidies. For example, almost all the damage done to roads is done by HGVs, (as the damage done to roads is on a logarythmic scale to the weight of a vehicle). IIRC, if HGV road tax reflected the damage done to the road, and car road tax kept the same, every HGV would need to pay around £2 million in road tax per year.

I'm not convinced that railways are essential. Mostly they could be replaced by cheaper bus services or more convenient driving. It would be easier to drive or get a bus into central London if train lines were turned into roads.

I don't think HGVs should be subsidised either - those running HGVs are in business and should pay their own costs.

Sir_Humphrey

Generali wrote: »

I'm not convinced that railways are essential. Mostly they could be replaced by cheaper bus services or more convenient driving. It would be easier to drive or get a bus into central London if train lines were turned into roads.

I think about 0.0000001% of commuters would agree with you. Remember I am talking about London commuter trains - Intercity trains are profitable (and were even under BR). No-one wants Los Angeles style traffic jams, and the environment cost would be calamitous (if it were priced into the market, trains would win out).

Buses are no substitute for trains, the capacity of a bus is only a fraction of that of a train, and they are slower (an express train can travel at up to about 190mph - even normal British express trains go at 125mph). If a bus carried the passengers of one railway coach, then instead of one driver you would need eight to twelve drivers instead of one. Train drivers do not earn eight to twelve times the wage of a bus driver. EDIT: In fact it is worse than that, since trains are at least twice as fast as an express bus, they can make twice as many journeys, so you would need more like 20 bus drivers to cover one train driver.

You would need to keep the tracks for Intercity trains and heavy freight anyway. Trains have a design life about three times that of a bus, so although cost more, last longer.

If this were a good idea, it would have happened decades ago.

Generali wrote: »

I don't think HGVs should be subsidised either - those running HGVs are in business and should pay their own costs.

I think HGVs should pay more of the costs too - but to pay all the costs would mean HGVs paying tens of thousands in road tax every year (if not more). Can't imagine that being very good for the economy. It costs a lot of money to resurface roads, repair bridges and fill in potholes.

Economics has to reflect the real world, not the other way round.

Generali

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

Buses are no substitute for trains, the capacity of a bus is only a fraction of that of a train, and they are slower (an express train can travel at up to about 190mph - even normal British express trains go at 125mph). If a bus carried the passengers of one railway coach, then instead of one driver you would need eight to twelve drivers instead of one. Train drivers do not earn eight to twelve times the wage of a bus driver. You would need to keep the tracks for Intercity trains and heavy freight anyway. Trains have a design life about three times that of a bus, so although cost more, last longer.

In Sydney we have T-Ways - like train tracks but for buses.

Not many people travel into work at 120mph in the UK - can you name a commuter route which normally operates at anything like that speed? I can't.

Public transport takes you from where you aren't to where you don't want to be. I'm not sure why it's so in favour. Cycling is great for example - I can go where I want, it keeps me fit, the kids love it and it's cheap.

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

If this were a good idea, it would have happened decades ago.

Sir_Humphrey

Generali wrote: »

In Sydney we have T-Ways - like train tracks but for buses.

Not many people travel into work at 120mph in the UK - can you name a commuter route which normally operates at anything like that speed? I can't.

Public transport takes you from where you aren't to where you don't want to be. I'm not sure why it's so in favour. Cycling is great for example - I can go where I want, it keeps me fit, the kids love it and it's cheap.

My commuter train (inner suburban) runs at up to 60mph I reckon - try doing that on Streatham High Road. Try doing even 30mph (doesn't go below that speed except at stations.

125mph - Reading to London. Peterborough to London. Milton Keynes to London.

Just go to Los Angeles if you want to look at a city without proper public transport. The tube is even more unprofitable, would you get rid of that?

Happy to agree to disagree, this is a bit of a digression.

lostinrates

Generali wrote: »

Not many people travel into work at 120mph in the UK - can you name a commuter route which normally operates at anything like that speed? I can't.

Public transport takes you from where you aren't to where you don't want to be. I'm not sure why it's so in favour. Cycling is great for example - I can go where I want, it keeps me fit, the kids love it and it's cheap.

But a fair few people travel 120 miles. In fact, DH's train probably is just over 60 miles a hour. Its packed two hours ish to London, then a short tube journey. The station has a big catchment area, I agree, its not ideal, but it gets him onto the tube network smoothly. Its not a bad system when it works well. Its too expensive though. I can drive it quicker in the middle of the night/Chrsitmas day, at the speed limit, but to try and bus or drive it in rush hour could be five hours. Its certainly taken five hours on a few friday evenings. We then switched to leaving London at about 10;30-11pm. much quicker.

project500

The UK is going Bust ,the budget re arranged the debt chairs on the Titanic !!!

JayScottGreenspan

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

I think Labour have saved the UK from the GLOBAL recession. Thank god we had Brown and Darling at the helm at this difficult time. Those damned yanks and their mortgages caused the problem and Labour are the solution.

I've never really had you down as a troll, but this comes pretty close.

Do you honestly believe this?

GooeyBlob

Labour have unfortunately ensured that the UK is hit hardest of all, and will take longest to recover. The spending spree is still going on, yet we cannot afford things like ID cards or gold-plated public sector pensions.

Had it not been for Brown's abysmal regulatory regime, UK banks would not have provided much of the credit for sub-prime mortgages in the US. Had it not been for Brown's decision to force the BoE to ignore house price inflation when setting rates, the culture of debt would not have taken hold, there would have been fewer dodgy self-cert mortgages, we would not have seen 100,000 insolvencies per year (this happened in the UK before the credit crunch as we know it), or the massive rise in repossessions, or personal debt smashing through the £1 trillion barrier in 2005. Had it not been for Brown's spending spree over the past decade, the UK's finances would have been in a far better shape to deal with a downturn than it was. Of course, Brown told us all that he had single-handedly abolished the economic cycle so we didn't need to plan ahead. Apparently, it would be nothing but perpetual growth. How naive can you get?

What's worst of all is that we are likely to be paying off Labour's debts for 20 or 30 years. Not 5 or 10, but 20 or 30. During that time we will probably experience another economic downturn, but thanks to Brown we will not be in a fit state to deal with that one either. That is how seriously Labour have messed up this time. It's much worse than anything we had from any government in the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s.

Dithering_Dad

JayScottGreenspan wrote: »

I've never really had you down as a troll, but this comes pretty close.

Do you honestly believe this?

Sorry, I thought everyone knew my views on Labour and how they systematically ruined our economy over the course of the last 10 years. From virtually giving away our gold reserves (after announcing their intention to do so), through raiding everyone's pensions schemes (except their own) with Brown's tax grab to presiding over the largest, credit fueled, housing boom in the history of this country, every financial policy they have enacted seems to have been designed to break us, and in this they have succeeded.

My pro-labour remarks are very much tongue in cheek.

Rochdale_Pioneers

GooeyBlob wrote: »

Labour have unfortunately ensured that the UK is hit hardest of all, and will take longest to recover. The spending spree is still going on, yet we cannot afford things like ID cards or gold-plated public sector pensions.

Yes, the banking sector has cost the world $4tn in dodgy investments which governments are having to cover in bail out costs. The absolute best way to fix this disaster is to punish the public sector workers who had sod all to do with the disaster and let the bankers keep their big salaries and low rates of tax. that'd be fair....