Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

While I agree, Woo, it needs sorting and it needs getting on with instead of just talking about it. Is the land accessible to the public ATM?
My big worry would be how many houses they are going to build and how much they will trash in the process.

I remember when they widened the A21, they cut down trees for miles around, and that was just to widen an existing road.
Far more trees were cut down than was necessary, mostly so the contractors could park vehicles and create a village to live in.

Look at the carnage they caused at the M2 roundabout, its about time somebody reigned in the contractors on these projects to just work in the area and not spread out all over the countryside in all directions.

 

It's March and here in Devon only 4.0 mm of rain this month. It was forecast to rain on this Friday and I was looking forward to that, it's now likely to be bright sun and mild.

 

Isn't that the story of the country we live in, lots of money squandered on projects over the years that have been shelved.
One government starts something and the next cancels it, or they spend billions on feasibility studies and then decide they cant afford it.

I'm not keen on this Government but if they do put things into practice rather than just talking about them it will be for the good in the long term.

 

How long have they been talking about a 3rd runway at Heathrow? It still hasn't happened and I don't believe this Government will make it happen either. The planning and preparation for a Thames crossing is likely to take decades and will cost, if it ever happens, multiple times the original guess (I won't call it an estimate as they normally have some basis in reality). Look how the cost of HS2 escalated, and that wasn't trying to cross a dirty great river.
The crossing is simply a vanity project by this Government so they can blame the next for it not happening.

 

Many years ago I worked for a company that did lots of government work, much smaller than this kind of stuff, but it was always a case of you get paid in the end, lots of "extras" as they used to call them.
A lot of it was justified as once you took the contract on the goal posts moved and endless alteration to what you signed up to.
The government couldn't run the proverbial **** up in a brewery, never could and never will.

 

We're running up to an election. It's hard to figure out if Mark Carney is a liar or not. He says he single handedly steered the Bank of England through a crisis but I don't remember that. Was I asleep through that?

 

Decades, but the Government isn't paying for it, Heathrow has to raise the money and pay it back by charging passengers through increased airport fees.

 

I spent most of my working life in IT in the private sector. For the final few years I worked for DWP, not in IT, but saw just what a total Horlicks they made of anything IT related. I happened to be working on a site used as pilot for a fancy 'front end' for ESA claims. 'Front end', for those not understanding the jargon, is a pretty screen design supposedly to make the job easier. Not when DWP are involved it isn't. The whole thing was a mess, with data not matching up with where it should be displayed etc. During a fairly heated meeting between the test users and the suppliers, one of the supplier team came out with a beauty "We aren't being paid enough to do the job properly". When I said "Well you tendered for the job", there was a deafening silence. The reality is though that Government will never acknowledge that they have got it wrong and will continue to throw money at a system until it works, albeit not in the way it was supposed to.

 

To be honest I cant remember how he did when at the BofE, as with all things he was criticised at the time but I cant remember specifically why.
Its not really a job that gets you lots of publicity.

 

Regarding Heathrows 3rd runway while I understand it's a private company wanting to expand it's more being done down south making everyone travel and blocking roads up, why not use somewhere like Doncaster that has one of the longest runways in the country good road links so saving half the country travelling

 

Not sure, but down here they have pretty much got rid of all military airfields, I believe there are a lot more bases north of London.
Might have some bearing on it, I don't know.

Personally I'd like to see a lot more of the development moved further north.

 

Hmm, well, as @pete says, tricky to say. There are those who thought he did a good job (and he would include himself in that number) and those who thought he was a slick man on the make. Certainly he has managed to prosper greatly personally, amassing quite a fortune. So, basically he falls into the “wealthy liberal elite” camp and he will do what is best for that group. He is one of the Davos set, intent on enriching the richest.

That said, he may be better than any alternative you have no offer. He certainly has an international presence and is probably the candidate best able to stand up to Trump and be respected and supported in Europe.