The Politics Thread

[thebish]

if anyone is building some infrastructure down here for me, what would be useful is a big fat motorway along the south coast and/or a railway doing the same so that to get to brighton you don't first have to go up to Birmingham and then back down via Middlesbrough...

We normally go along the coast from Sussex to Devon, quicker then going up to Heathrow and then down...

Are you coming to see me then?!

yes hun - put the kettle on!

[Gooner Girl]

if anyone is building some infrastructure down here for me, what would be useful is a big fat motorway along the south coast and/or a railway doing the same so that to get to brighton you don't first have to go up to Birmingham and then back down via Middlesbrough...

We normally go along the coast from Sussex to Devon, quicker then going up to Heathrow and then down...

Are you coming to see me then?!

yes hun - put the kettle on!

Excellent. Will do!

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

I can see this discussion being more difficult than it needs to be. Tell me, in our genetic coding, where does it say where government is? Perhaps the invention of the Internet and telecommunications have been abolished? I know plenty of people in plenty of businesses who manage to communicate across continents, let alone across bloody postcodes. I also happen to know a couple of Civil Servants. They are (at our expense, remember) regularly required to travel to London. Which, and I'm hoping this is a point thats easily understood, is utterly ludicrous, considering they have high-tech tele- and video-conferencing facilities that they use to communicate with the next county.

The real reason that core government jobs remain in the capital has nothing to do with the reasons you're arguing. Though it does become a convenient excuse for the argument you wish to pursue.

Well if there is one thing that does tend to be hardwired into a country's 'genetic coding', then it is that government and government related activities tend to happen in the capital city.

The hi-tech utopia you describe in which nobody ever has to actually meet each other simply doesn't exist yet, even in supposedly agile private sector businesses. Just ask Marissa Mayer.

[thebish]

if anyone is building some infrastructure down here for me, what would be useful is a big fat motorway along the south coast and/or a railway doing the same so that to get to brighton you don't first have to go up to Birmingham and then back down via Middlesbrough...

We normally go along the coast from Sussex to Devon, quicker then going up to Heathrow and then down...

Are you coming to see me then?!

yes hun - put the kettle on!

Excellent. Will do!

I'll be about six and a half hours... probably time for you to plant a tea-plantation, harvest the tea, dry the leaves, process it, sew some home-made tea-bags, and bake some proper british cakes before I arrive...

now - if we had a gorgeous fat motorway snaking its way along the south coast, I'd be there before you'd had time to mop up your daughter's puddles of piss in the kitchen, hallway, porch and sitting room!

[Lord Kangana]

And supermarket. Don't forget that. Ever.

[Gooner Girl]

And supermarket. Don't forget that. Ever.

Just the living room today - but to be fair it was the first time she had told me she wanted a wee, she just only gave me 2 seconds notice. (and she was constipated so had been force feeding her lots of juice - tmi?) Bish is great with children, looking forward to him coming up and potty training both twins perfectly whilst I have a little nap.

[Gooner Girl]

if anyone is building some infrastructure down here for me, what would be useful is a big fat motorway along the south coast and/or a railway doing the same so that to get to brighton you don't first have to go up to Birmingham and then back down via Middlesbrough...

We normally go along the coast from Sussex to Devon, quicker then going up to Heathrow and then down...

Are you coming to see me then?!

yes hun - put the kettle on!

Excellent. Will do!

I'll be about six and a half hours... probably time for you to plant a tea-plantation, harvest the tea, dry the leaves, process it, sew some home-made tea-bags, and bake some proper british cakes before I arrive...

now - if we had a gorgeous fat motorway snaking its way along the south coast, I'd be there before you'd had time to mop up your daughter's puddles of piss in the kitchen, hallway, porch and sitting room!

6 and a half hours? How slow do you drive? Takes me about 4.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

6 and a half hours? How slow do you drive? Takes me about 4.

Yeh, but you live there You don't have to come from Devon

[Athers]

No doubt that most of the big transport infrastructure money is spent in the South East (I saw one study say 86%!), but the place needs it. Draw up a list of all the busiest trains in the country and they're in the South East. However, this doesn't mean that the trains in other areas don't also require infrastructure spending if the case is there. It's certainly an issue that politicians don't get trains between Town X and Town Y, just between those towns and London. HS2 is another example of this.

It was a decent policy to locate some agencies in areas where they could do with the jobs, a good example is having the DVLA in Swansea - they could have had that in Brentwood or somewhere. I've worked with NHS managers in Leeds. The DWP and HRMC have regional offices I believe.

The problem this seems to have created is that:

1) Stats show that private sector job creation remains poor in the rest of the country and the multiplier effect of DVLA staff buying their sandwiches from a new local supplier hasn't really done as much as you'd hope. There's even a school of thought that the government employs so many people in the area it almost seems to discourages private enterprise for a bright young thing when a 'safer' job has been available. We could debate that one all day I think, but the culture/trend/happening where the majority of top graduate minds go to London will need to change somehow.

2) Because the % of public sector works is higher in the provinces, when you do have to make cuts you're now hurting these areas disproportionately.


I think nowadays you seem to end up with decent cities and some desperate surrounding towns. Leeds and Manchester for example are doing pretty well to attract bigger businesses to have offices and employ some locally sourced brains without them paying for a £30k a year desk in London. They also have big universities of domestic and international students to call on for business ideas if they stick around. Other smaller towns which have lost their specific industry of the past have never cracked a new direction to go in and are basically in a massive slow decline. They can't even count on traditional town centres anymore as supermarkets, shopping centres and the internet are king. It's not an easy answer.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Yes. National Savings & Investments' entire back office is split across Blackpool, Durham and Glasgow too.

I suspect these aren't the 'top jobs' LK is exercised by.

[Lord Kangana]

I'd advocate the wholesale relocation of departments across the country - a la BBC in Salford. As a listener there is no discernable difference in end product, but a significant boost to the local economy.

Re:Athers point about about it discouraging local business, I'm not sure the reality fits the theory. In Blackpool and surrounds (a low wage economy if ever there was one), a major Civil Service employment centre, two of the other major employers are BAE Systems, two of whose plants were threatened with closure until some form of nefarious Government intervention.

And as for the point about the SE needing the infrastructure - well yes, it seems nobody wants to see the clear point that if you keep investing in infrastructure and jobs in one area the economy will grow, thus needing a bigger workforce, and hey presto! as if by magic more investment in infrastructure. With advanced communications these days HS2 will end up being a White Elephant. Even the French are scaling back on spending on TGV, its just (as always) we're 30 years behind in investing wisely. It would be better invested on regional infrastructure. Its a massive amount of money that would make a major difference. As it is, it will just make it easier to commute to London, and thus further remove what Athers refers to as the "bright young things" from their local economies.

[bwfcdan94]

Now get some industry in Teeside before the local folk give up.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

I'd advocate the wholesale relocation of departments across the country - a la BBC in Salford. As a listener there is no discernable difference in end product, but a significant boost to the local economy.

Re:Athers point about about it discouraging local business, I'm not sure the reality fits the theory. In Blackpool and surrounds (a low wage economy if ever there was one), a major Civil Service employment centre, two of the other major employers are BAE Systems, two of whose plants were threatened with closure until some form of nefarious Government intervention.

And as for the point about the SE needing the infrastructure - well yes, it seems nobody wants to see the clear point that if you keep investing in infrastructure and jobs in one area the economy will grow, thus needing a bigger workforce, and hey presto! as if by magic more investment in infrastructure. With advanced communications these days HS2 will end up being a White Elephant. Even the French are scaling back on spending on TGV, its just (as always) we're 30 years behind in investing wisely. It would be better invested on regional infrastructure. Its a massive amount of money that would make a major difference. As it is, it will just make it easier to commute to London, and thus further remove what Athers refers to as the "bright young things" from their local economies.

I understand the point about a cycle of prosperity, but when an area is creating jobs and attracting people, it would be an odd thing to let the transport system simply break under the pressure, would it not?

As for the departments.. it's an interesting point. We are different to, say, Germany and Italy, who have a handful of moderately successful cities, but no powerhouse, global hub. We have one, but much weaker secondary cities.

An interesting debate. I suppose over the coming years the BBC example will end up being instructive, as we work out whether or not it was value for money, and how badly it is affected by the people who have refused to move/won't join in the future.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Can I be the first to congratulate Robert Mugabe?
I can?
Well, fxck off, I don't want to.
Arse.

[thebish]

Can I be the first to congratulate Robert Mugabe?
I can?
Well, fxck off, I don't want to.
Arse.

still basing his campaigning on the threat of colonialism (and blatant cheating, of course...)

[Harry Genshaw]

Wife was speaking to a Zimbabwean chap on Friday who said he was pleased Mugabe had won. Basically because he believed if he hadn't, the country would have descended into civil war. It made me wonder how many of their electorate thought the same.

Reminded me of a Syrian I spoke to who said Assad and his secret Police were infinitely preferable to what is going on there now

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Bloody hell, Harry - where do you find them all?!

[Hoboh]

Well, Well, Well! So much for peace in Europe via the EU
Spain sabre rattling yet again over Gib, just wait till we get a PM with a pair of balls who puts a missile frigate and a couple of Typhoon aircraft in place and sink a few of their trawlers or arrest straying Guardia Civil boats and maybe splash the odd Spanish Warplane!
EU don't make me laugh, stop all tourism to Spain and Bankrupt the SOB's.

[thebish]

[TANGODANCER]

You ever been to Gibraltar Hoboh? It's got red phone and telephone boxes etc, and English policemen and women and cars and things and they speak English (well, most of em speak Spanish too). Damndest thing is, when you'r there, despite all that, it all feels a real lot like being in Spain. Odd that.