Cost of living crisis.

[yorkie1999]

8 minutes ago, rachhere said:

This exactly. The whole narrative around HS2 is so frustrating - it’s been portrayed about just saving time for travellers on those lines when in reality its so much more.

 

agree about the rest of the government waste in spending though. 

In theory, it should relieve road congestion and traffic, in reality, it won’t, in the same way as if you build a new bypass, you end up with a bypass and a town full of traffic.

[yorkie1999]

Just wondering what other people are doing to cut down on their energy usage. Myself, I redid the loft insulation, turned the thermostat  down on the hot water tank, reduced the boiler temperature for the rads and keep the bedroom doors shut upstairs, I do have solar panels which means I can run a washing machine, dishwasher and a fridge freezer  for nothing in the day, I’m at 7.10p for the week so far, gas and electric, without any difference to my lifestyle. Just thought it would be a good idea to hear any tips people have got. 

Edited 23 March 2022 by yorkie1999

[kenny]

2 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

Just wondering what other people are doing to cut down on their energy usage. Myself, I redid the loft insulation, turned the thermostat  down on the hot water tank, reduced the boiler temperature for the rads and keep the bedroom doors shut upstairs, I do have solar panels which means I can run a washing machine, dishwasher and a fridge freezer  for nothing in the day, I’m at 7.10p for the week so far, gas and electric, without any difference to my lifestyle. Just thought it would be a good idea to hear any tips people have got. 

Ask the Mrs to move out. Everything is on right now.

 

And give up work so you can rinse the day time free electric.

[yorkie1999]

12 minutes ago, kenny said:

Ask the Mrs to move out. Everything is on right now.

 

And give up work so you can rinse the day time free electric.

Oh and I replaced every light fitting with led stuff. Unfortunately, I can only get a couple of things for free from the solar panels . I did read about a system that you charge up batteries at night on economy 7 and get about 10 hours in the day from them using a 240v inverter, seems like a good idea.

https://eco7energy.co.uk/solar-battery-storage/

Edited 23 March 2022 by yorkie1999

[kenny]

23 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

Oh and I replaced every light fitting with led stuff. Unfortunately, I can only get a couple of things for free from the solar panels . I did read about a system that you charge up batteries at night on economy 7 and get about 10 hours in the day from them using a 240v inverter, seems like a good idea.

https://eco7energy.co.uk/solar-battery-storage/

I think changing providers would assist as we only get 5p kWh at the moment, but we of course don't want to change at the moment.

 

I do get a warm fuzzy feeling about the 21.5p profit the energy company are making from each kw I upload though.

[SecretPro]

3 hours ago, Beechey said:

You can call HS2 environentally destructive, but the alterantive is either domestic air travel or more cars. Unnecessary? Our existing rail lines are at capacity and haven't been meaningfully expanded in a century. HS2 should absolutely go ahead and should never have been cut off at EM Parkway. We need more infrastructure spending in this country, not less. If we want to lower congestion and pollution, we should be building high speed rail to every major city.

Not all strictly true is it. HS2 will do absolutely nothing to ease congestion or air travel.

 

The only way you get people on trains is to make them affordable. Trains in the UK are not affordable - Return from Leicester to Cornwall can be up to and over £400 for 2, and takes over 7 hours - it would cost less in fuel (even now) and take 5 hours by car - where is the incentive to get the train? Not to mention I could fly to and from Europe about 6 times over with that £400, its utter madness - what makes you think everyone's going to jump on HS2 at several hundred quid a pop at peak times? The lines may be at capacity, but the actual trains are not - I should know, I use them more than most.

 

Likewise, several Airports have or had expansion plans along the route of HS2 - HS2 will make air travel more accessible and flight numbers, post covid, will increase. 

 

Existing rail networks would do far better with £160 billion of investment than building a new high speed rail line that will be technologically dated by the time its complete, vastly over budget and now scaled back so as not to even fulfill its original promise. Perhaps if they weren't neglected by successive Governments for decades and given over to private firms who can charge what they want when they want and still whack the prices up by sickening amounts year on year then we might be in a better place. Sure building it creates jobs and in part fuels some local economies but thats temporary, and if its a good enough reason let's just start building any old shit anywhere to do the same. But it 100% will never, ever, ever ease congestion or reduce pollution in real terms. Ever. The project itself won't even be carbon neutral for another 100 years after its built - not exactly environmental bliss is it!

Edited 23 March 2022 by SecretPro

[Beechey]

1 hour ago, SecretPro said:

Not all strictly true is it. HS2 will do absolutely nothing to ease congestion or air travel.

 

The only way you get people on trains is to make them affordable. Trains in the UK are not affordable - Return from Leicester to Cornwall can be up to and over £400 for 2, and takes over 7 hours - it would cost less in fuel (even now) and take 5 hours by car - where is the incentive to get the train? Not to mention I could fly to and from Europe about 6 times over with that £400, its utter madness - what makes you think everyone's going to jump on HS2 at several hundred quid a pop at peak times? The lines may be at capacity, but the actual trains are not - I should know, I use them more than most.

 

Likewise, several Airports have or had expansion plans along the route of HS2 - HS2 will make air travel more accessible and flight numbers, post covid, will increase. 

 

Existing rail networks would do far better with £160 billion of investment than building a new high speed rail line that will be technologically dated by the time its complete, vastly over budget and now scaled back so as not to even fulfill its original promise. Perhaps if they weren't neglected by successive Governments for decades and given over to private firms who can charge what they want when they want and still whack the prices up by sickening amounts year on year then we might be in a better place. Sure building it creates jobs and in part fuels some local economies but thats temporary, and if its a good enough reason let's just start building any old shit anywhere to do the same. But it 100% will never, ever, ever ease congestion or reduce pollution in real terms. Ever. The project itself won't even be carbon neutral for another 100 years after its built - not exactly environmental bliss is it!

You seem annoyed that trains in the U.K. are too slow. Leicester to Cornwall would be a slow route, you know what would make it faster? An electrified, high speed train line.

 

You should take literally any South Coast train. Great Western Railway or damn near any train going into London. It’s a hell scape. If you can’t find a seat, you get the pleasure of sitting on the floor. I should know, I get those trains more than most. We shouldn’t even be limiting ourselves to HS2, we should have a much larger high speed network.

 

You’ll have to run it past me how HS2 would be technologically dated. The trains that will be running on those lines are to be some of the fastest in the world. Would you would prefer it be maglev? Would that astronomical cost increase make you happier? Or are you somehow trying to argue for us to build a line whose technology does not yet exist, such that it won’t be an old technology when it finally finished? This point of yours is actually confusing.

 

Airports are not expanding to accommodate domestic air travel. I hope you’re not trying to strawman me here.

 

I don’t get it. You don’t want infrastructure neglected, so in response you would stop us building a modern, necessary high speed rail line. And instead update centuries old lines, that are already at capacity? There’s no growth opportunity with spending £160bn on old lines that we can’t get any more trains on. We can electrify them, but it won’t solve the congestion on our railways.

 

You say the jobs are temporary, but it’s been a 40 year project. Small price to pay for tooling up an entire generation of engineers to build a substantial railway expansion, something this country has not done in over 100 years.

 

I’d love to see you try and realistically argue that traffic going into London would not be lessened when you can either drive and pay fees, or get a train for £45 with a railcard, and it take less time than driving. If we had as much high speed railway capacity as there would be demand for travel into our major cities, there would not be anywhere near as much road congestion into major cities.
 

Come off it. People prefer getting the train when it’s convenient, the logical thing is to make public transport as convenient and comfortable as possible. We should have a modern, fast rail network fit for this century, not one straight out of the 19th century.

 

I’m flabbergasted that anyone can genuinely argue against more public spending in modern infrastructure. It actually beggars belief. We obviously both want a better rail network, but I don’t know if you see that our lack of capacity is killing us. We need expansion. HS2 doubles capacity for passengers and freight cargo between our first and second largest cities. How can anyone not want that?

Edited 24 March 2022 by Beechey

[ozleicester]

[Benguin]

58 minutes ago, ozleicester said:

They’ve got a computer to make and post memes and a television to watch movies though. 

[Crinklyfox]

When the energy price rises bite those on lower incomes (or pensioners) will have to make economies.  It is possible, though it may be unpalatable to many, to reduce outgoings by eliminating some of the regular expenses for items and services which are seen as a normal part of life now but without which my family managed to survive in the 50s and 60s.  At that time we didn't have:

 

Car - walked locally and took buses into town

Home phone - used a public phone box when necessary

Mobile phone - they didn't exist

Internet access - also didn't exist

Satellite television - also didn't exist

 

The annual cost of these today runs into thousands of pounds per year.  Which is what we'll need to get through this crisis so for some going back to a more austere time will be necessary.

[Dahnsouff]

1 hour ago, ozleicester said:

See plenty of anti-capitalism posts but no suggestions of viable (or even ridiculous) alternatives. So presume it’s just whinging?  

 

[Jon the Hat]

10 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

See plenty of anti-capitalism posts but no suggestions of viable (or even ridiculous) alternatives. So presume it’s just whinging?  

"but socialism has never been properly tried!"

[Lionator]

21 minutes ago, Crinklyfox said:

When the energy price rises bite those on lower incomes (or pensioners) will have to make economies.  It is possible, though it may be unpalatable to many, to reduce outgoings by eliminating some of the regular expenses for items and services which are seen as a normal part of life now but without which my family managed to survive in the 50s and 60s.  At that time we didn't have:

 

Car - walked locally and took buses into town

Home phone - used a public phone box when necessary

Mobile phone - they didn't exist

Internet access - also didn't exist

Satellite television - also didn't exist

 

The annual cost of these today runs into thousands of pounds per year.  Which is what we'll need to get through this crisis so for some going back to a more austere time will be necessary.

To be fair, Corbyn’s nationalising broadband idea doesn't look too daft now. Plus aren’t all home phone lines being disabled in the next few years? 
 

6 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

"but socialism has never been properly tried!"

There are different degrees to capitalism, here we have a rich get richer, poor get poorer style of capitalism. You can still enjoy the benefits of capitalism while ensuring those most vulnerable in society can afford to, you know, not die. 

[Dahnsouff]

28 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

"but socialism has never been properly tried!"

Would be an extremely interesting experiment (as an observer)

[grobyfox1990]

7 hours ago, Beechey said:

You seem annoyed that trains in the U.K. are too slow. Leicester to Cornwall would be a slow route, you know what would make it faster? An electrified, high speed train line.

 

You should take literally any South Coast train. Great Western Railway or damn near any train going into London. It’s a hell scape. If you can’t find a seat, you get the pleasure of sitting on the floor. I should know, I get those trains more than most. We shouldn’t even be limiting ourselves to HS2, we should have a much larger high speed network.

 

You’ll have to run it past me how HS2 would be technologically dated. The trains that will be running on those lines are to be some of the fastest in the world. Would you would prefer it be maglev? Would that astronomical cost increase make you happier? Or are you somehow trying to argue for us to build a line whose technology does not yet exist, such that it won’t be an old technology when it finally finished? This point of yours is actually confusing.

 

Airports are not expanding to accommodate domestic air travel. I hope you’re not trying to strawman me here.

 

I don’t get it. You don’t want infrastructure neglected, so in response you would stop us building a modern, necessary high speed rail line. And instead update centuries old lines, that are already at capacity? There’s no growth opportunity with spending £160bn on old lines that we can’t get any more trains on. We can electrify them, but it won’t solve the congestion on our railways.

 

You say the jobs are temporary, but it’s been a 40 year project. Small price to pay for tooling up an entire generation of engineers to build a substantial railway expansion, something this country has not done in over 100 years.

 

I’d love to see you try and realistically argue that traffic going into London would not be lessened when you can either drive and pay fees, or get a train for £45 with a railcard, and it take less time than driving. If we had as much high speed railway capacity as there would be demand for travel into our major cities, there would not be anywhere near as much road congestion into major cities.
 

Come off it. People prefer getting the train when it’s convenient, the logical thing is to make public transport as convenient and comfortable as possible. We should have a modern, fast rail network fit for this century, not one straight out of the 19th century.

 

I’m flabbergasted that anyone can genuinely argue against more public spending in modern infrastructure. It actually beggars belief. We obviously both want a better rail network, but I don’t know if you see that our lack of capacity is killing us. We need expansion. HS2 doubles capacity for passengers and freight cargo between our first and second largest cities. How can anyone not want that?

You’ve not addressed his main point. Trains are not affordable. 

[Dahnsouff]

3 minutes ago, grobyfox1990 said:

You’ve not addressed his main point. Trains are not affordable. 

Never use trains normally, but due to the energy shenanigans, we are finding that a trip to Kent on the weekend for the three of us is £60 (With F&F) whereas a tank of fuel if now over that. Not sure how typical this is though  

[ealingfox]

 

 

 

[fox_up_north]

Ok, let's say we take the HS2 money (£100+ billion) and put it into things like improving local infrastructure, broadband or renewables, that is surely a better use of the money as it spreads it out?

 

How do people in Grimsby, Hull, Blackpool, Wakefield, etc benefit from HS2? Are they likely to need to get to London quickly? 

[Nick]

For me, trains are not for the people anyway. They are for business. Social and domestic pleasure passengers are priced out of the market completely. It’s less expensive to drive if you can’t book 2 months in advance. Where public transport infrastructure works and works well is other European countries where fares are affordable and routes are accessible. There are so many disused lines to towns and villages with old closed stations. These should be reopened. Where I used to live the train station is closed despite trains running through it and the buses are on such a reduced service that you have to ring the bus company days in advance of a proposed journey to ask the bud to stop. How are vulnerable and elderly expected to move about without a car? Ordinary workers shouldn’t be working the first two hours every day of their wage to pay for their commute. Self employed people should be able to travel 25 miles to quote for a job without having to shell out £50 beforehand - they should be able to compete within the market and if they could, market forces and Labour would be more competitive rather than have tradesmen out of work in cities and none available in rural areas. Transport infrastructure needs to be accessible to all. 

[SecretPro]

9 hours ago, Beechey said:

You seem annoyed that trains in the U.K. are too slow. Leicester to Cornwall would be a slow route, you know what would make it faster? An electrified, high speed train line.

 

You should take literally any South Coast train. Great Western Railway or damn near any train going into London. It’s a hell scape. If you can’t find a seat, you get the pleasure of sitting on the floor. I should know, I get those trains more than most. We shouldn’t even be limiting ourselves to HS2, we should have a much larger high speed network.

 

You’ll have to run it past me how HS2 would be technologically dated. The trains that will be running on those lines are to be some of the fastest in the world. Would you would prefer it be maglev? Would that astronomical cost increase make you happier? Or are you somehow trying to argue for us to build a line whose technology does not yet exist, such that it won’t be an old technology when it finally finished? This point of yours is actually confusing.

 

Airports are not expanding to accommodate domestic air travel. I hope you’re not trying to strawman me here.

 

I don’t get it. You don’t want infrastructure neglected, so in response you would stop us building a modern, necessary high speed rail line. And instead update centuries old lines, that are already at capacity? There’s no growth opportunity with spending £160bn on old lines that we can’t get any more trains on. We can electrify them, but it won’t solve the congestion on our railways.

 

You say the jobs are temporary, but it’s been a 40 year project. Small price to pay for tooling up an entire generation of engineers to build a substantial railway expansion, something this country has not done in over 100 years.

 

I’d love to see you try and realistically argue that traffic going into London would not be lessened when you can either drive and pay fees, or get a train for £45 with a railcard, and it take less time than driving. If we had as much high speed railway capacity as there would be demand for travel into our major cities, there would not be anywhere near as much road congestion into major cities.
 

Come off it. People prefer getting the train when it’s convenient, the logical thing is to make public transport as convenient and comfortable as possible. We should have a modern, fast rail network fit for this century, not one straight out of the 19th century.

 

I’m flabbergasted that anyone can genuinely argue against more public spending in modern infrastructure. It actually beggars belief. We obviously both want a better rail network, but I don’t know if you see that our lack of capacity is killing us. We need expansion. HS2 doubles capacity for passengers and freight cargo between our first and second largest cities. How can anyone not want that?

You're getting me wrong, I'm not against new infrastructure, where it works and I'm not entirely against your argument but I will address the points in order.

 

1. Yes the trains to Cornwall are slow, disjointed and expensive. Once you've spent £160bn on HS2 the rest of the existing rail network is still going to be the slow piece of shit it is now. When I say invest in the current infrastructure, I'm saying £160bn could be spent improving, reopening, electrifying, extending existing lines. Like the proposed Ivanhoe line - I know I'll use it when it's open. 

 

2. Growth opportunity - part of the issue with the developed world right now is an obsession that growth is all that matters. Even economists are finally waking up to it. Growth comes with some very real consequences that I'd say forms one of, if not the largest crisis this planet will ever face. There needs to be a balance between economic growth and the Environment. 

 

3. Traffic - congestion and traffic isn't confined to London. Have you tried getting in and out of Leicester at rush hour? Saffron lane, standstill, welford Road, standstill, Aylestone Lane, standstill. That's just our city, from the South. There are far too many cars on the road (more it seems since pre-pandemic), and the roads that are holding them are a heap of shit. Perhaps HS2 may reduce congestion to London, but that won't last forever. Car ownership will increase, HS2 will hit occupied capacity and then the normal congestion resumes - even if it is reduced I seriously doubt it will be of any meaningful, national proportion. Again, you are addressing London, not the chaos of frankly ridiculous numbers of cars on the road outside of it. Not everyone is travelling to London and Birmingham. Most people make relatively short journeys in their day to day lives. Improving the public transport networks locally is the only way you are going to significantly decrease congestion and pollution. Bettering the local rail networks is only part of that solution. HS2 may well be good for some things, especially business and freight, but others I really don;t think so. Again I;m talking in context of the current backdrop - the project won't be carbon neutral for another 100 years (by which point it will be as shit as our other 100 year old, underfunded rail system). That's ecological and environemental damage on quite a scale for a supposed 'green solution'.

 

4. On London - you've mentioned London multiple times. You know what? **** London. What would really help the entirety of the economy, all people everywhere and improve happiness would be ending this London centric notion. It's 2022, nobody should be needing to travel 2, 3, 4 hours to go to work in London - my work-life balance is shite and I work in Leicester, add another 2 hours commute on to my working day and I;d be ready to put a bullet in my head. I don't know how people suffer it. Working and spending locally would drastically improve the economy in all the towns and cities that the Tories don't give a shit about, ie - anywhere outside of London. Investment outside of London from Government and private companies is a crucial step to a better future, both financially and health wise. Building infrastructure locally, creating jobs locally and spending money locally would stabilise the wider economy of the Country and being less London-focussed would add certain sureitys too. It would certainly improve the finances of cities outside of Greater London. It would also lower the living costs of a vast majority of people (through less travel, less expense, less childcare ets) and allow people more time to spend more money on pleasure (which would also boost local economy). Not to mention someone invented the Internet which should definitely mean nobody has to ever make long trips to attend something as simple and menial as a meeting - doing so is frankly criminal and I suspect it's only yuppies that like to travel for meetings and show off to the world how 'important' their jobs are. 

 

5. Airport expansion - if somebody is strawmanning here, its not me. What exactly is the significance of reducing domestic air travel if you are increasing international air travel? Do planes flying abroad not cause pollution? All air travel needs drastically reducing until such time than it becomes environmentally viable. 

 

6. I'm not arguing against spending on infrastructure and never have?! Just think it should be done sustainably and more locally and have the effect of helping the many rather than the minority. 

 

7. You didn't address my point that train travel in the UK is bordering on criminal price-wise. Its an absolute joke. When it comes to getting trains for pleasure travel it is not affordable. In case you had forgotten, millions of us will be drastically affected by the cost of living crisis, possibly long term. Those people are not going to be paying the extortionate train fares currently on offer. If people are feeling the pinch they are likely to want to take their holidays in the UK - this would benefit the UK economy, but if you are then aksing me to fork out £400 to get to and from Cornwall with the misus when it;s clearly cheaper to fly abroad multiple times then that not only undermimes the idea of staying local to save money but it also means the UK economy won't benefit from people doing so. Its basics, if you want bums on seats then you need to make it affordable and practical. It's neither at the moment. 

 

8. The main point I was making to begin with (and that you didn't address) was that if you can spent £40bn on Test and Trace, £10bn on dodgy contracts, write of £15bn in fraud with the click of a button and spend £160bn on HS2 (whether you think that's a good or bad thing, I'm talking about it in context of the current economic backdrop) there is no way on earth you can then claim you can't afford to help people with the cost of living, raise benefits in line with inflation etc etc. I mean FFS the Government had to go to war with Rashford over funding a poxy financial amount of school dinners but they can write of £15bn in Covid fraud? It's a con. There IS clearly money to ease the cost of living crisis but it doesn't benefit the Tories or their pals to do so. It's as simple as that. 

 

Edited 24 March 2022 by SecretPro

[Leicester_Loyal]

17 minutes ago, SecretPro said:

8. The main point I was making to begin with (and that you didn't address) was that if you can spent £40bn on Test and Trace, £10bn on dodgy contracts, write of £15bn in fraud with the click of a button and spend £160bn on HS2 (whether you think that's a good or bad thing, I'm talking about it in context of the current economic backdrop) there is no way on earth you can then claim you can't afford to help people with the cost of living, raise benefits in line with inflation etc etc. I mean FFS the Government had to go to war with Rashford over funding a poxy financial amount of school dinners but they can write of £15bn in Covid fraud? It's a con. There IS clearly money to ease the cost of living crisis but it doesn't benefit the Tories or their pals to do so. It's as simple as that. 

 

Sadly agree, these lot are con artists.

 

For reference I am in favour of both improving the existing railway infrastructure, and HS2. Our local network around Leicestershire is awful, anyone that works on it would be able to tell you what it's like and you'd be shocked.

[kenny]

26 minutes ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

Sadly agree, these lot are con artists.

 

For reference I am in favour of both improving the existing railway infrastructure, and HS2. Our local network around Leicestershire is awful, anyone that works on it would be able to tell you what it's like and you'd be shocked.

I am generally in favour of SPS and the work he does in Leicester, but he has a real blind spot with transport. He is blinkered by a vision of us all cycling and using buses all of the time.

 

As such there has been little work to improve our rail transport links despite being the worst connected city in the UK. In terms of levelling up, it's hard to see how investment wouldn't be approved as it's awful currently.

[grobyfox1990]

1 hour ago, Dahnsouff said:

Never use trains normally, but due to the energy shenanigans, we are finding that a trip to Kent on the weekend for the three of us is £60 (With F&F) whereas a tank of fuel if now over that. Not sure how typical this is though  

I have got the train from London - Leicester more often in the last month or so because train fares are now around the same as petrol. But only because I book ‘cheap’ on megatrain.com and claim a refund for inevitable late running/overcrowded train. I live 85 miles from Leicester, it should be a tenner each way pay and play. Otherwise I find trains are still criminally overpriced. £20 pp to Kent on a weekend is fantastic 

 

edit - it costs me £7.30 each way from home  to the office. And that’s all within the London zones (zone 6 into 1) stupid, criminal pricing 

Edited 24 March 2022 by grobyfox1990

[leicsmac]

Honestly, I look at the UK and Korea in terms of public transport and the difference in terms of standard and price is so jarring I find it difficult to justify.

 

For a while I thought it was purely down to infrastructure and lack of investment in it in the UK, but now I'm thinking that can't be the only reason why the UK is so sub-standard by comparison.

[leicsmac]

With respect to green energy and getting it set up, I'm going to say it again - yes, it should be made affordable as an incentive, but the simple fact is that either it is paid for now or we, as a species, pay much, much, *much* more later.