Political Discussion

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Re: Private firms are set return to rail maintenance

Post by cyberdonblue »

rjhowie wrote: ...So call me what you damn well like...
OK then, how about: Blind.

Blind to the criminal past of the Tory party (kidnap, murder, theft, fraud, basic human rights denial and a million other offences no doubt), blind to the reality that it's every other state government in Europe robbing... er sorry, running our railways. Blind to the fact that due to the cutting of deregulated, privatised bus services in many countryside areas a lot of people have little or no choice but to use an (often very scarce and usually) awful train service. Blind to the fact that these privatised so-called TOCs are lining their pockets at the taxpayers expense because there would be no profit to be had at all if they had to pay their own way properly (i.e. pay for track, signalling, staff, stations etc., etc. as they do in America), blind to the fact that trains are overcrowded and appear to be much busier these days because the very generous TOCs cut the number of vehicles in a train by at least a third in most cases and by more than half in the case of many express/inter-city services (now conveniently called cross country, I believe, so that they could replace 8 and 9 coach loco hauled express trains with 2 car 158s without too much protest) and, finally, blind to the fact that if BR had been granted anything like the current level of investment now put into our railways we would be world leaders by a country mile because the money would have been spent on railways and not shareholders - and HS 2 would have been built 20 years ago at a tenth of the current estimated cost!

...and that list is without even actually thinking about precise specifics.


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Re: Private firms are set return to rail maintenance

Post by blackwatch13 »

trainzrule wrote:So what? As long as they do their job well..(And many TOCs like greater anglia are doing a good job, replacing their whole fleet)
But how much of the profit is being sent out of this country?
What percentage of that profit is our government giving them in subsidies?
Who is making the money producing the new stock?

Those are the questions that need answering, "so what" are the answers?
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Re: Private firms are set return to rail maintenance

Post by rjhowie »

Yeah cyberdonblue we live in a country where opinions are valid but you I am sorry to say have got so dashed wrapped up in all that Socialist guff to the point that it looks immature. May I remind that in the past ages I have mentioned we had widespread lefty control everywhere and the country was bloated and because the State was running everything so many in your corner could get away with anything. There is as I directly pointed out far more competition in everything rather than what happened in that past. Anything Tory is automatically hell and everything Socialist is heaven. Is there a massive wish of the British population to go back to the State controlling telephones, tv, shipping companies, rail, airlines, betting shops, travel agencies, bus companies power et al? No there isn't You could have had a more reasonable and mature corner if you had not sloaped off into that hard left negativity as some kind of justification and especially on the matter of railways. I can well remember when Unions had got so corrupted by the very red mindsets that by the late 70's inflation was over 25%and even the dead were not getting funerals and stirkes for everything even under a left regime.

It is all very well blackwatch to jump onto someone else's corner of mentioning that outside State railways from outside GB can get a fix just like any private operator but there is one very obvious matter danced away from. And that is the hard fact that overall the idea of the government NOT controlling everything has worked whether the red flag minds just ignore that matter as it doesn't do that corner any good. That the overall system is not British Rail is far better than that old heavy waster. It is a reasonable matter to have a view on the railways being private or State run but bringing in all that red stuff and the rubbish about a groany Tory bashing is something else. That more people are using the railways does not suit your mindsets at all but is a fact. 8-)
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Re: Private firms are set return to rail maintenance

Post by cyberdonblue »

Oh dear, Mr Howie, it seems that your argument has run dry has it not. Not once did you even attempt to address a single point that I raised in my previous post. Just one long whinge about us "reds under the beds" sounds like a very 1960s American whine. The Americans were (and still are) totally obsessed with "commie b*stards," as you well know. It also shows that you have paid no heed whatsoever to anything I've written in any of my posts. I'll say again, specifically for your benefit Mr Howie, my political beliefs stretch right across the political arena - but first and foremost among them is the welfare of my fellow man (and woman) not the size of my bank account.

As with your Tory friends though, there were a few people in the Trade Union movement - particularly in the late 1960s and early 1970s - who abused the positions of power that they'd acquired for themselves. They even brought down Jim Callaghan's Labour government, that's how misguided they were. However, there were not nearly as many as there were Tory sinners but they still existed, I'll grant you. They lost sight of why they joined a Trade Union in the first place and just "feathered their own nests." However, they didn't have any Tories hanged or sent off to live in dire poverty in an Australian prison colony. They didn't have anyone thrown into the street because they owed money. They still believed that they fought for the working man - if a little misguidedly - in a way they thought best (usually best for their own personal image though.)

I lived the life of a railwayman, Mr Howie. It was my entire career (apart from a brief spell in the Army [Royal Engineers] serving Queen Leech and country) and I knew good times as well as bad. Working men and women learn to make the best of what they've got, you see Mr Howie, and we don't spend our entire lives complaining. We just get on and make do. We only start complaining when you Tories decide to poke us with a stick and squeeze every last ounce of blood out of us whilst YOU live in luxury.

Mostly we, on the railway, were ignored year after year by all governments but then Thatcher decided we needed to be destroyed, so then it became personal (1982.) She decided that our conditions were just too good for us so we needed to go back a hundred years - I kid you not (split shifts, longer hours, less money etc.)

Coming forward in history though, these modern day blaggards (who know absolutely not one jot about railways let alone safety) think they know everything. Just because one bloke stood on the end of a platform with a clipboard one fine sunny day - and wrote down things that suit their arguments - they think they (and they're clipboard men) are suddenly experts and know everything about one man working that there is to know. Well, Mr Howie, for your information, even SNIPERS in the Army work in pairs nowadays; because two pairs of eyes are better than one - especially when you're having to look round corners.

Oh, and blackwatch raised the point about foreign governments running our railways before I did so I would hardly say he is "jumping on someone else's corner."

Regards

Dave
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Re: Private firms are set return to rail maintenance

Post by blackwatch13 »

That more people are using the railways does not suit your mindsets at all but is a fact.
You are also ignoring a very big 'fact' that I have previously brought up, just because passenger numbers are greater
now than they were, means not a jot. Of course more people are using the railways now than were in the 1970/80's
the number of people in this country has swelled beyond comprehension since those years, now be a good boy & support
your argument with recognised 'percentage of population' figures for passengers from that era & today, then your argument
may bear more credence. 8-)

Also, Dave is correct in pointing out ................
Oh, and blackwatch raised the point about foreign governments running our railways before I did
See my thread from a while ago on the subject ........
http://forum.british-trainz.co.uk/viewt ... =28&t=3310
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Re: Private firms are set return to rail maintenance

Post by rjhowie »

Well their was someone who mentioned that foreign State railways can and do apply just like private ones. He was not either of you two if you look recently back. Using the increase in population is not always an automatic in-depth response. Many of the increases are immigrants and on Welfare, etc and others simply do not need to go far to work so too easy just to throw in that cobblers blackwatch! May i also point out that in the northern part of the kingdom population growth has not been great yet rail travel away up.

on the stuff about the bitterly anti-Tory stuff just how infantile is that corner? Millions of people vote for that label so does that mean there is automatically a built-in nonsense of an 8 figure support?? I worked for a short time in my early twenties on BR and was not impressed. Over staffing and people getting away with things they wouldn't outside of public control freakery. I have also served this nation legally in the community and I do not automatically want to be ultra savage on the extreme left stuff but it is getting to be an infantile attitude from that lefty corner and the disgraceful slagging on the Head of state in this thread is disgusting.

it is one thing having a strong opinion in a person's corner but the thread starter has came out with some uncharitable and slightly demeaning attitudes and no excuse for it. :(
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Re: Private firms are set return to rail maintenance

Post by cyberdonblue »

May I respectfully suggest, Mr Howie, that if you wish to pursue the political avenue then you do so in the area provided by the moderators a day or two ago for the continuation of that subject.

On the subject of the so-called "royal family" I will show them the same respect that they have shown me all my life - AND THAT IS A BIG FAT ZERO! When the taxpayer decides to give me £4 million a year tax free just for waking up in the morning then I may decide to rethink my opinion.

And on the subject of respect within this thread, I hardly think that you have contributed positively by throwing around the terminology of "reds" and "lefties" etc in every other sentence despite me telling you on two occasions now that my political beliefs stretch across THE WHOLE of the political spectrum. The left do not believe in Internment for our muslim extremist "friends" but I do - very strongly. Am I now a right wing fascist too?

Anyway, as our moderators have advised us (all of us) the political debate belongs elsewhere, not here.

Dave :|
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Re: Political Discussion

Post by PFX »

I'm posting this response in the proper place in an effort to divert the political 'discussion', if it can be called such, away from an unrelated thread.
rjhowie wrote:Well their was someone who mentioned that foreign State railways can and do apply just like private ones. He was not either of you two if you look recently back.
Yes, that was me, the second time you've made an inference to myself here, just as you have done on the N3V forum with your loquacious friend. Your counter argument to that fact is startlingly stupid. Regardless of which company can apply to run a TOC, the fact remains that 5 foreign state-owned railway companies, or subsidiaries thereof, are operating a large number of British railway services. That equates to our taxes, in the shape of government subsidies, funding railways in those other states.
rjhowie wrote:Using the increase in population is not always an automatic in-depth response.
So your claim that it's down to immigrant welfare claimants is an in-depth response?
rjhowie wrote:on the stuff about the bitterly anti-Tory stuff just how infantile is that corner? Millions of people vote for that label so does that mean there is automatically a built-in nonsense of an 8 figure support??
It is sheer audacity for you to accuse people of being infantile in being "anti-Tory". You are doing precisely the same thing to the others here who are Labour or SNP supporters with similarly infantile language such as 'lefty', 'socialist guff', etc, etc. I'll put the "Bolshie" and "Tsarist" references down to your inimitable sense of humour.
rjhowie wrote:I worked for a short time in my early twenties on BR and was not impressed. Over staffing and people getting away with things they wouldn't outside of public control freakery.
You were briefly a booking clerk as I recall and you have repeated this on many occasions. I can see how this would give you an in depth knowledge of the internal workings of BR but, without wishing to sound ungrateful, I'm inclined to listen more to that commie, lefty, liberal nut, cyberdonblue, when it comes to the operations of BR.
rjhowie wrote:I have also served this nation legally in the community and I do not automatically want to be ultra savage on the extreme left stuff but it is getting to be an infantile attitude from that lefty corner and the disgraceful slagging on the Head of state in this thread is disgusting.
Does the fact you were a JP have any relevance here? Again you're calling other peoples' attitudes infantile while being exactly that yourself. As for slagging off the queen, is it any more disgraceful than making disparaging sexist remarks about Nicola Sturgeon, purely because you don't agree with her politics (no, you're not the only one to have done so but you're the only one to have taken exception to being offensive about someone you hold in high esteem)?

While I've tried to resist thus far in posting much on this thread, I can't watch as you carry on with your bitter diatribe (even though I'd be as well hitting myself on the head with a brick than to try and argue anything contrary to your views) like you're being unfairly persecuted. If you can't take exactly the same as your dishing out, simply stop doing it.
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Re: Private firms are set return to rail maintenance

Post by rjhowie »

Are you being sensible?

I was not the one who swung into the deep political corner it was YOU! If you don't like my satirical touch then that is tough and that is life! You went into all that political direction then castigated the opposite to your very strong leftist leanings so don't make yourself look silly. You castigated the side opposite your stance and the ruler of the nation and you come out with that ridiculous stuff about me starting it all? Everyone is entitled to an opinion on GB you and I but if you are going to condemn a large proportion of the country from my corner then act very arrogantly. You condemn the stance that is directly opposite yours and the Head of State and think you can get away with that without a reply??

You are entitled as I say to an opinion whether strong or weak but that does not mean you cannot be challenged from my damn side of things. You acted as if anyone not of your very in-depth leftist stuff should not challenge and you ridicule millions of people in Gt Britain who are on the same side as me. I have been a Tory candidate and a Unionist as well as a monarchist and some of the things you have come out with do not sound very mature and are vindictive. I came from a working clas background as well. Not apologising for my corner but do look at what you came out with and you seem to think you cannot be challenged. Even when i tried to get back to the railway thing you continued in a blinkered fashion. I have not denied you a right but your attitude to my corner leaves a lot to be desired so for goodness sake be mature. You and I are at not going to agree on the political issues and my attempt to stick to the original theme was lost on you.

My general regards but just look at what you say and think you cannot be challenged? Let us leave it off eh??
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Re: Private firms are set return to rail maintenance

Post by cyberdonblue »

With all due respect, Mr Howie, I have denied neither you nor anyone else partaking in this thread the right to an opinion; opposing mine or otherwise. If I am arrogant for standing up for the weak and downtrodden, past, present and future, then I have to plead guilty as charged and I proudly stand condemned. Sentence me as you will.

I would also refer you to the other thread - where we should really be discussing this matter right now - as a defence against the accusations you have made regarding my posts.
cyberdonblue wrote:
rjhowie wrote:...I would say that I am at least not trying to be elitist...
And nobody (as far as I can see) is accusing you of being so, Mr Howie. Merely suggesting that the political party that you follow is. However, following such a party is not a crime and the freedom to choose which side of the street to stand on is a valuable asset to us all.

Dave
As for the monarchy, they are, in my humble opinion, an unjustifiably expensive bunch of figureheads with less political power than a room full of 4 year old children. They are upper class arrogance personified. They are a Tory hangover from the Victorian days when the wealthy were all powerful - and we all know how the Tories can't get past the Victorian era and how they all love dressing up in wigs and gowns and parading around in front of their "inferiors" at every available opportunity.

And these are our "masters?" No thank you. This is the 21st Century for God's sake. Come and join the rest of us and leave the fairytale princes and princesses where they belong. In children's books.

My general regards to you, too, Sir.

Dave
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Re: Private firms are set return to rail maintenance

Post by blackwatch13 »

rjhowie wrote:Using the increase in population is not always an automatic in-depth response. Many of the increases are immigrants and on Welfare, etc and others simply do not need to go far to work so too easy just to throw in that cobblers blackwatch! May i also point out that in the northern part of the kingdom population growth has not been great yet rail travel away up.
Well come up with some figures to prove that it's "cobblers" then.
I would have thought that a person who knows so much about the subject, as you think you do, would be able to provide this proof of your superior knowledge. :lol:
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Re: Private firms are set return to rail maintenance

Post by rjhowie »

I don't just "think" i know.

Can i say to you cyberdonblue that I am not objecting to your right of a political view but what I do contest is your rather head shaking exaggeration about why you need to stand for what you claim! Standing up for the pressed and unfortunates is a load of emotional silliness. We are not living in Victorian times. I would remind you that the present government is well into a process of increasing what rate you start paying tax and goes up £500 a year and will reach £12,500. This in turn means that those under that income pay no tax and something ages ago your lefty corner did hee-haw about. Likewise the minimum age is in a process of rising and will go up to £9. Your probable hero Corbyn a hangover from the 1970's bums about a minimum wage of £10 an hour and is in fact jumping on what the Tories have been doing. Your Trade Union love affair even allowing for the decent principle of having such has millions fewer in them than years ago. People do have more choice in all sorts of things they did not have in the days when your side had the State running the majority of things.

Corbyn is a bore and I accept that he is a Socialist and such is his right but such are clutching at dated straws. The same man sided along with that clown Abbot in supporting the murdering scum during the troubles across the Irish Sea and when pressed did a dance and towards the end of his squirming what did he come to? In the end after the pressing he said that it was bad that so many "civilians" were murdered. That is a roundabout way of saying it was okay for our soldiers to get done in. The same man danced round the issue of Brexit too.

You have been rather dated in your out of date Socialism and you were childishly nasty in your words on the Royals and have slightly changed the stuff by trying to change the wording because perhaps you have realised the silly way you wt about it.. Every time your corner is in power they go daft on spending and every time they leave office the debt is huge. Remember the joking note left in the Chancellor's office when Labour got dumped in 2010 saying they had spent all the money? Altogether you have held on to the Michael Foot out of date stuff and ignored any progress because it was not your corner who did such. You also totally ignore that the rich minority pay more percentage wise into the tax system than they do in the USA and like the things I have already mentioned you totally ignore because it does not suit and makes a mockery of your out of date guff.

I do not deny you the right of opinion whilst at the same time have to sigh at the rather kindergarten style and portrayal of things. Even a lot of Labour MP's have no time for Corbyn and have to squirm and I can almost feel sorry for them. He had to repeatedly change his Shadow Cabinet due to them not wanting to serve under him. It is not the right the country has to worry about but the high spending of the lefty mentality and as I have said every time you lot leave office it is a financial mess. I dare say you will continue to come out with all the lefty mentality fair tale stuff but I have one consolation and that I the Jacobites up here are worse and hope they lose seats! :lol:
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Re: Private firms are set return to rail maintenance

Post by blackwatch13 »

rjhowie wrote:I don't just "think" i know.
Then bloody prove it.

Or is it a case of 'All bidding & no cheque book', because that's what it seems like to me. :lol: :lol:
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Re: Private firms are set return to rail maintenance

Post by Briggsy »

rjhowie wrote:infantile attitude from that lefty corner
Do you not see the irony in what you type?
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Re: Private firms are set return to rail maintenance

Post by cyberdonblue »

First off: Mark, or one of the other Moderators please, my apologies to you for the inconvenience but it seems that some people are unable to follow instructions. Could you once again please move the appropriate parts of this thread to the thread that you so generously provided previously for just this type of debate? Thank you.
rjhowie wrote:...Can i say to you cyberdonblue that I am not objecting to your right of a political view but what I do contest is your rather head shaking exaggeration about why you need to stand for what you claim! Standing up for the pressed and unfortunates is a load of emotional silliness...
What planet do you live on Mr Howie? Have you not heard of food banks? Are you not aware of your Tory friends making sick and disabled people go for a medical to prove that their circumstances are genuine? (and then telling them that they're not sick or disabled but fit for work just because some part-time, clinically trained assistant [working for a private company] thinks he/she knows better than the Consultant that diagnosed the person's problem in the first place.) I've seen mentally disabled people who don't even understand the days of the week called in and told that they could do a job if they went and found one.

Have you not heard of "the bedroom tax"? Have you not heard that if you're a teenager you can't claim housing benefit? I could go on ...and on and on and on. When all of these people are on their knees, desperate for help and encouragement who is going to help them? Who's going to fight for change and social justice for them? You, Mr Howie? Theresa May and her millionaire mates? I very much doubt it - in fact, I'm damn certain you or they won't.

Do you know how many millions of pounds there are in unclaimed benefits, Mr Howie, because your Tory friends won't tell people (especially the elderley) exactly what they're entitled to? Am I really full of emotional silliness or should I stand back like the rich folk and watch these people, young and old alike, commit suicide because they have reached rock bottom and can't cope anymore? Do you know what it's like to sit at home when the cupboards are completely bare aching in the knowledge that you can't even afford a slice of bread - never mind a loaf?

Do you know why the school leaving age is now 18? It's because the Tories can't stand people knowing that there are no jobs for young people anymore (or anyone else for that matter) because Thatcher smashed or sold off every manufacturing industry this country ever had. Oh and the Tories don't want to pay the young ones unemployment benefit either. Better to keep them in school twiddling their thumbs and out of the unemployment figures. Reflects much better on our Theresa.
rjhowie wrote:...We are not living in Victorian times...
No we're not Mr Howie, because people like me continue to stand up to people not unlike you. Take a good look around you. Read what I've written above properly and slowly. The Tory party are doing their damnedest to get us back to Victorian conditions. They tried to make it almost impossible for a Trade Union to call a strike (even after a ballot) by producing legislation that stated there must be a 75% turnout in any ballot concerning industrial action - even though they themselves were elcted by less than 10% of the national electorate (or, approximately, 30% of a 30% turnout.) Fortunately, the courts shot them down in flames and their legislation was deemed illegal and ended up in the dustbin where it belongs.

Your £9 national living wage is a joke too, as is your imagined £12,500 a year limit before paying tax. £9 per hour X 40 hours = £360.00 which equates to £18,720 per anum. Take off the current £10,000 tax exclusion ceiling leaving £8,720 taxable at 22% (£1,918. 40p tax payable.) Total take home pay per anum on the minimum wage (for 40 hours a week) = £16,801. 60p. What chance has a married man or woman with children got on a wage like that? No wonder there are food banks.
rjhowie wrote:You also totally ignore that the rich minority pay more percentage wise into the tax system than they do in the USA and like the things I have already mentioned you totally ignore because it does not suit and makes a mockery of your out of date guff.
Are you aware, Mr Howie, that the richest 1% in England have more money than the poorest 20% in BRITAIN? Is that not obscene to you? The super rich don't notice the extra tax (they fiddle most of their tax returns anyway, claiming tax relief on everything.) It is only right that they should help the less well able along the way. I am not against wealth but I AM against obscene wealth when there are people in this, the 3rd richest country in the world, who are starving and homeless.

If these are the kind of "kindergarten" facts that you despise, Mr Howie, then maybe you should be spending your time passing comment in a Tory party forum rather than here. As for the Jacobites in Scotland, I'm sure they will continue to keep the Tories at arms length. They owe the Sassenachs enough ill will as it is, without inviting them in to do more damage.

Dave
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