Be Excellent To Each Other

Not even a little bit, no. There have been strikes, but for the last six weeks or so there haven't been strikes. Southern are running with a modified timetable that is mostly cancelled trains, because they sacked most of their guards, and are now short of the number they need to meet the requirement for minimum train staff to run a service. It's a clear attempt from them to make the regulator drop the requirement, and rely on public pressure to do so.

Yep. I don't think there seems to be much sense in what the guards are saying, but the sheer fuckwittery of Southern will make me support anyone in anything they are doing against the douchebags.

I thought it was all about who opened the doors on the train. The company said the driver can do it using CCTV and the guards could do everything else but that, and the guards said "we should do the doors, we fear job cuts if we don't do doors" and the company said "no you do everything but doors we still need you" and the unions said "no likey no lighty this door policy" and went on strike.

They're not on strike. All the current cancellations right now are due to southern not having the staff to put on the trains, not down to the staff being on strike.

...

Do i need to use them to get to Bracknell from KGX?

Nah.

That depends on where you think you're starting from.

Yeah, but no one wants to go to parkway. Temple meads is the main one. And typically more expensive.

Generally the walk-on fares are horrendous. Booking even a day in advance, longer if possible, brings the price down a lot, moreso if off-peak and with a railcard. I wish I'd heard of the Network Railcard a lot sooner - saved me loads on my regular trips to the Smoke. Shame it doesn't cover the whole country.

I'm getting to the age now where if it's only an extra £20 or so I'll pay for first class if it's a journey longer than two hours. Having a seat to myself is wonderful.

Booking ahead saves you money outside London, or long distance, but if you're on what is otherwise a commuter route, forget it - so Kent-London is always going to cost you >£20 return for a 60 mile trip.

Also, overland trains are priced to encourage returns, which is odd - a single might be £11, a return £11.10. So I could run to work, or run to the underground, and save £0.10. No real incentive there to get creative with my journey.

Shipley to B'ham new street is £127 day return.
Or £54.70 if you go Shipley to Sheffield day return, then Sheffield to derby day return and derby to brum day return.

And on the subject of trains, I find First Group's recent rebranding of their western franchise deeply deeply cynical.

The green livery is nice

Yeah, booking ahead on the Bedford line will save you bugger all.

as if you need more evidence that Farage is arsehole royalty, going campaigning for Trump is certainly an effective way.

Nope I think we all agree this has been proven, though he does seem to want to hammer that point home.

Which one's Mrs Brexit?

Its South West Trains that run that route, you will need to tube\taxi it from Waterloo to get to KGX though

Takes about an hour and there are no fast trains.

Its my local station:)

EU have ruled that Apples Irish Tax rates were illegal that that the Irish government "should get" 13 Billion euros in back taxes

Bit of an odd situation as Apple don't want to pay it and the Irish Government don't appear to want the money either!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37220799

You think its odd, just wait until the US wakes up.

Apple are, even more bizarrely, on a theoretically level completely indifferent about paying tax in Ireland. Every penny of Irish tax that they correctly pay ultimately reduces their US tax bill by the same amount. So pay €13bn to Dublin, and they pay €13bn less to the IRS. However, Apple don't have a tax bill in the US as they're hoarding the cash offshore until they (and others) succeed in getting the US to reduce their corporate income tax rate, or grant an amnesty of a lower tax rate on unrepatriated profits. Therefore, for Apple, in an ideal scenario this is just a cashflow issue for them, but its cashflow based on a future event that could currently be determined as never going to happen (the cash repatriation to the US).

So the US will be outraged because every cent that Ireland gets is a cent that the US doesn't get despite the fact that the US will never get a cent because of their tax policy.

However, if Apple were to roll over and pay up (they won't) then the IRS will try and deny credit for the Irish tax paid as it is 'illegal and excessive'. You only get credit for the tax you should have paid, and the IRS (in this case) can determine that the amount paid in Dublin to date was the correct amount, as the EU has no jurisdiction over the IRS. So Apple can't roll over because it could be absolutely dead money to them, and they suffer having to pay the full amount of US tax in the future on top of the Irish bill.

And the lovely and glorious news is that the only person who makes it sound likely that Apple could get what they want in the US (which could lead to the Irish tax bill being paid)... is Donald Trump.

Just one-third of Owen Smith supporters think he can win a general election. Most puzzling.

Nobody's voting Owen Smith because they like Owen Smith. They're voting for him because he's not Corbyn.

Yeah, why is that any more puzzling than someone voting for a particular party in an election despite believing that they probably won't win. Except in this case they believe that neither can win but have chosen the candidate most closely aligned with their views. Failing to see the deep mystery here.

The narrative is that Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable. So we'll support the leadership bid of someone who is also unelectable. It's just amusing.

The pilot is drunk and we're plummeting fast. We can't avoid hitting the ground completely but let's put someone at the controls who can steer us to as smooth a landing as possible.

Unelectable, but also at odds with the beliefs with a lot of labour supporters. They see Owen Smith as unelectable, too, but they are not so opposed to his views and beliefs. I think there is a big difference in those two cases.

Except their policies appear to be almost identical, so

And it seems that it's going to be a landslide in Corbyn's favour anyway. 62%-38% according to YouGov.

Also the question is a bit ambiguous. Is this in the hypothetical situation where each candidate in elected as leader or is it their chances as of right now?

It's as leader in the 2020 GE, assuming they win the leadership election.

And I'd have to say though that a leader who has the support of his MPs probably has a greater chance of at least getting somewhere. The notion that it is better to just proceed knowing that they will never support Corbyn but secure in the knowledge that you can just blame them for that is laughably stupid and reckless. At this point the 56% of his supporters who think he's going to win the next GE are completely deluded.

Oh yeah, I don't disagree with that. It's a very sad state of affairs for the party and the left in general.

Not to mention the country. We need a strong opposition to keep the government on its toes, regardless of party.

A politician's reputation is not just built on current policy, though. It's built in history, past actions, relationships with the public and other figures and politicians. And the potential landslide for Corbyn could boost support of his opponent for those opposing Corbyn's views. It would be stranger if voters thought 'hmm, there's that guy I completely disagree with, but as he'll likely win anyway I'll just give him my vote'.

Yeah. I just tweeted the 2015 Labour candidate to tell him I wouldn't vote for a Labour Candidate under Corbyn. Shipley Labour nominated Corbyn, too.

If Jesus came back he probably couldn't take Labour to a 2020 win.

VOTE LABOUR!
\

The tabloids would just keep on digging up footage of him meeting lepers, prostitutes, tax-collectors, and other undesirables, then mock him when he says he won't do anything for the poor.

Superb.

Well, yeah. I think that Owen Smith is terrible on early objective level, but I have to protest against Corbyn, and voting against Corbyn is the only way I can protest with my Labour leadership ballot.

This Vaz with male prostitutes and poppers thing is quite funny.

At least it should stop him pontificating about violence in videogames, as he'll find it pretty hard to take the moral high ground in future.

By all accounts Vaz had opposed government attempts to criminalize poppers, now we know why!

I'm sure I heard on Radio 4 yesterday that he also wanted certain laws relating to prostitution relaxed too.

At least he's consistent then.

Corbyn says it is a private matter

Vaz is " outraged at the deeply disturbing sting"

Just simple maths really Pay a escort £150 for sex, tabloid offers same escort a few grand for the details= Busted!

Escort never works again. You do not understand opportunity cost, apparently.

Sure he will have plenty of work, lots of people in the market for that service who won't have any value to the papers.

Have the identities of the escorts been published as well, then?

Keith Vaz's sister, Valerie Vaz, is our local MP. I thought for one brief moment that the headlines emerging the other day may have been about her, but alas!