Re: Government & Post Election Discussion
 

I personally cannot fault the NHS at the moment, i have monthly injections in my left eye for Age related macular degeneration. My appointments are on time and the nurses and specialist's are fantastic. :tu:

I have private health care but i only use it when the NHS cannot provide what i need. That has only been twice in the last 5 years and was for operations that needed to be done quickly.

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion
 

:clap:

Spot on Mr K, we're rapidly approaching the stage where the only chance of decent health care is to remortgage the house . . . if you've got one.

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion
 

You appear to have misread/misinterpreted my post - I said ‘we need to be better citizens’; I was including myself in those responsible for our situation.

That’s part of the problem - we find it easier to blame someone/something and be negative and denigratory, rather than being positive and try to find solutions, whilst understanding that we may not personally benefit from those solutions.

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion
 

Very sadly things look as bleak as they can get for the NHS. I get that things take time but the Conservatives have been in charge for nearly a decade and recently gave the Civil Service an extra £3bn to pay for some Brexit bureaucrats. This money should have been spent on the NHS.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/h...-a8138646.html

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion
 

and it's so nice to see Mayor Khan keeping all those promises he made and proving how much more trustworthy he is than his nasty Tory predecessor...

https://order-order.com/2018/01/02/s...freeze-pledge/

How's he doing with all those affordable homes he promised I wonder?... :rolleyes:

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion
 

This is because of the weird way the prices are set. For some reason TFL Travelcards fall under the structure of National Rail whereas single fares and buses fall under TFL. The later have indeed been frozen but the former have gone up in line with the rises across the board from National Rail. The other weird consequence of this is that now TFL season tickets are even worse value, most people will be better off going as Pay as You Go.

Of course he shouldn't have promised it. It's simply not true that people won't pay more. Although Guido misquotes him slightly, the manifesto does specify it applies to TFL because obviously he has no control over the (actual) National Rail trains at all. Still even the full quote makes it seem season tickets would be included and they're not.

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion
 

It was a crass pledge as he can't control fare rises that are governed by National Railways.
Thanks to Brexit-induced inflation, fare rises this year are at their highest for many years and not going down too well with hard working commuters. https://news.sky.com/video/passenger...omach-11192982

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion
 

and Mayor Khan didn't know any of that... ;)

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion
 

Well I suspect, as you do, that he did and shouldn't have promised it.

I don't actually know why the travel cards and season tickets are regulated differently. It's very weird. I think it's at least in part because these tickets allow you to travel on National Rail trains in the relevant zones. Frankly I wish Kahn would extend the effort to bring these services into the TFL system.

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion
 

Chris Grayling is totally against TfL having more control of services due to it potentially being Labour-controlled as the leaked letter reproduced in the article below states.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tran...-a3414216.html

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion
 

l am not surprised it ain't going down well when you look what many have to pay for sadly as in many cases it is a third rate service with premium service prices and worst of all some have to stand up for their journey.

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion
 

To be honest I think the price freeze is a bad policy even before you consider part of it could never be delivered on anyway. TFL is a pretty decent provider and as much as I dislike paying more money I would rather the costs reflect the delivery of the service and the continued investment required in the network to avoid it collapsing. If you freeze prices which not only stops that from happening but is a real-terms cut in funding when you take into account inflation. TFL will have to find the money elsewhere or face budgets cuts somewhere else.

The tube is one of the oldest in the world and is dealing with constant increases in capacity. TFL have been continually improving the network from the trains to the signals to entirely new lines and still they have to fight this old network such as modern demands of it.

I am all for cheaper tickets but that should be done by reducing the cost of providing the service whilst protecting future investment rather than artificially freezing fares.

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion
 

And Labour were in charge for 13 years before that. This is a huge problem and it requires a lot of work to sort it out. Unfortunately, politicians on both sides have found this to be a problem so huge that they could only tinker around the edges or pour more money into it.

At least the government is working on some pratical solutions - training more doctors and nurses, increasing surgery hours, etc. However, this is not a problem you can solve with a click of your fingers. This'll take many years to sort out.

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion
 

So all the stuff about being more trustworthy and getting more done than Boris was a load of old guff and he knew it. These people will say almost anything to get elected and then worry about the consequences which all too often will be promotion, titles, Westminster gravy train... :rolleyes:

No wonder people are cynical.

---------- Post added at 11:32 ---------- Previous post was at 11:30 ----------

With the sort of parliamentary majority which would have enabled them to do virtually anything had they wanted to. They didn't and after they left office the NHS was saddled with huge amounts of PFI debt to service. More NHS privatisation went on during that period than since.

Re: Government & Post Election Discussion
 

Yes, the Labour opposition have a very cynical approach to the NHS. They do very little while in power then complain about its poor service when they leave office, as if none of that had anything to do with them.

They may have created it, but they are not the best gang to run it.