[Stuart]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Well, austerity is now being cast aside, and with the reduction in public spending that we have experienced as a result of that austerity, we now need to re-build our public services in a more beneficial way. We must not bring back the waste, and we need to do a line-by-line national budget approach, stop doing what we don't have to do and re-direct that money into where it needs to go.

Regarding Austerity being cast aside, that would be good, but I prefer to see what the government do, rather than what they say. They are politicians, after all, and, in my experience, most politicians would greet you warmly, while vigoursly shaking your hand with one of theirs, while manoeuvring the other so they can stab you in the back with the knife it is holding.

I do agree that we need to go through expenditure line by line, and eliminate waste.

Putting in a comprehensive bus and coach system with frequent services and fare reductions will cost an absolute fortune, but I do think we need to look at that, given the benefits that would result. It should always be much cheaper to use public transport than the private car.

It should. How else are people going to be persuaded to get out of their cars? Even the best public transport system will never have the convenience of a car. If you own a car and can drive, you can get in it at a moments notice and just drive off to wherever you want. Public Transport is never going to be able to offer that conveniance. Most public transport operates to a timetable (even if they only advertise that the next train or bus is in a given number of minutes, that's still a timetable) and requires the passenger to go to a certain stop or station, then get off at another stop or station, and the journey time to get to the stop or station may be significant as it may not be near.

Black Cabs and taxis don't have that restriction as such, but good luck finding one of them unless you are in a busy area.

There are also mini cabs and these upcoming driverless car systems (Uber, Tesla etc), but these may require the user to have a working mobile phone, which is something you can't necessarily guarantee.

Cars go from wherever you are to wherever you want to go, at whatever time you are willing to drive them, and not only do they not require a mobile phone, they can often charge yours if you have one.

Public transport needs to be a lot cheaper (and ideally free) to compete with that convenience.

I do realise I am asking for Unicorns though.

Yes, ask the general public about foreign aid and most will say it needs to be reduced significantly. Not many would object to the UK contributing to disaster relief, but most believe a lot of the foreign aid budget is being wasted.

The problem is, any government that tries to reduce the budget would have to field questions from charities, the UN and the bleeding heart liberals in this country who like that nice warm feeling they get when they see hard working populations being deprived of money that could be better used on their own needs.

What we need is a strong government that is not suffocated by the nonsense being spouted by the extreme left and extreme right, and just make sensible decisions for the overall benefit of the British people.

Surely, that starts with the health of the nation, and reducing pollution that a vastly improved public transport system would bring will also reduce NHS costs.

Fat chance, though.

Encourage enough people to get out of their vehicles (whatever vehicle) and walk, and you also potentially save the NHS money.