The fall of the Tory party

There needs to be a much broader political conversation about the social contract and welfare state

As a result of changes in total fertility rates and continued life expectancy improvements, there are projected to be 5 million more pensioners in the population by 2070 and just 1 million more of working-age.

The differences in the growth of the pensioner population and that of the working-age population has a demographic impact. There were 280 pensioners for every 1000 people of working age as of 2020. This will increase rapidly from the 2030s and will reach levels never seen before by 2070, where the ratio is projected to be 393 pensioners per 1,000 people of working age

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/state-pension-age-review-2023-government-report/state-pension-age-review-2023

Without some fundamental changes to the system, we will just land up placing an ever greater burden on our kids

I wonder how much can be learned from Japan.

Veronica Oakeshott has been selected for Labour in the new Bicester &
Woodstock seat. She is a campaign lead at the charity @Global_Witness
and sister of right-wing polemicist Isabel Oakeshott (who in turn is
partner of Reform UK leader Richard Tice).

Fucking LOL,

I bet a family Christmas is fun in that household , at least they can agree on how much they hate the tories.

Is polemicist a synonym of gobshite?

Yup

Enemies enemy: You would need a heart of stone to recall Oakeshott I throwing the needy Matt Hancock under the bus by releasing his Whatsapp messages without laughing.

Then that’s how I will now refer to myself

Yup formerly known as Big_Ted?

Thinking more Big Ted Thee Polemicist

It'll look good on merchandise.

Yeah, the Big Ted Thee Gobshite merch didn’t fly off the shelf

You were warned that mankinis are not big sellers.

Voodoo dolls will be part of the spring collection

I agree with you on means testing but they said its too expensive to do that and just give it out.

Was mentioned in regards to these free baby boxes up here and someone said it costs more to do than that just give them out which seems bonkers.

Assuming the Tice announcement is going to be 30p defecting?

While broadly in favour of them, this was the worst planned fiasco

Same. Still sad it has gone though. Selfishly, it made my journey along Norbury Park, Streatham Common and Valley Road much more enjoyable. I hope they are able to re-instate something soon. Car usage in South London is out of control. And I say that as a car owner. That needs to be addressed before trying the kind of LTN they tried in Streatham Wells. Or suck it up and force peoples' hands by making driving the least convenient option (or even less convenient). There's a mentality in the suburbs that you can just jump in the car and expect to get where you need to go unhindered. Anyone who tells you otherwise is seen as a loon. Two thirds of households in Croydon and only a third of households in Lambeth own a car. A third of journeys in London by car are less than 2km. Only 20% of journeys are made for work. That is disgusting.

While the LTNs don't help (in the short term) when implemented as badly as in SW, it's the sheer number of unnecessary, single occupant journeys. But no one wants to hear that. I have been traveling from Thornton Heath to Streatham Wells (Gleneldon Road initially and now Sunnyhill Primary) and back, twice a day for nearly 4 years now. The traffic on the A23 has always been shit. Long before the LTN that 6 mile journey by car could take up to 90 minutes and was a big factor in me getting a cargo bike. People will campaign and physically go out and protest about anything that impinges on their "driving freedom", citing poor public transport (try getting a bus in Northern Ireland), lack of safe cycling infrastructure etc. But you won't see the same people out protesting for better and safer buses and trains, more cycle lanes etc.

@Oliver Schick my view is that it was maybe too broad and unfortunately coincided with a number of unplanned road works, particularly on Leigham Court Road which compounded some of the tailbacks. All of the traffic that would have used Valley Road to bypass the High Road, was all of a sudden dumped back onto the High Road. They need to find another way for Valley Road to not be the default rat run to avoid the High Road. I don't know the best way to do that and I imagine it's why they had to make it so broad as there are a lot of interconnecting roads.

Assuming the Tice announcement is going to be 30p defecting?

Confirmed

https://x.com/JakeBerry/status/1767136006321443213?s=20

Another rat leaves the ship

Racist pub bore joins pub bores club

Yeah - I don't disagree with that.
re Road works. Leigham Court Road has some terrible water infrastructure problems. In the 12 years we've been here, it gets leaks at least once a year with predictably short term patching up each time. It will always have regular works on it and any cursory review of the last few years should have picked that up.
In the LTN itself, the roads in the south part are so steep that there will never be much walking/cycling increase there. It may have worked with single LTN areas either side of Valley Road, but keeping that as a through way to keep some of the pressure off the High Road.
Streatham Common North became a nightmare to ride down with solid traffic and random u-turning. the edge of the common was trashed by vehicles mounting the curb to filter.
Having previously commuted from Streatham to Kings Cross with loads of cycle lanes, now I do across to Hammersmith where there are none on the route and it is so much less pleasant, but the last 5 months with the LTN made this end significantly worse.

keeping that as a through way to keep some of the pressure off the High Road.

Not disagreeing with you here either, just venting.

The problem with that is that for stretches there is parking either side of the road so it becomes essentially single file and you end up with tail backs there and then questionable selfish behaviour when people try to rush through or make a gap. And that stretch is next to the primary school. There absolutely needs to be less pressure on the High Road but that needs to come in the form of getting, frankly lazy, people out of their cars. There's to much of a chicken and egg for the argument of public/active transport vs cars so something needs to give or be forced. And if people can't play nice with their toys, then maybe those toys need to be taken away. Unfortunately, in this case people continued to drive, which fucked up the bus routes. Ms_com picks up mini_com on a Friday and gets the bus home (the 50 from outside the Odeon), that has been a nightmare, for her.

but the last 5 months with the LTN made this end significantly worse.

I can imagine. I'm lucky in that I only have to cut across the North Side at the Valley Road lights.

Anecdotally, I have seen a massive increase in the number of families going to school by bike or on foot in the area during this time. i hope they continue.

Thanks, both, all very interesting.

A:

@Oliver Schick my view is that it was maybe too broad and unfortunately coincided with a number of unplanned road works, particularly on Leigham Court Road which compounded some of the tailbacks. All of the traffic that would have used Valley Road to bypass the High Road, was all of a sudden dumped back onto the High Road. They need to find another way for Valley Road to not be the default rat run to avoid the High Road. I don't know the best way to do that and I imagine it's why they had to make it so broad as there are a lot of interconnecting roads.

R:

It may have worked with single LTN areas either side of Valley Road, but keeping that as a through way to keep some of the pressure off the High Road.

Having looked at it a little, I would probably have argued in favour of two cells, too, with Valley Road as a cell boundary street. If you wanted to filter Valley Road, too, you'd do that at a later stage, and you'd only need one filter for it (between Wellfield Road and Sunnyhill Road, easily added later) if you arranged the filters in the two adjacent cells accordingly. It only takes a little planning. Then you first wait for the effects of the first two cells to bed in before you proceed.

A:

Unfortunately, in this case people continued to drive, which fucked up the bus routes.

I don't think the effect on mode choice is likely to have been any different than anywhere else, also suggested by this:

A:

Anecdotally, I have seen a massive increase in the number of families going to school by bike or on foot in the area during this time. i hope they continue.

Who knows, that may well have been an effect of the filtering. It would be interesting to hear in due course if you see this changing again.

From what I've seen, I think a distorted picture was amplified by opponents of the scheme. The factors described that have affected the scheme are perfectly sufficient to explain what has been happening.

It's certainly a ridiculous mistake to 'suspend' the scheme, i.e. take it out completely, after such a short trial period. That there were unplanned roadworks (mains bursts?) would only have meant that it would subsequently have worked better.

All that said, again, the configuration of filters was poor, too, but that's the case with every scheme in London, even old ones. Designs are inconsistent and always show that people haven't understood the principles. I don't know difficult it will be to filter again, but hopefully they will, and configure it better this time.

R:

In the LTN itself, the roads in the south part are so steep that there will never be much walking/cycling increase there.

HTFU South London (pot, kettle, black). Do you mean Valleyfield Road? The others don't seem that bad to me (but then, as before, I don't know the area too well).

The 'suspension' is really just because of the upcoming London Assembly and Mayoral elections, isn't it? Let's see if they move to put it back in immediately or less than immediately afterwards.