Chippy Minton

Exactly the opposite - politicians are our elected representatives and so it should be left to them.

Has London produced better? Well... The Clash > The Buzzcocks The Stones > The Beatles Spandau > Duran Duran (Brum is north of Milton Keynes, therefore they're northerners) *admittedly not all of these supergroups are played on BBC Six ;-)

Sue - not sure why you can't see it, but if you click on her username the userprofile states "Posts: 37." The other 35 will have been on threads since deleted by admin to free up space. This isn't unusual - you'll see you have posted 9,150 times, but only 5,723 of these can still be viewed live on the forum.

And if so, will that football include the occasional 3pm Premiership game?

Perhaps CCTV cameras may have recorded the murder and thefts and the footage could therefore assist the police? Just a thought.

:)) Maybe she should have PM'ed Huguenot or UDT to find out what the drill was when others dare have a different opinion.

Sue Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > TracyLlew Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > please no more so called folk singing on > sundays > > please please, :)) > > xxxxxx > > Your first post on the forum, to say that? > > Or you didn't want to post it under your usual > forum name? > > How sad. --------------------------------------------------- Not her first post - she registered in 2009 and had posted 37 times. Shame someone else feels they have to leave the forum because they had the temerity to say something someone else didn't like.

It's back in the news because it's the Lib Dem Spring Conference. Cable is horse trading - he wants to introduce it in return for agreeing to drop the 50p tax rate.

TfL is managed by a board that is appointed by Boris Johnson who is also the chair of the Board - does that mean it can still provide an "objective assessment"? Like it or not, the politics can't be taken out of it.

I like the look MM, very cool, it's just they're the latest dim, waste of money, decision from a London Mayor. Ken should never have introduced bendys; once they were introduced Boris should never have been so gung ho about getting rid of them; introducing this new Routemaster is the latest and stupidest decision from Boris; and no doubt if Ken gets in in May he'll have a good look at getting rid of these new Routemasters! We're going round in circles!

Ah yes. Gotcha :-$

I reckon Ireland would be the best bet EP, but they have a history of ordering from (successful) UK manufacturers that provide cheaper and greener buses than the new Routemaster. I can't see the Japanese ordering UK manufacturered buses and India don't use double deckers widely. Hong Kong and Singapore might I suppose, but again if they can get cheaper, greener buses elsewhere it will need some selling to them.

Actually, thinking about it, it's unlikely to sell anywhere else in this country either. It's a bespoke bus built for London, by one manufacturer with no competition.

It's unlikely to sell well across the globe. To start with, there aren't that many places that use double deckers and critically very few of these places are right hand drive. This is critical because the bus is asymmetric with the open platform and staircase layout at the back dictating the engine location on the right. The result is it is very difficult and expensive to convert to left hand drive operation with the doors on the right compared to its competitors.

It will be Oyster - conductors won't collect any money. I'm not sure if they will be checking Oyster cards. Also, they won't be on the routes after 7pm.

No sense whatsoever. It's a Boris vanity project. The January 2012 Finance Committee papers note that final cost is expected to be ?11.065m, so with only nine on order the economy of scale is terrible and the revenue they pull in will be lower than that on normal double deckers due to increased fare evasion. The delivery is running late, but the first two have been rushed into service because Boris isn't allowed to use them for political capital after 20 March for purdah reasons associated with May's election, so he's trying to make the best of it now.

I might get shouted down a bit on this, but I don't think Suarez has been great. Not in the same waste of money league as Carroll obviously, but even ignoring all the Evra stuff, value for money-wise Bellamy has been a much better signing than Suarez.

MM - I agree the Labour government started this reform process, which as I've repeatedly said, I agree is necessary, but the Health and Social Care Bill itself is a Tory reform is it not? The Lib Dems are clearly not behind this. Clement-Jones, Simon Hughes et al and even Nick Clegg have made that pretty clear.

I'm put more faith in the the Royal College of GPs which states: "Competition, and the opening up our of health service to any qualified providers will lead not only to fragmentation of care, but also potentially to a 'two tier' system with access to care defined by a patient's ability to pay" over what Andrew Landsey states. UDT is absolutely right - there is no unconditional buy in from any body representing specialists in the NHS. And these groups are highly skilled, knowledgeable specialists like the BMA, RCGP and other Royal Colleges - hardly raging trots from the Crow and Sawatka mold. You even worked for AOMRC yourself ;-) The BMJ, HSJ and Nursing Times are right - its an unholy mess!

I would argue it is irrelevant - the King's Fund link is to a section surrounding myths associated with the HSC Bill. Is it the crux of the agruement? No. Is it relevant? Yes, but anyway...as you well know, I've never said the NHS doesn't need reforming and neither have most of the Royal Colleges, Associations, charities, patient groups etc that are opposing the Bill. Thankfully the NHS is still "free at the point of delivery," but if the Bill does go through it will be the first step on the road to creeping NHS privatisation - a two tier system for those that can afford to pay and those that can't. Obviously the Tories deny this, but just look at what's happened with NHS dentistry. I wonder how many people no longer go to a dentist regularly (or even ever) because they a) can't find a NHS dentist or b) can't afford to go.

I always thought our strikers for the last couple generations were our one strength. Lineker - Shearer - Owen - Rooney. No strength in depth obviously, but compared to our ropey defence they were world beaters!

Lots of evidence of its cost effectiveness e.g. BMJ study or the King's Fund

Not just the bar gone now. Walked past earlier and it's pretty gutted. I doubt anything original will be left.

Or something like this perhaps

Steveo - wait until Philip Lee MP gets his way, then we'll know how much stuff costs. Trouble is, we'll then have to pay that ;-)