Bob Crow - total tosser

[Dave the OAP]

Interesting point London Irish....." ...these people have our lives in their hands...."

To use that analogy, then so do Taxi Drivers, Bus Drivers, coach drivers, our wives when they are driving us to work or play, doctors, nurses, lorry drivers, dustmen, sheep shearers, farmers, miners, steel workers, cooks, washing up operatives, waiters, dentists,..old people, young people , babies ( sorry went a bit off track there) The firemen use this "moral blackmail" stuff everytime they threaten strike action.

Simple....you go into a job knowing the risks, knowing the rewards and knowing your responsibilities. If you cannot accept any of the three above then you should leave and find another job.

To then bring it around to the fat cat argument is crap. In society you will allways have the "haves" and "have nots". It is not right, it is not fair but it is there. there is f*** all you or I can do about it no matter how much we bleat about it.

live with it

 

[London Irish]

I was thinking the same thing. What a crock of shit.

Hah, so I guessed right. You do hypocritically defend bloated City salaries while having having a pop at what the traindrivers earn. What beautiful moral clarity.

And yes, working in the City myself, I can assure you my chip is MASSIVE.

 

[London Irish]

In society you will allways have the "haves" and "have nots". It is not right, it is not fair but it is there. there is f*** all you or I can do about it no matter how much we bleat about it.

live with it

Nah. Plenty of people are doing something about it and I support them 100%, which is why I'm PROUD to champion Bob Crow against the Sun/Mail reading-mentality.

 

[Dave the OAP]

Well I wish you luck in your quest.

If however, I am stood at Portslade Station one rainy morning not being able to get to my place of work because some lazy arsed train driver is on strike, then I may not feel so charitable towards your aims.

I do tend to agree with athe argument about nationalisation of the railways though. Southern...south central...connex...wahtever the bastards call themselves now are a shambles and should be replaced by SNCF this minute

 

[Brovion]

I think that's the point London Irish, this strike isn't going to hit the 'fat cat city slickers' - it's going to affect ordinary working people. When the tube fares have to go up to pay for all these extra benefits the 'fat cats' aren't going to care, the same way as they don't care about the Congestion Charge.

Grizz on the other page eloquently outlined the need for strong unions to stand up to Management, and my first inclination is always to support strikers and then find out what the dispute is about, but this strike is about screwing US! You cannot dress this up as poor downtrodden workers striking a fraternal blow on our behalf against the evils of capitalism; this is playground bullies throwing their weight around, it's 'worker v worker' civil war.

 

[Lammy]

I'd just like to point out that SNCF run far fewer trains than us though less populated with heavy funding from their government. We will NEVER have a train service like theirs. It is also a common misconception that their rail service is in a better state than ours. Have you ever commuted in France?

 

[Man of Harveys]

Have you ever commuted in France?

Not as such...but I've travelled at 180mph to the Alps in comfort, arrived there on time and it cost me a total £25 return. And it took less time than it has on occasion taken me to get from Clapham Junction to Brighton.

Nothing wrong with heavy subsidies for integrated industries which provide wider economic benefits, such as regional development, IMHO. I'd say we need more of that here, not less.

Still think this strike is bollocks though.

 

[Lammy]

Not as such...but I've travelled at 180mph to the Alps in comfort, arrived there on time and it cost me a total £25 return. And it took less time than it has on occasion taken me to get from Clapham Junction to Brighton.

Nothing wrong with heavy subsidies for integrated industries which provide wider economic benefits, such as regional development, IMHO. I'd say we need more of that here, not less.

Still think this strike is bollocks though.

Yes but in France there is feck all in the middle of it!

You have Paris up north and Lyon and Marseilles down south. There is one man with his pig and an apple tree in the middle.

To go from Brighton to Glasgow in this country (a similar distance to your journey) you have to travel through

London, Birmingham, Manchester on the west coast;

London, Northampton, York, Newcastle etc

The fact we can go 125mph is pretty impressive.

 

[Dave the OAP]

OI Lammy you racist pig

Allez les Blues

 

[Man of Harveys]

Looks like we're veering off-topic faster than a train on a privately-maintained track heading into Potters Bar...but IMHO where this country's trains are quite good, it's because they were well-built in the first place (Brunel's line to Bristol and Cardiff being a case in point), whereas abroad, they're good because of not being chronically under-funded for the last 20 years. Long-distance TGVs do actually stop quite a lot, they just fly like shit off a stick in between stations.

About 100 years ago, travelling in Britain was fantastically futuristic. Now go to any other European country after travelling on one of our slam-door deathtraps; it's hard not to feel that you're stepping forward in time about 50 years.

Boringly, like a country's sporting success, it's all about deciding to spend a bit of money.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Presumably tube drivers get paid a better than average wage as (1) they're in London and (2) not that many people are attracted to the idea of spending their days sitting around in dark tunnels.

Doesn't mean it's a more taxing job than others, just that it's generally unpopular- simple supply and demand laws at work. Still not sure why they deserve fewer hours and more pay, but there you go.

 

[alan partridge]

I'd just like to point out that SNCF run far fewer trains than us though less populated with heavy funding from their government. We will NEVER have a train service like theirs. It is also a common misconception that their rail service is in a better state than ours. Have you ever commuted in France?

i've never commuted in france but i have got the train/metro in spain, madrid, and their trains run ON time.

the metro is superb. you never wait more than 3 minutes during the day. the trains are clean and pipe classical music quietly out to you as you arrive ON time.

did i mention they arrive ON time?

 

[Lammy]

Looks like we're veering off-topic faster than a train on a privately-maintained track heading into Potters Bar...but IMHO where this country's trains are quite good, it's because they were well-built in the first place (Brunel's line to Bristol and Cardiff being a case in point), whereas abroad, they're good because of not being chronically under-funded for the last 20 years. Long-distance TGVs do actually stop quite a lot, they just fly like shit off a stick in between stations.

About 100 years ago, travelling in Britain was fantastically futuristic. Now go to any other European country after travelling on one of our slam-door deathtraps; it's hard not to feel that you're stepping forward in time about 50 years.

Boringly, like a country's sporting success, it's all about deciding to spend a bit of money.

Have a look at a map of france and where the TGVs stop. They are miles apart. The issue is not to do with throwing money at the trains (although it does need better management) it is to do with the signalling. The track and trains in this country are capable of going faster than they do but cannot due to the number of trains using the track.

 

[Spiros]

Why are you holding up the French as such beacons of brilliance? Commuting in Paris is no more fun than London. Also on Top Gear the other week, two guys took the 'amazingly fast' TGV to Monte Carlo while the tall prat with the big hair drove there - he beat the TGV. And that's despite the massive public subsidy the French railways get.

 

[Ex Shelton Seagull]

Why are you holding up the French as such beacons of brilliance? Commuting in Paris is no more fun than London. Also on Top Gear the other week, two guys took the 'amazingly fast' TGV to Monte Carlo while the tall prat with the big hair drove there - he beat the TGV. And that's despite the massive public subsidy the French railways get.

Yeah but he was driving an Aston Martin DB9.

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

I used to live in Morden, before they built Western Europes largest Mosque across the road!

My local pub(shit hole!) "The Crown" was always full of lard arsed tube train drivers beering up before going on duty. Believe me, if you had the misfortune to meet the retards that used to boast about how much they earned for doing sweet FA, you wouldn't feel too pleased about the potential strike!

 

[Lammy]

It is also a farce to compare a TGV with commuter train travelling from Lonon to Brighton. They perform two different jobs.

The express from London to Brighton is pretty good. But unfortunately there are people in Burgess Hill etc that also want to get on.

Slam doors ARE already being fazed out so that argument is also defunct.

Tory neglect has seen the dimise or our railways and poor management of the funds they had. This is slowly changing and things are beginning to pick up.

The trouble is as soon as money is made available the drivers strike to up their already massive wages, thus kepping the railways poor and the ticket prices high! Bastards!

 

[Man of Harveys]

What, those leadheaded goons on Top Gear decided that...wait, let me get this absolutely straight....that travelling somewhere by car was in fact the best way to travel? This was on a programme that does nothing but salivate about, well, cars?

Who would have thought it?

 

[Dave the OAP]

shut up you racist

 

[Man of Harveys]

Stop it, this is much more interesting thing to discuss but...I've got some bloody work to do!

I'd say that trains everywhere actually have the same job to perform - to get people to where they want to go on time and in safety. That applies whether it's the trans-Siberian Express or the 8.57 to Seaford.

Abroad, or at least in every west European country I've visited in the last few years, they generally to do this infinitely better and in a less expensive and primitive way than they do here. That's basically because as you say, a government regarded public transport as being only for poor people for many years and therefore spent a pittance of what was actually needed to even maintain the system, let alone do anything to improve it.

I'll give an example: a year ago, I left Paris for Dieppe on, say, the 7.18am on a Sunday morning. Just before the train pulled out of the station, the hand on massive iron clock on the facace clunked onto 7.18. I thought that, in this country, not only would then train be leaving five minutes late due to signalling/staff shortages/lack of suitable rolling stock but that clock would not have worked since the Bay City Rollers were in the charts.

To quote Edith Cavell, patriotism is not enough. The state of this country's infrastructure is a national disgrace and it is the acquiescent nature of consumers here that lets shyster private companies employ lazy, greedy sods abd get away with it without riots having broken out.

Underinvestment is the real British disease.

Anyway, this conversation will be best continued in a hostelry with some glasses of Ousewater in hand.