Soldato
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So... make the tunnels a big bigger?! Got to be cheaper then building an entirely new track and infrastructure!
why all the hate for hs2?
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So... make the tunnels a big bigger?! Got to be cheaper then building an entirely new track and infrastructure!
Way more expensive
Also it means no service during the works years and years
Instead of say building a second one then you can do all sorts to the first and still have service
Our taxes are already so staggering we have to pay out benefits to people who are working, which is a shocking state of affairs.
Our taxes are staggering?
This isn’t a thread about taxes but if you bothered to check you’d quickly realise the U.K. raises significantly less tax from its citizens compared to most of our European neighbours we are all comparing to. In fact we have one of the lowest tax developed economies in the world.
Also paying benefits to those in work isn’t a symptom of high taxes, it’s of low wages. People who get UC/WTC barley pay a few £ in tax on their income anyway. If you pay people a ‘living wage’, they don’t need welfare as a top up.
Have you tried getting public transport somewhere like the USA outside of a city like New York? It basically doesn’t exist.
Associate
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Exactly. Increase minimum wage too. We should be aiming to be more like Germany rather than the USA.
I'm going off topic sorry.
But there is nothing fundamentally wrong with high speed rail. Infact it is needed. Just because our country is run by morons.
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Actually if the IFS are to be believed, the UK tax system in general isnt too far from other high taxing countries. Where it falls short is in NI compared to other countries and as NI isnt a progressive tax, any increase would hit the poorest the most https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/key-questions/how-do-uk-tax-revenues-compare-internationally
Your link doesn’t really support your argument other than in the G7 average which is heavily skewed by the USA. Like I said above, good luck with public transport there. Living in the US is fine as long as you are well above the relative poverty line. If you are near to or below it then it’s an utterly dire place to live.
The average of the 14 biggest EU economies raise 38% of their GDP, the U.K. raises 33%. The UK is far easily compared to its other EU neighbours when it comes to the broad way in which the tax system works (e.g. VAT) and other related things like welfare and workers rights.
The OECD average is the same as the U.K. but you have to look at the countries at the low end skewing that average down and ask yourself if that is somewhere where you’d like to live on an average or below wage in that country.
That’s all well and good but social security contributions are taxes in another name and all the money goes into the same magic money tree in the treasury which is currently stands at -£2.2 trillion.
Saying we raise more money from taxes excluding social security is irrelevant. That’s like saying my council tax is only X when you ignore the police, fire and care surcharge elements. The fact remains that we raise less from taxes than the 14 biggest neighbouring economies in the EU (considerably so in most cases) but still expect top notch services, welfare and a fully socialised health care system.
Saying we raise more money from taxes excluding social security is irrelevant. That’s like saying my council tax is only X when you ignore the police, fire and care surcharge elements. The fact remains that we raise less from taxes than the 14 biggest neighbouring economies in the EU (considerably so in most cases) but still expect top notch services, welfare and a fully socialised health care system.
Its not irrelevant at all. I agree we need to raise more taxes but to equalise it (NI that is), the problem with raising NI is it is not a progressive tax so would hit the poorest the most. That was the point I first made which you chose to ignore.
So what you suggest is to pay people the living wage and then equalise the UK tax take in line with the EU14 and remove it from them with an increase in NI to make up the 6% deficit, good job :thumbs up:
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Soldato
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So... this is all about not inconviencing users, bulldoze thousands of acres of ancient woodland so a few commuters aren't late for work for a few months?!
So much for the govt's green promises. But then that was never about the natural environment was it, its more about mitigating the CO2 we're already pumping out and the increasing amount we plan to pump out in the future, nature never really entered into the argument at all.
No its about updating the rail system from when it was built to service some 10-15 million people to the 60 million today the 120 million in the future.
A few trees are worthless you make more co2 in 1 year than a tree will absorb in 100, q couple of trips of hs2 instead of car journeys will make more of a saving than fully mature trees would ever absorb
Complaining about the trees is pretty much admiting you care only for the appearance of good rather than actual good
No because Hs2 is using slab track instead of ballast as fair as I'm aware, which would mean ripping out all the existing track and add even more to the total cost.
I'm well aware of other countries tax rates, I just don't think it should be a race to the bottom of the barrel and instead prefer to look at world leaders tax rates like Ireland.
A "living wage" is so high because of high taxes like VAT raising essentials by 20% and salaries correspondingly lower because of high "employers" NI contributions.
Sounds like the UK, well except their tax is much less.
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For me its because the reasons given for the lack of stops is it compromises the speed, the capacity is only useful to the places it stops at, and there isnt many, not a single stop in Leicestershire whilst it travels through it.
Also lopsided investment (investing to only benefit certain areas instead of country wide (usually London and north west)) harms the have not's even more.
That's more because wages dont keep up with "real" inflation as well as escalating housing costs.
Taxes are low compared to what they have been at in the past. However taxes have been rebalanced to hurt lower income people more, a push to reduce income/corp taxes and increase consumption taxes.
Man of Honour
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Not at all, the capacity unlock comes from having fast non-stopping trains shift away from slow tracks to dedicated high speed tracks. These trains would bypass stops anyway so there's no loss of service, however what it does do is enable more slow stopping local services to be added to the timetable.
It will also enable more freight to run, especially at night, reducing local road and motorway congestion (relies on companies shifting from road to rail for transporting goods).
See: https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/20...e-that-hs2-is-more-about-capacity-than-speed/ (although admittedly written from the POV of a transport and rail enthusiast).
54 stations that aren't even served by HS2 will be able to run more services.
lol
The actual material and construction cost might come in a bit cheaper (though not even sure about that) but once you add all the associated costs to train operators for shutting the lines for weeks/ months, running replacement bus services, disruption to freight etc it will become a lot more expensive and affect peoples day to day life for weeks.
With existing tunnel before you can start you'd have to rip out the tracks, drainage, services running along the railway (potentially even affecting people's internet connections as fibre cables are sometimes run along railways), install all the temporary works for construction then put everything back in once the work is done. With new tunnel you "just" send the boring machine off to dig a new hole which is also much safer than messing with existing.
Sure there will be variables such as length and type of existing construction so some would take longer than others. Which is why that broad statement to make tunnels a bit bigger made me laugh.