(As an aside, our national newspapers, mostly right-wing and Conservative-supporting, have poisoned political discourse for decades in the UK. The FT is the only national newspaper with a higher standard of journalism than the others.)
I've posted this before: a monthly season ticket comparison from 2017 for UK and Continental Europe. The price differences between UK and other countries are stark:
- UK: Luton to London St. Pancras (35 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £387
- UK: Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Piccadilly (32 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £292
- Germany: Dusseldorf to Cologne (28 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £85
- France: Mantes-la-Jolie to Paris (34 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £61
- Italy: Anzione to Rome (31 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £61
- Spain: Aranjuez to Madrid (31 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £75
> UK workers on average salaries will spend 14% of their income on a monthly season ticket from Luton to London (£387), or 11% from Liverpool to Manchester (£292).
> By contrast, similar commutes would cost passengers only 2% of their incomes in France, 3% in Germany and Italy, and 4% in Spain.
This twitter thread is excellent. Here are selected tweets to highlight the crisis from hospital and ambulance waiting times.
---
"England & Wales as the only part of Europe that has recorded sustained and rising excess mortality over the last few months with no obvious natural explanation."
"Patients who waited 8-12 hours had a 16% higher chance of dying in the subsequent 30 days than average."
"This was after adjusting for a huge range of possible confounders, i.e this was not due to those patients’ characteristics, conditions etc, but due to the length of the wait."
"You may have heard almost 30,000 people waited 12 hours in English A&Es in July, but that figure actually only refers to the wait after initial assessment"
"Thanks to @Rebeccasmt’s reporting, we know that if you include all time spent waiting, 100,000 people waited 12+ hours!!"
"Take ambulance delays, for example: for emergency situations including suspected strokes and heart attacks, the average wait for an ambulance to arrive on the scene is now one hour, and 40,000 people with these sorts of emergencies waited 2 hours last month."
"As before, the peaks in ambulance-related harms broadly coincide with peaks in England’s non-Covid excess mortality.
"It’s a grim picture, and an increasingly conclusive one."
Imagine if French citizens were facing energy bills as high as the UK (£5,816, €6850). French citizens would never tolerate such levels.
From Reuters: "France has committed to capping an increase on regulated electricity costs at 4%. To help do this the government has ordered utility EDF (EDF.PA), which is 80% state owned, to sell more cheap nuclear power to rivals"
- Investment bank Citigroup forecasts UK inflation will hit 18.6 per cent in January 2023 — the highest peak in almost half a century — because of soaring wholesale gas prices.
- The bank predicted that the country’s retail energy price cap — which limits how much the average household pays for heating and electricity — would be raised to £4,567 in January and then £5,816 in April (approx $6880, €6850) compared with the current level of £1,971 a year. It added that the shifts would lead to inflation “entering the stratosphere”.
- UK and European wholesale natural gas prices are already trading at close to 10 times normal levels and other forecasters have also raised their inflation predictions.
- The energy regulator Ofgem will on Friday (26 Aug) announce the energy price cap for the period between October and January, which most analysts expect to rise to more than £3,500 for a household with average usage of energy — an increase of 75 per cent on current levels.
NHS funding has increased massively under the Conservatives
That is simply not true. The Conservatives came to power in 2010. Here's what the The King's Fund [1] has to say on funding:
"In the decade following the global financial crisis in 2008, the health service faced the most prolonged spending squeeze in its history: between 2009/10 and 2018/19 health spending increased by an average of just 1.5% per year in real terms, compared to a long-term average increase of 3.6 per cent per year. These pressures were not unique to the UK, whose public spending on health care as a share of GDP is above the EU average, though lower than several comparable nations, including Germany, France, Denmark and the Netherlands." (Source: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/positions/nhs-funding)
[1] The The King's Fund is an independent charitable organisation working to improve health and care in England.
France and Norway are cushioning the impact of high energy bills in particular:
France: "..forcing the state-owned energy provider EDF to limit electricity wholesale price rises to 4 per cent for a year. The move is expected to cost €8.4 billion. The French government aims for this move to limit electricity price increases to 4 per cent, compared to an expected 45 per cent.
Norway: "According to a scheme introduced by the government in 2021, Norwegians only pay bills in full when prices are under 70 crowns (€7) per kWh. When energy bills pass that threshold, the government covers 80 per cent of the total."
Meanwhile in the UK, we have a self-absorbed government that has effectively 'checked-out' with no urgency to tackle cost-of-living crisis.
This twitter thread is by Manchester's Mayor Andy Burnham. Manchester to London by rail is a two hour route and Burnham lists the cost of a open return ticket.
As Burnham says, advance booking is not impractical for many people. And when you book in advance for cheaper tickets, there is limited availability. Daily commuters travelling to work pay some of the most expensive rail tickets in Europe.
I've posted this before: a monthly season ticket comparison from 2017 for UK and Continental Europe. It bears repeating because the price differences between UK and other countries are shocking (and for us in the UK, pretty depressing).
- UK: Luton to London St. Pancras (35 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £387 (approx $547/€448)
- UK: Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Piccadilly (32 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £292 (approx $412 /€344)
- Germany: Dusseldorf to Cologne (28 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £85 (approx $120 /€98)
- France: Mantes-la-Jolie to Paris (34 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £61 (approx $86 /€71)
- Italy: Anzione to Rome (31 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £61 (approx $86 /€71)
- Spain: Aranjuez to Madrid (31 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £75 (approx $106 /€87)
For people outside the UK, Channel 4 is a national broadcaster in the UK with a remit to cater to minority interests and under-deserved audiences - as well as producing more popular content. Their funding comes from advertising - a unique situation which means they are a public service broadcast (PSB) who does not rely on an a license fee or public funding. This means Channel 4 content runs the gamut from trashy or 'low-brow' TV programming to more serious documentaries, high-end drama, arts and serious investigation reporting. The more 'popular' or 'low brow' programming brings in advertising to help fund the less popular, more specialised content.
The plan to privatise Channel 4 will kill much of the public service programming. The Government Minister that oversees Channel 4 is Nadine Dorries ("Culture Secretary"). She is so clueless, she was even unaware that Channel 4 was not publicly-funded when previously interviewed by other politicians.
Also, Channel 4 News is often less 'timid' than BBC News when investigating government actions. In a 2019 speech, the Channel 4 News boss said the media have the right to call politicians 'liars'. That can’t have been popular with the current Government (which enjoys the support of most national newspapers in the UK). Here is an example of a news interview of a government minister from Channel 4 News. You are unlikely to find something similar on BBC News:
There are much cheaper bus/coach options for city-to-city travel. But they are not always suitable for commuting daily to work. Expect longer travelling time than rail and be prepared for slow traffic and road works at times.
I'm in favour of nationalisation for UK rail simply because privatisation of UK rail has been a mess. This article highlights the lack of detail in the plans though, particularly concerns about fares which have not been addressed.
Can nationalisation work? Back in 2009, a privatised rail service (East Coast Line) was nationalised when the private operators failed their financial commitments. The state-run line was run for 5 years and returned £1bn in premiums, as well as several million in profits to government coffers. A successful example of nationalisation - but simply not acceptable for the Conservative government who promptly returned the line to private hands in 2015. [1]
The UK already has some of the most expensive rail tickets in Europe. Yes, you can book in advance for cheaper tickets, but often there is limited availability, and you have to book at least a month or longer in advance. In short, the conditions which make cheaper tickets available are simply impractical for most passengers, especially regular commuters.
I've posted this before: a monthly season ticket comparison from 2017 for UK and Continental Europe. The price differences between UK and other countries is eye-watering:
- UK: Luton to London St. Pancras (35 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £387 (approx $547/€448)
- UK: Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Piccadilly (32 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £292 (approx $412 /€344)
- Germany: Dusseldorf to Cologne (28 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £85 (approx $120 /€98)
- France: Mantes-la-Jolie to Paris (34 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £61 (approx $86 /€71)
- Italy: Anzione to Rome (31 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £61 (approx $86 /€71)
- Spain: Aranjuez to Madrid (31 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £75 (approx $106 /€87)
The language in the COP26 deal to "phase down" coal - rather than "phase out" - has come under criticism.
Support for Sharma comes from a unlikely quarter: opposition Labour MP Ed Miliband (who used to be a Shadow Environment Secretary) who says Sharma "has done an amazing job" after a deal was struck at the Glasgow summit.
As always, make up your own mind up on Sharma and the COP26 outcome.
A few years ago (2016), a black MP (Member of Parliament) entered a members-only lift in the parliament building (House of Commons). Another MP (unamed) in the same lift told her: "This lift really isn't for cleaners." [1]
More recently (September 2020), a black barrister (type of lawyer) was mistaken for a defendant three times in one day. Her experience was widely reported in the press. [2]
These examples received press attention, but there are undoubtedly many examples that are never reported (for people from any ethnic minority). There have been horrible examples of racism against people of South-East Asian origin during the pandemic.
Sometimes, it feels that progress is being made. At other times, it seems much still needs doing.
The problem of discrimation appears to be Europe-wide too. The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) published a survey in Nov 2018 that examined the experiences of almost 6,000 people of African descent in 12 European countries. Summary of weighted results across all surveyed countries (taken from the report): https://imgur.com/a/gcHR5dk
For comparison, a 2019 survey of 33 European countries ranked countries by their trust in the written press [1]. The UK ranked last (75% do not trust the written press, just 15% trust the press, 10% don't know).
Unlike newspapers, TV and radio in the UK is regulated by a government-funded body called OFCOM (Office of Communications) where broadcasters are required to follow rules around impartial news coverage. These rules exclude opinion-based shows e.g. talk radio shows.
These impartiality rules apply to all broadcasters i.e. public service broadcasters (PSBs) like the BBC and Channel 4, and commercial broadcasters like ITV and Sky News. People often criticise PSBs for their news coverage (justified in some cases), but there is no editorial standard or code of ethics for national newspapers in the UK.
Most of the national newspapers in the UK lean to the right, and a few to the left. But they are all awful. The Financial Times is the only half-decent national newspaper in the UK and even they have their biases.
I have long held the belief that the national press in the UK has poisoned political discourse in the UK for decades. Despite declining newspaper circulation, they continue to exert outsized influence on public discourse (and on politicians). The relationship between journalists and politicians is uncomfortably close and unhealthy. (Journalists often move to positions of influence into political parties).
Interesting tidbit about UK newspaper columnists: attendence at private schools makes up just 7% of the general population. Yet, in UK national newspapers, the proportion of news columnist who were privately educated is disproportionately high: 44%. [2]
[1] EBU (European Broadcasting Union) Media Intelligence Service – Trust in Media 2020 Report
I can also recommended this short video (3 min): Brexit update (August 2022) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUiJxH2pclM
(As an aside, our national newspapers, mostly right-wing and Conservative-supporting, have poisoned political discourse for decades in the UK. The FT is the only national newspaper with a higher standard of journalism than the others.)