Great Western Coffee Shop

Wrecking Brexit will let in the far-Right: Minister's grave warning as poll shows more Tory voters now support PM's deal with Brussels

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling made the warning should Brexit be blocked
He said if it does not go through the millions who voted leave would feel cheated
And that doing so would provoke 'nasty' incidents such as recent 'Nazi' taunts

I don't agree wth him....the third line will happen if it doesn't go through, not if it does (because they'll feel cheated)

BUT should non-transport Politics be discussed on this MAIN board, really?

Take that point yes, but, the topic heading is transport secretary and it's something he's spoken about that is not transport related.
A great danger the subject could get very heated indeed.  :(

I was more concerned about discussing Brexit actually. Strong views on both sides right now. And discusssble on many fora, no need to add another here.

Not many more days to go and we will see the out come.

I wouldn't be too sure about that...……...

I don't agree wth him....the third line will happen if it doesn't go through, not if it does (because they'll feel cheated)

BUT should non-transport Politics be discussed on this MAIN board, really?

For one I absolutely do not want to see politics creeping onto this website. There are plenty of other places to discuss that sort of rubbish.

Trying to avoid it [politics] is like trying to avoid death - or taxes

I don't see why non-transport political discussion should be censored

I thought carefully before posting on a main board thread

 

Oh, for goodness sake, don't be so pious! You wanted to start a discussion on this tedious subject, so you thought you would inflict it on this forum.

Well, that is all I have to say on the subject. If I am not banned, then I may continue to make the odd contribution on other subjects.

If anyone tries to put a political slant on anything I have said, then that says more about their mentality than it does about me.

Perhaps Comrade Corbyn pressed the red button. In which case it was probably not armed.

If that is the case, then I apologise to Lord Adonis for accusing him of making the letter public (though not for writing the whingeing letter in the first place). My assumption that he was responsible was based entirely on the title of the thread as I fail to see the point of a "stonking" letter that was not intended for public consumption. In that case, who exactly is this mysterious Mr "No 10" who has "leaked" this confidential letter, and how do they justify a breach of confidence that would not be tolerated by those of us with real jobs and responsibilities? Presumably "No 10" is either a euphemism for the prime minister, who will pretend to know nothing about it if the going gets tough, or is a maverick accomplice of the prime minister who has done this off their own bat. And what would be the point anyway? We are used to them finding any old excuse to say Bad Things about The Other Side, but in this case, as I understand it, they seem to be stirring up bad publicity about someone on their own committee.

I do detest this sort of public whingeing. If you are going to resign, then just do it and move on - there is no point in writing a letter to your employer about it. That is, if it is a genuine resignation, rather than a "if you don't give me what I want, I'm going to resign - OK, then, see you - hang on, I didn't really mean it; you're supposed to say 'please don't go; I'll give you whatever you want'" sort of resignation. And for goodness' sake, just keep it between yourselves - this current fad for making your letters public in a cringeworthy "I'm going to get my friends onto you" sort of way is something I would hope most of us had grown out of since the toddler-having-a-tantrum-in-a-supermarket" phase.

And we have started to come close to personal picking on each other ... let's desist from that temptation, shall we.

T'will always happen if you open a discussion board to full-on politics....hence my request to at least keep it on-topic (transport-related)

That's Grayling with a capital 'G'

ok, I think the point is made, no more from me.

That's Grayling with a capital 'G'

... limitations of the Industry that his lot had mostly created.

Which limitations are those? Who are 'his lot'? - the Labour Party? Peers? The patriarchy? The Adonis Family?

The Industry was limited by the loss of its electrification staff and kit (such as those quaint flat-roofed 501 cars!) - its corporate memory, in effect.

The "lot" were those who created RT/NR, of all parties and none.

Further debate on this ought to be elsewhere.

OTC

I See it as Chris Grayling worried about other parts of politics, such as Brexit, He looks very worried in case we have a no deal Brexit.

There are at least two video clips available of transport films of 1970's ECML electrification. They show the flat roofed wiring trains moving slowly ahead while staff walk out on the roofs and run out and attach cables on the move. They did this without guard rails or harnesses, in conditions of ice and snow, passing two abreast, stepping across the gap between carriages.

The final Report (no 14) claimed however, that only one serious accident occurred; when a cable clamp at Newcastle broke and a Resident Engineer was thrown off the roof on to the ballast. (2.119/2.120).

The latest wiring train has high guard rails for working at height.

Safety first

OTC

The clue is in the top left heading of all my posts.

There is happily, only one OTC.

Sorry.

Like the reference to the Adonis family in this thread.

Chris Grayling is a shoe-in for Uncle Fester with his insane tinkering and failed mistakes. Morticia May should be smoking all the time, while Lurch could well be Philip Hammond in disguise. Thing could be Boris in disguise ( whoop whoop!)while Michael Gove is sufficiently weird in appearance and manner, to play himself.

Scrotum the old wrinkled retainer perhaps!!..

OTC = onthecushions.

Regards
BNM

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling Explains Why He Thinks People Want Him To Resign

At a risk of stirring. From the Huffington Post (https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/transport-secretary-chris-grayling-explains-why-he-thinks-people-want-him-to-resign_uk_5c532a06e4b093663f5c6a76)

Chris Grayling has blamed the criticism he receives on the prominent rail union RMT and his support for Brexit .

The Transport Secretary, who oversaw a chaotic train timetable upgrade which caused misery for thousands, insisted he gets attacked because of the tough decisions he makes.


Passengers in the north and south-east of England suffered delays and cancellations for several weeks after train timetables were changed on May 20.

Commuters have also had to contend with rising fares and other problems.

But Mr Grayling blamed the flak he receives on the RMT union who he says "regards Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party as too right wing to affiliate to".

He told the House magazine: "The railways need to modernise. So, inevitably, from an organised left-wing trade union, you're going to get some missiles fired. But I'm going to do what I think is right."

Chris Grayling’s court reforms have brought our justice system to its knees
Recent technological failures underline the disastrous consequences of the government’s misguided modernisation drive.

BY YASMIN QURESHI

Phones disconnected. Computers offline. Probation officers forced to write letters to prisoners by hand. This was the reality of life in England and Wales’ dysfunctional courts system last week, with the Ministry of Justice crippled by its ageing IT system.

Thousands of cases were disrupted across England and Wales as the court service’s main computer network repeatedly crashed. Staff were left in the dark about when defendants were due to appear, which led to prosecutions being adjourned in a number of cases. Phones, computers, printers and emails stopped functioning.

These issues caused a near total breakdown in the functioning of our courts. Laptops were passed around courtrooms, connected to the internet via mobile phone data. In country that has historically made claims to being a world leader in the provision of justice, such total ineptitude is unacceptable.

With the government pushing ahead with its £1.2bn courts modernisation programme, introduced by Chris Grayling in 2014 – in which digitisation is used to justify closures across the country – this breakdown is particularly worrying. Though attempts to keep our justice system up to date with greater use of digital systems and developing technologies are not without merit, this, clearly, is not what is happening.

Instead, last week’s breakdown is indicative of an approach that cuts corners and leaves basic resources underdeveloped. My strong impression from visiting Crown Courts and speaking to staff across the country is that of underpaid workers enduring poor conditions and an IT system that is simply not fit for purpose.

For anyone involved in the justice system, last week’s events are not the first evidence that the government’s reforms are unlikely to succeed. Expensive public consultations on court closures are routinely ignored when citizens make clear they want to keep them local and genuinely accessible. More cuts are expected to staffing numbers and will cause even greater problems, with over 5,000 people predicted to lose their jobs by 2023. It is incredible that these cuts are planned when we have already reached the point where the chair of the Criminal Bar Association has described our courts system as “on its knees”, blaming “savage cuts to the MoJ budget”.

It is clear then that to really understand what has taken place over the last week we need to place these events in a longer history. Our justice system has been mauled by savage cuts which by 2020 will amount to a 40 per cent reduction since 2010. Around a third of our courts have been sold since then, and legal aid has been mercilessly cut.

As is so often the case with the government’s ideological mania to reduce spending, the issue is not only that it hits the most vulnerable hardest and cuts holes in a safety net that this country spent decades developing. It is that it fails on its own terms. Poorly planned measures designed to reduce short-term costs will inevitably lead to long-term problems. Some will be overt, like the systemic failure of an under-resourced IT system. Others will be less obvious but even more profound, as our social fabric is torn by rising inequalities in access to justice.

Last week’s breakdown shone an overdue spotlight on our courts. What we can see is not pretty. These problems are not one-offs. Rather, they are symptomatic of a very deep rot. That decay will not stop once the wifi is back. The Association of District Judges recently called for courts closures to be stopped until “fully functioning IT systems are demonstrated to be up and running successfully”. That is the very least that should happen. Huge sums have been paid to private contractors including Atos and Microsoft to manage systems that are functioning poorly. They too must face close scrutiny.

But for this country to have a truly fair, sustainable and effective courts and tribunals system we must go beyond immediate measures. We need a government that will ensure that any digital upgrade goes hand-in-hand with a genuine commitment to equal access to justice. To do that, we need to face up to the fact that a decent justice system requires long-term planning and proper, sustainable funding.

Yasmin Qureshi is Labour MP for Bolton South East and a shadow justice minister.

Our Fayling man took a lot of recent flak when the Courts' computer system went town, leaving barristers all mouth and no briefs. This was his major project before heading to transport to sort out the problems there. Not my usual chip-wrapper, but Yasmin Qureshi, admittedly less than impartial, the New Statesman  (https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/01/chris-grayling-s-court-reforms-have-brought-our-justice-system-its-knees)was less than complimentary, and she was certainly not alone. The BBC News at One had an interview with a barrister who laid the blame squarely at Mr Grayling's door.


I have said elsewhere that Mr Grayling is unlikely to survive in cabinet once his use as a loyal supporter of the Prime Minister passes.

Chris Grayling 'probably most incompetent minister of all time' says Michael Portillo.
That wouldn't be a case of 'kettle calling pot, black' would it, Mr P ?

https://newsthump.com/2019/03/01/huge-fire-engulfs-department-of-transport-after-chris-grayling-tries-to-use-stapler/

"The human question mark"

Made I laff.  ;D

I suppose Chris Grayling can't be personally blamed for all the poor decisions of the DfT under his charge. He's signing off on poorly thought out plans, I doubt he's thinking them all up himself. I suspect he doesn't have the nous or creativity.

It's more like a lunatic running the asylum.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. A low threnody emanated from the Commons benches as MPs gathered for transport questions to say goodbye to one of their finest. This was to be Chris Grayling’s final appearance as a minister – not even his closest friends expect him to continue to fail upwards in a Boris Johnson government – and the mourners were out in force to pay their respects.

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now ...