The Bristol Railway Archive

Reports on the news this morning of queues at London termini with people trying to escape the capital before the tier 4 lockdown kicks in. Reminds me of scenes from 'War of the Worlds'.

Wishing everyone a safe Christmas and a swift return in 2021 to what masquerades as normality in these troubled times.

Roy

If our inglorious leaders tell people that they can't travel anywhere for the foreseeable future after midninght on a given day, we can rest assured that the word, his wife nd their dog will try to beat the deadline.

The law of unintended consequences.

In other news, our Health Minister told the world yesterday on TV that the pandemic was out of control. 24 hours later most of Europe has closed its borders to the UK, the stock market is down 2% and the £ has tanked agiain

And the biggest problem is a majority of the electorate voted for these jerks in 2019...

Guilty as charged! But then I didn't go a bundle on the alternatives and I feel it's a duty to use your vote in a hard won democracy.

Do the jerks who run the other countries honestly think they haven't already been infested if reports that this strain was identified back in September are correct.

You have to feel for the truckers who are caught up in this. Of all workplaces, theirs is probably one of the safest when they can drive, eat and sleep alone in their cabs.

Roy

We donÔÇÖt usually discuss politics on this forum but, as we havenÔÇÖt really discussed anything on here for the last month. Perhaps just this once I will

I agree with Roy over a responsibility to vote. I have voted in every election since I came of age in 1970, including the 2019 one, but that one was very different to the norm.

In 2016 the referendum showed up a 52/48 split in the country over one major issue. By 2019 some may have changed their minds (either way), some remainers may have accepted the inescapable consequences of the result, but there were bound to have been large numbers of pro-remain voters looking for a party to vote for. Such a party was rather lacking, shall we say.

By then we could see which way the Tory party was going after its leadership change. The old, experienced, mainly remain supporting old guard, had been slung out of the cabinet, and their replacements were appointed entirely on their view on Brexit rather than their abilities and capabilities. In short, the party was trying to out-UKIP UKIP.

In the red corner we had a leader who was the darling of the left. Unfortunately, whilst some said that ÔÇ£they had got their party back,ÔÇØ they failed to realise that that sort of party doesnÔÇÖt attract enough voters to gain a majority in the House. They tried the same under Michael Foot 40 years ago and got much the same result then; a classic proof if one were needed of the truth of the old saying ÔÇ£the lesson we learn from history is that we donÔÇÖt learn lessons from history.ÔÇØ

Then there was the yellow corner. Not necessarily the spent force throughout the UK as characterised by the media, there are vast tracts of the west of England and elsewhere where, outside of the large urban areas, voting labour never really caught on and they were and always have been the conservativeÔÇÖs major challengers. The trouble was, many of those constituencies voted leave in the referendum, and in other areas I have little doubt that their leader making the remark that she would not work with Jeremy Corbyn also lost a few anti-tory votes. In the real world, politicians play the cards they are dealt by the electorate; they do not arrogantly draw lines in the sand in advance. It was also effectively saying "vote foir us ans we'll form another coakition with the tories." Not the bst of sales pitches...

Choosing between that lot was a bit like having to choose between tomato sauce, vinegar or mustard on your jam and banana sandwich...

In answer to RoyÔÇÖs other points (as all that was just dealing with the first sentence!), I doubt that the jerks leading other countries think they havenÔÇÖt already got the new strain in theirs too, but closing borders probably makes them ÔÇ£look like they are doing somethingÔÇØ in the eyes of their own residents. And yes I agree about the truck drivers; are any UK Eurostar drivers stranded in France or vice versa?

Ok, if we're going to have a one off letting of blood regarding politics!

I remember back at school in the 1960's, we took part in running skirmishes on the playing field throwing punches at each other while we chanted Labour or Tory. Not that any of us really understood what each party stood for. I honestly can't remember which one I aligned myself with. If the current partisan shenanigans in the US is anything to go by whereby the current leader has thrown teddy out of the pram because he lost, then we haven't moved on very much. I sometimes think that a country like that might be better off as dictatorship if a fair and honest person was at the helm. Some hope there!

I was savvy enough in the 1980's to be totally bemused and horrified at the prospect of Michael Foot actually being in power. As for 'beer and sandwiches' with the powerful union magnates at no.10 under Wilson, how hypocritical was that. I bet none of them ever incurred any hardship while their members endured long strikes at their behest during the bad years.

Through time, politicians have generally been out for themselves. Regardless of which mast they nailed their colours to, they seemed to be public school educated idealists with no concept of the real life the rest of us had to endure. When you look at the bear pit which masquerades as the Commons, you do have to wonder why we need so many of them and that's before we start looking at the 'Other Place'. I was sorry too see the old dinosaur Dennis Skinner disappear in 2019. Love him or hate him, he called a spade a spade and was good entertainment value when he let off a bit of steam.

I like to think that in recent times we have started to see some inroads into the 'old school' with the election of 'normal' people. Those who maybe grew up with a single parent, went to the local comprehensive, lived in a working class area, perhaps came to this country from a downtrodden existence elsewhere as a refugee and whose parents built up a thriving business from nothing, teaching their offspring true values. People who graduated from 'the school of life' and understand what makes ordinary people tick. Sadly, I am not represented by one of those.

Of course my view could be totally wrong. Maybe these people have a far greater insight into the workings of the country and world. I have recently had a great deal of debate with an old manager of mine. We have been discussing things which happened during and following railway privatisation. Many at my level and below were unhappy with many aspects of the seemingly illogical reorganisations we were forced to endure. But he has explained much of the bigger picture with the demands and restrictions senior management had to endure as we transitioned into a world which was subservient to the various stakeholders and shareholders who had a bottom line to be met. Twenty years down the road it has been quite enlightening and he has also learnt something of the thinking which went on at staff level. After two decades of the big experiment, I think it is generally accepted that the current model is broken so we need to invent yet another new one. It reminds me of a piece of wisdom I came across in a tongue-in-cheek management guide (Dilbert) which pronounces:-

'The need to constantly reorganise is an admission that you keep getting it wrong'.

Roy