[bluebellnutter]

Might as well give them a thread of their own. Interesting result in a council by-election last night.

Britain Elects ‏@britainelects 10h10 hours ago

Green GAIN Lydbrook & Ruardean (Forest of Dean) from UKIP.

Britain Elects ‏@britainelects 10h10 hours ago

Lydbrook & Ruardean (Forest of Dean) result:
GRN: 35.3% (+27.9)
CON: 24.3% (+6.2)
LAB: 22.7% (-2.0)
UKIP: 11.1% (-12.2)
LDEM: 6.6% (+6.6)

[mr angry manchester]

I used to dismiss the Greens as a one issue pressure group at one time, but I've changed my opinion on them and I now think they are worth considering. I strongly agree with the Greens on two issues, wasteful consumerism and unrestricted development on green belt, which has become a live issue where I live, in Handforth, as a huge housing development which no one wants is being imposed upon us and it is on green belt land

[bluebellnutter]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... rship-race

Bartley and Berry are the new Bartley and Lucas

[youngian]

I get the Roman idea of Triumvirate leadership but does any good come from having two leaders?

[randomelement]

Well it can't be any any worse than having a single party leader as it stands at the moment.

[Tubby Isaacs]

]Amazing to recall how important Natalie Bennett seemed in 2015, especially to the famously principled David Cameron who selflessly said he'd not turn up for a debate if Bennett wasn't included.

She lives on, in ill-informed tweets about rail. One time she tweeted from a high speed train in the continent, about how great it was. She wasn't entirely clear on why the high speed train she was enjoying was so different to HS2, to which she's very strongly opposed. Something about the line "sucking the life out of everywhere it went (apart from London)", seems to be the latest argument. Doubtless the train she was praising before wasn't sucking any life out of anywhere.

To which a rail expert wittily responds.

Her response seems to be that this is different because the Dawlish line goes on to Hull as well as London. (HS2 connects northern destinations to Birmingham, for that matter.)

What do people like her help to achieve? Works have already begun on the first HS2 section. The most likely result of complaining is that the second phase of it it gets postponed. Part of phase 2 ought to be able to carry sections of Northern Powerhouse Rail, which is what people say they want. Bit of imagination and you could probably get the plans improved from Leeds to Sheffield.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The current situation with trains from Sheffield to London is that they're having to jostle with all the extra Thameslink trains, so frequently taking ages. Now that's what I call a policy that favours London at the expense of the North. But I'm sure Sheffield is getting richer every second the train spends in a trainjam.

[Tubby Isaacs]

More from Natalie Bennett on trains. Cambridge to Sheffield, as others have pointed out, would benefit from HS2 with the extra train paths created on the East Coast Mainline and Midlands Mainline

Anyway, Cambridge is very affluent. Wouldn't better trains to Cambridge "suck the life out of Sheffield"? Or do only trains to London do that?

[Boiler]

The ECML is rapidly filling up: that's why they've started work on the Werrington fly-under to connect with the upgraded Peterborough to Lincoln line to give the freight a diversionary path and removes the need for trains north via Spalding and Lincoln to cross the ECML on the level. Of course, if they hadn't shut March - Spalding in the early 80s there would have been a path from Cambridge to Sheffield that could have avoided the ECML completely.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I didn't know that about March to Spalding, sounds very useful. Bennett had a point without knowing it?

Or would there still be a problem with an overloaded mainline to Sheffield?

[Boiler]

March to Spalding was useful. And luckily, when Peterborough to Spalding and beyond was closed in around 1970 it only stayed that way for a few months. I rode on one of the last trains on the day March to Spalding shut.

There is this

https://www.cambstimes.co.uk/news/plea- ... -1-5855459

but the major problem is Whitemoor slammer is slap bang wallop on the trackbed. Get out of March a little bit (just north of the nick in fact) and there is still a semaphore signal protecting a long-lost level crossing.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I'm agnostic on British Rail, but it's easy to look efficient when you shut down lines like that. All for the sake of £10m (today) capital plus whatever the subsidy would have been.

[youngian]

I had Natalie’s dilemma the other week on getting to Manchester. Driving to Milton Keynes to catch the train is quicker than driving or Ely to Manchester direct. If the Varsity line is reopened than Cambridge and MK will be connected. I also spotted Rula Lenska on the train and still a fine looking woman.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I saw Derek Pringle on the train to Cambridge one. He's still a very big bloke. Amiable enough too.

[youngian]

Sitting opposite Jon Hurt on the Kings Lynn train was one my best celeb spots. Unmistakable from his voice before I saw him. A bloke who looked like Dave Roundtree came up to chat and make a fuss of my dog Sunday at an anti-Brexit gathering. I later found out it was him but that's being a drummer for you.