Tony's Tweets

[Simon Page]

You've got me. All hail Jimbo.

[Jimbo]

It doesn't count unless you're on your knees, Page.

[Jimbo]

I think we need to find a balance. Our decline isn't all about a lack of work ethic, but neither is China's success all about whipping workers. There are lots of other factors at play, but what we can do is realise where we can improve and take steps to address it, rather than just navel gazing and making a half-arsed attempt at change, like HS2 is currently.

[Simon Page]

I salute your indefatigability and commitment to natural orders.

For the record, I'm not suggesting the Chinese way is all slash and burn, just a useful part of the repertoire that I'd rather wasn't replicated here. I'll put up with not being number 1.

[Ads]

You're not comapring apples and apples though. We could have 16,000 miles of track endlessly swirling this tiny island and we'd all still prefer to use the car.

You've lost me.

The comment was about Chinese attitudes towards getting on with things vs Western attitudes.  What have transport preferences got to do with that?

I know what you were saying, I was suggesting the example given wasn't really all that good at making the point. There's a number of reasons why a country the size of China, with 100s of millions of rural peasants, that it is in the interests to create vast swathes of affordable public transport to create some social mobility figuratively and literally, as opposed to the land of the motor car.

I don't necessarily disagree about a difference in a can do attitude.

I'm minded of when I was in Koh Samui and they resurfaced the Chaweng Road in a day. Job jobbed. No fecking around. Yet here we're waiting until March 2019 until they finish the M6. Useless feckers.

[Jimbo]

Yes, I don't think it was the miles of track that was the point, rather the ability to identify problems (i.e. shit infrastructure) and find solutions, and then carry them out. The UK might love the car, but it can't rely on it forever given the terrible congestion in and around our cities - Birmingham being a classic case in point. With a fast-growing population we need to find solutions yesterday, but it'll probably be the day after tomorrow, if at all. *shrugs*

[Ads]

A lot of it is attitude though. I can afford a car and I can afford the train. I prefer my car. In China, there isn't necessarily a choice. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that.

But yes, I cannot for the life of me understand why infrastructure projects take such an age here to come to fruition. Surely billions could be added to the economy if we cut the time between idea, permission, implementation and completion of a project.

[Ad@m]

A lot of it is attitude though. I can afford a car and I can afford the train. I prefer my car. In China, there isn't necessarily a choice. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that.

You're kidding right?

Last year 17m cars were sold in Europe. In China alone that figure was 24 million which was 3 million more than the year before. So at a time when Chinese car ownership is rocketing they're still building railway infrastructure at a pace the Western world can't even imagine.

[dave.woodhall]

Before we all get too misty-eyed over the genius of the Chinese, would you swap their human rights record for ours? Would you swap their attitude to workers for ours? There's a bit more to how they get things done than just a work ethic.

Of course we wouldn't but when they've overtaken us and destroyed our standard of living in the process I'm not sure future generations will thank us for the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974.

I genuinely don't know what the answer is but their rate of progress is absolutely frightening and the vast majority of the UK still thinks of China as a generally rural, a little bit backward, society whereas they're arguably way ahead of us already in a lot of respects and accelerating further away.

Yeah, who needs ten fingers and two legs when you can sit in your wheelchair and watch a shiny new train go past.

[Ads]

A lot of it is attitude though. I can afford a car and I can afford the train. I prefer my car. In China, there isn't necessarily a choice. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that.

You're kidding right?

Last year 17m cars were sold in Europe. In China alone that figure was 24 million which was 3 million more than the year before. So at a time when Chinese car ownership is rocketing they're still building railway infrastructure at a pace the Western world can't even imagine.

We sold significantly more cars per head of adult population. Almost a third at 29%, while the Chinese sold almost a fifth at 19%.

[itbrvilla]

Before we all get too misty-eyed over the genius of the Chinese, would you swap their human rights record for ours? Would you swap their attitude to workers for ours? There's a bit more to how they get things done than just a work ethic.

Of course we wouldn't but when they've overtaken us and destroyed our standard of living in the process I'm not sure future generations will thank us for the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974.

I genuinely don't know what the answer is but their rate of progress is absolutely frightening and the vast majority of the UK still thinks of China as a generally rural, a little bit backward, society whereas they're arguably way ahead of us already in a lot of respects and accelerating further away.

Yeah, who needs ten fingers and two legs when you can sit in your wheelchair and watch a shiny new train go past.

He also forgets the cost to society should someone be injured at work such as medical care, rehabilitation and benefits which all comes out of tax payers pockets. 

[Ad@m]

A lot of it is attitude though. I can afford a car and I can afford the train. I prefer my car. In China, there isn't necessarily a choice. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that.

You're kidding right?

Last year 17m cars were sold in Europe. In China alone that figure was 24 million which was 3 million more than the year before. So at a time when Chinese car ownership is rocketing they're still building railway infrastructure at a pace the Western world can't even imagine.

We sold significantly more cars per head of adult population. Almost a third at 29%, while the Chinese sold almost a fifth at 19%.

And their ratio was 14% higher than the year before.  At that rate of growth they'll have caught us up in 3 years.  Or, to put it another way, 12 years before HS2 is due to be finished.

[Ads]

The rate of growth will be indexed to the expansion of the urban middle class concentrated in the eastern coast. It will reach a buffer while the overwhelming majority of the country catches up. We're a small country at complete saturation levels. That a third of the adult population recycles their cars year on year is quite astounding.

[paul_e]

You're not comapring apples and apples though. We could have 16,000 miles of track endlessly swirling this tiny island and we'd all still prefer to use the car.

You've lost me.

The comment was about Chinese attitudes towards getting on with things vs Western attitudes.  What have transport preferences got to do with that?

At a guess I'd say china putting down 16000 miles of track gets plenty of local support.  Us trying to put down a few hundred has people organising protests and trying to get the planning permission delayed indefinitely because they're not interested in the train at all.  It's the same problem with wind farms, hydro electric dams, etc.

[Bad English]

Wind farms are a fucking scam. We're fighting a development round the back of ours. NIMBY!