Should the Brexiteers actually support the Lib Dems?

Following the EU referendum the Lib Dems tried to establish themselves as being the party who represent the 48% of voters who voted Remain.  One proposal they have put forward is for a referendum on whether we, as a nation, want to accept the final Brexit package.  A number of Leave supporters are unhappy about that suggestion but should they be?

Theresa May seems to think because an advisory referendum gave a result of 52% of people wanting to leave the EU that it should mean her government (which only 37% of people voted for at the last general election) is allowed to implement whatever Brexit package they see fit without giving anyone (including MPs outside her cabinet) an opportunity to have any further say.  If her government is allowed to do that it could result in a Brexit package which hardly anyone is happy with whether they voted Leave or Remain.  With Brexit we won’t get a chance to change things in five years time if we are unhappy, like we do with electing MPs, so if Theresa May gets away with it we could all be unhappy for the rest of our lives.

So who is going to stop Theresa May?  The Labour Party who don’t seem to be providing effective opposition to a weak Conservative government?  The SNP who only represent a pro-Remain Scotland?  UKIP whose lone ranger in the Houses of Parliament has a view on Brexit which isn’t shared by many other MPs?  Or the Lib Dems who want the voters to have more of a say than just Brexit or No Brexit but are a pro-EU party?  None of those options seem to be ideal but failing a General Election being called before we leave the EU the Lib Dems are probably the best party to hold the Conservatives to account on Brexit.

The Lost Bus Routes of Knutsford

It seems uncertainty over the future of the 300 Knutsford Town Circular evening service has ended with D&G Bus planning to take over the service from 9^th May 2016. (Tomlinson Travel announced almost 2 months ago they were withdrawing the service.)  However, it should be noted in the early 1990s the route was operated by Starline Travel to operate to a 15 minute frequency in the daytime and a 30 minute frequency in the evenings.  It was reduced to a 30 minute frequency all day when Starline Travel were taken over by North Western (now Arriva North West) and there have been a few cutbacks since Arriva gave up on running the service, such as a pre-8am service being withdrawn and less services running in the afternoon.

Fairly recently the 27 Macclesfield to Knutsford service was cut back.  A Summer Sunday service, which used to be operated by Bakerbus and extended to Tatton Park, was withdrawn as a result of council subsidy cuts.  The weekday service was also reduced as the subsided hourly service on weekdays has been replaced by a commercial service which doesn’t operate every hour.  The Saturday service was reduced to 2 hourly but has since been increased to hourly again.

Also not that long ago the 47 bus between Warrington, Lymm, High Legh, Knutsford and Lower Peover was withdrawn.  In recent years this was just two return workings on Tuesdays and Fridays (operated by Tomlinson Travel) but it used to be five return workings daily (operated by Warrington Borough Transport.)  Some Warrington Borough Transport services extended to Northwich via Lach Dennis and Lostock Green.  The reason for the original cutback was down to a disagreement between Cheshire County Council and Warrington Borough Council over funding for the service.  The 289 service (between Altrincham and Northwich via Knutsford) was re-routed via High Legh when the 47 service was cut back.

An unusual route, in the H50, used to operate on Tuesdays and Fridays only.  This ran from Sandbach to Altrincham via Congleton and Knutsford.  It also included a stop at the Rostherne entrance to Tatton Park.  This was also withdrawn as the result of the subsidy cut.

The one exception to the cutback trend has been the 88 Knutsford to Altrincham via Wilmslow bus route.  This route had been hourly for a very long time (it used to be the 288 route operated by Starline Travel in the early 90s.)  In late 2014 the frequency was increased to half-hourly and some earlier and later services were added – the first bus from Knutsford is currently at 05:25, while the last service from Altrincham is currently at 19:20.  The full timetable can be found here: http://ghagold.co.uk

Surprisingly, given Knutsford’s location, as far as I’m aware there has never been a direct bus to Manchester Airport and there has never been a bus to one of the area’s biggest landmarks, in Jodrell Bank.

281 Brand New Foreign Carriages For Northern Rail – What the Government Doesn’t Want Us To Know.

Last December when the government announced the next Northern Rail franchise had been awarded to Arriva they announced that there would be 281 new build carriages introduced.  Since then it has also been announced the new carriages will be built by CAF (Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles) in Spain, which has faced some criticism.

The 281 new carriages will be a mix of new diesel and electric powered carriages, the government have said these new trains will result in Pacer replacement.  However, there are only going to be 55 new diesel trains while Northern Rail currently operate 102 Pacer trains.  Some routes such as those serving Bolton and Blackpool will be able to switch from diesel to electric trains as a result of electrification but then some of the new diesel trains are going on to routes which Northern Rail don’t currently operate e.g. Manchester Airport to Cumbria (currently operated by TransPennine Express) and Manchester to Chester via Warrington (currently operated by Arriva Trains Wales.)  This means there will be a lot of cascaded diesel trains coming to Northern Rail to plug the gap.

The cascaded diesel trains will be 20 class 150 Sprinter trains, 5 class 156 Sprinter trains and 8 class 158 Sprinter trains, all built in the 1980s.  Together with the diesel trains which Northern Rail will retain, that means the next Northern franchise will operate 178 diesel trains which were built in the 1980s, so the new diesel trains are an insignificant number in comparison.

As well as the new diesel trains and the cascaded Sprinters Northern Rail will also receive 16 x 3 car Turbostars which were built in the early 00s.  These will apparently be used on the new through service between Leeds and Southport, as well as services between Leeds and York via Harrogate.  The 55 brand new diesel trains will be used on 9 longer routes which will be branded as ‘Northern Connect’ these routes include Bradford to Nottingham, Leeds to Lincoln and routes transferring to Northern from other operators (as already mentioned.)  This means it sounds likely that diesel services in Cheshire will be operated by 1980 Sprinter trains until at least 2025.  Although, they will be refurbished with a passenger information system, wheelchair accessible toilet and fitted with wi-fi.

Going back to the new trains these will be built in Spain, a decision which has caused criticism from the RMT Union.  However, I personally don’t think that decision is a bad one for a few reasons.  Firstly, the train building facilities in the UK belong to Canadian multi-national Bombardier and Japanese multi-national Hitachi and all the UK facilities have plenty of work at present.  Awarding the new contracts to Bombardier or Hitachi would not guarantee that the trains would be built in the UK.  For instance, the Voyager trains used by Virgin Trains and CrossCountry were built by Bombardier but manufactured in Belgium, while some of the new Hitachi trains for Great Western Railway will be built in Italy.  Secondly, the government has delayed the awarding of the new franchise so much that a new order needs to be delivered ASAP (the Northern Rail franchise let by Labour in 2004 on a no growth basis was originally due to end in 2011.)  CAF apparently are suffering from a shortage of work currently so not only are able to deliver the new trains quickly, they are also willing to build them for a very good price to prevent their facilities closing resulting in redundancies.

Some of the new trains will be electric ones and will directly replace class 323 trains which are currently used on most of the electrified services out of Manchester Piccadilly.  The class 323 trains aren’t being scrapped and they are actually the newest Northern Rail trains to operate in the Manchester area.  They are leaving because Porterbrook (who lease the trains to Northern) want all their class 323 trains to be with one operator (they are currently split between Northern and London Midland.)  The government has given more freedom to rail leasing companies in recent years, which has had an adverse effect on the TransPennine Express franchise as Chiltern Railways signed a lease (with Porterbrook) for 9 trains that TransPennine Express still needed with no suitable alternatives being available, which lead to a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.  It is rumoured most of the class 156 Sprinter trains which have been loaned from Northern Rail to TransPennine Express to plug the gap were supposed to have been deployed on the Mid-Cheshire line between Manchester and Chester via Altrincham to offer more seats and a better travelling environment, following Chat Moss electrification.  The class 156 trains have longer carriages and have larger seats with armrests and tables but lack some of the facilities the trains which have TransPennine Express lost to Chiltern had like First Class, seat reservations and a refreshments trolley.

However, it seems the government have no bad news to hide behind the good news about the service frequency enhancements.  Greenbank, Northwich, Knutsford and Hale will get 2 services per hour to Stockport and Manchester for most of the day on weekdays and Saturdays, while they’ll be an hourly service on Sundays.  Other lines will also be getting enhancements.

Men and Women Will Never Be Equal

The statement ‘men and women will never be equal’ is not what you’d normally hear someone campaigning for equality saying.  However, it’s true.  Can men give birth? No.  Do women have both X and Y chromosomes? No.  For reasons like that men will be men and women will be women.

However, beyond those differences just because men are usually better at one thing or because women are usually better than men at another thing doesn’t mean that is always the case.  I have experience of a female manager at work deciding that only the male employees were able to help move some boxes.  This was despite having a strong young female employee who works out regularly and a weaker male employee suffering from RSI.  Somehow the female manager thought because she isn’t strong that moving things was a job only for men.  The strong young female employee actually volunteered to help but was told to remain at her desk by the manager and the manager wasn’t impressed when the weaker male employee with RSI said he was unable to help. This was obviously both sexist and discriminatory but then it’s not an issue most people would complain about.

There are currently a number of employment sectors which employ a lot more of one gender than another.  For instance, while there are some excellent female computer programmers and some excellent male personal assistants, they are in the minority.  Some sectors like computing and engineering are trying to attract more females but of course talented females who could work in those sectors are free to choose which sector they want to work in.  Other sectors dominated by one gender don’t seem to be as interested in attracting the other gender, for instance, when have you seen a campaign to recruit female construction workers or male lunchtime assistants?  If a recruitment drive aimed at an under-represented gender is the right approach for one sector then why isn’t the right approach for all sectors?  And why is it only usually being used for sectors which have a low number of female workers?

One news story that interested me was one that revealed ASDA had been paying checkout staff less than warehouse staff with people claiming it was gender discrimination despite the fact men working on the checkouts earned the same as women and that women working in the warehouse earned the same as men.  Gender discrimination? No.  ASDA undervaluing their checkout staff? Possibly.

Self-proclaimed feminist Emma Watson* caused controversy amongst feminists when she said “some of the best feminists I have encountered are men.”  Personally I can see why that could be the case, going back to my earlier example how many women would complain about the male employees being asked to move some boxes but female employees not being asked?  I imagine not many and even some self-proclaimed feminists wouldn’t complain about it even though they aren’t being treated equally and one of the main principles of feminism is for women to be treated the same as men.  Some people (of both genders) like to claim they are pro-equality but aren’t keen on changes which result in them being disadvantaged.  Recent research has shown that women in their 20s in the UK now on average earn more than men in their 20s** but I haven’t seen any complaints from women about that and I’ve heard comments from some men about that not really being an issue.

As well as causing controversy with feminists Ms. Watson has been targeted by anti-feminist trolls.  Possibly she’s such a good role model for both genders that she isn’t liked by extremists from either side?

Any issues mentioned in this blog post are UK based and it's worth remembering inequality in countries outside Europe and North America can be much worse.

* Emma Watson is a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and launched the HeForShe solidarity campaign.

** Figures compiled by the Press Association have shown that between the ages of 22 and 29, a woman will typically earn £1,111 more per annum than her male counterparts. Using data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), PA analysed the comparative earnings of men and women between 2006 and 2013.

What is it like to live in Knutsford, Cheshire?

If you mention Knutsford to someone who has visited the town but hasn’t worked or lived in the town they generally say it’s a nice town.  On the other hand if you mention Knutsford to someone who does live or work in the town (or has in the past) they are likely to have something negative to say about the town centre whether it’s the pavements in the town centre being too narrow, inconsiderate parking, a lack of a range of shops or unaffordable housing.  In itself I suppose that doesn’t make Knutsford different to most places.

Knutsford does have a lack of affordable housing, more so than other towns in the area.  If you’re a recent graduate and have been offered a job in the area then don’t expect to find somewhere to live in the town.  Properties available for rent usually require a monthly rent which is higher than the net pay which a graduate would be expected to receive, while the cheapest flat available to buy in the town will cost £135,000 and the second cheapest is £150,000 (as of January 2016.) 

There is, however, a large former council estate on the outskirts of the town called Longridge (no properties on Longridge were up for sale on Longridge at the time of writing.)  Longridge originally built as an overspill estate for Manchester, is a stark contrast to roads like Legh Road and Leycester Road where all the houses would sell for seven figure sums.  There is also a lack of understanding from people living on the likes of Legh Road and Leycester Road about where Longridge is, some wrongly presume Longridge is much larger than it actually is and includes a considerable number of terrace houses in the Over Ward area which have never been council or housing association houses.

Unlike most of the town Over Ward residents aren’t mainly supporters of the Conservative Party.  At the most recent Town Council election every non-Conservative Party candidate who stood for Over Ward got elected, with one Independent candidate Andrew Malloy getting more votes than any other councillor who stood in the election.  Knutsford’s only ever Labour Party mayor to date, Bill Davies, was elected to represent the Over Ward and he was a firm favourite who got re-elected every time he stood.

One of the biggest issues for local politics in Knutsford is what to do about King Street.  King Street is a one way street in the town centre which has very narrow pavements and parking bays.  Many of the cars using the parking bays are too large for them and the drivers driving them endanger pedestrians by using them.  The narrow pavements make it difficult for disabled and elderly people, which Knutsford has a considerable number of. Pedestrianisation if favoured by most residents but opposed by most business owners.  An alternative ‘Pedestrian Priority’ scheme has also been opposed by business owners.  Some Knutsford residents are actively boycotting King Street businesses as a result of that.  Some opponents of pedestrainisation and pedestrian priority state they don’t want to spoil the character of the town.  However, surely the traditional character of the town has been spoiled by allowing motor vehicles to take the place of horse and carts and bicycles in the town centre many years ago and a car ban would actually be reinstating the traditional character of the town.

Some will praise the number of local independent businesses in the town centre.  Others will bemoan the lack of items sold in the town centre.  For instance, there’s not many shops selling men’s clothing and the ones which do are pricey – we have a Jaeger in the town but none of the more everyday chains like Next, H&M, Matalan or M&S.  If you want one of those businesses a shopping trip to another town is required, unless you choose to shop online.

If you try to reach the town by bus you may find there are less bus routes than you would expect.  Warrington (population 206,000) is around 15 miles away yet if you try to get from Warrington to Knutsford (or vice versa) using public transport you’ll find there is no direct bus or train and not a straight forward way involving a change either.  There is a bus to nearby Macclesfield but it’s not that frequent and doesn’t run in the evenings, on Sundays or Bank Holidays.   Other towns nearby which don’t have a direct public transport link to Knutsford include Middlewich, Winsford and Congleton.

While there is a well used train service it isn’t as attractive as train services in other areas – old trains running to an hourly frequency for most of the day.  If you get to Knutsford from Manchester/Stockport/Altrincham for 9am you have to get a train which arrives in Knutsford just after 8am.  That is supposed to change as part of the next rail franchise which has recently been awarded to Arriva.

I don’t think what I’ve said above will exactly encourage people to relocate to Knutsford.  However, I have saved the best bit until last – Tatton Park.  Not many towns have a 1,000 acre deer park just a few minutes walk from the town centre.  Many first time visitors to Tatton Park are surprised at how big it is, it’s a lot more than just a stately home and gardens.