Is rail REALLY that bad in the North?

[B&I]

So you expect thousands of people currently employed in the south-east to just stay put with their large mortgages whilst their jobs move north. Dream on. I know that much of the provinces don't have the same attractions as the south-east but needs be and if those people are deliberately put into unemployment by government policy, (as you seem to be advocating), they will grit their teeth and move up to where their jobs go, or take jobs there that others might have been eyeing.



That statement says a lot about your problem. I don't care what (non-illegal) terms you may use on me but calling people you don't know anything about "total berks" sounds to me that you have a big chip on your shoulder about the north vs. other regions. It really doesn't help a discussion like this so please try and stay rational and polite.

And am I in any worse position to diagnose berkitis in someone who insists that 'much of the provinces don't have the same attractions as the south-east', as you are to claim that I suffer from a rare orthopaedic condition causing conjunction of shoulder with fried potatoes?

Have you ever given any thought to the numbers of people forced to move away from the provinces to worj in London by the lack of jobs in the places they come from? Why does the disruption to their lives, and the wider social disruption economic migration has caused to those parts of the country, not figure in your calculations? The poor oppressed mortgage-holders of the south east (a diminishing share of the population thanks to ludicrous housing costs) can at least sell their houses.

And no, I don't expect them all to stay put. As shown following the limited public sector relocations which have taken place so far, many will head to the provinces, despite their 'limited attractions', where they will compete for the jobs with at least some people now given the chance to remain somewhere vaguely near where they come from but still have the chance of getting a decent job.

 

[HSTEd]

And am I in any worse position to diagnose berkitis in someone who insists that 'much of the provinces don't have the same attractions as the south-east', as you are to claim that I suffer from a rare orthopaedic condition causing conjunction of shoulder with fried potatoes?

Have you ever given any thought to the numbers of people forced to move away from the provinces to worj in London by the lack of jobs in the places they come from? Why does the disruption to their lives, and the wider social disruption economic migration has caused to those parts of the country, not figure in your calculations? The poor oppressed mortgage-holders of the south east (a diminishing share of the population thanks to ludicrous housing costs) can at least sell their houses.

And no, I don't expect them all to stay put. As shown following the limited public sector relocations which have taken place so far, many will head to the provinces, despite their 'limited attractions', where they will compete for the jobs with at least some people now given the chance to remain somewhere vaguely near where they come from but still have the chance of getting a decent job.

So your solution to the injustice of forcing people to move to where the jobs are...... is to make huge numbers of people have to move to where the jobs are?
Just they will be moving to an area you like instead?

 

[Chester1]

And am I in any worse position to diagnose berkitis in someone who insists that 'much of the provinces don't have the same attractions as the south-east', as you are to claim that I suffer from a rare orthopaedic condition causing conjunction of shoulder with fried potatoes?

Have you ever given any thought to the numbers of people forced to move away from the provinces to worj in London by the lack of jobs in the places they come from? Why does the disruption to their lives, and the wider social disruption economic migration has caused to those parts of the country, not figure in your calculations? The poor oppressed mortgage-holders of the south east (a diminishing share of the population thanks to ludicrous housing costs) can at least sell their houses.

And no, I don't expect them all to stay put. As shown following the limited public sector relocations which have taken place so far, many will head to the provinces, despite their 'limited attractions', where they will compete for the jobs with at least some people now given the chance to remain somewhere vaguely near where they come from but still have the chance of getting a decent job.

So your solution to the injustice of forcing people to move to where the jobs are...... is to make huge numbers of people have to move to where the jobs are?
Just they will be moving to an area you like instead?

Actually moving large numbers of people is actually unnecessary to move the jobs. It is how the high profile agency HQ moves are done but not smaller shifts. Lower grades often have a high turnover of staff and its common to have multiple offices on the same work flow and many in the same office doing similar work. Its relatively easy to simply recruit onto teams outside of London and slowly shrink and merge teams in London. It is more complicated for specialists and higher grades but many of the latter will happily move for career advancement. Its small numbers in relation to rail travel but it would help to reduce the London centric mentality. Its astounding that so many people are willing to give up the opportunity of home ownership to live in a "world city". I have lived in London and there is very little I can't do in Manchester and I have much more disposable income to spend.

 

[HSTEd]

Actually moving large numbers of people is actually unnecessary to move the jobs. It is how the high profile agency HQ moves are done but not smaller shifts. Lower grades often have a high turnover of staff and its common to have multiple offices on the same work flow and many in the same office doing similar work. Its relatively easy to simply recruit onto teams outside of London and slowly shrink and merge teams in London. It is more complicated for specialists and higher grades but many of the latter will happily move for career advancement. Its small numbers in relation to rail travel but it would help to reduce the London centric mentality. Its astounding that so many people are willing to give up the opportunity of home ownership to live in a "world city". I have lived in London and there is very little I can't do in Manchester and I have much more disposable income to spend.

Which translates as: "You can have a job in Manchester or you can have your P45"

 

[Chester1]

Which translates as: "You can have a job in Manchester or you can have your P45"

No it doesn't. It means using natural wastage to move jobs elsewhere.

 

[AM9]

And am I in any worse position to diagnose berkitis in someone who insists that 'much of the provinces don't have the same attractions as the south-east', as you are to claim that I suffer from a rare orthopaedic condition causing conjunction of shoulder with fried potatoes?

I have no idea what you are trying to say. If Stanley Unwin was around, maybe could help you put it more simply.

Have you ever given any thought to the numbers of people forced to move away from the provinces to worj in London by the lack of jobs in the places they come from? Why does the disruption to their lives, and the wider social disruption economic migration has caused to those parts of the country, not figure in your calculations? The poor oppressed mortgage-holders of the south east (a diminishing share of the population thanks to ludicrous housing costs) can at least sell their houses.

If you force migration from established organisational bases, the operational functions move, - we've already seen call centres of banks, communications organisations, technical support and of course National Rail firstly move to cheaper areas in the UK, and then offshore where even greater savings occur. The real issue is that control stays in the base locations, management, strategic planning and the market facing parts of the organisation, then there's the BBC, national/international news presented from Media City has more of a regional feel to it than when it(and London local news) is from New Broadcasting House. This is in part undermining the BBC's long held reputation for quality.
Employers based in the South-East always welcome those willing to go to where the work is, so there will always be considerable churn. Those who don't make the big-time are more likely to take the opportunities when operational activities are moved away, so the higher paid roles are more likely to stay at head offices in the South-East. Of course there are a few organisations that buck this trend, but in terms of a proportion of the overall jobs market, they don't affect overall numbers by much.

And no, I don't expect them all to stay put. As shown following the limited public sector relocations which have taken place so far, many will head to the provinces, despite their 'limited attractions', where they will compete for the jobs with at least some people now given the chance to remain somewhere vaguely near where they come from but still have the chance of getting a decent job.

But you have still missed the point, if jobs are forced away from the (expensive) South-East, that money will force prices up wherever they move to. It is expensive to move jobs with employment law as it is in the EU (and rightly so) which means a majority of current employees will be offered the chance to move with their job. So there will be no big handout of good jobs in the new location just because candidates live near the office. The support activities might get a look in but they would be outsourced to local firms where some of the employer's costs of relocation will be defrayed by driving outsourcing deals to the lowest bid which has the obvious effect on the locals that those winning contractors take on (at the same time as house prices start to rise faster).
Bear in mind that:
a) a government enforced shift of jobs doesn't necessarily provide an equal number of new jobs in a new location. The only effective way to increase jobs in an area is to create genuinely new ones.
b) any move to rapidly increase jobs in an area pushes house prices up faster than locals can afford, therefore travelling distances increase for all (which increases living costs for all), - just look at London
c) any transport improvement because of population increases lags by years, even decades. Just look at Crossrail - first mooted in the 1940s, then the 1970s then 1989, finally getting approval in 2009. The M25 was the last major motorway to be completed in the UK despite roads across the south-east almost siezing frequently for years before it was completed.

So as I have said before, be very careful of what you wish for.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Which translates as: "You can have a job in Manchester or you can have your P45"

Worked for the BBC.

 

[AM9]

Worked for the BBC.

They didn't try that on with everybody in case some of them took the P45 option.

 

[B&I]

So your solution to the injustice of forcing people to move to where the jobs are...... is to make huge numbers of people have to move to where the jobs are?

Just they will be moving to an area you like instead?

As opposed to your solution of, er, everyone moving to a part of the country you like and where you think the jobs should be?

No, I am arguing for a reasonable distribution of jobs throughout the country, rather than a wasteful and socially destructive concentration in an already overcrowded part if the country. People will continue to move, but on balance their numbers will be fewer, and the distribution will be more even.

 

[B&I]

I have no idea what you are trying to say. If Stanley Unwin was around, maybe could help you put it more simply.



If you force migration from established organisational bases, the operational functions move, - we've already seen call centres of banks, communications organisations, technical support and of course National Rail firstly move to cheaper areas in the UK, and then offshore where even greater savings occur. The real issue is that control stays in the base locations, management, strategic planning and the market facing parts of the organisation, then there's the BBC, national/international news presented from Media City has more of a regional feel to it than when it(and London local news) is from New Broadcasting House. This is in part undermining the BBC's long held reputation for quality.
Employers based in the South-East always welcome those willing to go to where the work is, so there will always be considerable churn. Those who don't make the big-time are more likely to take the opportunities when operational activities are moved away, so the higher paid roles are more likely to stay at head offices in the South-East. Of course there are a few organisations that buck this trend, but in terms of a proportion of the overall jobs market, they don't affect overall numbers by much.



But you have still missed the point, if jobs are forced away from the (expensive) South-East, that money will force prices up wherever they move to. It is expensive to move jobs with employment law as it is in the EU (and rightly so) which means a majority of current employees will be offered the chance to move with their job. So there will be no big handout of good jobs in the new location just because candidates live near the office. The support activities might get a look in but they would be outsourced to local firms where some of the employer's costs of relocation will be defrayed by driving outsourcing deals to the lowest bid which has the obvious effect on the locals that those winning contractors take on (at the same time as house prices start to rise faster).
Bear in mind that:
a) a government enforced shift of jobs doesn't necessarily provide an equal number of new jobs in a new location. The only effective way to increase jobs in an area is to create genuinely new ones.
b) any move to rapidly increase jobs in an area pushes house prices up faster than locals can afford, therefore travelling distances increase for all (which increases living costs for all), - just look at London
c) any transport improvement because of population increases lags by years, even decades. Just look at Crossrail - first mooted in the 1940s, then the 1970s then 1989, finally getting approval in 2009. The M25 was the last major motorway to be completed in the UK despite roads across the south-east almost siezing frequently for years before it was completed.

So as I have said before, be very careful of what you wish for.

What you overlook is that the pressure on London is so great that the cost of everything - infrastructure, housing, commercial space, wages - is being driven up exponentially. If economic activity was properly distributed round the country, prices would rise, but not through the ceiling.

Since you now seem to be arguing that us peasants shouldn't call for redistribution of economic activity because it will make the prices of our novels go up, I assume that you think a fall in house prices is a good thing, and welcome it happening in London as economic pressure is reduced.

Do you realise that comments along the lines of the quality of BBC output declining because some jobs have moved to Manchester make you look like an utter fanatic, whose arguments in favour of concentrating all economic activity and infrastructure spending in the south east are inspired by irrational prejudice against the whole of the rest of the country?

 

[Chester1]

Worked for the BBC.

They didn't try that on with everybody in case some of them took the P45 option.

About 45% chose to move. The rest moved to other BBC jobs or other employers. The current civil service moves from Central to outer London are closer to 75%.

I think people are under estimating how flexible civil service structure is. Many managers above HEO grade manage staff in more than one location. When a manager with teams in London, Nottingham and Liverpool (doing the same or very similiar work) leaves or retires their role can be advertised as being based in Liverpool or Nottingham only, if staff in the grade below don't like that they don't have to apply for the promotion, essentially reversing the current dynamic. At the same time the proportion of junior staff on the London team can be reduced through natural wastage. People don't need to be given a choice between moving and a P45.

 

[AM9]

What you overlook is that the pressure on London is so great that the cost of everything - infrastructure, housing, commercial space, wages - is being driven up exponentially. If economic activity was properly distributed round the country, prices would rise, but not through the ceiling.

No it isn't, it is flattening off right now whereas the rest of the UK is still rising. It never rises exponentially anyway.

Since you now seem to be arguing that us peasants shouldn't call for redistribution of economic activity because it will make the prices of our novels go up, I assume that you think a fall in house prices is a good thing, and welcome it happening in London as economic pressure is reduced.

What has the price of your novels got to do with the redistribution of economic activity?

Do you realise that comments along the lines of the quality of BBC output declining because some jobs have moved to Manchester make you look like an utter fanatic, whose arguments in favour of concentrating all economic activity and infrastructure spending in the south east are inspired by irrational prejudice against the whole of the rest of the country?[/QUOTE]

You still don't understand what I am saying, - your mind seems too clouded by your own prejudices about everything in the Home Counties. Read the words again: "The only effective way to increase jobs in an area is to create genuinely new ones." Arbitrarily moving jobs away from their established base for reasons not directly related to why they were created there in the first place is at best risky, to do it to appease people is plain stupid. But have it your way, I'm sure that stressed movement of a few thousand jobs will keep you busy whilst you wait a) for it to actually happen and b) wait far longer for any infrastructure to appear. Meanwhile, the reduced tax take from those jobs means that all of the poor people that it is claimed live in the north will have to make up the difference. Not my problem, I'm retired.

 

[Chester1]

You still don't understand what I am saying, - your mind seems too clouded by your own prejudices about everything in the Home Counties. Read the words again: "The only effective way to increase jobs in an area is to create genuinely new ones." Arbitrarily moving jobs away from their established base for reasons not directly related to why they were created there in the first place is at best risky, to do it to appease people is plain stupid. But have it your way, I'm sure that stressed movement of a few thousand jobs will keep you busy whilst you wait a) for it to actually happen and b) wait far longer for any infrastructure to appear. Meanwhile, the reduced tax take from those jobs means that all of the poor people that it is claimed live in the north will have to make up the difference. Not my problem, I'm retired.

As your retired would it be a fair assumption to say that you don't need to worry that the average salary in London is £34,000 but the average house price is £584,000?

Public sector jobs that can be based anywhere should not be based in London. It doesn't make sense in terms of the value of office space, cost of the London allowances and the pressure on infrastructure. Other cities have the space to build to meet demand, London has very little space to. The infrastructure upgrades needed are not ones like Crossrail but more rolling stock, platform lengthening and electrification. We are also talking about 10s of thousands of people being spread over most of the UK, it wouldn't increase infrastructure pressure much unless most of it was in one city.

 

[B&I]

AM9, as your quoting is descending into mush, I will have to stop quoting you.

And you miss what I was getting at. I was pointing out that you seem to have a strange prejudice against anyone or anything which isn't from the Home Counties, reflected in comments such as your one about the quality of the BBC's output declining because part of it now comes from Manchester. I was further suggesting that this prejudice might colour your views on issues concerning economic development and infrastructure spending.

I have nothing against the south east as a place, but wouldn't want to live there because of the extreme cost of doing so.

Apart from this, you seem to subscribe to the belief that there is something natural and desirable about all economic activity draining into the south east. But at the end of the day, it's the result of decisions by a relatively small number of people, for reaoans that may be good ir bad, rather than the result of some iron law if nature. And the decades for which this process has been going on haven't exactly been a period of untrammeled success for the country as a whole.

 

[Dentonian]

Worked for the BBC.

The BBC move has been a disaster. They have over compensated the move of Breakfast News to Salford by turning the (highly inaccurate) weather forecast into an insidious advert for the London Tourist Authority, and everywhere you look on the "national" media its images of the London Eye, Westminster Bridge, the Gherkin/Shard, the Thames Water front and did I mention the London Eye.

 

[notlob.divad]

How on earth is the weather forecast being inaccurate an effect of the move to Salford? The MET office is based in Exeter.

What is linked is the fact that the BBC has been encouraged to reduce costs thus reduce the cost to the license fee payer.

Therefore moving the operations away from the area of the country with the highest operating costs to one with lower costs and have no material impact upon output is a very sensible decision.

On the other hand, the small cost saving of attempting to switch their weather information source from the Met office to a new supplier who failed to prepare themselves has had seriously negative consequences on the quality of their output. Therefore if you want better quality of output from the BBC without paying more for your license, moving more of the functions away from the over-priced, overcrowded capital would allow more money to be spent on quality content and less on operating costs.

The same goes for everything including our goverment. Want lower taxes? Shift the MPs out of their really expensive 2nd homes in London and buy up a couple of streets of terraced houses in Middlesborough or Pendle. We might then get better quality MPs who do it for the desire to represent the people rather than the perk of having a house in Kensington and Chelsea payed for by the tax payer.

 

[Dentonian]

How on earth is the weather forecast being inaccurate an effect of the move to Salford? The MET office is based in Exeter.

What is linked is the fact that the BBC has been encouraged to reduce costs thus reduce the cost to the license fee payer.

Therefore moving the operations away from the area of the country with the highest operating costs to one with lower costs and have no material impact upon output is a very sensible decision.

On the other hand, the small cost saving of attempting to switch their weather information source from the Met office to a new supplier who failed to prepare themselves has had seriously negative consequences on the quality of their output. Therefore if you want better quality of output from the BBC without paying more for your license, moving more of the functions away from the over-priced, overcrowded capital would allow more money to be spent on quality content and less on operating costs.

The same goes for everything including our goverment. Want lower taxes? Shift the MPs out of their really expensive 2nd homes in London and buy up a couple of streets of terraced houses in Middlesborough or Pendle. We might then get better quality MPs who do it for the desire to represent the people rather than the perk of having a house in Kensington and Chelsea payed for by the tax payer.

The inaccuracy of the weather forecast was a side issue - the point is that Carol Kirkwood is effectively being paid by the Licence Payer to promote every London attraction going. And it seems to have got worse since the move to "Salford". And, I was reminded this morning - albeit fleetingly - that we still get transmission diverted to London local news if there is a problem/mistiming with the North West local news.

Totally agree with the rest of your comments - they might put HS3 ahead of HS2 if they moved out of crumbling Westminster....which is going to cost how many billions to refurbish, btw?

 

[B&I]

No doubt someone will be along in a minute to tell us that parliament must be in London because that way it don't attract the best candidates for the job. Well, obvs

 

[Dentonian]

No doubt someone will be along in a minute to tell us that parliament must be in London because that way it don't attract the best candidates for the job. Well, obvs

Lol. Very true. Unfortunately, there are even more serious implications to that attitude, but that's do with Education and most vitally, Health.

 

[B&I]

Lol. Very true. Unfortunately, there are even more serious implications to that attitude, but that's do with Education and most vitally, Health.

Very true, and that phenomenon begins very close to the Westminster bubble. My brother told me the other day that, for every stop you take east on the District Line past Aldgate, life expectancy of locals falls 1 year. (He didn't know if this decline stops at any point, but if it doesn't, It's a good thing the Southend through services have vanished into history.)