1,863 posts
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Post by NeilVHughes on Oct 17, 2019 20:36:24 GMT
Was in Parliament tonight on a talk on Climate Change and how to achieve Carbon Zero a shared platform between the Greens and the Labour Party.
This was raised and it was agreed that it was a mistake to target public transport as this is part of the solution.
Have not. been actively involved in these Demonstrations but support them wholeheartedly, it may be uncomfortable for those affected but will be a lot more uncomfortable if we do not act.
Amazing how little coverage there has been on the removal of the right for Public Demonstration and the Police checking of ID on Lambeth Bridge, this precedent should have us all worried.
I do not recognise this Country at the moment, both those actions are straight out of the fascist handbook, we now live in a Country where ID can be required to cross a bridge and not considered a violation of our freedoms, no longer think we are sleepwalking into 1984, I think we are running.
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Post by londonpostie on Oct 17, 2019 20:47:22 GMT
dp
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Post by londonpostie on Oct 17, 2019 20:48:00 GMT
Huge congratulations to the Cockneys who played football with the Extension Rebellion twats. I doubt very much it was "cockneys". I live in east London and travel around that time. Trains and buses are full of mainly eastern Europeans who work on building sites or manual work. They are on low wages and if they dont get to work they dont get paid so would have been angry with the delays. Saying that no excuse for attacking people but, let's just say, not the politest people in the world and I'm speaking from daily experience of commuting early in the morning. For sure, very numerous at the height of the rush our at stops like Canning Town. I think if you look carefully the jacket wearing fool was pulled off by a black lad. The other one I saw - pushing another Nigel off a roof - struck me immediately as E. European. In so much as they think about it, many E and particularly SE Europeans are more pre-occupied with the ongoing depopulation brought to their countries by a desperate Germany. What on earth were they thinking; any gains from the past week or so went straight in the recycling.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2019 20:54:47 GMT
Have not. been actively involved in these Demonstrations but support them wholeheartedly, it may be uncomfortable for those affected but will be a lot more uncomfortable if we do not act. But what are they actually going to achieve? They're not raising awareness of the situation because everybody already knows, and the few people who refuse to believe there's a problem aren't going to change their minds because of disruption. The danger of their position is that it comes down to "we must do something, this is something, we must do this", and the end result is that we get stuck with the quick and popular actions that don't do any good. An example is electric cars. There are many, many problems with electric cars, and some of them we don't know how to fix and may never be able to fix while others we know we can fix but at a cost that will run into hundreds of billions, if not trillions. But electric cars are the popular concept and every alternative technology is being almost completely ignored, and the approach these protests are encouraging is that we'll do the easy thing now and let the future worry about sorting out the problems we're creating by going down that path. But isn't that attitude how we got in this mess in the first place?
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Post by NeilVHughes on Oct 17, 2019 21:13:35 GMT
It is having an impact, both Labour and the Lib Dem’s are actively supporting the Green New Deal initiative and will be part of their manifestos for the next election of which electric cars are only an aside.
These are initiatives only the Green Party were supporting previously.
The only Party who are against fundamental changes to achieve carbon zero sooner than 2050 are the Conservatives who still adhere to the myth of infinite growth on a finite planet.
We have an opportunity at the next election to make the environment a core part of the legislative for the first time in my life.
I am in awe how the kids have taken the initiative and made my generation finally accountable for the World they will inherit.
Tonight a 17 year old currently doing his A Levels was confident to sit in a committee room and get his ideas across confidently and concise on a panel of MP’s and experienced campaigners, something my 17 year old self could not imagine doing.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2019 21:25:55 GMT
The sheer ineffectiveness and idiocy of the protesters just makes me laugh. Huge well done to the people who pulled the twats off the Tube train this morning - I don't condone any violence afterwards, but being pulled off the train is what they deserved. The hypocrisy of their protests is astonishing.
They say they are concerned about a climate emergency and then decide to block roads (leaving traffic stuck stationary emitting greenhouse gases) and prevent hundreds of people from using public transport to get to work (so a load of them probably had to get taxis instead). I'm not sure what they could possibly think they are achieving by blocking the sustainable transport methods they supposedly want people to use more frequently, but all it's done for me is make me more determined to take as many flights as possible because that will annoy and inconvenience them as much as they have done to me.
Their message is undoubtedly important, but their methods and unrealistic demands are so infantile that it undermines that message to such an extent that it becomes completely superseded by the headline about them being stupid. They need to wake up and realise this before the damage to their cause is permanent and they end up doing more harm than good. In London at least they are at that point, and I know I'm not the only one whose patience has snapped.
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1,863 posts
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Post by NeilVHughes on Oct 17, 2019 21:40:07 GMT
Sometimes writing to your MP, a strongly worded letter to the Mainstream Media and a few Tweets are not enough.
Wrote to my MP about the prorogation of Parliament and the reply I got was laughable.
Looking through history, Voting for the working man Peterloo), Suffrage etc have all required some form of mass action which by definition caused inconvenience.
As I said before I am in awe of what these ‘Kids’ are a achieving and in such a short amount of time.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2019 22:46:48 GMT
The anger at the protesters has been building up and can they really report if they get assaulted if they were stood on a tube train roof or have glued themselves to something. With all the knife crimes etc in London, that could be a danger if someone was p****d off at being late to an appointment.
Plus how much power do the younger people use on all their electronic devices. We cannot have a carrier bag now but they can plug everything in.
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1,863 posts
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Post by NeilVHughes on Oct 17, 2019 22:54:10 GMT
Costs about £4 a year to charge a phone.
Not sure a lot of these ‘Kids’ drive so I think we can allow them the equivalent of a few litres of fuel a year as compensation.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2019 23:12:46 GMT
Sometimes writing to your MP, a strongly worded letter to the Mainstream Media and a few Tweets are not enough. Wrote to my MP about the prorogation of Parliament and the reply I got was laughable. Looking through history, Voting for the working man Peterloo), Suffrage etc have all required some form of mass action which by definition caused inconvenience. This is the conversation we’ve had all week at work - you have to kick up a fuss and be noticed if you want real change. To be honest I’m a believer that not everyone can support everything, and this whole climate change thing is one of those I chose not to involve myself in - but I wish them all the luck with it. The idiots on top of the trains deserve to be pulled off, but not the kicking afterwards: not quite the keep calm and carry on spirit. I can absolutely understand the anger though - you don’t mess with trains during rush hour (TFL can manage that all on their own). I don’t personally think it will achieve anything - with an election looming its very easy for Westminster to appear interested. Nicely timed though to coincide with David Attenborough’s upcoming BBC show, which I’m sure will include the usual ‘look at what we’ve done’ slices of reality at the end of every episode.
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318 posts
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Post by MrBraithwaite on Oct 18, 2019 9:10:20 GMT
When I was in London last week I didn't know demonstrations were planned, first thing I heard about it was in an email from Delfont Mackintosh about my upcoming theatre visit, which warned of disruptions in the West End. We only realized what was going on, when we couldn't get the bus we had planned to take to the Horniman Museum and had to reschedule the whole day. I had worked out several bus routes for the trip to save some walking as I am not too good on foot at the moment, but as they all fell through it couldn`t be helped.
This has all to do with an accident I had a few months ago when I walked down the stairs at Trqafalgar Studios. The ambulance took quite a while then because of some traffic issue around Trafalgar Square (it wasn't life threatening or anything), but I can't help wonder if someone had some serious issues and there are several streets blocked off...
All in all they may make a point to some politicians but loose all respect from the general public. I am definately not a fan.
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Post by jaqs on Oct 20, 2019 6:55:48 GMT
I can’t help but think of the undercover police who infiltrated groups in the past and tried to push them into extreme action (getting women pregnant along the way) when the group does totally ridiculous things that lose them almost all public sympathy. Targeting Canning Town, Shadwell and Stratford rather than Westminster and Knightsbridge (or you know cars and lorries) seemed like such a massive own goal that it can only have come from someone wanting to destabilise the group rather than actual protestors.
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Post by londonpostie on Oct 20, 2019 7:49:55 GMT
I assumed the target was the DLR i.e. a separate network that wouldn't directly disrupt the tube or train systems.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2019 9:15:39 GMT
I assumed the target was the DLR i.e. a separate network that wouldn't directly disrupt the tube or train systems. The DLR isn't a separate network, it interlinks with Tube and trains and plenty of people use both. It's all TFL, and it's ironically probably the most eco-friendly part of it, which highlights just how illogical the protesters are. It was probably targeted because it goes to Canary Wharf and the City Airport, but the protesters didn't actually bother to go to the stations there to protest...
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Post by londonpostie on Oct 20, 2019 9:30:55 GMT
Yes, we all understand it "interlinks".
The very obvious point it is separate - track gauge, driver automation, etc - and so disruption of the light rail DLR does not disrupt the heavy rail tube or train systems.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2019 10:04:50 GMT
Yes, we all understand it "interlinks". The very obvious point it is separate - track gauge, driver automation, etc - and so disruption of the light rail DLR does not disrupt the heavy rail tube or train systems. Ok, well that just makes them even more stupid then (if that is possible), as their whole argument for acting in the first place was that they needed to cause maximum disruption to be heard... Besides, they did disrupt the Tube at both Canning Town and Stratford anyway.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2019 10:11:59 GMT
They were stood on top of an underground train at Canning Town, not a DLR train, and they were stood on top of DLR trains in Canary Wharf a few months back. The entire thing is madness and a misguided publicity stunt: they have created a monster and are struggling to control it now.
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