Its a stupid idea. Treasury is right to reject it. Complete electrification, build some shoulder stations (Collyhurst and Oldfield Road) and get the Picc-Vic tunnel. Honestly given how much they lied about London stealing transit money when they blow so much on bad Opex its what they deserve.

Another peak-crowding video of Japan from the 1960's. But my favourite bit is when they show the sprinting between Keisei's Tsudanuma station which still have no connection despite being less than 500m between them. Most annoying missed connection in Tokyo. www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7Rk...

Really interesting video of peak road construction in the UK. Hilariously you can see the non-London cities getting more done because its cheaper....now they think London did it to them. Also NIMBY horse story in there. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcPp...

Best looking livery in the world. Fight me.

1960s Dan Wang be like (ignore the markups, just a hazard of buying used books)

The MTA owes @alonlevy.bsky.social an apology for saying the claim of 25% padding was wrong and that it’s actually around 10%. This new schedule (despite no new rolling stock) proves that it was much more than 10%. www.wsj.com/lifestyle/tr...

Yeah I went and calculated this, the greater LA area (LA, Ventura, OC, Riverside, San Bernadino Counties) has abouth a 10th of the total trains per day as Belgium. I'm probably off by a few hundred for Belgium, I couldn't find timetables for all the trams (so many trams).

Also because it's easier to think of ways to win an election than it is to deal with any of the actual problems.

Ah Irish whinging about the "British isles". By a nation so xenophobic they can't put the 2nd largest ethnic group on their island in their census or other public ID docs. You don't even need to do "British" you could do "Ulster Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist" like you do Roma/Irish Traveller.

It also has a traditions of settler colonialism, anti-democratic gerrymandering in favour of more white regions (Sewell, Barnett, FPTP), immigration restrictions, tax evasion and land speculation. Traditions shared equally by its Left and Right factions (Corbyn is a racist millionaire at heart)

But if they ask for an equal share of MPs, tax revenue and devolution...then they are not to be ignored and gaslighted as "metropolitan elites" responsible for insulting the racial honour of "Real Brits" of "proud communities".

Yeah but we don't have an English government, we have a British Government. That's the core problem that's leading the post-2007 meltdown of the political system and the economy/state. Maybe we should have state that treats "the country" like Scotland/Wales.

Lol Keene's translation of Mishima's After the Banquet is dedicated to the CIA's first station chief in Japan.

Yeah but Labour and "British liberals/progressives" already chose this the moment it decided to keep our current racially gerrymandered form of FPTP and constitution. You can have "Britain" or you can have Liberal Democracy. This trajectory to radicalisation is deep in the structure of the UK.

Tellingly the smallest bit is on fiscal devolution just "Barnett for Strategic authorities" i.e. more fiscal/electoral gerrymanders so that we get to have London's money without accountability. Even though with Business rates we already have such a system.

Fan's @seung.bsky.social's posts on Tokyo's 5 Direction Rail upgrade program might like this short video of when what's now the Keihin-Tohoku line and the Yamanote line were separated into a 5 track. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWSJ...

Interesting Lib Dem movement on ID cards. Extremely European and sophisticated policy compared to brutish British exceptionalism of looking around for recent utility bills/sending out photos of your passport/getting a provisional driving licence to get into pubs and clubs/voting with a bus pass.

Morning rush-hour near London's Oval station. Trains pass underground every few minutes and there's a continuous flood of bicycles, but still there's one lane of gridlocked traffic. Your city will always have exactly as much gridlock as it makes room for.

This was known as SWAT (STOVL Weight Attack Team) They accomplished their goal, but in the process they had to make compromises that kneecapped the other variants and further complicated development timelines www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-ma...

for all people mock it wikipedia is genuinely one of the wonders of the modern world

From @miyhnea.bsky.social in other place. Absolutely insane. I laughed for 2 minutes straight.

there is a point here i want to amplify. the free speech defenders of the mainstream seem to have no awareness that actual free speech is often more fractious and destabilizing than civil and respectful. a society where speech is genuinely free isn’t the deferential space they want it to be.

I am back in London and the phrase "downtown London" keeps coming into my head and I am so deeply ashamed by it. "Downtown London", wtaf. Yesterday I called a lorry a truck. I tried to get a bus on the right side of the road. I've been in America too long

Oh my god. Headlines all say "our nation" "the country" and then straight to an English football anecdote, after showing that then swerves to "right minded Brit" and back to "our country". 90 minute nation, fake empathy, then scolding "the country" for not getting back into its cage to feed his UK.

Tragically, Will Stancil is actually the closest thing this age has to a moral paragon because he was exposed to people being mean to him on the internet without becoming a Trumpist out of spite, a test which seemingly every other major Discourse Generator online has failed.

Maybe - just a crazy idea, but bear with me for a moment! - the reason why the Lib Dems should not “get serious“ is that the UK’s most important media organisation covers politics in babytalk so much of the time?

Housing is subject to such regularity restriction that production levels remain low and productivity has been stagnant since the 70s.

One day I will write an essay "Japan as a failed 1st world Conservative utopia", it had relatively low taxes, more conservative gender roles, no real left-wing/liberal governments, low immigration pre-2010, "culture that builds", preserved Industrial base etc.

Anti-immigration activists will state stuff like this and also at the same time demand only 'high quality immigrants'.

This really doesn't make them any different from the Labour party's determination to keep our racially Gerrymandered form of FPTP specifically because they'd rather have Farage win then have to coalition politics or actually compete for the votes of inner cities.

It is the ideology of the UK. Its not meant to prosper but to preserve. That's why London has the oldest built environment of any megacity in the world. You are asking the government to compromise on its core belief that the before times were "better".

Just started watching Takaichi's presser, and already I'm struck by the banner calling for "[electing] the first female prime minister." That's a striking contrast to last year when I don't recall her playing that up at all.

This pretty much sums up contemporary UK "we seek the stars but you have to do in a 300 year old building with bad insulation and windows that don't quite fit".

Because the UK isn't a nation. It's not sacrosanct for the English right or the Celtic left. Only Anglo-British liberals are committed to Britain GLOBAL POWER.

No just left activists the are in this world whole political parties devoted to looting through NIMBYism, most Green parties, most of Far Left parties (Die Linke or the Japanese communist party). Utopianism based on the idea modern society was a mistake is the ideology of a petty twat.

My MP for Bayswater thinks a bill about 1980's Sheffield is an important use of a London MP's time while the government is leaving Londoners to rot because we offended "Hero voters" in Goole or Paisley. www.politicshome.com/opinion/arti...

The story here is that Local Government in England is broken, by a combined Tory-Labour project of self-determination from "the country", preserving house prices, sideling various minorities and aborting political alternatives. Reform's ongoing takeover of local gov is the result.

Wait, Chinese cars sales peaked in 2017 and haven’t recovered since?

🚋🫂🏰 www.trambologna.it/2025/09/19/s...

Nice to see the gospel of Japanese Transit Oriented Development spread further. Chicago definitely is after NY the city with the most low hanging fruit in North America. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcxs...

EU membership ambitions and AI stupidity. I.e. still better than the UK's current policy mix.

"We're gonna bully the local councils into building lots of homes while bankrupting them that'll work".

Its because they both hate that GREAT BRITAIN has evolved into contemporary England, particularly Urban southern England. It means both parties have failed in their missions to create a rural small town Great British superpower.

The archetypal Labour voter today is in fact a lower middle class working mum in her mid-40s, who has a degree and a mortgage, just as likely to live in the south as the north, is primarily concerned about living costs and public services, and is socially progressive but not necessarily libertarian.

Sounds familiar. Looks like everyone is condemned to learn the same combo of mistakes (i.e. its your economy/fiscal policy that determines your migration not your cruelty) and sins (we can un-make people who aren't our racial majority). Ishin should also just accept being a regional party.

Both Greens and LDs should reflect on why that is.

Man wins 34% of the vote on 2nd lowest turnout (59%), thinks he's a democrat. Erdogan (52% on 82% turnout), Orban (52% on 69% turnout). Even Modi (coalition 44% kinda) and Trump (48%) have more legitimacy than Starmer. (N/B This is why he's failing, and why Farage will fail afterwards)

You see this in Japan, rural Japan is dying but the streets, libraries and museums are clean and air conditioned because austerity in local government was kept at bay (pensions though...). Hence very little political radicalism till last year despite 40 years of disappointing performance.