like the queen this thread will never die: in which we ALL resign (ourselves to disgusting miseries to post-boris politics 2022)

I'd love to go there, it's beautiful. But you need to win the lottery or murder somebody to be able to afford a train ticket these days, or possibly some things haven't changed since the 1800s. Haven't checked if they have started pumping raw sewage into Windemere yet

had one of the most English moments I've ever experienced at the Lake District: woman running the inn gave us instructions for a wandering path, mentioned her daughter used to take it to meet a classmate, then witsfully mused "took her half an hour, but it's probably longer... if you don't have a friend waiting for you on the other side".

🥹

Cop country.

Last month I worked undercover with debt collectors breaking into homes of vulnerable families for British Gas

We were sent to force-fit prepayment meters at homes including one where a mum was with her 4 week old baby.

If families cannot top up, their heating can be cut off

— Paul Morgan-Bentley (@pmorganbentley) February 1, 2023

recently my British Gas monthly dd wasn't showing up in the forthcoming payments on my online banking. I couldn't log in my BG account. Phoned them and got a load of bollox about how my acct had been moved into their new online system and luckily it was exactly 2 weeks until the monthly dd would take to clear with the bank so it would just carry on as per normal. I'm cynical enough to think that it was all a ruse to deliberately cause me to fall behind on payments, as to try and force a pre-payment meter on me. Cunts.

can't wait for the next Labour gov to ban pre-payment meters

Don’t get a smart meter because they can remotely reassign them to prepayment without your consent.

when you get cold-called about changing to a smart meter, whilst telling you the multiple energy consumption awareness benefits of them - they don't mention how it gives them the capability of remotely cutting you off. Without you even at least getting the satisfaction of turning the front of your house into a "last of us" style death fortress and threatening to set your dog on trespassers who manage to get through the barbed wire when they demand access to your meter!

I only found out about the smart meter/prepay switch potential recently - before, my objection was that friends with smart meters had received ridiculous bills in error. Also, a part of me enjoys ignoring the histrionics of the EDF billing department chasing its £35 - if someone actually phones, I’m gonna vacantly say ‘your bill is important to us, but due to a high volume of bills at this time, hold times may be longer than usual…’

oh, new government department for energy security and net-zero announced this morning.

12:15, new crytpo-pound likely

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-64536593

I saw yesterday that rail return tickets are to be abolished.

Sounded like one of the most bonkers ideas in a long time, if not as actually evil as much of what the UK government does.

i haven't read the detail of the rail ticket thing yet but saw it mentioned the other day. tbf, when i buy tickets thru Trainline it's been as "cheapest available singles" in both directions for a long time now

Mmmm, and the guarantee is the price of two singles will not exceed the current price of the return ticket, adjusted for inflation, so sit back in comfort and watch those cheaper options dwindle. (Not to say the current pricing system isn't absurdly complicated but this doesn't seem like the best fix unless the objective is to price more people out of taking trains.)

actually you've just made the most obvious point i missed - this will make an already Byzantine system even less transparent

it also presumably creates value for companies like Trainline because a specialist app is your best chance of finding the cheapest tickets

i haven't read the detail of the rail ticket thing yet but saw it mentioned the other day. tbf, when i buy tickets thru Trainline it's been as "cheapest available singles" in both directions for a long time now

Yes, who buys returns anymore for anything other than a short journey? Who can afford it? Travelling to and from Scotland from London for 20 years I think I know all the money saving ruses - basically change at Crewe as you can usually get single tickets to and from London for £9. I imagine that'll be bumped up once this new scheme is introduced.

I sometimes buy returns for journeys if I can't be sure which day - or which train - I'll be able to come back on. It's more expensive than fixing the date but (chances are) less expensive than waiting for certainty and stumping up the massive price of travelling at short notice.

Have unpredictable care duties? Live a less-than-wholly-ordered existence? Pony up. Business is business. These trains aren't a public service you know.

Isn't TheTrainLine exactly the same as NationalRail only it charges you a fee?

In any case, best case I can get with "advance" tickets Cambridge-Liverpool St is 2x £12.50, so £25 total (generally it's more like £35+ total), whereas off-peak return, which I can use on any train after 8:40 to leave, with any train allowed for the return, is £22.20. Guess I can't get those any more? Bunch of bastards, cannot afford it as it is.

I do buy advance returns and I have a network railcard as well so that works off peak. I haven’t scrolled up to see if it’s been mentioned but there’s that minimum fare thing that prevents you from buying tickets below a certain price with a railcard at times which is a total swizz.

Oh and yeah re returns, I do those when I come into town cos I usually meet up with people when I do come in and want to have some flexibility, even though I usually fuck off home early. What a shower.

must depend where in the country you are because where I am a single is usually the same price as a return, or maybe 10 or 20p less, I use Trainline and I haven't seen this 2 singles are cheaper thing at all.

it depends on whether the train company do "advance" tickets, which can be much cheaper, I have 3 options for going to London, one company do advance tickets even the night before, one company sell them only one week+ in advance, one company don't seem to sell them at all.

What could be simpler?

don't think they do those cheap advance tickets on my line. I have heard of these mythical cheap fares but never seen one to anywhere I actually need to go

vast majority of my train travel for the last umpteen years has been between my home and my mom's, goes thru two or three different companies' jurisdictions, would be eye-watering without advance tix

If going somewhere that I feel is far (say Glasgow) I will buy a ticket in advance, on The Train Line (on a computer; wouldn't know how to do it on a mobile device).

If going somewhere nearer, say in the SE, like Rochester, Haywards Heath, Reigate - then quite likely I'll walk up to a station and buy a return ticket.

If I can no longer do that then that's not good for me. In fact I can hardly comprehend what the alternative will be.

Overall the idea of dispensing with return tickets sounds to me insane, almost something out of Lewis Carroll.

'No, of course you can't have a return', replied the weasel with the whistle and cap, quite crossly.
'Why on Earth not?' asked Alice.
'Because round here, no-one ever returns. They just go'.
'But people have to return', Alice insisted, a little crossly herself. 'How else would they come back home?'
'Home?' exclaimed the weasel with furious disdain. 'One doesn't come home! One goes away! That's all!'

Haha exactly

I've never used Trainline, I did use the National Rail site in the past. However I know the cheapest routes and tickets for most train journeys I make so now I just go direct to the train operators' sites and use their best/cheap fare finder facilities.

that I still use nationalrail rather than the greater anglia website is down to the FOMO of getting an advance ticket to St pancras from thameslink, something which hasn't happened in about a year at least.

just out of curiosity I've checked the national rail site to see how much it would cost for me to go to London for a day, booking a week in advance. And it's something like almost three times what I paid for 2 adults 3 children to do the same in 2008. Either I got a v good deal in 2008 or the bread riots will be coming next.

don't think they do those cheap advance tickets on my line. I have heard of these mythical cheap fares but never seen one to anywhere I actually need to go

Been there...

I did London <-> Liverpool dozens of times for family reasons from late ‘00s on, and it was usually a patchwork of advance singles, alternate routes and slow stopping services to be able to afford that frequency of trip. Marylebone, Snow Hill, Chester and Stafford. Maybe once in every eight visits I’d score a Virgin WC return for an acceptable price (once first class - it was cheaper!).

I check now and not only are those alternate routes quite expensive, but Avanti WC seem to have a policy of purposefully limiting advance booking. The (near-)18yo hopes to study up in the Lakes from Sept; probably easier and cheaper to visit her if she’d got a place in Poznan, Lisbon or Helsinki.

I’ve seen this no-return move greeted quite enthusiastically in some transport nerd quarters. Supposedly it will simplify ticketing - more of a European per-km model? But I don’t really know the details.

I don’t really care what happens to the return as long as there’s some kind of responsible price management, which is… unlikely.

Much as I can manage the current system (try two separate bad untransparent websites and hope for the best, then give up and use trainline), getting bargains is dependent on (a) understanding how to use the internet (b) having the internet or (c) being within walking distance of a open train station with a helpful teller. That’s pretty exclusionary!

I’ve never really understood why advances are cheaper - some legacy thing? It’s not like they cancel the train if no one books tickets in advance, afaik.

I don’t like having to book a specific timed return either, it always makes the last day of a holiday seem rushed to me

Transport Nerd Quarters.

This is what I vaguely assume to be true, and I may be way off:

In most of the EU, you want to travel 200km by train, it costs 200 times some unit cost. Doesn't matter where or when you're going, whether it's four legs of 50km, 100km there and back, 180km inter-city and a 20km branch line, whatever. There are some premiums associated with express services, maybe.

In the UK, you're at the whim of the franchisee(s), fares vary wildly depending on when you book, whether it's single vs return, if you're travelling in a group, whether you're breaking your journey, etc etc.

I'm sure I'm mischaracterising travel on the continent, but I think the price structure is simpler, if not as simple as I like to think. And I think that's what some ppl are hoping happens with this "abandon single/return" pilot thing. But I completely agree that if there's any opportunity for it to become to a route to price gouging, or added complexity, or digital-only exclusivity, that's what will happen because I no longer expect anything to get better in my lifetime. Cheers!

i always got the impression that uk fare structures were mainly there to disuade you from travelling when it was busy

Avanti WC seem to have a policy of purposefully limiting advance booking.

I'm convinced they also have a policy of making it as difficult as possible to change at stations to catch alternative services by alternative train companies. However this would need some coordination of timetables between different companies. A common occurrence is to find a cheap ticket to somewhere where you can change trains only to find the ticket price for the second part of the journey has been mysteriously bumped up... and vice versa.

(xp) More like to maximize profits by charging more for the times when people prefer to travel

There are odd little legacy ticketing arrangements hidden away on websites... like the Southern Day Saver. I'd lived down here for 25 years and I had no idea you could travel unlimited on Southern (outside morning peak) for a day for about £20. We did it a couple of times last summer (Chichester, Worthing, Hove, etc). Clearly no one else knows about it either, because the paper tickets don't work in any of the barriers.
(My summer hols as a kid were basically this - a 7-day rail rover around North Wales, the Lakes, Shrewsbury... about £12 for the family!)

Avanti WC seem to have a policy of purposefully limiting advance booking.

This is a recent post-covid thing, afaik, due to staffing issues, like cutting the London/Mcr service from 3 trains an hour to 1.

spend yr summer hols in shrewsbury :o

Fetter: yeah, I know it was associated with that... not being able to confirm the timetable more than a few weeks at a time, etc. Most other operators seem to have got back to 2019 levels of service, but I assume Avanti have some particular challenges.

Mark: I'm not sure what we did in Shrewsbury. Wrexham at least could boast an international-class pick'n'mix in Woolworths. And Rhyl briefly had a monorail.

due to staffing issues

OG shitposter MP Jared O'Mara convicted of fraud in support of his cocaine habit.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-64512690

his main crime it seems was committing fraud in such a stupid and transparent manner that it doesn't take too long for the trail to get chased up. He should have got some tips from Streeting and Cooper on how to court dark money/private health/big bookies donors, he could have paid his coke dealer off in no time.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/09/former-sheffield-hallam-mp-jared-omara-jailed-for-four-years

4 years! Can they prosecute everyone else who submitted fraudulent claims now please?

Nah, House of Lords for them.

99% of them are fucking compromised and bent as fuck, mostly within the rules of course. Also Jared got shopped to the police by his own chief of staff before he could rectify his whoopsy daisy absolutely accidental mistake honest guv claims, that doesn't usually happen I don't think.

Think the lesson here is that if you're going to be an obnoxious prick AND a corrupt MP then your best bet is to join the Conservative Party.