Some friends of mine have been sharing a Labour election video on Facebook. The 15-second video claims that the next Labour government will make bus travel free for under-25s in England before telling people, “Get on board and vote Labour … Continue reading
Earlier last week (before the story about the multiple rapist John Worboys being released from prison) the news was dominated by two stories, one about health and one about transport. The first was that the government had instructed British NHS … Continue reading
The juggernaut of HS2, the new high-speed rail link from London to Birmingham and, we are told, eventually beyond, ploughs on. Today the government awarded the contracts to various major construction companies to build the first stretch of the new … Continue reading
Earlier today I heard Owen Jones, the Labour-supporting Guardian columnist and author of Chavs and The Establishment, on Radio 4’s Today programme defending Jeremy Corbyn’s plans to “re-nationalise” the railways if he became prime minister. He explained that the action … Continue reading
Yesterday, the Trump administration announced that ‘large’ electronic items such as tablets and laptops were to be banned from US-bound flights on some airlines, all based in the Arab world or Turkey, from airports in those countries to the USA. … Continue reading
Last Thursday a major (for this country) storm brought strong winds and rain, bringing down trees and power cables across coastal areas and central and eastern England and Scotland. Virtually all the major railway networks suffered serious disruption, the main … Continue reading
‘Wheelchair v buggy’: Disabled man wins Supreme Court case — BBC News Today the Supreme Court gave its ruling on whether FirstBus, a major provider of bus services throughout the UK, discriminated against a man who was unable to travel … Continue reading
Today the government announced its preferred option for airport expansion in the south-east of England, and as had been expected, that was a third runway at Heathrow in west London. The other main option had been a second runway at … Continue reading
Earlier this week Jeremy Corbyn (right) gave his support to considering reintroducing women-only carriages on trains, which were found in the UK until the 1970s and still in a number of other countries, particularly Japan. He actually did not come … Continue reading
Yesterday a story started circulating on social media in which an American female Muslim chaplain named Tahera Ahmad, who was travelling on a United Airlines flight (run by a partner, Shuttle America), asked for a Diet Coke and was given … Continue reading
Earlier this week it was announced that the route for the proposed high-speed rail line from London to Manchester and Leeds, known as High Speed 2, had been released. The line is already projected to cut a swathe through the … Continue reading
Tomrrow (Sunday) the last section of the London ‘Overground’ (a mostly overground but partly underground group of railway services which run mostly just outside central London) is opening; this is a line from Clapham Junction to Surrey Quays, where it … Continue reading
Epileptic Jess McGee, 19 Ordered Off Bus After Driver Calls Her Illness A ‘Pisstake’ The other day my new Asperger’s job consultant in Kingston asked me if I had a Freedom Pass (a free bus and train pass issued to … Continue reading
Where are the new airports and railways we so desperately need? | Will Hutton | Comment is free | The Observer This article by Will Hutton appeared in today’s Observer, arguing in favour of building a third runway at Heathrow … Continue reading
Earlier today I went to an exhibition for Crossrail, the project to build a railway line under London from east to west, to match the existing north-south route. The project was begun in 1989 after Thameslink was opened, but this … Continue reading
This past week or so, there have been two major news stories in the UK about men arrested for saying things on the Internet that made a strong suggestion of violence that may not have been meant, but because of … Continue reading
The X26 is the bus I’ve been commuting to work on most of this week. It has one main benefit, which is that it runs directly from New Malden, where I live, to Croydon, where I’ve had to go for … Continue reading
There is an article in the current issue of The Spectator by Andrew Gilligan, attacking a project to make Green Park station, an important London Underground interchange, wheelchair accessible or, in London Transport jargon, to provide ‘step-free’ access from the … Continue reading
American Greyhound buses to ply UK roads from Portsmouth to London | UK news | guardian.co.uk (also here) This shouldn’t really be any surprise since the First group operates bus services around the UK and Greyhound is just another of … Continue reading
Yesterday, the government decided to withdraw the franchise of National Express, a coach operator, for running long-distance trains on the East Coast Main Line, which despite its name, runs from London to the north-east, including most of Yorkshire, Newcastle, Edinburgh … Continue reading