Ben Houchen - Guardian

gregorgregorovich said:
So, someone who says "its getting tiresome" isn't whinging. Funny old game.
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Erm my remark was a comment Whinging is achingly repeating discord incessantly
gregorgregorovich said:
Well you replied to my remark/comment about your remark/comment, so it seemed pretty specific to me and telling me what whinging is, is pretty patronising, which means.......... bloody hell I'm at it now.
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Grow up . Any chance you're a teenager ?
 
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Redwurzel said:
Sunak married into a very rich family (hundreds of millions) he can afford lots of very nice houses. The job he has now he does for something to do and influence opposed to the salary.

Having him Richmond/Hambledon MP - I do think its helped to get some new Government jobs to Darlington. If he was MP for Guildford I doubt it would have happened.

Ref loss of funding to Local Government, yes it is fairly hidden cutback and significant amount of money especially in the Cameron years. It went on under Thatcher too. I have always questioned why 95% of our taxes go the Central Government and the EU, and only a tiny % to Local Government in this country. Thus local government relies on higher government for a lot of its funding.
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Those treasury jobs? I'll believe it when I see it.
 
Borobarmy said:
Erm my remark was a comment Whinging is achingly repeating discord incessantly

Grow up ! Any chance you're a teenager
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You grow up neh neh neh and no far far from it. No need to repeat yourself by explaining to me what whinging is, again. Patronising and condescending all in one go, well done.
 
Borobarmy said:
I have to say he's done infinitely more than Blair and Mandelson ever did over 12 years tenure .

I'm not even going to say much more than what exemplifies my point is a chap by the name of Stuart Bell !
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Blair achieved much in his time, minimum wage, equal rights, massive investment in education and the NHS for starters. Remind me if the achievements of houchan? Excluding promises
 
Borobarmy said:
I have to say he's done infinitely more than Blair and Mandelson ever did over 12 years tenure .

I'm not even going to say much more than what exemplifies my point is a chap by the name of Stuart Bell !
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The first sentence is complete nonsense.

The second sentence - yeah, Stuart Bell was very poor and was far too comfortable in a safe seat.

A lot of it isn't 'left wing venom' from me, it's just being tired of being told the sky is blue and the sun is out, when all the evidence tells you it is ******* down.
 
To everyone

A fairer comparison is Thatcher and Blair - both long serving PMs.

I preferred Blair of the 2 by a significant margin, but he didn't do enough on private sector investment in places like Teesside. Not everyone can or wants to work in education or the NHS.
 
Redwurzel said:
To everyone

A fairer comparison is Thatcher and Blair - both long serving PMs.

I preferred Blair of the 2 by a significant margin, but he didn't do enough on private sector investment in places like Teesside. Not everyone can or wants to work in education or the NHS
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American_Mary said:
He was very quick to make up a lot of lies and pull in a few favours at Westminster to make sure it was demolished, it's amazing how he had more information on the Tower than were in the structural reports, he mentioned carbonisation of the structural steel, but this wasn't tested for and was not part of the report, he further contradicted the same report which said there was no imminent danger of collapse, not according to Mr Houchen who insisted that demolition was urgent due to the state of the tower.

He originally said that listed status had been obtained without a site visit, then backtracked to say it had been granted by a junior member acting beyond their remit, when this was disproved he said nothing as it was too late and the tower had already knocked been knocked down, he claimed that it needed to be demolished to make way for the GEC site, however the Tower stood 700m away from the boundary of the GEC site, so another fib.

For some reason Mr Houchen was very keen to get rid of the landmark tower, going to extraordinary lengths to make sure it was demolished as quickly as possible...
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Except this was in the report. It was repeated numerous times throughout by Atkins as irreversible damage and the reason why the life span of the building is limited to 20 years at most.
 
I'm pretty sure there was significant private sector investment at both the Wilton and North Tees chemical sites, particularly after ICI upped sticks, unless Mo Mowlam was telling us whoppers at the time.
 
MFP said:
Except this was in the report. It was repeated numerous times throughout by Atkins as irreversible damage and the reason why the life span of the building is limited to 20 years at most.
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Apart from it isn’t as they only did a visual test, with binoculars and a drone which would not give you any detail on levels of carbonisation of the structural steel nor is there any mention of phenolphthalein testing of the concrete which you would need to do to accurately assess the decay.

I’m not disputing the lifespan estimate given the age and disrepair of the structure but as the report states there was no imminent danger of collapse and the building was ‘generally robust’ so why did Houchen feel the need to act so quickly removing any possibility of appeal or full testing and inspection to be carried out ?

The estimated cost for repair, given worse case scenario, and maintaining the Tower was an additional £4.2 million over 20 years and the £9 million quoted was a bespoke upgrade with major internal redesign, given that Houchen’s budget over the next 4 years is £832 million if repeated £3.3 billion over the remaining life span of the Tower it’s not a huge investment had the will been there to keep it.
 
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You claimed the mention of carbonation was not part of the report, this is a lie, it was.
Are you a structural engineer by any chance? I'm not, which is why I will defer to the expertise of those who are, in this case, Atkins. And so unless you provide me with any valid and supported reason to think those expertise should be questioned I don't know why you think I would simply take your word undermining their claims given you've already lied and then doubled-down on it.
 
Redwurzel said:
To everyone

A fairer comparison is Thatcher and Blair - both long serving PMs.

I preferred Blair of the 2 by a significant margin, but he didn't do enough on private sector investment in places like Teesside. Not everyone can or wants to work in education or the NHS.
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He did very little for us. Compare with Sheffield and Hull with Blunket and Fatso where they had massive investment.
But we got some cracking public toilets in MIMA.
 
I had relatives at Air Products that went they told me. They made industrial gases.

Tata @ Redcar went into mothball

Samsung (new factory) shut at Billingham

ICI vanished. OK there were new purchases but I believe redundancies.

The feeling I got was winding down of manufacturing and not a lot replacing it.
 
zzzzz said:
He did very little for us. Compare with Sheffield and Hull with Blunket and Fatso where they had massive investment.
But we got some cracking public toilets in MIMA.
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Recall reading an interview with Steve Gibson who expressed his dismay at the lack of promised help he received from Blair when the club was trying to set up a scheme to help poor young kids in the area back in the 90s.

Some other interesting bits and pieces from him too about the town, the club, his role, Henry Moszkowicz, etc. if anyone is interested. Page 110 onward.
http://www.almerimartoday.com/jwuploads/SteveGibsonInterview.doc
 
MFP said:
You claimed the mention of carbonation was not part of the report, this is a lie, it was.
Are you a structural engineer by any chance? I'm not, which is why I will defer to the expertise of those who are, in this case, Atkins. And so unless you provide me with any valid and supported reason to think those expertise should be questioned I don't know why you think I would simply take your word undermining their claims given you've already lied and then doubled-down on it.
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The only mention of carbonation of the concrete is in the summary, as someone who has worked on several projects were concrete and steel carbonisation is an issue that we have to deal with, how would you establish that carbonation has taken place without taking a test ?

There is no mention of carbonation tests in the report therefore it can’t be proven to be true, if there’s no test you cannot surmise that carbonation is present…I used to work for Atkins in Leeds back in the day and was part of a team doing conditions surveys in old buildings, a test would always be required, if a doctor said you’ve broken your leg would you take his word or ask for an x-ray.

Yes I’m doubling down on the fact that you can’t say with certainty that carbonation is present without doing phenolphthalein or other tests, a binocular and drone survey would not give you the necessary level of detail to give anything beyond a rough approximation of shelf life and internal deterioration.
 
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