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Big Ben

I find it hard to believe that there are people on here who are keen to support spending £80,000,000 on repairing an old Victorian clock.
Who priced the job, Bodgit and Scarper or a Tory Party funders company.:love:
I find it hard to believe that there are people on here who are keen to support spending £80,000,000 on repairing an old Victorian clock.
Who priced the job, Bodgit and Scarper or a Tory Party funders company.:love:

probably the same people Who built the Scottish government ???
 
Nope, that is an embarrassment, as is the way Donald Dewar's statue has been treated.
No more or no less embarrassing I’d say than the traffic cone that has adorned his head since students stuck one there during Glasgow students charities week some 40yrs ago - a not dissimilar socio-political statement.
 
as you say and your fiures shows london gets more per head than the rest of England and more is spent on London than the whole of Scotland. any money spent by Scotland comes from the SG, where as Londons comes from the rest of the UK until recently now Eng and as your figures show more per head than the rest of Eng


twist it as much as you like, but if BB where anywear else it would not be getting 80M spashed on it.

Of course, more is spent on London, it's population is near twice the size of Scotlands! That's why we look at the per head figure, where London gets less than Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland. Your argument is akin to claiming shooting 50 for 9 holes is better than shooting 75 for 18 because 50 is less shots than 75.

Londons money doesn't come from the rest of the UK, it generates more than it spends, that's the surplus I keep mentioning. London and the SouthEast actually provide money that gets used by the rest of the UK including Scotland.

Ignoring whether Scotland as a whole subsidises or receives a subsidy from the rest of the UK, if we just assume that Scotland does, in fact, subsidise the UK it actually would actually be paying for N. Ireland, Wales and all English regions except London and the South East.
 
Of course, more is spent on London, it's population is near twice the size of Scotlands! That's why we look at the per head figure, where London gets less than Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland. Your argument is akin to claiming shooting 50 for 9 holes is better than shooting 75 for 18 because 50 is less shots than 75.

Londons money doesn't come from the rest of the UK, it generates more than it spends, that's the surplus I keep mentioning. London and the SouthEast actually provide money that gets used by the rest of the UK including Scotland.

Ignoring whether Scotland as a whole subsidises or receives a subsidy from the rest of the UK, if we just assume that Scotland does, in fact, subsidise the UK it actually would actually be paying for N. Ireland, Wales and all English regions except London and the South East.

Let's not start writing sensible stuff at this stage, they wont like it !
 
It’s hard to get your act together when your budget is cut by 40%.
closing libraries and youth centres but big money tree when it suits.

Puzzled why you seem to believe London's city hall is not having to deal with the same swingeing cuts to its budgets... On top of which it is having to deal with a 100% cut in subsidy, from Westminster, for the public transport system... Even in election year the Mayor is having to apply the maximum rise allowed in local taxes... Something the tory candidate will make the most of whilst glossing over it is a tory governments cuts that are forcing the rise...
 
Perhaps it's the fact that there is a large concentration of people coupled with congestion charges and lots of traffic means that more people use public transport as the only viable option.
Halton Transport in my old town went bust a couple of weeks ago. That provided a valuable service to many people and it will leave a big hole for older people and kids who used to take it to school. It's very sad.

For me, not enough folk make use of public transport... If the government's policy is encourage more to use public transport [to meet its green policies] then taking away the subsidy is the wrong way to go about it...
 
Indeed - how about the government funding the rebuilding of Glasgow Art School (maybe it is) - since for Glaswegians and many Scots (and tourists to Scotland) that building is as emblematic a building and important heritage-wise for Glasgow and Scotland as BB is for London - indeed probably more so for many Glaswegians...


How about the insurers meeting their obligations? Believe they did first time round...
 
Puzzled why you seem to believe London's city hall is not having to deal with the same swingeing cuts to its budgets... On top of which it is having to deal with a 100% cut in subsidy, from Westminster, for the public transport system... Even in election year the Mayor is having to apply the maximum rise allowed in local taxes... Something the tory candidate will make the most of whilst glossing over it is a tory governments cuts that are forcing the rise...
So a youth club over the road from BB will close while 80 mil is spent on a clock.
Don’t get me wrong the tower is iconic and needs to be maintained ,but 80 mil.!
Whoever did the estimate for repairs should be sacked.
They just love spending other people’s money.
 
For me, not enough folk make use of public transport... If the government's policy is encourage more to use public transport [to meet its green policies] then taking away the subsidy is the wrong way to go about it...
I agree with this .
But a lot of places don’t have the public transport that major city’s have.
That needs sorting but seems to be forgotten until the next election.
 
So a youth club over the road from BB will close while 80 mil is spent on a clock.
Don’t get me wrong the tower is iconic and needs to be maintained ,but 80 mil.!
Whoever did the estimate for repairs should be sacked.
They just love spending other people’s money.


Unfortunately for reasons 'regular' folk [like me and you] can't understand there are different budgets to look after people and a separate pot to build stuff [needed or not]... Still puzzles me how £52M was totally wasted on something that never should've been proposed in the first place...
 
Cheaper commissioning Rolex to make you a nice new clock and sell the bell for scrap.

Be easier and far more cost effective to do away with the armies of pen pushing box ticking desk jockeys of bureaucracy... We've made a start with Brussels just need to finish the job and deal with all the other layers of self serving bureaucracy...
 
Be easier and far more cost effective to do away with the armies of pen pushing box ticking desk jockeys of bureaucracy... We've made a start with Brussels just need to finish the job and deal with all the other layers of self serving bureaucracy...
Exactly.

Whilst I agree that Big Ben should be repaired I reckon parts and labour probably account for 10mil and the rest is bureaucracy and back handers.
 
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