Comment on Over £1 billion to boost bus services across the country as bus fares capped at £3.
HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 3 weeks agoOnly if you are looking for false negatives.
The story is the discount was planned to end. But has instead been reduced by 50%.
You can only claim it is an increase if you claim a discount was not planned to end. And that is just a lie.
You could argue that the story is that labour didn’t decide to continue the full discount (and have therefore put up the price) when they could have.
I would prefer more/better services over price, but a lot of others depends on the current price of the existing busses.
Agreed.
Hell it would be a fair argument to renationalise all buses and trains and make the service free as a whole.
Honestly that would be a very logical way about doing things. Companies (specifically high street retail but all companies) would benifit hugely. It would trully encourage Public transport over car use . Assuming matched with investment in services.
And remember the lack of rural public transport since 2010 is forcing more and more non working retired or disabled people to be forced to move into cities etc. This is hugly increasing competition for housing and increasing the cost/distance lower paid workers are having to travel to work.
But honestly non of these options was ever on offer. Yes its entirly fair to say hay more could be done.
But it is no way acceptable to attack people as shill just for sharing the announcement as is. It is just attacking for the sake of attacking.
They could have renewed it at £2 and still increased the funding without taking it from people who rely on public transport.
No false dichotomies please.
They could have. And that would be cool.
But it would only be a false dichotomy if the true positives and negatives were completely ignored and only the reduced discount was considered.
The simple fact is UK bus services have been hugly underfunded and cut under tories since 2010. Many rural areas litrally no longer haveing any public transport at all.
This causes huge issues. As it forces disabled(non working) or elderly retired people to move into the very housing that lower paid working class people need to compete for. Making the cost of transport a greater part of lower income daily costs.
The simple fact is the tories had no plans to continue the £2 discount forever. And had absolutely no plans at all to invest in improving buses. (Or responding the long since closed trainlines).
Yes their are lots of thing that could be done better.
Hell their is a huge huge argument for making all public transport free. Its pretty much what is needed to ensure reduced car use. Amd would hugly help UK High streets etc. But again can only help if we are also spending money on expanding the existing destroyed public transport system we have.
No one with any brains expects this budget to be a left wing give away. No matter how much many of us may feel that would actually be better. That is just never what either party promised.
But to accuse people of being shills and outright refuse to discuse the positives that are being offered is the very definition of being biased and dishonest in comparisons.
I agree with every point you made, and obviously this is better than having no cap at all, but this is exactly what makes the argument a false dichotomy, which the government is doing more than you were. Any positives are only relative to the single invented alternative, not any of the better solutions.
The simple fact is that public services like public transport, the NHS, postal service etc should not need to be profitable. They should never be expected to support themselves financially and should be funded by taxation on those who can most afford, not increasing the cost for use by those that most require it’s services.
Public services will continue to crack and fail until we have a government that understands this.
zante@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
That’s so ridiculous I’m lost for words, quite frankly. To suggest a 50% increase is a positive because it could have been worse is at best very stupid and worst, dishonest .
It seems feddit has been captured by the party faithful . At least we know now.
HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
I never said it was a positive.
And claiming the Tory discount was not due to end is dishonest.
I said it was a 50% reduction in discount. I made no claim of positive or negative. And pointed out the positive of the first large scale public investment in buses outside London in over 40 years.
Do not put words in my mouth.
Now to actually claim the positives here. The tories planed to end the £2 cap costing about £225m a year and pay nothing to expand bus services back into the huge number of rural routs they have been ended over their leadership.
The Labour Party instead invested £151 in the £3 discount Plus another £925M in 25-26 to introduce new bus routes, make services more frequent and protect crucial bus routes for local communities.
Now explain how you can claim this is not an overall improovement.
zante@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
The words in your mouth are here for everyone to see. That’s enough for me.
HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
Translation. You have no answers. And are the very tory shill you accused op of being.
Cool don’t worry everyone reading can tell.