Barrie Shepherd

@BrianRoemmele Saw this in Colombia - local villagers used pallet trolley on the rail line to get to the river for water - fortunately there were one two trains a day!!

Public Transportation. He ain’t asking permission…

@jtwebb @LuckyLukeT1 @mpwarwick Iran could probably get a missile into the UK on a rubber boat

@LuckyLukeT1 @mpwarwick I think you need to clarify what defences UK has against ballistic missiles.

London is closer to Iranian territory than Diego Garcia is. Iran has fired ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia. The United Kingdom's ability to intercept these ballistic missiles is ... nothing.

@RichardWellings British Rail used to have a parcels service using passenger trains - trolleys all over the platforms (BRUTEs) loaded with boxes. Then magically the service stopped almost overnight

This is a good idea. Passenger trains often run nearly empty, with massive spare capacity, so using part of them for freight makes a lot of sense, especially on long-distance services. Carriages could be redesigned to make dual-use more efficient.

@ScottishSuffra1 @AcademicMrT They won't teach that in schools

@AcademicMrT No, thank you. A religion where they have child marriage, and an appaling record on abuse towards women is not something I want taught to my grandson.

My grandson came home yesterday and told his mum that they had a lesson on muslims, and their religion in school that day. Today, my family decided that as Christians, catholics, and with Jewish relatives as well as women's rights activists aplenty within our family, this was not appropriate, needed, or wanted. Monday, the head teacher will have a complaint she never imagined, she will never forget and will never wish repeated.

@JonathanLigmas @prestonjbyrne Problem is that other companies have folded and paid the fines and/or introduced the Age checking and content censoring that Ofcom are prattling on about. They should all have geoblocked the UK and waited 🤣

@prestonjbyrne This is just a mindless UK bureaucratic process playing to its conclusion. There is no serious legal thought behind it

Are we wrong? If Ofcom wants to enforce a fine here, they can come over here and sue us. They don't do that because that would involve waiving sovereign immunity and certain defeat in an American court.

@ArnoldLabour @KMc_head @prestonjbyrne I think that the way it has worked to date is that if the crime you remotely commit is also an offence in the country where you committed it then they get you!!

@KMc_head @prestonjbyrne I'm not saying there's not a lot of subtleties, nuances, etc in law regarding around this, I don't know. I'm just saying there's no simple basic principle. If there is, I don't see it. Ofcom for example banned Russia Today, doesn't matter a bit if RT isn't based in UK.

@DavidLammy Your changes will make working people pay the price of a biased two tiered Justice system.

After 14 years of Tory mismanagement, the Criminal Justice System is on the brink of collapse. Around 80,000 cases are stuck in the backlog - expecting to rise to over 200,000 by 2035. These aren’t just statistics, these are people’s lives on hold. Victims waiting months, if not years for justice. Survivors waiting for closure. Families stuck in limbo. Defendants losing their jobs, homes and security. This Labour government will not stand by while working people pay the price of a failed system. The Courts Bill is about fixing a system that has been left to fail for far too long.

@stuey_beef How will this will create "social cohesiveness" - which Starmer says his other proclamations will deliver. It's handing favouritism to one group and not the rest of us. Oh no Jury nullification should you find yourself in Court fighting definition interpretation charges

The Free Speech Union is threatening a judicial review of Labour’s anti-Muslim hostility definition. Why? Because the Public Order Act 1986 already protects free expression — including the right to criticise religion. If new definitions muddy that protection, the result could be a chilling effect on debate. That’s exactly what civil liberties law is meant to avoid.

@mubeen477 Smoothing plane.

People keep guessing, but no one gets it right. Do you know what this is?

@Captain_Deltic @sc_wadsy Track formation & maintenance has a little to do with it as well. I remember when the GW set up for high speed running. Ballast depth greater, track maintenance / tamping more frequent etc. HST services were smooth and quiet, ben counters moved and .........

@sc_wadsy Nothing to do with freight trains, all about suspension dynamics.

One advantage of HS2 having dedicated passenger trains will be the absence of freight trains damaging the track. The ride quality for IETs with their hard suspension and seats is appalling on many routes - Great Western and ECML.

@19Darren89 @mrwilldouglas Airlines ticket between two points not multiple intermediate airports - trains would be running with empty seats because someone had bought a ticket between two intermediate stations so limiting the longer journeys. Logistically it would not work

@mrwilldouglas @CrossCountryUK Until tickets, like airlines are for a designated service. Then this will always happen. Giving people with certain tickets complete flexibility to just turn up and travel without a seat reservation will always cause overcrowding at popular times.

So poor from @CrossCountryUK. This Train from Sheffield to Bristol oversold and unsafe. No seats. People packed in standing in aisles, toilets and vestibules in between carriages. It cannot be safe to travel like this. Plus the tannoy is inaudible. Stood from Sheffield to Birmingham in packed carriage by broken toilet. 1 working toilet for 3 carriages. No staff on show. One passenger nearly passed out and had to get off. Train now going in reverse back to Brum having been stationary 15 mins in a tunnel. No one has any idea what’s going on because we can’t hear announcements. This train is unsafe.

@CS_ResponseDesk @rob090872 How exactly can you assist any one 'after the event' ? I know you are stimer'd by the lack of fleet etc. so why not say that and the reasons why there can be no extra coaches /seats? Name and shame those responsible in the government.

@Twingram86 @rob090872 @inquisitor111 @mrwilldouglas Or, importantly, how they are going to be coupled to the trains - the fleets are now technically complex and adding an intermediate carriage is no longer a 'hook it up job' like in BR days. DfT stopped the planned purchase of additional coaches when Virgin were running the X C.

@rob090872 @inquisitor111 @mrwilldouglas @CrossCountryUK And where are you thinking them extra carriages are coming from?

@BladeoftheS The tariffs that Trump can apply are for goods entering the US not goods sold, by US companies, overseas. In theory, at least, Trump's tariffs should make no difference to the cost of drugs - assuming US pharma companies don't try to profit gouge.

Two months ago the UK agreed to a deal in which the NHS has to pay £3bn a year more for US drugs. The only thing we got was an agreement the UK would face no tariffs. Now we are getting 15% tariffs on everything. The deal must be torn up and no money stolen from the NHS.

@Trader__007 @robprogressive Well for one we might get drinkable coffee in high street cafes'

@robprogressive How many British people did it employ ? How much employers NI did it pay ? How much rent did it pay landlords ? How much business rates did it pay ? How much Ni & tax did the employees pay ? Without companies like Starbucks what do you think would happen to the UK ?

Last year Starbucks didn’t pay a penny in UK corporation tax That’s while bringing in around £500 million in sales Around £40 million was paid to its parent company, helping the UK arm post a loss & avoid a tax bill Shop local. And support independent businesses

@DefiantLs Banks have the right to terminate your account -then they have to release your cash. If a Court orders an account to be frozen, pending payment of fines or purging a Contempt of the Court, then you don't get your cash till you pay the fine /purge the contempt. Common sense

Irish teacher has his bank account frozen after refusing to use they/them pronouns when referring to a student. "My account is frozen, I can’t access my money, didn’t receive any notice and had €40,000 in the bank"

@NoToDigitalID My bank insisted this was imposed on them by the Financial Regulator - it's known as KYC (Know Your Customer) I just tell them that my chosen escort has raised their prices. 😎

In the UK you can’t even withdraw cash from your own bank account unless they agree with the usage… See what I/we have to live with? The world is laughing.

@PieroPasset @RupertLowe10 "What is so terrible about it???" For a start spending £1.8 B to deliver nothing of value to the population

@RupertLowe10 Why???? What is so terrible about it??? Have you got anything to hide??? 🇪🇺🇪🇺

The Cabinet Office is refusing to say whether the internal Digital ID job role we leaked is real or not. It's real. And we have more evidence from our whistleblower that we will soon be releasing... Digital ID is coming, and we all need to come together in order to fight it.

@Tesco You are taking the p*ss arn't you? Insisting on an age check to buy a bottle of simple syrup and grenadine syrup. I'm surprised maraschino cherries don't fall under the evil age check stupidity. Scope creep of the 25 nonsense the retail trade has adopted.

@heffejeffe78 @RocketGPT @splendid_pete 🤣🤣🤣🤣

@RocketGPT @splendid_pete Ukraine has been using them to perform some cartographic studies inside Russia.

Chinese companies are openly advertising these on Facebook. This one is branded “Fireblade UAV”. There is only one plausible use case for hardware like this.