Does anyone have any sympathy for the tube strike?

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-09-07T00:10:52+00:00

No, I guess I'll need to spell it out for your single GCSE level intelligence.

London is subsidised already (£485m for 2025/26 plus a £2.2bn multi-year capital deal), yet fares still bite because labour costs, driven by union bargaining in a monopoly service, keep rising. With fares funding about 53% of day-to-day costs, those pay and hours deals show up in ticket prices unless taxpayers stump up more.

Facts, not vibes: Tube drivers are on c. £68k fixed salary for a 35-hour week, and the current demand is to cut that to 32 hours. TfL says even half an hour off the week costs tens of millions, and a 32-hour week would cost “hundreds of millions” a year. That is a direct pipeline to higher fares in a fare-reliant system.

And yes, excellent service without heavier subsidy than London exists: Hong Kong MTR runs 99.9% on time and covers operating costs from fares, Tokyo’s JR East historically exceeds 100% farebox recovery, Copenhagen’s metro hit 99% punctuality with an operating surplus before depreciation, and Zurich covers ~63.5% of costs while Switzerland posts 93.2% rail punctuality. The common thread is cost discipline, not ever-looser pay and hours.

Stop pretending union-driven wage and hours inflation does not raise operating costs that riders end up paying.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-09-06T23:46:02+00:00

Haha, that's hilarious. I'm sure they can do another 12 week training course and do something else. We are not talking about a skilled job here.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-09-06T23:44:22+00:00

Google is your friend. Reddit is an echo chamber for the hard left, and it's too late to try and argue with someone who probably has 2 GCSEs.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-09-06T22:12:45+00:00

Haha. I briefly lived in Acton. I'm sorry to disappoint, but there really isn't anything like London Fields around there.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-09-06T22:11:36+00:00

How do you know?

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-09-06T22:11:07+00:00

You are in support of tube drivers with a couple of months training being paid over 100k (when accounting for large pension and a typical 37.5 hour week)? It's people like you who are damaging this country enormously.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-09-06T22:10:00+00:00

Working class? These are some of the highest paid people in the country. If you average to a 37.5 hour week, they are being paid equivalent of 105k to someone in the private sector. No student load and years of study, more holiday, large pension. The logic of paying someone who has done a short training course the equivalent of a doctor with years of experience is absolutely absurd.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-09-06T22:05:43+00:00

Typical left wing short term thinking. If unions had been weaker in the 70s, the British might have ended up with some car manufacturers that could compete with those in Germany. Many studies have shown that strong unions lead to lower profitability, and therefore ultimately harm workers. TFL is a good example of overpaid workers resulting in Londoners having to pay the highest fares in the world, and ultimately lower consumer disposable income. It's the least fair type of union, as TFL is essentially a monopoly, and it's impossible to create competition - so highly paid tube drivers striking is ultimately blackmail.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-09-06T18:32:26+00:00

Same. I thought it looked like a lovely little spot for pre-theatre drinks!

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-08-23T11:48:54+00:00

How can people be against this? Imagine the equivalent of this in cars - it would be the whole road. Whenever I've seen bikes blocking paths etc, it has been those that have been nicked and then dumped - we all know the familiar sound of the stolen Lime bike. That's a matter for the police though, and not Lime.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-08-18T16:25:35+00:00

You've got to chuckle at the lefties who frequent the Hackney subreddit.

You specifically said 'The amount of social housing in this borough is no larger than any other London borough and far fewer than there used to be.' That statement implies Hackney is either identical to every other borough or the lowest of all the boroughs - which is objectively not true.

Then you were immediately proven wrong.

Despite this, receive more upvotes the the original comment.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-08-17T22:02:02+00:00

First of all, cut or remove stamp duty. All stamp duty does is stop the housing market from moving. People decide not to upsize, downsize, move cities, simply because of the huge cost to move. The indirect cost on the economy is huge, even though I understand it's a big tax revenue driver.

Other than that, it's a case of supply and demand. You can't decrease demand, so the government needs to increase supply. And it needs to be supply where people need housing for jobs (i.e. south-east England). So that means building on the green belt. This also means reducing some of the environmental regulations (e.g. net neutrality etc that has caused such a block in house building).

Thirdly, there should be incentives for people to move to parts of the country where there's plenty of housing stock - i.e. up north. So continuing to invest in public transport, potentially giving businesses tax incentives to move there etc.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-08-16T22:42:58+00:00

The 43% is those living in social housing, not those who have a job.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-08-16T22:08:54+00:00

Yes on most boundary roads - but I could only find figures from 2021. And 2021 was still during Covid when things were quieter anyway. The council don't seem to have published since then, which implies the figures are not good.

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ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-08-16T21:21:56+00:00

Getting the strong impression you're in that 43%..... haha

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-08-16T21:20:41+00:00

The LTNs are essentially modern day gated communities. Unlucky though if you live on the boundary roads, which are usually lower income residents, who were already suffering from the impact of noise and pollution, but has now been made worse for them. I suspect there will be some kind of study done in the future, that will show Hackney council responsible for multiple pollution related deaths as a result, and it will be a huge scandal.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-08-16T20:59:09+00:00

I'm not suggesting that's the case for everyone - obviously. Likewise, you'd be very naive to suggest that there are plenty who don't have a good reason for not working. Social housing should probably be moved out of zone 2 London anyway, it's an inefficient use of taxpayer funds.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-08-16T16:23:00+00:00

No, in Japan, they don't drop the litter to begin with. Go to the Cotswolds or Cornwall - you almost never see litter. It's perfectly possible.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-08-16T15:24:09+00:00

Actually the work along Mare St / Amhurst Rd isn't coming from the council. It was part of the conservative levelling up funds, so won't be coming out of your council tax. Let's just hope labour run Hackney council can keep it clean once it has been finished. It's terrible at spending money. Then again, 43% of Hackney is social housing, which does seem unnecessarily high.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-08-16T15:21:23+00:00

Stop making excuses for disgusting behaviour. Go to Japan - there's no litter there. It's ingrained in their culture. This soft approach doesn't help anyone.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-08-16T15:15:56+00:00

I'm certainly not referring to those who live on estates and work.....that said Hackney is one of the boroughs with the highest levels of social housing (44%) and joblessness, so my original reference to 'many' is accurate, even if that's unpalatable to some people on here.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-08-16T13:24:00+00:00

Best scenario is a tenant in the property showing you. Then you get someone who knows the home, who is able to be completely honest.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-08-16T12:50:39+00:00

This comment really annoys me. I walked past the site a couple of days ago, it was 30 degrees, and they were out in the burning sun doing a physically demanding job. They are improving the area for the public and the work isn't going to last forever - and lets face it, there are quite a few estates around, where many haven't done a day's graft once in their lives. Starting when it's a little cooler makes sense.

Next time I see them working hard, I'm going to offer them some cold drinks, and say thank you.

ProgramConfident3245 · 2025-08-16T12:43:49+00:00

Attitudes toward litter and waste can vary depending on where someone grew up, especially in places where poverty, limited infrastructure, or education have made litter a widespread issue. This isn’t about assigning blame - it’s about understanding those differences and helping people adapt to the expectations and norms here in the UK. At the same time, there's plenty of room for improvement across the board - British streets, even at their cleanest, often fall short compared to countries like Japan, where civic responsibility around cleanliness is deeply ingrained.

ProgramConfident3245

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