Brexits cost the UK economy loads already . Amazing how Bozo didn’t moan about that but now costs to the economy are being cited as a reason to go ahead with Huawei.
Do you think we’ll be allowed to mention the costs to the economy of not getting an FTA with the EU?
No because in Leave world they’re happy for economic costs when it suits them . It’s total hypocrisy. If the UK is so bothered about sovereignty and has trashed a 47 year relationship over it you’d think a few years more re 5G to preserve this much vaunted sovereignty would be worth it .
On Huawei, there was no other realistic choice if we want to be part if what 5G is going to enable. It gives the UK the chance to be a 4IR leader rather than follower.
That;s the point isn't it? There is no other realistinc choice. People who can't provide stuff can't complain when we choose people who can.
I’d have been happy for a delay to 5G and the UK sorting this out with other more trusted partners .
What a shameful decision by this government who have wanked on about sovereignty and now have handed a large chunk of that to China !
So you accuse the National Security Counsel of handing sovereignty over to China when in truth you really are trying to use the decision as an attack on Boris as you hate Brexit
It’s about consistency . All we’ve heard for 3 years is sovereignty repeated over and over ! And a few months in Bozo has given a chunk of that away . Which proves my point Brexit and sovereignty yet another sham !
Brexits cost the UK economy loads already . Amazing how Bozo didn’t moan about that but now costs to the economy are being cited as a reason to go ahead with Huawei.
Do you think we’ll be allowed to mention the costs to the economy of not getting an FTA with the EU?
No because in Leave world they’re happy for economic costs when it suits them . It’s total hypocrisy. If the UK is so bothered about sovereignty and has trashed a 47 year relationship over it you’d think a few years more re 5G to preserve this much vaunted sovereignty would be worth it .
That does of course cut both ways. Should we allow our procurement decisions to be made by the US ?
This is all very interesting but really just another pointless poll given Corbyn is stepping down in 2 months.
Far more relevant would be pollsters like Yougov producing polls comparing Labour under different leadership candidates v the Tories as they did at the time of the Tory leadership contest last summer
Brexits cost the UK economy loads already . Amazing how Bozo didn’t moan about that but now costs to the economy are being cited as a reason to go ahead with Huawei.
Do you think we’ll be allowed to mention the costs to the economy of not getting an FTA with the EU?
No because in Leave world they’re happy for economic costs when it suits them . It’s total hypocrisy. If the UK is so bothered about sovereignty and has trashed a 47 year relationship over it you’d think a few years more re 5G to preserve this much vaunted sovereignty would be worth it .
That does of course cut both ways. Should we allow our procurement decisions to be made by the US ?
No of course not . But on this matter I agree with the USA even if Trumps in office !
I’d have been happy for a delay to 5G and the UK sorting this out with other more trusted partners .
What a shameful decision by this government who have wanked on about sovereignty and now have handed a large chunk of that to China !
So you accuse the National Security Counsel of handing sovereignty over to China when in truth you really are trying to use the decision as an attack on Boris as you hate Brexit
It’s about consistency . All we’ve heard for 3 years is sovereignty repeated over and over ! And a few months in Bozo has given a chunk of that away . Which proves my point Brexit and sovereignty yet another sham !
This is a sovereign decision by HMG. You do need to get over Brexit
Brexits cost the UK economy loads already . Amazing how Bozo didn’t moan about that but now costs to the economy are being cited as a reason to go ahead with Huawei.
Do you think we’ll be allowed to mention the costs to the economy of not getting an FTA with the EU?
No because in Leave world they’re happy for economic costs when it suits them . It’s total hypocrisy. If the UK is so bothered about sovereignty and has trashed a 47 year relationship over it you’d think a few years more re 5G to preserve this much vaunted sovereignty would be worth it .
The other point you miss is that the costs of any other decision would be borne directly by private industry rather than the government.
I’d have been happy for a delay to 5G and the UK sorting this out with other more trusted partners .
What a shameful decision by this government who have wanked on about sovereignty and now have handed a large chunk of that to China !
So you accuse the National Security Counsel of handing sovereignty over to China when in truth you really are trying to use the decision as an attack on Boris as you hate Brexit
You are ignoring the fact that Huawei has been classified as a high risk vendor. Quite why we should all be so relaxed about involving such a vendor in our infrastructure I’m not sure. The idea that capping market share at 35% will mitigate the risk strikes me as laughably naive, as does the idea that there can be a clear demarcation between core and non-core with regard to such a network.
Silly old Hodge - the relevance of that 'narrative', if it ever had one, died with the GE result. The question now is, has Boris managed to antagonise Donald over the one issue where Donald actually has a point?
I’d have been happy for a delay to 5G and the UK sorting this out with other more trusted partners .
What a shameful decision by this government who have wanked on about sovereignty and now have handed a large chunk of that to China !
So you accuse the National Security Counsel of handing sovereignty over to China when in truth you really are trying to use the decision as an attack on Boris as you hate Brexit
It’s about consistency . All we’ve heard for 3 years is sovereignty repeated over and over ! And a few months in Bozo has given a chunk of that away . Which proves my point Brexit and sovereignty yet another sham !
This is a sovereign decision by HMG. You do need to get over Brexit
I got over Brexit the minute my new EU passport arrived ! I’m allowed to moan about the Huawei decision , clearly sovereignty is only an issue when it suits some Leavers !
I’d have been happy for a delay to 5G and the UK sorting this out with other more trusted partners .
What a shameful decision by this government who have wanked on about sovereignty and now have handed a large chunk of that to China !
So you accuse the National Security Counsel of handing sovereignty over to China when in truth you really are trying to use the decision as an attack on Boris as you hate Brexit
It’s about consistency . All we’ve heard for 3 years is sovereignty repeated over and over ! And a few months in Bozo has given a chunk of that away . Which proves my point Brexit and sovereignty yet another sham !
This is a sovereign decision by HMG. You do need to get over Brexit
I got over Brexit the minute my new EU passport arrived ! I’m allowed to moan about the Huawei decision , clearly sovereignty is only an issue when it suits some Leavers !
Like I said, to govern is to choose from 51:49 choices.
Or in this case, to fudge.
From my reading its not as if there were alternative providers queueing up to offer a decent alternative. The bigger question is surely why that is.
We've already established that it's because China has determinedly supported the development of this technology, in a way that the West can't (without flouting its rules on government support to industry).
That is actually a fair part of Trump's beef with China on trade, in that they are in breech of international rules on this. The remedy is less clear...
I’d have been happy for a delay to 5G and the UK sorting this out with other more trusted partners .
What a shameful decision by this government who have wanked on about sovereignty and now have handed a large chunk of that to China !
So you accuse the National Security Counsel of handing sovereignty over to China when in truth you really are trying to use the decision as an attack on Boris as you hate Brexit
You are ignoring the fact that Huawei has been classified as a high risk vendor. Quite why we should all be so relaxed about involving such a vendor in our infrastructure I’m not sure. The idea that capping market share at 35% will mitigate the risk strikes me as laughably naive, as does the idea that there can be a clear demarcation between core and non-core with regard to such a network.
What;s the alternative? I'm sure Boris would love to have given the Americans the business if they had offered an alternative. Answer came there none.
Its a bit like a supplier of motorbikes complaining when someone buys a car.
Like I said, to govern is to choose from 51:49 choices.
Or in this case, to fudge.
From my reading its not as if there were alternative providers queueing up to offer a decent alternative.
The bigger question is surely why that is.
Is that actually correct - that there are no alternatives? What are Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Vietnam and Korea doing then?
Korea is something of a special case in that it has its own domestic industry to support. From an economic POV, it is entirely sensible for them. The cost to our tech sector in delaying 5G, given the areas where we do actually compete, might be considerable. I'm not convinced that's the case for the others on your list.
Brexits cost the UK economy loads already . Amazing how Bozo didn’t moan about that but now costs to the economy are being cited as a reason to go ahead with Huawei.
Do you think we’ll be allowed to mention the costs to the economy of not getting an FTA with the EU?
No because in Leave world they’re happy for economic costs when it suits them . It’s total hypocrisy. If the UK is so bothered about sovereignty and has trashed a 47 year relationship over it you’d think a few years more re 5G to preserve this much vaunted sovereignty would be worth it .
The other point you miss is that the costs of any other decision would be borne directly by private industry rather than the government.
I’d have been happy for a delay to 5G and the UK sorting this out with other more trusted partners .
What a shameful decision by this government who have wanked on about sovereignty and now have handed a large chunk of that to China !
So you accuse the National Security Counsel of handing sovereignty over to China when in truth you really are trying to use the decision as an attack on Boris as you hate Brexit
You are ignoring the fact that Huawei has been classified as a high risk vendor. Quite why we should all be so relaxed about involving such a vendor in our infrastructure I’m not sure. The idea that capping market share at 35% will mitigate the risk strikes me as laughably naive, as does the idea that there can be a clear demarcation between core and non-core with regard to such a network.
What;s the alternative? I'm sure Boris would love to have given the Americans the business if they had offered an alternative. Answer came there none.
Its a bit like a supplier of motorbikes complaining when someone buys a car.
Why didn;t you choose our motorbikes?
err...we wanted a car and you don;t make them....
Ask those countries not going with Huawei what they are doing. Maybe even work with them. Conveniently some of them are in the Commonwealth which so many of Boris’s fan club are usually praising to the skies.
I’d have been happy for a delay to 5G and the UK sorting this out with other more trusted partners .
What a shameful decision by this government who have wanked on about sovereignty and now have handed a large chunk of that to China !
So you accuse the National Security Counsel of handing sovereignty over to China when in truth you really are trying to use the decision as an attack on Boris as you hate Brexit
It’s about consistency . All we’ve heard for 3 years is sovereignty repeated over and over ! And a few months in Bozo has given a chunk of that away . Which proves my point Brexit and sovereignty yet another sham !
This is a sovereign decision by HMG. You do need to get over Brexit
I got over Brexit the minute my new EU passport arrived ! I’m allowed to moan about the Huawei decision , clearly sovereignty is only an issue when it suits some Leavers !
There is no such thing as an EU passport
It says EU on it and affords me my FOM rights . So in my eyes it is an EU passport .
So with Huawei decision today and seemingly a decision on HS2 imminent, are the government making their unpopular decisions during the honeymoon period when there is no opposition to challenge ?
Like I said, to govern is to choose from 51:49 choices.
Or in this case, to fudge.
From my reading its not as if there were alternative providers queueing up to offer a decent alternative.
The bigger question is surely why that is.
Is that actually correct - that there are no alternatives? What are Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Vietnam and Korea doing then?
There are no current alternatives otherwise the argument over Huawei would not arise
There are - Ericsson for example (Telstra, Australia) but I've heard they have neither the capacity nor technology to match Huawei. Further, a lot of the UK 4G network is built with Huawei and 5G is built on top of that.
Like I said, to govern is to choose from 51:49 choices.
Or in this case, to fudge.
From my reading its not as if there were alternative providers queueing up to offer a decent alternative.
The bigger question is surely why that is.
Is that actually correct - that there are no alternatives? What are Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Vietnam and Korea doing then?
Korea is something of a special case in that it has its own domestic industry to support. From an economic POV, it is entirely sensible for them. The cost to our tech sector in delaying 5G, given the areas where we do actually compete, might be considerable. I'm not convinced that's the case for the others on your list.
Do you think that such a detailed analysis of all the pros and cons and options and costs has actually been done?
As far as I have read, the only analysis has been on what the risks are and whether they could be mitigated which seems like a a very narrow question to ask.
Maybe a FOI request and/or a halfway competent opposition could ask some of these searching questions.
So with Huawei decision today and seemingly a decision on HS2 imminent, are the government making their unpopular decisions during the honeymoon period when there is no opposition to challenge ?
What's now the 'unpopular' decision for HS2? Genuine question.
So with Huawei decision today and seemingly a decision on HS2 imminent, are the government making their unpopular decisions during the honeymoon period when there is no opposition to challenge ?
That would be the smart thing to do. Thatcher used to complain if the Tories were ahead in the polls early in their term - it showed they weren't getting the unpopular decisions out of the way...
Like I said, to govern is to choose from 51:49 choices.
Or in this case, to fudge.
From my reading its not as if there were alternative providers queueing up to offer a decent alternative.
The bigger question is surely why that is.
Is that actually correct - that there are no alternatives? What are Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Vietnam and Korea doing then?
Korea is something of a special case in that it has its own domestic industry to support. From an economic POV, it is entirely sensible for them. The cost to our tech sector in delaying 5G, given the areas where we do actually compete, might be considerable. I'm not convinced that's the case for the others on your list.
Do you think that such a detailed analysis of all the pros and cons and options and costs has actually been done?
As far as I have read, the only analysis has been on what the risks are and whether they could be mitigated which seems like a a very narrow question to ask.
Maybe a FOI request and/or a halfway competent opposition could ask some of these searching questions.
The searching question to ask is, surely, why Western companies cannot match Huawei.
Maybe Boris should ask his critics what they expected him to do when nobody else is offering this kit.
So with Huawei decision today and seemingly a decision on HS2 imminent, are the government making their unpopular decisions during the honeymoon period when there is no opposition to challenge ?
What's now the 'unpopular' decision for HS2? Genuine question.
So with Huawei decision today and seemingly a decision on HS2 imminent, are the government making their unpopular decisions during the honeymoon period when there is no opposition to challenge ?
What's now the 'unpopular' decision for HS2? Genuine question.
Approve
What I mean is unpopular with the Tory heartlands.
I am 100% it will go ahead to Birmingham, almost certain to Manchester with a tiny doubt about the eastern leg.
Huawei and HS2 are not popular with some in his party, suspect he is getting them through now as limited noise from opposition on Huawei and still in honeymoon period.
There was an opinion poll on Sky News a few weeks ago that gave approving HS2 a (tiny) lead over opposing it, about 38%, 35% from memory.
But I mean opposition from within Tory heartlands.
I’d have been happy for a delay to 5G and the UK sorting this out with other more trusted partners .
What a shameful decision by this government who have wanked on about sovereignty and now have handed a large chunk of that to China !
So you accuse the National Security Counsel of handing sovereignty over to China when in truth you really are trying to use the decision as an attack on Boris as you hate Brexit
You are ignoring the fact that Huawei has been classified as a high risk vendor. Quite why we should all be so relaxed about involving such a vendor in our infrastructure I’m not sure. The idea that capping market share at 35% will mitigate the risk strikes me as laughably naive, as does the idea that there can be a clear demarcation between core and non-core with regard to such a network.
What;s the alternative? I'm sure Boris would love to have given the Americans the business if they had offered an alternative. Answer came there none.
Its a bit like a supplier of motorbikes complaining when someone buys a car.
Why didn;t you choose our motorbikes?
err...we wanted a car and you don;t make them....
Ask those countries not going with Huawei what they are doing. Maybe even work with them. Conveniently some of them are in the Commonwealth which so many of Boris’s fan club are usually praising to the skies.
Accepting a poorer service, as Australia has done for some years now, having kept Huawei out of the network previously. And screwed up its immediate plans to upgrade the network: Australia’s decision led to the immediate collapse of a multi-billion-dollar telecommunications project in Australia belonging to TPG, a US corporation, which had already invested hundreds of millions of dollars based on agreements with Huawei...
He won't betray fisheries, too many Tory MPs now represent fishing ports and communities
How many Conservative MPs do you think represent fishing ports? There are only 15 ports in England and Wales at which sea fish can be landed. They can be safely ignored.
He won't betray fisheries, too many Tory MPs now represent fishing ports and communities
How many Conservative MPs do you think represent fishing ports? There are only 15 ports in England and Wales at which sea fish can be landed. They can be safely ignored.
More Tory MPs represent fishing ports than represent seats in inner London
I’d have been happy for a delay to 5G and the UK sorting this out with other more trusted partners .
What a shameful decision by this government who have wanked on about sovereignty and now have handed a large chunk of that to China !
So you accuse the National Security Counsel of handing sovereignty over to China when in truth you really are trying to use the decision as an attack on Boris as you hate Brexit
You are ignoring the fact that Huawei has been classified as a high risk vendor. Quite why we should all be so relaxed about involving such a vendor in our infrastructure I’m not sure. The idea that capping market share at 35% will mitigate the risk strikes me as laughably naive, as does the idea that there can be a clear demarcation between core and non-core with regard to such a network.
What;s the alternative? I'm sure Boris would love to have given the Americans the business if they had offered an alternative. Answer came there none.
Its a bit like a supplier of motorbikes complaining when someone buys a car.
Why didn;t you choose our motorbikes?
err...we wanted a car and you don;t make them....
Ask those countries not going with Huawei what they are doing. Maybe even work with them. Conveniently some of them are in the Commonwealth which so many of Boris’s fan club are usually praising to the skies.
Accepting a poorer service, as Australia has done for some years now, having kept Huawei out of the network previously. And screwed up its immediate plans to upgrade the network: Australia’s decision led to the immediate collapse of a multi-billion-dollar telecommunications project in Australia belonging to TPG, a US corporation, which had already invested hundreds of millions of dollars based on agreements with Huawei...
The issue to me is this: if this is such an important decision then it is more important to get it right than do it in a rushed way with a vendor which even the government describes as high risk.
Like I said, to govern is to choose from 51:49 choices.
Or in this case, to fudge.
From my reading its not as if there were alternative providers queueing up to offer a decent alternative.
The bigger question is surely why that is.
Is that actually correct - that there are no alternatives? What are Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Vietnam and Korea doing then?
There are no current alternatives otherwise the argument over Huawei would not arise
There are - Ericsson for example (Telstra, Australia) but I've heard they have neither the capacity nor technology to match Huawei. Further, a lot of the UK 4G network is built with Huawei and 5G is built on top of that.
They cannot match Huawei currently - especially on the capacity side. The tech is actually pretty good from what I have been told. The issue for the UK is that 5G is going to change a lot of the ways in which a lot of business is done in multiple industries - henece the term 4IR (fourth industrial revolution). If we want to be on the leading edge of that, we need to be developing our infrastructure now. If we wait, we will be followers with others already having decided how things will be done. We are where we are because, the US, the EU, the UK and other Western governments failed to understand 5G's potential and did nothing to create an institutional and policy-making framework within which our world class companies could thrive and develop the solutions that Huawei has. This is an entirely self-inflicted wound.
I’d have been happy for a delay to 5G and the UK sorting this out with other more trusted partners .
What a shameful decision by this government who have wanked on about sovereignty and now have handed a large chunk of that to China !
So you accuse the National Security Counsel of handing sovereignty over to China when in truth you really are trying to use the decision as an attack on Boris as you hate Brexit
It’s about consistency . All we’ve heard for 3 years is sovereignty repeated over and over ! And a few months in Bozo has given a chunk of that away . Which proves my point Brexit and sovereignty yet another sham !
This is a sovereign decision by HMG. You do need to get over Brexit
I got over Brexit the minute my new EU passport arrived ! I’m allowed to moan about the Huawei decision , clearly sovereignty is only an issue when it suits some Leavers !
There is no such thing as an EU passport
It says EU on it and affords me my FOM rights . So in my eyes it is an EU passport .
It is the future that is more interesting. The fact that Huawei has a lead and there are not enough rival suppliers is not a situation that the purchasers of this kit are happy with. They have been working together as an industry via the OpenRAN project to produce open source software to run on generic hardware. They are just not there now for 5G. If the RoW does not want China kit then they need to make sure that OpenRAN is ready for 6G.
He won't betray fisheries, too many Tory MPs now represent fishing ports and communities
How many Conservative MPs do you think represent fishing ports? There are only 15 ports in England and Wales at which sea fish can be landed. They can be safely ignored.
It's totemic, though, regardless of the reality.
[it also feeds the SNP grievance mill, but they'd only find something else to moan about if the Tories came through for the fishermen (fisherpeople?).
Bozo should ditch the HS2 link from London to Birmingham and go with connecting the latter to Manchester and Leeds.
Also put the savings into the wider UK and improve the infrastructure there . I think that’s a winning way forward and a decent compromise.
Where do the trains go when they reach Rugby from Manchester ?
Also, that would be at least 5 years away from construction, during which time all the contractors will have lost confidence in the government and will increase their costs to cover the risk that again the government will pull the plug at the last minute.
HS2 is already being built, there is no chance will be stopped now.
Like I said, to govern is to choose from 51:49 choices.
Or in this case, to fudge.
From my reading its not as if there were alternative providers queueing up to offer a decent alternative.
The bigger question is surely why that is.
Is that actually correct - that there are no alternatives? What are Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Vietnam and Korea doing then?
There are no current alternatives otherwise the argument over Huawei would not arise
There are - Ericsson for example (Telstra, Australia) but I've heard they have neither the capacity nor technology to match Huawei. Further, a lot of the UK 4G network is built with Huawei and 5G is built on top of that.
They cannot match Huawei currently - especially on the capacity side. The tech is actually pretty good from what I have been told. The issue for the UK is that 5G is going to change a lot of the ways in which a lot of business is done in multiple industries - henece the term 4IR (fourth industrial revolution). If we want to be on the leading edge of that, we need to be developing our infrastructure now. If we wait, we will be followers with others already having decided how things will be done. We are where we are because, the US, the EU, the UK and other Western governments failed to understand 5G's potential and did nothing to create an institutional and policy-making framework within which our world class companies could thrive and develop the solutions that Huawei has. This is an entirely self-inflicted wound.
I’d have been happy for a delay to 5G and the UK sorting this out with other more trusted partners .
What a shameful decision by this government who have wanked on about sovereignty and now have handed a large chunk of that to China !
So you accuse the National Security Counsel of handing sovereignty over to China when in truth you really are trying to use the decision as an attack on Boris as you hate Brexit
It’s about consistency . All we’ve heard for 3 years is sovereignty repeated over and over ! And a few months in Bozo has given a chunk of that away . Which proves my point Brexit and sovereignty yet another sham !
This is a sovereign decision by HMG. You do need to get over Brexit
I got over Brexit the minute my new EU passport arrived ! I’m allowed to moan about the Huawei decision , clearly sovereignty is only an issue when it suits some Leavers !
There is no such thing as an EU passport
It says EU on it and affords me my FOM rights . So in my eyes it is an EU passport .
Still not an EU passport
Whatever makes you happy ! I and other lucky people who will still have our treasured FOM rights really don’t care whether legally it’s an EU passport or not .
To govern is to choose, and frankly I'm pleased that the PM is taking the advice of the security services rather than that of Delingpole and Farage, who have a facility with the cultural mood but know sod all about anything technical.
He won't betray fisheries, too many Tory MPs now represent fishing ports and communities
How many Conservative MPs do you think represent fishing ports? There are only 15 ports in England and Wales at which sea fish can be landed. They can be safely ignored.
It's totemic, though, regardless of the reality.
[it also feeds the SNP grievance mill, but they'd only find something else to moan about if the Tories came through for the fishermen (fisherpeople?).
He won't betray fisheries, too many Tory MPs now represent fishing ports and communities
How many Conservative MPs do you think represent fishing ports? There are only 15 ports in England and Wales at which sea fish can be landed. They can be safely ignored.
It's totemic, though, regardless of the reality.
[it also feeds the SNP grievance mill, but they'd only find something else to moan about if the Tories came through for the fishermen (fisherpeople?).
Again, we can't really let the opinion of the US be the only determinant of all our national policy. Did you see the recent story about Pompeo claiming that a journalist who is an expert in European affairs had confused Ukraine with Bangladesh? I'm pretty right-wing, but parts of the Trump administration are simply bonkers and their wishes should not be followed blindly.
So with Huawei decision today and seemingly a decision on HS2 imminent, are the government making their unpopular decisions during the honeymoon period when there is no opposition to challenge ?
Is Huawei unpopular? If people were that bothered, they would not buy their phones.
Like I said, to govern is to choose from 51:49 choices.
Or in this case, to fudge.
From my reading its not as if there were alternative providers queueing up to offer a decent alternative.
The bigger question is surely why that is.
Is that actually correct - that there are no alternatives? What are Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Vietnam and Korea doing then?
There are no current alternatives otherwise the argument over Huawei would not arise
There are - Ericsson for example (Telstra, Australia) but I've heard they have neither the capacity nor technology to match Huawei. Further, a lot of the UK 4G network is built with Huawei and 5G is built on top of that.
They cannot match Huawei currently - especially on the capacity side. The tech is actually pretty good from what I have been told. The issue for the UK is that 5G is going to change a lot of the ways in which a lot of business is done in multiple industries - henece the term 4IR (fourth industrial revolution). If we want to be on the leading edge of that, we need to be developing our infrastructure now. If we wait, we will be followers with others already having decided how things will be done. We are where we are because, the US, the EU, the UK and other Western governments failed to understand 5G's potential and did nothing to create an institutional and policy-making framework within which our world class companies could thrive and develop the solutions that Huawei has. This is an entirely self-inflicted wound.
Except that the UK was never really in the game of developing such kit, was it ? Otherwise, agreed... ...Though "create an institutional and policy making framework within etc..." begs rather a large number of questions.
Bozo should ditch the HS2 link from London to Birmingham and go with connecting the latter to Manchester and Leeds.
Also put the savings into the wider UK and improve the infrastructure there . I think that’s a winning way forward and a decent compromise.
Where do the trains go when they reach Rugby from Manchester ?
Also, that would be at least 5 years away from construction, during which time all the contractors will have lost confidence in the government and will increase their costs to cover the risk that again the government will pull the plug at the last minute.
HS2 is already being built, there is no chance will be stopped now.
Why HS2 is neededAt the moment the UK railway network is terribly full, the WCML mostly with it being the busiest mixed (commuter, regional, inter city and freight) railway on the planet, that is volume of trains per hour using the tracks cannot be matched anywhere.
This causes all sorts of problems, as soon as one train is running late it will inevitably have a knock on effect on the subsequent trains, there is no spare capacity on the lines for the late runners to not adversely impact on other services.
Eventually the ripple effect will become bad enough to warrant cancellations to enable the service to be brought back to the timetable.
That is a direct consequence of the over crowding on the tracks of the WCML and is felt all along from Euston and into all the major cities that the line serves.
Additionally this impacts on services that only use the WCML for a short period, spreading across the wider network.
Best way to fix this ? Add capacity to the network to enable the service to recover and have slack to deal with late running services.
Now the tube runs trains about every 1minute on some lines, this is possible because all the trains run at the same speed and stop at the same stations, the headways are identical.
Best way of adding as much capacity to the WCML is to do the same, have as similar services as possible using the line as possible operating at as similar speed as possible, ideally take away the high speed inter city services that have massive stopping distances and eat into track capacity leaving behind the slower commuter and freight services.
This bring you to HS2, the best way of improving the existing services is to add additional capacity to the existing railway, the best way of doing that is moving the higher speed trains away and leaving the existing network for commuting services.
The alternative, trying to add this capacity to the existing network was tried about 15 years ago with the WCML upgrade scheme that added very little extra capacity for great cost, the alternatives some are suggesting would seethe WCML and ECML closed every weekend for the next 14 years and would add a tiny fraction of the capacity that HS2 will deliver to the existing networkYes it is expensive, but it will last hundreds of years and would not seem remotely as expensive if we have as a nation being building this for the last 30 years like many other European countries.
If HS2 isn't the answer to the issues facing the railways, I am certain the next answer will be incredibly similar.
So with Huawei decision today and seemingly a decision on HS2 imminent, are the government making their unpopular decisions during the honeymoon period when there is no opposition to challenge ?
Is Huawei unpopular? If people were that bothered, they would not buy their phones.
What I meant was unpopular with some of the traditional Tory supporters.
It is the future that is more interesting. The fact that Huawei has a lead and there are not enough rival suppliers is not a situation that the purchasers of this kit are happy with. They have been working together as an industry via the OpenRAN project to produce open source software to run on generic hardware. They are just not there now for 5G. If the RoW does not want China kit then they need to make sure that OpenRAN is ready for 6G.
Hence the 35% limit, which those most exercised by the decision seem to be overlooking.
I didn't vote for this government, and I don't like it at all, but the decision is at the very least defensible.
Comments
Should we allow our procurement decisions to be made by the US ?
Far more relevant would be pollsters like Yougov producing polls comparing Labour under different leadership candidates v the Tories as they did at the time of the Tory leadership contest last summer
The bigger question is surely why that is.
Where Boris goes Europe follows !!!!
I mean Robert Peston was right.
That is actually a fair part of Trump's beef with China on trade, in that they are in breech of international rules on this. The remedy is less clear...
This is a good article on Huawei;
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-Insight/Huawei-s-culture-must-change-for-it-to-stay-ahead
We’ll get Chinese spies and chlorinated chicken. Yay!
Its a bit like a supplier of motorbikes complaining when someone buys a car.
Why didn;t you choose our motorbikes?
err...we wanted a car and you don;t make them....
The cost to our tech sector in delaying 5G, given the areas where we do actually compete, might be considerable. I'm not convinced that's the case for the others on your list.
As far as I have read, the only analysis has been on what the risks are and whether they could be mitigated which seems like a a very narrow question to ask.
Maybe a FOI request and/or a halfway competent opposition could ask some of these searching questions.
Maybe Boris should ask his critics what they expected him to do when nobody else is offering this kit.
https://twitter.com/James_Dart/status/1222140327185829890
What I mean is unpopular with the Tory heartlands.
I am 100% it will go ahead to Birmingham, almost certain to Manchester with a tiny doubt about the eastern leg.
Huawei and HS2 are not popular with some in his party, suspect he is getting them through now as limited noise from opposition on Huawei and still in honeymoon period.
There was an opinion poll on Sky News a few weeks ago that gave approving HS2 a (tiny) lead over opposing it, about 38%, 35% from memory.
But I mean opposition from within Tory heartlands.
And screwed up its immediate plans to upgrade the network:
Australia’s decision led to the immediate collapse of a multi-billion-dollar telecommunications project in Australia belonging to TPG, a US corporation, which had already invested hundreds of millions of dollars based on agreements with Huawei...
The whole article is well worth reading:
https://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-comments/2019/australia-huawei-and-5g
The issue to me is this: if this is such an important decision then it is more important to get it right than do it in a rushed way with a vendor which even the government describes as high risk.
[it also feeds the SNP grievance mill, but they'd only find something else to moan about if the Tories came through for the fishermen (fisherpeople?).
Also put the savings into the wider UK and improve the infrastructure there . I think that’s a winning way forward and a decent compromise.
Also, that would be at least 5 years away from construction, during which time all the contractors will have lost confidence in the government and will increase their costs to cover the risk that again the government will pull the plug at the last minute.
HS2 is already being built, there is no chance will be stopped now.
Otherwise, agreed...
...Though "create an institutional and policy making framework within etc..." begs rather a large number of questions.
It's not as though we expected them to be thrilled...
This causes all sorts of problems, as soon as one train is running late it will inevitably have a knock on effect on the subsequent trains, there is no spare capacity on the lines for the late runners to not adversely impact on other services.
Eventually the ripple effect will become bad enough to warrant cancellations to enable the service to be brought back to the timetable.
That is a direct consequence of the over crowding on the tracks of the WCML and is felt all along from Euston and into all the major cities that the line serves.
Additionally this impacts on services that only use the WCML for a short period, spreading across the wider network.
Best way to fix this ? Add capacity to the network to enable the service to recover and have slack to deal with late running services.
Now the tube runs trains about every 1minute on some lines, this is possible because all the trains run at the same speed and stop at the same stations, the headways are identical.
Best way of adding as much capacity to the WCML is to do the same, have as similar services as possible using the line as possible operating at as similar speed as possible, ideally take away the high speed inter city services that have massive stopping distances and eat into track capacity leaving behind the slower commuter and freight services.
This bring you to HS2, the best way of improving the existing services is to add additional capacity to the existing railway, the best way of doing that is moving the higher speed trains away and leaving the existing network for commuting services.
The alternative, trying to add this capacity to the existing network was tried about 15 years ago with the WCML upgrade scheme that added very little extra capacity for great cost, the alternatives some are suggesting would seethe WCML and ECML closed every weekend for the next 14 years and would add a tiny fraction of the capacity that HS2 will deliver to the existing networkYes it is expensive, but it will last hundreds of years and would not seem remotely as expensive if we have as a nation being building this for the last 30 years like many other European countries.
If HS2 isn't the answer to the issues facing the railways, I am certain the next answer will be incredibly similar.
Not Joe Public.
Like HS2, they don't really care.
https://twitter.com/ProfPMiddleton/status/1222146556503187462?s=20
I didn't vote for this government, and I don't like it at all, but the decision is at the very least defensible.