kickingtyres

Low-alcohol bubbly is not wine, court rules – Times Online.

I think, within this story, the key quote is from Neil Parish, Chairman of the European Parliament’s agriculture committee.

“Once again the UK has adopted the strictest interpretation of officious European rules which most other EU countries would turn a blind eye to,”

We hear time and again from the Euro-sceptics, how “Europe” is damaging Britain’s life, values and laws, when it’s often Britain’s over-officious attitude to doing things to the letter, and not applying common sense, that does the damage.

In a country that suffers from the regular and accepted social abuse of alcohol, anything that encourages sensible drinking cannot be seen as a bad thing.  However, here, the sense of sensible drinking obviously takes second place to ensuring the right boxes are ticked, and everything is done “by the book”.

I find it slightly ironic that, while the rest of Europe has these same regulations, they can find it within their own legal and regulatory systems, to bend the laws now and again, in the name of preserving their own identity, nationality and common sense.

It’s not the EU that’s eroding “Britishness”, but our desire to follow laws to the letter

BBC NEWS | UK | GB rail fares ‘more than Europe’.

Passenger Focus said “turn up and go” fares to London from elsewhere in the UK generally cost more than similar journeys in other European countries.

On average, fares were 50% higher in Britain than on the continent.

….

For example, in Britain long-distance turn-up-and-go fully flexible day-return fares to the principal city (London) were 87% more expensive than in the next most expensive country surveyed – Germany.

I commute daily from my home in Cambridgeshire to our office, 2 minutes walk from Latimer Road tube station.  The annual season ticket costs £4880, but the commute takes (on those rare occasions everything runs on time) around 90 minutes, which is quicker than many Londoners.

I think the £4880 is expensive, but taking into account property prices between Cambridgeshire and London, I can’t really complain.  Also, living 10 minutes walk from the railway station would make it seem, on the face of it, a viable alternative to the car.

That being said, my fiancee and I have family in Kent, Gloucestershire and Scotland and friends in Cornwall.  To make an impromptu journey by train to any of these destinations would cost far more than taking the car, and in most cases, isn’t any quicker. For example, to get to St Austell would be £90 per person return, and a 6 1/2 hour journey, more than an hour longer than driving and around twice the cost of fuel.

Add to that, that the trains are often late, are overcrowded and either overheated or cold, and it doesn’t make rail-travel a very attractive alternative to private transport.

I’ve often taken the train in France, both the TGV (on the Atlantique and Reseau lines) and and the slower regional trains (running up the West coast from Niort to Paris), and found them to be cheaper, quicker, more reliable, cleaner and better value than their British counterparts.

Even if British rail transport cost the SAME as that of France, I think it would still be unlikely that it met their quality and standards of service.

I recognise that France has far more land for roughly the same population, and so has the space to develop new road and rail networks from scratch, but the differences are SO great that I find it hard to believe that lack of space is the only issue.  There is, in my opinion, a lot to be said for transport infrastructure to be a properly managed public service, and not a for-profit system, but the key is the “properly managed” bit, and that’s where our government seems to fall down every time.