In message
, at
08:17:07 on Tue, 27 May 2008, MIG
remarked:
The comment might as well have been that cinemas shouldn't be
involved in the benefits system when they give concessions to
pensioners or unemployed.

Those cinemas are mainly operating in exactly the same way as railways -
selling people a half price product to get bums on seats, rather than
have the seat empty.
--
Roland Perry

Good on him for cancelling the shameful deal!

On May 26, 7:52*pm, alex_t wrote:
Good on him for cancelling the shameful deal!

Yeah. Instead of doing a deal with the elected government that
benefited people in Venezuela and people in London, we should have
invaded the country, killed several hundred thousand people and handed
the oilfields to companies owned by Dick Cheney.

That wouldn't be at all shameful.

Trolling much?

On May 26, 9:29*pm, alex_t wrote:
Trolling much?

I probably foolishly responded to a few in this discussion.

"Paul Scott" wrote in message

"Boris Johnson will not renew anwith which provides cheap fuel for
London's buses once the agreement ends later this year. The mayor of
London said half-price bus and tram fares for 250,000 Londoners on
income support, which was also funded by the deal, would still be
honoured. Mr Johnson said he thought many Londoners were
uncomfortable with how the scheme was funded."

I've been following this thread, but no-one has explained how this
scheme actually worked. For example, I very much doubt that Chavez
shipped special cargos of cheap oil directly to London. Presumably the
buses still get fuelled in their depots using diesel distributed in the
usual way, from the usual sources (probably not Venezuela). So, did
Chavez remit the subsidy as cash, directly to Ken? And did any actually
arrive, anyway?

It's also unclear what concrete help TfL has actually provided to deal
with Caracas's traffic problem. Does it now have shiny new Citaro
bendy-buses (or second-hand RMs) clogging up the streets, bus lanes with
unpredictable timing, speed and red light cameras, red routes, a
congestion charge, a fiendishly complex smart card ticketing scheme and
traffic lights that are much more likely to be red than green? Or has
nothing actually changed (which is what pieces in the Guardian diary
suggest) -- http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/23/venezuela:
The Diary's queries about what the Livingstonians ever did for Caracas
in return for $15m-worth of Venezuelan oil finally elicit a response: "A
party of 12 Caracas planners came to London earlier this year to look at
traffic enforcement, bus priority and planning of interchange, ie rail
to bus to tube." And? "They came for a week." Anything else? "Er, TfL
remains available to give expert advice to Caracas." Phew. For a while
there we feared Venezuela's capital had been ripped off.

So, if Chavez really has been sending millions of dollars in cash to
London in return for nothing much, you have to ask if his motivation was
similar to his offer of free oil to FARC?

Recliner wrote:

I've been following this thread, but no-one has explained how this
scheme actually worked. For example, I very much doubt that Chavez
shipped special cargos of cheap oil directly to London. Presumably the
buses still get fuelled in their depots using diesel distributed in the
usual way, from the usual sources (probably not Venezuela). So, did
Chavez remit the subsidy as cash, directly to Ken? And did any actually
arrive, anyway?

It's also unclear what concrete help TfL has actually provided to deal
with Caracas's traffic problem.

Scheme started 30/9/2007. Scheme announced abandoned 25/5/2008. That's
not exactly a length of time you could expect much to happen in, is it?
On the other hand, any deal you signed where you got cheap fuel in
return for not much at all you'd consider good from your point of view?

Anyway, a European subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company hands over
two tranches of cash (US dollars) annually based on TfL's calculations
of the expected diesel use on London Buses during the year (which is
presumably September to September, since that's when it started).
There's an adjustment at the end of the year if the diesel price
changes, which it has, to put it mildly. Since it's calculated net of
tax it's not unreasonable to assume that the Venezuelans owe us some money.

The money is only supposed to be spent on providing discounted bus and
tram travel for people on income support using PAYG and bus passes,
although the second yearly payment includes extra cash to fund the
administration of the scheme, both the discount and the TfL advice.
It's a bit unclear whether 'provision' includes the actual buses or just
the loss in fare earnings.

The money should already be here, since the first lot arrives shortly
after the scheme starts and the next six months later, which was
probably last month. There is a 50 day window (20 days for TfL to
request it, 30 days to pay up) so it's not impossible that the second
tranche arrived when Boris was Mayor. It goes to TfL, not the Mayor,
since they administer the discount scheme.

What isn't explained anywhere is what happens if the money coming in
more than covers the cost of the scheme. Conversely, if there is a
surplus at the end, what will Boris do with it? It is always possible
that the cost of the scheme exceeds the Venezuelan contribution, though,
but without actual figures it's hard to say. Does anyone know the
annual bus mileage and the average bus fuel consumption?

Tom