Thomas Ableman

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Almost of all these are now true of both main parties, which is why politics feels so broken.

Saw a MASSIVE queue in Soho recently. Asked a bunch of the people in it and it was a launch. Everyone I spoke to seemed distinctly hazy otherwise.

A History of Europe in 75 Train Journeys | Thomas Ableman | Substack Riding the rails through 1,000 years of European history. Click to read A History of Europe in 75 Train Journeys, by Thomas Ableman, a Substack publication. Launched 3 months ago.

Have been reading about Napoleon for my "History of Europe in 75 Train Journeys" project.

I love this quote: "The hereditary principle could alone prevent a counter-revolution".

Make me a hereditary monarch or they'll bring back hereditary monarchs!

historyofeuropein75trainjourneys.substack.com

Trying to imagine telling my late dad, who was 35 at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, that America manoeuvering ships to prepare for nuclear war with Russia would be the third item on the news after car finance.

Also that it has taken that slot from the scheduling of MasterChef

Please, BBC, I beg you, stop it!

Some people disagreeing a scheduling decision for a cookery show on BBC 2 is *not* the third most-important thing happening in the world, after Gaza but before Ukraine.

You don't have to hate yourself. You're one of this country's greatest inventions. Backbone!

If you're afraid of the 'invasion' at the southern border and are looking to Farage to fix it.

Don't forget there were no boat crossings before Farage's Brexit. His one and only policy accomplishment caused the issue he now frightens you with.

Overall, multiculturalism is not an experiment; it's been a norm for thousands of years. The places that embraced it tended to be more successful - including London today, the wealthiest part of the UK.

Century after century, place after place, it hasn't failed: where it is tried, it thrives.

The idea that single-ethnicity nations are the norm is just wrong. Yes, I get that it HAS been common in the UK for a while, with England largely populated by the English for many of the last few centuries.

Elsewhere, the 'sorting' of populations into ethnic nations was a response to the 20C wars.

The great Imperial capital of Byzantium was a melting pot: Greeks, Goths, Arabs, Vlachs, Thracians, Bulgarians Armenians, Assyrians, Slavs - all living and trading together, though worshipping separately.

Similar scenes played out across virtually every Imperial city.

The Statue of Liberty is explicit: "give me your poor".

In 1910, 80% of New Yorkers were foreign-born or children of foreigners. The same proportion that Goodwin got hysterical about for the City of London.

New York went on to dominate the 20th century.

Norman Sicily dominated the Med for centuries. They spoke French at Court while putting Arabic on one side of their coins and Roman on the other.

When Venice became the dominant Mediterranean power, it was reported that the majority of its residents were foreigners. The Venetian Republic thrived.

The right try to spread the idea that multiculturalism has failed. They imply the natural state of things is mono-ethnic nations.

But it's just not true!

History shows us that time and time again, the MOST successful countries are those that are flamboyantly multicultural.

Ooh, good question! I think neither are likely but the Tories are more likely.

As Reform will only win if Farage leads them.
And the Tories will only win if Farage vanishes.

Which means the only route for Jenrick is to become leader of the Tories and then vanish Farage.

Just imagine if a summit meeting if JD Vance is the next President and Jenrick somehow becomes PM: two fake populists desperately trying to act the same role.

"what do people like us think again?"

I would be careful about that argument: the same was made for all of Boris‘s breach of international law, and is still being made by Tories on immigration.

However, it doesn’t sound like it actually is illegal.

Britain is on the edge.

Isn't this just the most modern experience of all time?

I can't get to the paper I want because the machine is stuck verifying I'm human.

The only solution is to "send feedback".

But I don't want to send feedback - I want the paper.

Europe’s roads and rail unfit for war with Russia, EU transport chief warns Brussels aims to spend €17bn on upgrading transport networks to be prepared for conflict

God this is depressing.

When I chose to make transport my career 23 years ago, this isn’t the kind of transport I had in mind.

on.ft.com/41b8ytg Europe’s roads and rail unfit for war with Russia, EU transport chief warns

Excellent article. VIA rail in Canada would benefit from this approach. Alberta is releasing their provincial rail master plan in August. Would be excited if Swiss planning was included.

Thanks!

It really doesn't feel like it should be a radically new principle, does it.

Part of the problem is five year election cycles.

EXCEPT, see the political capital that Crossrail offered up to Blair, Ken, Osborne, Boris, Sadiq - it's been the gift that kept on giving.

This is how the Swiss would have done HS2 — Freewheeling HS2 has become a case study in how not to build infrastructure. But what if we’d taken a different path entirely? In this post, I imagine how the Swiss would have done it: starting with the timetabl...

The principle of knowing what you're trying to achieve is the same. Re: rail, that's why the Swiss approach of starting with the timetable you wish you had and working backwards is much better than starting with what you want to build. That's my blog today. www.freewheeling.info/blog/swiss-hs2

I agree: but the wider point I'm making is that there must be something that *is* working if all the normal stuff isn't. It would be good to understand what it is.

They're ugly if you live in a fantasy world in which we can have unlimited free energy with no climate change, no cost and no visual impact.

For the reasons in the blog post

Yes.

As it's not about the building techniques, it's about the planning and decision-making process.

“They’ve got the wrong shape” - and keep winning. Thanks for reading Freewheeling Bitesize!

Every time the Lionesses played, the pundits said "If they play like this against the [next team], they'll lose."

And they kept winning.

Maybe instead of saying they did it wrong, we should figure out what they did right.

Today's Bitesize:

freewheelingbitesize.substack.com/p/theyve-got...

Exactly so. The key bits to the Swiss model are:

1) Long term funding
2) Starting with the end state timetable.

Everything flows from there.

I actually think the current German model looks pretty much where we're heading.

This is how the Swiss would have done HS2 — Freewheeling HS2 has become a case study in how not to build infrastructure. But what if we’d taken a different path entirely? In this post, I imagine how the Swiss would have done it: starting with the timetabl...

A big part of the problem with HS2 is that it was one mega-project. If we were Swiss, we'd have approached it very differently: as a series of individuals, each designed to solve a specific problem but adding up to a transformation. Here's what they'd have done:
www.freewheeling.info/blog/swiss-hs2

You don’t even need to be genuinely polite. Jacob Rees Mogg was outstandingly rude, with a veneer of false courtesy, and yet he somehow had a reputation as a Georgian gentleman.