George Osborne backed the One North project yesterday. I wish he hadn't.
Please don't get me wrong though. I have argued long and hard for infrastructure investment in the UK, and have suggested time and again how it might be funded. That though does not mean I think any old infrastructure spending will do: far from it. Keynes might have joked that digging holes and filling them in again was better than having people do nothing (and maybe it is) but when there are so many better options available then some sensible decision making has to take place and in my opinion the priorities of One North look to be wrong.
I say that as someone who is not a Northerner. I am aware of all that implies with regard to making suggestion. But I, like many northerners live in an area treated as economically peripheral. And I do spend time in the north, travelling there quite often. In that case what seems all too obviously apparent to me is that if £15 billion is to be spent on northern infrastructure to spend half of it on a new high speed rail link is a very poor choice of the way to spend money.
The first reason why it's a poor choice is that it will take years to happen. The north needs spending now, not at some distant time.
The second reason is that there is a very obvious problem with transport in the north but for the vast majority of people that has nothing to do with the absence of a high speed rail link that will always be used by a tiny minority of northern travellers, most of whom will be travelling occasionally for business. The real problem is apparent from just standing on any one of the major northern railways stations. It is that the infrastructure investment in the north's local railway system is dire. Second hand equipment that has often failed to meet need elsewhere always seems to be deemed appropriate for such services which as a result are too slow, unattractive and unreliable.
What the north needs is a reliable, modern, cheap (and yes, that's investment too) system of railways that can begin to be delivered very soon indeed and which transforms the everyday lives of people across the region and not the few who need to go to sign a deal and want a high speed buffet on the way.
Please let's have infrastructure investment, but let's make it local, of widespread benefit, green, cost effective, and deliverable now because that is what is needed. By these criteria One North is another exercise in both fantasy and corporate aggrandisement. And that makes it a failure from the outset.
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Why do we have Foreign Aid and why is it sacrosanct? Close inspection of the process suggests it’s no more than an apparently socially justfiable way of scamming the taxpayer, passing money from them into the pockets of wealthy friends of the politicians involved so it can be divvied up later.
Given its champion, no doubt the real point of Northern Aid is it’s a localised version of the same scam.
Because something can be corrupted does not mean the principle is wrong
Your point about rail investment in the north is spot on, Richard. Private Eye has carried a series of articles on how future franchising and other Department for Transport policies are going to lead to a substantial worsening of northern rail services from next year. I also understand that consideration is being given for fares across the midland and northern services to increase significantly.
As someone who uses the Nottingham to Leeds and Nottingham to Manchester services on a regular basis I can honestly say that if that’s the case then they will become so bad (e.g. overcrowding at certain times and on Saturday’s is already at unsafe levels, I’d say) that those that can (like me), will simply start using their cars. And those that can’t will suffer all the more. HS2 will do f— all to address these issues, which are immediate and fundamental. But then that isn’t the real rationale for HS2 is it. The degree of corporate capture of the HS2 process tells you all you need to know about who are: big business and the advisors, financiers, legal services, politicians and so on, who stand to benefit, either now or at some point in the near future. Consequently, even if a few of those live in the north, they have the means to escape the poor and declining state of the railways in their region. And so the gap between those that have and those that don’t grows ever wider, which is, of course, an event to be celebrated by all true neolibs*.
(*see George Monbiot excellent piece on this:http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/05/neoliberalism-mental-health-rich-poverty-economy
Thanks Ivan
As a dedicated user of public transport I suffer these issues occasionally and know the frustrations
Monbiot’s article is very good indeed
High speed rail links so businessmen can get from A to B quicker!!! Ha! reminds me of what we used to say in HQ O&M in STC, where I worked in the early 80’s, at the take-off of the information technology revolution, with its buzz words of “office automation” and “paperless office” and clueless managers who thought everything could be solved by “pressing a few buttons ” (preferably only one). Basically, speedingvup office transactions like these only allowed incompetent managers and businesses to go bust quicker! OA without the proper infrastructure and procedures is worse than useless, it’s positively destructive, as the ignoble saga of IDS’s doomed and vindictive Universal Credit initiative amply demonstrates. So, HS2 rushing businessmen together to make dire decisions quicker – JUST what the North needs! UDI for Yorkshire, I say (as one born there, and having lived my first 22 years there, and especially if Cameron wins again in 2015!)
The North will rise again 🙂 Seriously, I’d like to see Northern England with its own currency and government as well as Scotland. Speaking of which, is anyone else hearing the rumours of a giant oil-field being recently found off the Scottish coast? I don’t know what to make of them…
he he Bring on HullCoin…
The interesting thing about Hullcoin, or so I’ve heard, is that it’s digital. Now, we know that the banks can create new money because the Act of (um, can’t remember) which said banks couldn’t print legal tender-type bank notes any more didn’t make any mention of digital currency, probably because it wasn’t even dreamed of back then. We need to bear in mind that the successful alternative to the banking system, a kind of voucher set up, which brought prosperity to the Austrian town of Worgl was outlawed precisely because it was indeed successful, leaving the banksters out of the loop entirely. I’ve said before that local currencies need to be developed to provide an alternative when evil governments reduce the amount of money in circulation to a level which means starvation for some people. At the back of my mind though has been the concern that any successful alternative would be outlawed, just as it was at Worgl. The Hull variation is digital, an approach which hadn’t occurred to me. Maybe the authorities couldn’t outlaw it without outlawing bank creation of money along with it. That’d be an interesting development 🙂
Bill-have a look at the work of Bernard Lietaer who thinks that complementary currencies can work alongside national currencies. He cites instances where communities use their own currencies for particular projects such as renovation and transformation of urban settings.
Thanks Simon, I’ve read People Money and have been trying to get people interested in the ideas for ages 🙁
“George Osborne backed the One North project yesterday. I wish he hadn’t”
Thank you for providing the link, it shows that there are a number of distinct aspects to the project. You didn’t say which of these aspects you disagree with and why, or is it all of them?
I referred to the high speed rail link
Since you did not read what I wrote your further comments will be deleted
Well: The high-speed rail link is going to be built, no matter what, since:
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-948_en.htm
As for Scotland oil:
http://www.businessforscotland.co.uk/clair-ridge-and-scotlands-new-oil-boom/
Remarkable what new tech (horizontal drilling along with hydraulic fracturing) can achieve.
That is not the planned new rail line
Sorry, wrong
Meanwhile, back on planet 2014, OAPs taking action to restore travel concessions on Northern Rail in Sheffield (part owned by tax dodger Serco) are subjected to assault and arrest by Northern Rail security and British Transport Police for refusing to be the scapegoat for the financial greed of such as works in The City.(you’ll note that City wide boy Jonathan Burrows, dodger of £43k worth of fares, wasn’t subject to such an assault…) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Svv9YcyZ6Os