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Grifters – would be high on my list.
Yeah I’d forgotten that American word. I think that’s a pretty spot on word to describe many MP’s in Parliament these days. Obviously the British people need to start thinking about how to stop these invidious individuals getting into Parliament and that must involve a comprehensive rethink about how the country’s democratic system should work.
The other word for grifter is hustler and the classic movie depicting the dark and tragic side of hustling is of course the late Sixties movie “Midnight Cowboy”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Cowboy
HS2 again – but for those weary of my repetition please read this through; I am merely directing you to a powerful and incisive opinion from an authority.
Michael Byng is a leading Chartered Suveyor in the Rail Industry, who has advised on HS2. For his opinion of the utter mess the Government has made of the HS2 project (but described in measured language, that holds nothing back), listen to Nicky Campbell, BBC Radio 5 Live this morning (from about 9.48am – 48 minutes in). In Byng’s authoritative opinion HS2 was badly scoped, badly budgeted, and even on the wrong route. He advised HS2 and Government of the serious failings – in 2017.
In addition to Byng’s devastating radio intervention, I found on the UK Parliament website two of his written evidence submissions to Parliamentary Committees; the first from 2020, with a review including the issues raised in 2017, titled ‘Written evidence submitted by Mr Michael Byng (MTP0044)’ here: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/21457/pdf/. The second from 2022, titled ‘Written evidence submitted by Mr Michael Byng (IRP0099)’ [IRP – Integrated Rail Plan] here: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/43359/pdf/.
I have extracted below Byng’s 2022 conclusions from the second written evidence.
“The current funding for the IRP is inadequate to deliver any of the projects described in it, apart from the remaining parts of HS2 described above.
Due to effects of the HS2 Project, the IRP contains little or nothing of substance to improve passenger connectivity either nationally or in the Midlands and the North
The absence of projects with confirmed funding to develop strong electrified railways around our regional hubs, does not assist the levelling up process.
The funds required for the HS2 Project, despite there not being a ceiling on its costs, deprives other parts of the country of the facilities to deliver their needs.
There is no evidence of a plan for improve connectivity for passengers or freight in the Midlands and the North
The IRP represents extremely poor value for money, reflecting the problems found by “The Oakervee Review” to justify a positive business case for the HS2 Project.”
My own opinion is that the appalling nature of the planning and execution of an il-thought through project by an incompetent Government is so bad that it suggests (as I always suspected); the government made airy promises about a national infrastructure plan through the IRP that it neither seriously planned, or even intended. The IRP was a cover for the expenditure of yet more public largesse on London alone (further to the extravagance of Crossrail 1 and 2), and use Birmingham as a commuter suburb for London; which would not have been possible without preparing the ground with an airy-fairy IRP, that was strictly ‘for the birds’. So much for “our Precious Union”. The Northern Mayors have been scammed. This is bigger than connectivity; it goes to the methods of Government and the despoliation of police. It is ruinous.
Brexit and the scale of the HS2 fiasco are the end-game of Scotland’s future prospects of anything at all from this Union, except being scammed.
“despoilation of politics”. I blame my auto-correct. It must have been planned by a Conservative Minister.
John: Despoliation is actually the correct spelling – your auto-correct got it right for once!
You are quite right, but I must confess it has happened so often, to my complete exasperation that when I saw ‘police’ for ‘politics’ it so infuriated me that blind rage took over; I am not sure whether I even misspelled despoliation first time round or not, but I am unlikely to believe anything that appears on my keyboard is correct when it happens, and now enter the world of making up words and persuading myself it still makes sense. This is what Big Tech does to you; just because you are paranoid, it doesn’t mean they ….
🙂
Thanks
Think about the way Sunak is selling the HS2 alternative for the North; which I suspect already is a just hodge-podge bundle of outstanding, short-term projects in rail and road, probably long culled by austerity. Projects thrown together hastily and presented as a unified plan by the strapline ‘Network North’ to dig the Conservatives and PM from a short-term political hole?. Long-term decision making? The only long-term decision on infrastructure the Conservatives have made in the last 13 years – is HS2; and they blew it. bad plan, incompetently planned, hopeless execution. and now they have dumped it. nothing Conservatives do is ever planned beyond the next election; or survives the next week intact. Austerity is not only their only policy, it is their only excuse.
‘Network North’! Who made that up? Network? What network? How long was the gestation for this so-called plan? When, precisely did it first see the light of day? Do they know the precise routes, the problems to be overcome, the interconnectivity, the land and property availability? Who did the planning? How well is it integrated? Long-term? Will they even see the light of day, or collapse at the first hurdle: austerity and Conservative, endemic executive incompetence?
It was originally called Northern Powerhouse Rail, a railway to separate the north from the south, Liverpool to Hull. I think the idea is to electrify it.
Believe that when I see it.
Some of the money is going towards dualling the A1 between Morpeth and Ellingham.
That’s actually a whole 13 miles and should have started over a year ago. Strange that the announcement got postponed until today.
Agreed
Rail money to road
You couldn’t make this up
Hypocritical, infuriating, depressing….
Alarming to see GOOD on there and in such relatively large letters. What extraordinary corner of the universe do people suggesting “good” live in ?
There must be some
Not just GOOD, but also OKAY. And quite a few other positive views, but in smaller type. Makes you want to throw up.
But heavily outnumbered
That is democracy
Probably the same people that wrote ‘best’ or ‘great’.
There have to be some who feel they have to stick to their principles. It’s like those who know the mess the labour party is in but won’t leave.
(congenital) Imbeciles
(congenital) cretins
All of them, all of the time.
All members, all MPs.
Three cheers for Krishnan Guru-Murthy, C4 News tonight (and last night); this time interviewing the haplessly lost in banality Huw Merman MP, Transport Secretary by bluntly describing the sheer impudence of Sunak’s attempt to blame the mess we are in on thirty years of total political failure; when the Conservatives have been in charge for seventeen of them; and for the last thirteen years – in which Sunak has been complicit, including both Chancellor and PM: and then claim only he can offer a fresh start, and somehow simultaneously blame Labour.
Guru-Murphy also exposed Merriman’s inability to put a cost on the A1 improvements; in other words they have cobbled together an uncosted list of projects for a short-term political benefit. It will all be dead in the water long before any of it built.
Bravo Guru-Murphy. Why don’t we have more of this ruthlessness? Where are the real journalists we need in the media who will cut through the guff and expose the poor quality of Ministers.
Sophy Ridge did much the same for Sky.
She is my 7pm choice now. The new programme format has freed her cynicism.
The cost of the A1 upgrade has been known about and promised for years. It’s only 13 miles of it, after all. The promise was postponed for a few months so Sunk could announce it today.
The HS2 Birmingham to Manchester was not going to do anything for the north east.
With all due respects I don’t understand this argument. How does dualling the A1 north of Newcastle help transport links between Birmingham and Manchester?
It doesn’t
There are more places in the north, and further north at that
No mention of HSR2 in this post – apologies for being O/T but, if you think British politics is in a chaotic state, have a look at the USA. Just days after a federal shutdown was averted and delayed until 17th November by approval of emergency funding, the Republicans have just removed one of their own, Kevin McCarthy, from the office of Speaker in the House of Repesentatives. Now two of their number, Senators (Troy Nehls and Gregg Steube) are proposing to nominate Donald Trump for the Speaker’s position. The lunatics are truly running the asylum now.
As for the USA’s occasional threatened shutdowns, the reasons underlying their shutdown laws strike me as being akin to our UK Gov’ and Labour’s slavish adherence to “fiscal rules”, which are simply fiscal choices to reinforce their ideologies. In both countries it boils down to the myth of “balancing the books”. In America’s case it’s about adherence to pre-existing budgets which are essentially estimates (i.e. notional figures) and may or may not take into account the full impact of significant changes of circumstance (e.g. war in Ukraine, the global resetting following Covid shutdowns etc). In the UK it’s about the deception of the nation’s economy being the same as a domestic economy as a means of cloaking the dogma of austerity in the disguise of the need to balance the books.
Thanks
Cruel. Heartless.