Surely Grandad is not the only one interested in any news of progress on that very expensive but largely forgotten project – HS2? You remember – the one that was announced seven years ago …
But there certainly seems to be few investigative souls pressing the government and their contractors for any news of progress on the ground. True there is a government paper – Overview of the HS2 project, setting out progress so far and next steps – available on the official website. Unfortunately it does lack much relevance to 2019 since it is dated March 2015. In other words it is four years out of date!
This month’s postings on the official site cover the designs for Old Oak Common station and which construction teams have been selected for the Euston and Old Oak Common contracts. But these official postings cover little about the projected costs involved. However today’s press reports putting the cost at £1,000 million – just at Old Oak Common – have not been denied.
Now it is hard for the general public to keep track of all the elements of complex, extended projects – but just take a look back on this single element; Old Oak Common station. In October 2014 this website pointed out the issues around this station. Then London’s Mayor, Boris Johnson, had ruled that an HS2-Crossrail interchange station would not receive any extra funding – so Kensington and Chelsea Council had underwritten the £33 million involved. With the way that project costs are climbing that £33 million will eventually pay for little more than the contractor’s tea breaks.
In 2014 politicians decried a proper interchange station at Old Oak Common – calling it Wormwood Scrubs International. But now comes the prediction that this critical hub will serve 250,000 passengers a day – more than 90 million a year – when it opens in 2026(!). It will replace London Victoria as the second-busiest station in the UK, after Waterloo. If that is true then it will be much busier than Euston.
Politicians still claim that they are unfairly treated when their confident pronouncements are dismissed as rubbish by a long-suffering electorate. But it seems that lies about HS2 are just as common as those about our relationship with Europe – and so many other things these days.
But now comes the news that the Scottish powers-that-be have decided to spend around £11 million of tax payers cash on overseas aid to Malawi. A surprising choice of priorities considering that Scotland is explicitly excluded from giving out overseas aid. It being the exclusive responsibility of the UK government. But since no one has yet taken issue with the Scottish minister authorising these payments – or the Scottish Government’s Malawi Development Programme – it looks like Westminster is turning a blind-eye to the offense. At least for now.
This will be followed by Phase 2a from the West Midlands to Crewe around a year later and Phase 2b from Crewe to Manchester and from the West Midlands to Leeds sometime in 2033 – if things go well.
The resulting chaotic scenes around the edges of the EU have prompted the politicians to take action; but with little co-ordination or clear objectives. It is hard to blame migrants for wanting to get to somewhere better; even if their expectations of what awaits them in Europe are unrealistic. Even Germany cannot provide them with everything they expect and need.
But once the politicians turn their dubious skills to international issues then things get a lot more serious – and potentially dangerous. Take Afghanistan. In 2001 British politicians decided to send in our troops – to solve the country’s problems. Thirteen years, 453 UK service personnel deaths and countless millions of pounds later that country is still beset by problems. And it will not take much, once the foreign troops leave, for Afghanistan to fall back to where it was before.
But so far British meddling in foreign conflicts has been at a safe distance from home. This could soon change and bring unforeseen dangers closer to our doorstep. Take, for example, Ukraine and Turkey. In the first our political leaders – via NATO and the EU – could put us in direct conflict with Russia. Not a trivial issue. And in the second Britain’s support for Turkey having EU membership could mean that our borders move all the way east to reach Syria, Iraq and Iran. Then the EU would become responsible for millions of refugees fleeing conflicts and for defending a huge land frontier against an assortment of unpredictable military factions. A time for some basic geography lessons for the Cabinet – before we all get burnt?
The implication is that China has done more than the UK to clean up its pollution and reduce its impact on the world’s climate. Yet simple observation does not support this politically inspired theory. Any Grandad who remembers British cities – like Stoke on Trent – in the 1950’s will know how much less pollution there is today. And any Grandad who has friends or relatives working in China now will have heard first hand reports on just how bad most Chinese cities are.
Back in October 2012 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the EU for creating peace in Europe. A prestigious accolade that somehow seemed to blank out the estimated 100,000 Europeans that died in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia in the 1990’s.
after the age of empire it must be very easy for some Whitehall departments to forget that the British government is no longer … the world’s policeman. So today Whitehall is hyper-active over the latest barbarity in the Syrian civil war. It is so high on the agenda because it fits the myth that Britain still has a world role. The same world role it had back at start of the 20th century.
Yesterday we had the UK’s International Development Secretary [Justine Greening] defending giving £300 million of taxpayers’ money to Nigeria. Yet acknowledging the fact that Nigeria is a country with huge oil-reserves. And one that is planning to spend some of its royalty revenue on a space programme rather than on the projects that are so important as to need aid from the UK.