Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Duque de Bragança]

It's a new Oxford-Cambridge rail link, meaning one more for to relieve the old one, or was there no rail link?

[Tamas]

I'd just like to say that Johnson's resignation made it clear to me that I was wrong to disagree with people earlier who made the Trump=Johnson analogy. He is the British version of Trump.

[Josquius]

It's a new Oxford-Cambridge rail link, meaning one more for to relieve the old one, or was there no rail link?

There's none. Ripped up in the 60s

[Sheilbh]

This article epitomises Britain's inability to build. Such remarkable nimbyness.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-65874170.amp

This is exactly the sort of project we need (only more than just the south east please). Rather than building in random fields build off railway stations.
But nope...

Yeah. It is.

The wider OxCam arc which would have linked two big research universities, a life science and tech hub with Milton Keynes (a really economically successful city) in the middle was cancelled by this government. It would have involved transport, wider infrastructure, space for light industry etc.

Obviously this is from the boosters of that project but the estimates were that it could add 3% to GDP. For contrast the BofE projection is that Brexit will cost 4%. But we are preserving some fairly unremarkable farmland, so there's that.

And to mongers' point the same issues (planning, land ownership, local politics) are the same that prevent, for example, Manchester and Liverpool building up into more of a hub and metro area. Public transport and national support is part of that. To an extent this is actually an incredibly successful policy because the point of the green belt was to basically suffocate cities - and it worked.

It's one of the reasons I am still fairly optimistic is because I think there's an awful lot of low hanging fruit, there's a lot of supply bottlenecks which I think can be fixed - and I think that we have to fix those issues if we are to have any chance of meeting our net zero targets. I think on their own pro-growth politics is a limited pitch in this country but I think that it's essential for climate politics may expand the support in much the same way as concern around immigration unlocked a previously eccentric obsession with EU membership.

Although on planning stories I also saw the 500 complaints about a bungalow being converted into a home for four children in care and was enraged all over again

I'd just like to say that Johnson's resignation made it clear to me that I was wrong to disagree with people earlier who made the Trump=Johnson analogy. He is the British version of Trump.

I think it raises what we mean by a British version of Trump?

But I agree his resignation as PM, his behaviour in front of the committee what he's saying about it now is all incredibly Trumpish.

In separate news it'll take three years to report but the covid inquiry has started - and been shown this organogram of the pandemic preparedness organisation/structure in UK government. Striking thing is how little a role there is for the politicians who are accountable for this to the public and to parliament which is part of the last 30 years of setting up independent, arm's length bodies (often established by statute), which I think is a big part of the story not just here but in UK state capacity in general:


Feel like even without hearing the rest of the inquiry there are probably some easy recommendations/"lessons learned" just from looking at that diagram

Also on austerity and the impact on covid I feel like the moving of public health responsibility out of the NHS/Department of Health (a ringfenced budget) and into local authorities (the department with the biggest spending cuts was a huge mistake). I also wonder if the merging of public health messaging around, say, obesity or salt or STDs with the pandemic monitoring/crisis response was the right choice.

[mongers]

The killings in Nottingham earlier in the day don't look to be terrorism; my guess would be drug-use* enhanced psychosis.



* probably a 'base-layer' of high strength cannabis use?

[Sheilbh]

Yeah. It's awful.

From what I've read the murders were committed in the early hours - first victims discovered at 4am. It feels like that's not what a terrorist would do. No idea on motive - someone with previous history of violent crimes apparently.

[Duque de Bragança]

It's a new Oxford-Cambridge rail link, meaning one more for to relieve the old one, or was there no rail link?

There's none. Ripped up in the 60s

10-12 years or so before an oil shock. Terrible with hindsight.
But then the same happened over here with tram lines removed or ripped up till the '50s or '60s then rebuilt at a much greater cost these days.

[Josquius]

Yes, Beeching was insanity. But Tories gotta Tory and there was money to be made building roads and an ideological idea that railways should turn a direct profit.
I really wonder when historians will finally get around to a consensus blasting the era of the car.

[Sheilbh]

Beeching was commissioned by the Tories in 1963. But Harold Wilson. Was elected in 1964 and Labour accepted most of his recommendations and commissioned a second report (which I think was the one that recommended closing the Oxford-Cambridge link).

In part it was just common sense at the time. To nick Cameron's line, cars were the future once.

[Duque de Bragança]

I could see a case for closing down unprofitable lines, and/or too expensive to invest for improved service but the Oxbridge link? 

Thinking of the single-track, narrow gauge rail lines with top speed of 4O kph (!) in Portugal closed down in the 1990s, without replacement or 25 years later (motorway).

[Josquius]

Beeching was commissioned by the Tories in 1963. But Harold Wilson. Was elected in 1964 and Labour accepted most of his recommendations and commissioned a second report (which I think was the one that recommended closing the Oxford-Cambridge link).

In part it was just common sense at the time. To nick Cameron's line, cars were the future once.

I wish I knew more of the era as apparently Labour said they would cancel the closures but then back tracked. Why I do not know. I wonder whether it was the same game as Blair in letting the Tories failures properly unravel in the area. Or indeed just Labour being pro car for different reasons of their whole 60s futurism kick.

Closing down services is one thing. What particularly rankled about Beeching is the wholesale ripping up of lines and ensuring they could never be reopened again. That was extremely short sighted.

[Gups]

Beeching was accepted by the Tories but implemented by Labour. Beeching actually recommended the retention of the Bedford - Cambridge line but it was closed anyway. The second Beeching report was rejected by Labour and he resigned shortly afterwards.

You can't blame Beeching for the ripping up of the lines. The report made no recommendations as to land disposal.  That was down to British Rail.

[Sheilbh]

I wish I knew more of the era as apparently Labour said they would cancel the closures but then back tracked. Why I do not know. I wonder whether it was the same game as Blair in letting the Tories failures properly unravel in the area. Or indeed just Labour being pro car for different reasons of their whole 60s futurism kick.

From what I understand it was an incredibly rational, ruthlessly logical analysis and the goal was to avoid having to subsidise railways.

Beeching ran through the network and found huge duplications of track/routes because of how British railways were created, but also that a large amount of the network actually transported relatively few of the users. So I think his vision was shifting railways even more towards freight with a few hundred major hubs around the country, with economically viable lines for passengers and otherwise replacing branch lines with bus services (which were more suitable for the relatively low numbers). That didn't really happen - my understanding is that in part there were just logistical issues and bus services didn't work out the way he had expected.

It is worth noting the Tory minister who commissioned Beeching was, famously, a motorway construction magnate Although Beeching I don't think actually recommended motorways - if anything his view was railways worked for those sort of routes - still....

It is in a way the other side of the NIMBY story. NIMBYism in this country was, in part, kicked off with local campaigns focusing on the social worth of certain railway lines, preserving extraordinary railway stations (like St Pancras) and preventing rational, planned, technocratic, slightly utopian plans for cities that would have involved American style highways cutting through city centres and historic centres being demolished. You had these extraordinary energised local campaigns to preserve things of value to them as communities - and they often weren't wrong.

It's just got a little bit out of hand.

[Sheilbh]

On the Nottingham murders - I have no idea how those parents were able to attend the vigil in the way they did or to make those statements. They were very moving. Seem like two brilliant students - and the third victim sounds like a pillar of the community too, school janitor four months from retirement who organised fishing trips for disadvantaged kids.

Just really horrendous

[Tamas]

Oh no, Johnson would have received a 90-days holiday from Parliament for all the misleading going on! Draconian strictness and consequences!!!!