Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

First two of the February by-elections yesterday. Both solid Labour victories.

In Kingswood (a constituency that is about to be dismembered as part of the boundary review) the Tory MP, who ran the Conservative Environment Network and was strongly critical of Sunak on net zero ambitions, stood down. Some would say he did this to get out ahead of the pack in getting post-politics jobs There Labour basically won a low turnout by-election by about the swing you'd expect given the national polling. No reason from this to think the national polling is wrong:

Britain Elects
@BritainElects
Kingswood parliamentary by-election, result:

LAB: 44.9% (+11.5)
CON: 34.9% (-21.3)
REF: 10.4% (+10.4)
GRN: 5.8% (+3.4)
LDEM: 3.5% (-3.5)
UKIP: 0.5% (+0.5)

Votes cast: 24,879

This one had a little bit of local interest for me because Labour's new MP (who will run in one of the constituencies replacing Kingswood at the next election) is Damian Egan who was mayor of my borough in London. He is an almost perfect example of the type of candidate Labour are selecting under Starmer. He's been involved in local government, was a Lewisham councillor and then Lewisham mayor (so we have a mayoral by-election). But he's originally from Bristol, so was selected for a seat there and for Kingswood. If you look at his social media videos (and there is a standard "style" for Starmer backed candidates in local selections - which suggests there's a team making them), he goes in heavy on coming from the local area and serving as a councillor - but doesn't mention it's been in London

This caused a little mini-controversy in the Bristol local press as they compared footage of him on the campaign trail v when he was mayor of Lewisham and it sounds like he was putting on a Bristol accent. But you'll see this a lot with Starmer-backed candidates. Lots of bright young people who've been councillors in Camden running to be MP of the town they come from and left at the first opportunity now playing up their local roots and time in a (never mentioned: London) council. I suspect if Labour win 400+ seats as looks likely this'll become a bit of a minor issue running in the background in the same way spin and media management were for Blair.

Wellingborough on the other hand showed that sometimes local issues really matter The swing here is well above what you'd expect from the national polling. But I suppose that's what happens when the local Tory MP was recalled for sexually inappropriate bullying, split the local Tory party and (reportedly) blackmailed them into running his girlfriend as their candidate - meaning no activists or MPs or cabinet ministers from the rest of the country were willing to troop through Wellingborough for this campaign and the Tories basically just folded:

Britain Elects
@BritainElects
Wellingborough parliamentary by-election, result:

LAB: 45.9% (+19.5)
CON: 24.6% (-37.6)
REF: 13.0% (+13.0)
LDEM: 4.7% (-3.1)
IND: 3.7% (+3.7)
GRN: 3.4% (-0.1)

The other thing that's striking about these is Reform UK, which is the UKIP successor party. They really talked up their chances, particularly in Wellingborough. In the 2015 election UKIP won about 15% of the vote in Kingswood and 20% in Wellingborough. National polling has them at about 10% and given the demographics of these constituencies, general dissatisfaction with the government, plus the local context in Wellingborough, you'd expect them to be doing a lot better than they did. And this is a theme - in every by-election so far the Reform numbers have underwhelmed and been lower than their national polling. This matches my own experience that you hear about them a lot online, but in the real world people have no idea who they are - which I think is how they should be covered.

[Josquius]

I saw Mogg making excuses like "Oh if you add up Reform and the Tories then clearly we win so the right has to unite".
So...Greens+Labour then?

The Tories do seem to be in a hard place. They need to go to the centre right for the whole "Not driving the country off a cliff" thing and appealing to the increasingly sceptical London commuter belt and the like.
At the same time doing this they open up a gap for blukip to swallow the fascist vote.

It is great to see them facing the same problems Labour always have.


On Damian Egan- he's originally from the constituency. He was previously selected for NE Bristol which was going to expand to swallow one corner of it.

As for putting on an accent- surely this happens normally? Anyone who has been away from their local area will tell you the same.
You move to London and come back to visit and everyone says you sound posh as shit.
Live back home for a while though and your accent comes back in.

[Sheilbh]

Economist on HS2 - we've spent tens of billions of pounds on a new railway that will reduce passenger capacity and be, on average, slower

The horror story of HS2
How a flagship project became a parable of Britain's problems 

HS2 Breakthrough Of An 847 Tonne Tunnel Boring Machine At Old Oak Common Station
Feb 15th 2024|The route of HS2

"It's not ideal," says James Richardson, a tunnelling engineer at Old Oak Common station in west London. He is standing in a vast hole: almost a kilometre long, 70 metres wide, 20 metres deep. Some 2,000 people are working at the site: by the early 2030s Old Oak Common should be one of the largest stations in Europe, with six underground platforms for high-speed trains whizzing in and out of London. But Mr Richardson isn't sure where to dig next.

Last October the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, decided to amputate High Speed 2 (HS2), a railway project turned national trauma. He announced that the northern leg of the line would not extend beyond Birmingham to Manchester. Mr Sunak said that the London terminus for HS2 would still be Euston, some 10km east of Old Oak Common, but that private investors would have to pay for the tunnel connecting the two. That money is far from certain to materialise, which is why Mr Richardson's team is soon to bury two giant tunnel-boring machines (TBMs) at Old Oak Common. They will be entombed there, pointing eastward, until things become clear.

Proponents of HS2 dreamed of a railway to rival those in Japan and France, linking Britain's big cities in a feat of engineering worthy of the country's Victorian pioneers. Instead the project has shown that Britain cannot build. The rump line from London to Birmingham will be one of the most expensive in the world, costing up to £67bn ($84bn) or £300m per km of track. It will also be one of the most pointless. A totemic project to boost the north will end up mostly benefiting London. A huge investment to increase capacity and cut journey times will, for some routes, do the reverse.



What went wrong? It is tempting to say everything. But several problems stand out. The initial plan was far too optimistic, not least because ministers kept changing it; legislation ensured that costs ratcheted up; and the company in charge botched important decisions. To see how the project went awry, step aboard for a journey along the line (see map).

Begin in London, where in March 2010 the then Labour government announced plans for a 540km (335-mile) Y-shaped railway linking Euston to Birmingham, with an eastern branch to Nottingham, Leeds and Yorkshire and a western branch to Manchester and the north-west. The trains zipping along the route would be among the fastest in the world.

Even at the outset, the economics were debatable. Passenger demand was growing and the existing lines were creaking. But Britain is smaller than France or Japan. Its large cities are closer together; they were already connected by rail. The initial budget was also hopelessly optimistic.

At Euston, for example, the idea was to squeeze 11 platforms into a small triangular plot between the existing station and a warren of residential streets. Immediately there were problems. When archeologists began to exhume 45,000 skeletons from a graveyard next to the station, they discovered an infestation of Japanese knotweed. Experts had to be drafted in to separate old bones from invasive perennial.

That was just the start. The work at Euston was supposed to cost just £3.2bn (all figures are in today's prices). The budget almost doubled even as the number of platforms was cut to ten and then six. Euston was a portent of wider issues. In 2010 the government had said that the whole line could be completed for £57.2bn. The Conservatives were happy to go along with that, but the numbers were flimsy.

Budgets are much harder to stick to when politicians fiddle. "If there is one thing with megaprojects, it's don't make changes after you've started," says Professor Bent Flyvbjerg of the Saïd Business School at Oxford University. Yet that is exactly what successive prime ministers and transport secretaries have done.

Tunnelling between Euston and Old Oak Common has started and stopped before now; plans changed so often that in 2020 £120m of design work for Euston had to be scrapped. The eastern arm of the Y to Leeds was severed in 2021. Another spur went in 2022. In early 2023 the Euston site was mothballed. Then came Mr Sunak's decision. Contractors call this "political risk", and Britain pays a premium.

Changes did not just come from ministers. Continue 50km along the line, a journey of around ten minutes when trains finally start running, and stop at South Heath, a village in the Chilterns in Buckinghamshire. These are the hills the project died on. For almost three years two TBMs, Florence and Cecilia, have been chomping through the chalky earth beneath the Chilterns, lining parallel 16km-long tunnels as they go with precast concrete segments. They have cost around £750m to dig before a track has been laid.

As well as those in the Chilterns, five "green tunnels", some almost 3km long, will protect residents' views and "connect wildlife habitats". Almost a quarter of the journey from London to Birmingham will happen underground. Another third of the journey will be through cuttings, where high banks line the tracks. In a 45-minute journey passengers will have "meaningful" views for less than ten minutes.

Ensuring hedgehogs can get around is a fine goal. The tunnels through the Chilterns were extended after a vociferous local campaign. But tunnels cost about ten times as much as normal tracks; cuttings five times. A big part of HS2's budget has gone on making sure a small group of people in the south of England will never have to see or hear it. As a result many more in the north won't either.

That points to another problem with the project: the way Parliament legislated for it. The bill in 2017 which gave HS2 Ltd, a public body, the power to acquire land detailed so many specifications that it ran to 50,000 pages. Critically, it gave councils the power to petition for design changes and to hold up work if they were unhappy. Having asked for tunnels, for example, councils then tried to stop them by denying access routes for lorries.

One case brought by Buckinghamshire council ran for nine months before the High Court threw it out. The council could be litigious partly because it had 15 dedicated planning officers paid for by HS2. Keep on for another 170km and, just before Lichfield, look out of the window to admire the Whittington Heath Golf Club. HS2 Ltd needed £400,000-worth of land from the club; to smooth things over it bankrolled a £7m development, including a new clubhouse (the chairman was "delighted").

Since 2017 HS2 has had to obtain more than 8,000 planning and environmental consents. It has gone to court more than 20 times. Such hold-ups are the biggest cause of uncertainty and higher costs in Britain, says Ricardo Ferreras of Ferrovial, which has built high-speed lines around the world. Other countries, notably France, grant sweeping planning powers and take a standardised approach to compensation.

Another big issue was the failure of HS2 Ltd to control costs. Effective project management and accounting should have led to tough questions. Instead, one civil servant complained that HS2 acted "like kids with the golden credit card".

The company asked firms to take on construction work without basic information about ground conditions. That led to rampant over-engineering, according to Andrew McNaughton, one of the scheme's architects, such as contractors insisting on installing concrete pile foundations where they were not needed. HS2 also signed huge contracts on a "cost-plus" basis, where firms are paid a percentage of the total value of the work. Sir Jon Thompson, who became executive chair last year, calls that "extraordinary": it gave contractors an incentive to go over-budget and the company no "levers" to stop them.



As costs spiralled, the route was pruned and the project's benefit-cost ratio sagged (see chart). In October Mr Sunak decided to cut his losses. In fact, he has made a bad situation worse. To see the problems HS2 now faces, continue another 55km along the original route to make a final stop at Whitmore, a village in Staffordshire.

Edward Cavenagh-Mainwaring, a dairy farmer in Whitmore, has been getting letters from HS2 for a decade. In early 2023 it finally acquired part of his farm, including one of his wildflower meadows. More of his fields were bought days before Mr Sunak announced that the Manchester leg would be scrapped. HS2 has spent over £600m ($755m) on land and property like this that it apparently no longer needs. Before it can be sold off again, there are miles of fences to take down and 1,800 boreholes to fill. Compulsory purchase is a slow and painful process. Undoing it will be, too.

Yet returning Mr Cavenagh-Mainwaring's farm would not solve the real problem, which is that the rump line makes no sense. According to Mr Sunak, HS2 trains will run at up to 360kph (225mph) to Birmingham before switching to old tracks to trundle up to Manchester. But high-speed trains were not designed to run on the old track; they cannot tilt as they go round corners, meaning they would take longer than the current Pendolino trains.

The original plan was for 400-metre-long HS2 trains, capable of carrying 1,100 passengers, to run from London to an upgraded station at Manchester Piccadilly. With that station no longer being built, trains will need to be split, leaving them with less capacity than current trains. It is already too late to make changes to the rolling stock HS2 has ordered, Sir Jon has told MPs. As a result services from Birmingham northward are likely to be worse once HS2 has been completed.

The only way to rescue any value from the project would be to complete the section between Birmingham and Crewe, says Jim Steer, a civil engineer. This bit is critical because it would relieve pressure on the most congested section of the existing line. Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition, says Labour won't complete the whole project but will look at options if it enters government after an election later this year. But whatever it decides, Britain's grand projet has turned into a nightmare.

Obviously in principle it's very good that local councils can challenge and go to the courts and, because all of that costs money, it is not a bad idea that they're provided specific funding to allow it - but in practice that just sounds insane

[Josquius]

Yep. Absolute disaster. And you just know it'll be spun that the very idea of hs2 was a disaster rather than all the obstacles thrown against it.

Critically, it gave councils the power to petition for design changes and to hold up work if they were unhappy. Having asked for tunnels, for example, councils then tried to stop them by denying access routes for lorries.

Really hate this sort of false concern. You see it all the time. Favourite tactic of the far right.
Should really be consequences for this sort of behaviour.

[Tamas]

Yep. Absolute disaster. And you just know it'll be spun that the very idea of hs2 was a disaster rather than all the obstacles thrown against it.

Yeah I am also worried the lesson learnt here will be that building stuff is folly.

[Gups]

The Economist article is decent and covers many of the reasons for HS2's failure. It misses the decision to use Parliament as the decision maker which slowed the project and led to numerous concessions. It also fails to note that this is a purely public sector failure which has much wider ramifications on how we create special purpose public sector delivery vehicles. Finally, you can blame NIMBYs all you like but when a project provide no benefits at all for people 100+ miles away from a new station only decades of road closures, construction noise etc what do you expect?

[Sheilbh]

The Economist article is decent and covers many of the reasons for HS2's failure. It misses the decision to use Parliament as the decision maker which slowed the project and led to numerous concessions. It also fails to note that this is a purely public sector failure which has much wider ramifications on how we create special purpose public sector delivery vehicles. Finally, you can blame NIMBYs all you like but when a project provide no benefits at all for people 100+ miles away from a new station only decades of road closures, construction noise etc what do you expect?

But aren't the last and the first connected?

Lots of people on the route won't benefit but will have to deal with the problems of construction, so you need to do it nationally in a way that effectively overrides local councils/avoids their ability to cause problems. That means there'll be a push for it to go through parliament rather than just the government, but means you'll get lots of concessions to local MPs along the route (which may also bring the local councils back in).

Of course it doesn't help that we seem to be only country to have developed anti-pork democracy where MPs boast on things they've blocked from happening in their constituency

[Gups]

The Economist article is decent and covers many of the reasons for HS2's failure. It misses the decision to use Parliament as the decision maker which slowed the project and led to numerous concessions. It also fails to note that this is a purely public sector failure which has much wider ramifications on how we create special purpose public sector delivery vehicles. Finally, you can blame NIMBYs all you like but when a project provide no benefits at all for people 100+ miles away from a new station only decades of road closures, construction noise etc what do you expect?

But aren't the last and the first connected?

Lots of people on the route won't benefit but will have to deal with the problems of construction, so you need to do it nationally in a way that effectively overrides local councils/avoids their ability to cause problems. That means there'll be a push for it to go through parliament rather than just the government, but means you'll get lots of concessions to local MPs along the route (which may also bring the local councils back in).

Of course it doesn't help that we seem to be only country to have developed anti-pork democracy where MPs boast on things they've blocked from happening in their constituency

Yes, and that is why we have a system which determines all other nationally significant infrastructure projects. Involving Parliament extended the standard period for determination from 1 year to 4.5 years and allowed MPs to petition against it. Not only that but the select committee determining the contents of the Bill actually changed part way through the hearings due to an election. Imagine if you changed a judge or jury part way through the hearing of evidence?

The approach is for natinally planning policy statement to set out that the principle of the project is agreed by Parliament and to have a team of professional planning inspectors determine the acceptability of the specific proposals.

Neither I or the Economist mentioned the single biggest problem with HS2 and most other linear transport/energy projects in the UK. Consent is sought before there is any form of a detailed design or budget for construction. The consent teherfore needs to be very flexible, widening the net of people/land potentially affected while making it impossible for the promoter to come to deals with any of them to minimise opposition.

[Josquius]

Surely that's the sensible thing to do?
If you announce a set in stone plan years in advance then won't that see the prices of those bits of land you want shoot up, and/or nimbys setting up obstacles on them?

What I find curious with the problem with planning in the UK is that the current system dates back to the 40s, yet some absolutely insane construction went on in the mid 20th century. Virtually entire towns levelled and tower blocks and highways built all over the place.
 


And on a lighter note, apparently kids are into brexit many years after it was the talk of the adult world
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/14/brexit-tackle-politics-children-football

[Gups]

Surely that's the sensible thing to do?
If you announce a set in stone plan years in advance then won't that see the prices of those bits of land you want shoot up, and/or nimbys setting up obstacles on them?

What I find curious with the problem with planning in the UK is that the current system dates back to the 40s, yet some absolutely insane construction went on in the mid 20th century. Virtually entire towns levelled and tower blocks and highways built all over the place.
 

The French and most Europeans do infrastructure projects in the way I described. Reasonable detailed design plus budget then approval, construction contracts then implementation.

We do it as follows - broad reference design - consent made more difficult because 4 times as many objections as would be the case with detailed design - budget approval - detailed design - new consents needed because detailed design reveals that don't have appropriate consent/compulsory purchase powers - construction contracts awarded.

Re our planning system, the framework - a plan led system - maybe the same but its way, way more complex these days. There were no conservation areas or listed buildings back then, no environmental impact assessments, no consultation.

Listened to a good BBC radio documentary on the building of motorways in Glasgow city centre in the 60s and 70s which gives a good idea of the inadequacy of the planning system in those days. If only there had been NIMBYs then.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vzm7

[Josquius]

On the topic of planning but unrelated to this topic. Poundbury.
I've heard of the town in the past but never really given it any thought. Seems its quite nice. King Charles was right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duHy_IbJvTc

Surely that's the sensible thing to do?
If you announce a set in stone plan years in advance then won't that see the prices of those bits of land you want shoot up, and/or nimbys setting up obstacles on them?

What I find curious with the problem with planning in the UK is that the current system dates back to the 40s, yet some absolutely insane construction went on in the mid 20th century. Virtually entire towns levelled and tower blocks and highways built all over the place.
 

The French and most Europeans do infrastructure projects in the way I described. Reasonable detailed design plus budget then approval, construction contracts then implementation.

We do it as follows - broad reference design - consent made more difficult because 4 times as many objections as would be the case with detailed design - budget approval - detailed design - new consents needed because detailed design reveals that don't have appropriate consent/compulsory purchase powers - construction contracts awarded.

Guess it makes sense on limiting objections.
How do they stop the possible issue I mentioned of people noting upfront what fields will be having railways running through them then rushing to buy them; they having the resources to fight for extra payment the old owner may not have?

Re our planning system, the framework - a plan led system - maybe the same but its way, way more complex these days. There were no conservation areas or listed buildings back then, no environmental impact assessments, no consultation.

Listened to a good BBC radio documentary on the building of motorways in Glasgow city centre in the 60s and 70s which gives a good idea of the inadequacy of the planning system in those days. If only there had been NIMBYs then.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vzm7

Shall give it a listen. This is a question I really need to figure out, as it is curious. Its the 40s reform which seems to get all the blame but theres all this that came after it.

And yes.
Some degree of NIMBYness is necessary. Lets preserve our historic buildings.... but random fields and views of distant churches and such? Le sigh.

[Sheilbh]

It also seems literally insane to approve the budget before the detailed design. Although I think there's a similar issue in government procurement too.

Edit: Incidentally for Tamas I think that's where the "corruption" if you call it that because - as a bidder, you know the budget beffore the detailed work.

And that's absolutely right on Glasgow. I think the origin of NIMBYism in this country was really important campaigns against the London plan - destroying Covent Garden and St Pancras, big motorways cutting through the city etc.

It's where the Burke-style conservative comes out in me is that I do think the rational, "this is the future" plans have a mixed record at best - and architects do seem particularly susceptible to it

It's why I generally lean to a market, build what people want rather than what we think they should want approach - I also think if planning reform could make it simpler, more predictable, cheaper it would improve quality because it would reduce the barrier to entry and allow competition. Again I think of those modular homes, but also small builders in, say, Germany building a development. I think an expensive, unpredictable, complicated planning system means only the biggest can make a business of it and they'll do it on relatively standardised models.

On the topic of planning but unrelated to this topic. Poundbury.
I've heard of the town in the past but never really given it any thought. Seems its quite nice. King Charles was right.

Couldn't load the video for some reason My parents live in Dorset so I've been. It's not anywhere I would want to live. I think the quality of the buildings has visibly improved over time. The early stuff is very poor pastiche (and I love pastiche!), but the later buildings seem to work more to me.

What I've read is that architects and planners are very interested in Poundbury because it's apparently been very successful for that type of development (basically a suburb of a county town) at mixed use. It's also relatively denser and not just a 15 minute, but a 10 minute town Having said all that it still uses cars a lot but part of that I think is just the nature of Dorset which (outside of Bournemouth-Poole - which is at the extreme south-east corner) doesn't really have any hubs - it's not an area with a centre.

[Josquius]

Couldn't load the video for some reason My parents live in Dorset so I've been. It's not anywhere I would want to live. I think the quality of the buildings has visibly improved over time. The early stuff is very poor pastiche (and I love pastiche!), but the later buildings seem to work more to me.

What I've read is that architects and planners are very interested in Poundbury because it's apparently been very successful for that type of development (basically a suburb of a county town) at mixed use. It's also relatively denser and not just a 15 minute, but a 10 minute town Having said all that it still uses cars a lot but part of that I think is just the nature of Dorset which (outside of Bournemouth-Poole - which is at the extreme south-east corner) doesn't really have any hubs - it's not an area with a centre.

Fixed the link. Something weird with the youtube embed tool.

It doesn't seem perfect, but there are a lot of lessons to learn from there. Particularly around how you can build acceptable density in a way that people like.

Also the way they handle social housing is awesome. House prices shooting up for commercially available properties but 35% social houses scattered around.
The thing that seems most off to me is the whole Little England/householders association vibe prohibiting change. And I can't help but think given how long its taken if they'd cut back on some of the splendour a little they could have done a lot more.

I do think this could be a good model for my favourite topic of building housing around village train stations.

[Sheilbh]

Tory MP for Blackpool South's suspension for 35 days for offering to lobby government on behalf of gambling companies has been upheld. That's enough to trigger a recall petition - again, outside of Northern Ireland where there's different factors at play, every recall petition so far has been successful. (The Tories withdrew the whip already, so technically he's an independent).

So chances are another by-election coming up which the Tories would be expected to lose heavily (they won the seat on about 50% of the vote to Labour's 38% last election). Which just feels like it'll be the pattern going on until we get a general election.

[HVC]

Can NIMBYs be sued for legal fees in the UK? Seem like the can in canada, or toronto at least

https://globalnews.ca/news/10306311/toronto-neighbourhood-group-legal-fees/