Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[HVC]

All those hazards just incentivize you to walk faster. All part of the plan

I'd suggest a car, but it's funnier to prod Josq with that... speaking of which, where'd he go?

[Tamas]

Labour better deliver on this growth and build thing because just by talking about it they have all the NIMBYs foaming at their mouths so those votes are lost, they need to gain the votes of people liking to have a working infrastructure.

[Sheilbh]

Yes. I did see Simon Jenkins column. I don't think I've seen anything quite so disconnected from observable reality as his opening paragraphs

Donald Trump's macho populism is catching on. The prime minister, Keir Starmer, has caught it bad. His mission for the economy is to grow, baby, grow. His abuse of his perceived enemies is relentless. He doles out not so much policies as Labour passion projects: Heathrow expansion, onshore wind turbines and Ed Miliband's pylons plan. As for consequences, they are for wimps.

Hardly had Trump ended his inaugural rant than Starmer launched another assault on his pet hates, "nimbys" and "blockers". They join a burgeoning parade of his selected victims such as farmers, private schools, planning committees and any defender of the green belt or countryside. But with these latest scapegoats, he seems to be assembling a gallery of people to blame if growth fails to happen.

Like many a populist, Starmer has made large infrastructure projects his favourite toy. Contractors and the media love them, while boring small businesses can be taxed and public services starved to pay for them. Nonetheless, this week the health secretary, Wes Streeting, announced that work on some of the "40 new hospitals" that Boris Johnson promised to build by 2030 would not begin until 2039. The budget for that infrastructure project, he said, was a Tory "work of fiction". Labour will put £15bn into each of the three waves of spending on the project over the next 15 years.

Also the Guardian cartoon because basically if you want economic growth, you're Liz Truss


More promising stuff recently - but they need to actually do it and it won't be easy and it will piss off a lot of vested interests that Labour instinctively thinks is one the same side as them.

Also if Labour don't succeed, I think they have set out a lot of what a Reform or Tory government could just pick up with and run and get the credit for.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I'm reminded of Denis Healey's comment on debating with Geoffrey Howe, "....like being savaged by a dead sheep" 

My chief fear if I ever had to face Starmer, would be the avalanche of pettifogging detail leading to a desperate urge to throw myself out of the nearest window.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Incidentally, and perhaps Gups could shed some light on this, I wonder why they have gone for the Heathrow expansion when it would be so much cheaper and easier to expand Gatwick?

[Tamas]

Incidentally, and perhaps Gups could shed some light on this, I wonder why they have gone for the Heathrow expansion when it would be so much cheaper and easier to expand Gatwick?

Gatwick is a right nightmare to get to with that part of the M25 often clogged.

[Gups]

Incidentally, and perhaps Gups could shed some light on this, I wonder why they have gone for the Heathrow expansion when it would be so much cheaper and easier to expand Gatwick?

I don't think it's an either or. They are talking about approving the use of the existing relief runway at Gatwick, approval for an increase in passenger numbers at City has already been approved (though not as many as was requested). There is support for expansion at Luton and Stanstead too. Together they should provide easily enough passenger capacity but can't deliver the freight capacity that Heathrow does (it is particularly well situated as a freight hub within the motorway (M4/M25) and rail network) or as a hub airport (I'm sceptical of the economic benefits of being a hub)

I think its nuts - and I say this as someone who worked on the Heathrow project at my last firm. It is astonishingly expensive, requires demolition of 700 odd homes, relocation/closure of lots of businesses (including an massive waste to energy facility) and a young offenders institution and most problematic diversion and tunnelling of the M25 under the runway. It's a project that can't be delivered within the lifetime of a Parliament so its subject to significant uncertainty without much wider political support - that uncertainty is toxic to funders.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Thanks. I do worry that Heathrow expansion is another HS2 style debacle in the making.