Vocal Voices

HS2-3 has gone up and is now approaching £60Bn.

The NHS is to get and extra £2Bn year-on-year for the next five years.

And now we have £15Bn on roads.

I wish that I could persuade my bank manger to let me run my finances in a similar way.

Amazing what they can find when a general election is in the offing

Isn't it?

They haven't finished the last lot of roadworks on the M42 around here yet, let alone implementing new ones. There's still coned off lanes most nights.

I'd be happier if they'd diverted some money to repair the existing crumbling road network, not grandiose new projects ....

TheOstrich wrote:I'd be happier if they'd diverted some money to repair the existing crumbling road network, not grandiose new projects ....

That appears to be what most ordinary people think. Grandiose schemes are fine when things are on the up, but in austere times it is the the basics that matter. Trouble is that filing in pot-holes is not 'sexy' politics.

It is the way it is for all governments. I've heard the whole "dual the A1" bit for forever. But if you actually look at what they are talking about, it is the tiny piece of single lane from Morpeth to the bottom of the dualling that ends north of Alnwick. A small and simple upgrade which is about a decade overdue. It will do almost nothing for the real blockage and that is from Alnwick to Berwick.

As for HS2? The realistic estimates were always £72bn. They're just catching up and remember HS2 at 40bn was already in the budget and we're not talking about 40bn between now and May, but now and 2020 or so.

Thinking about revenues, this massive fall in oil prices is probably a net revenue gain for the government as they can raise fuel taxes. Oil has fallen nearly 40% but our fuel at the pump is still catching up and will never fall the full amount as fuel taxes can be raised to cover it. If I recall, the Tories proposed to have a sliding scale tax which blocked the worse price rises but also took more tax to "balance" the change in cost when it fell. However betting on oil prices was never a good bet.

I doubt that too much new money has truly been injected into the budget. It's mainly a repackaging exercise... They're telling us that we'll benefit from the austerity still to come over the next parliament. Our job is to strip that back and work out whether it's worth it or not...

We could be like France, desperately holding fast to the LGV project to build a new high speed line from Paris to Bordeaux in the face of mounting demands from the EU that they get their structural deficit down from nearly 5% to 3%. However most French see this differently. They already have multiple high speed lines and know the benefits. They know that this new line will be beneficial and it is popular. As I'm sure, would be a line which managed to take you from London to Edinburgh in 3 hours. Or Manchester in under 2 or Birmingham in well under 1 hour. Once it is in place and people have been using it.

My take on local things is somewhat different. I see local things as mainly council responsibility. Something they have significantly failed to do under Blair and Brown and have learned to fail and wail for central government money. They have built monolithic monsters which are unable to do anything but consume ever vaster sums of money. When they fail, as they do, we blame central government. Perfect for them but hardly the way to govern a country. If I recall correctly, one of Maggies key reforms was of local councils. We never learn, we never really fix anything, we just keep going round in circles of varying size and speed.

Instead of upgrading and/or building more motorways, it would make more sense if they did something
to encourage more people to get jobs nearer where they live. That would be a real contribution to
the all-important problem of global warning.

Unless they see the light which is unlikely HS2 could well end up topping 100 before it is finished. As for motorways there should be tolls it seems logical that those who use them the most should pay the most for upkeep and possible improvement if the money derived can be kept for that purpose. I think booths are fine too, an enforced stop though brief at set intervals is not a bad thing as well as providing employment and better than paying the French vast sums to set up their electronic follies.
And as for the source of the funds only one guess is needed. What a legacy for future generations to allow such a fantastic National Debt to build up.

Workingman wrote:HS2-3 has gone up

No surprise there then.

I see they are promising £2 billion for the NHS. I would rather see them try and sort out the NHS rather than just keep throwing money at it because it is seen as some sort of Holy Cow. The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals whatever it is is now paying £40 million plus per year to the private sector thanks to an imbecilic PFI deal, and the payments won't end for another thirty years!

cromwell wrote:The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals whatever it is is now paying £40 million plus per year to the private sector thanks to an imbecilic PFI deal, and the payments won't end for another thirty years!

Yes, and Balfour and RBS made something like £60m profit from selling their shares to some Guernsey bank.

Now it's £2.7Bn for flood defences.........

Ped, the problem with tolling the motorways is that they were not built for such. They are more a hop-on, hop-off route in many cases, the M25 is a good example. The original idea was for it to connect the motorways leading to London and allow a lot of the traffic to go around rather than through, probably 12 junctions. However, because everyone wanted a piece of the action, it has ended up with thirty-odd junctions and is used for a lot of local traffic.