Britain needs the steel products they make and needs the steel production capacity and capabilities they offer. Letting the company go to the wall and the UK reliant on foreign imports is a strategic disaster.
Supposedly this is the kind of thing Brexit was going to stop. Allowing the UK government to legally provide the exact same state aid that half the EU states provide illegally. And yet as with cutting VAT on energy we campaigned for the right to do so but now choose not to.
This government really couldn't give a fuck could it?
If the company goes to the wall, the Sanjeev loses all his money. It doesn't mean everyone loses their jobs. It means that the adminstrators take over.
If the plants are fundamentally profitable at the operating level (and most are), then they will find new owners. The issue is that Sanjeev has debts of $10bn+ and has to make a $1bn interest payment each year.
And the plants don't throw off that much money in free cash flow, and he's over-leveraged, and no one wants to lend him more money.
Note that such a bankruptcy turned OneWeb from a dead turkey to a must-buy.
The plants without the debt.... yum.....
If we get that - great. But we have a proud track record of letting them fold and then close. Primary industry tends to be loss-making thanks to cheap production costs and subsidies elsewhere. So we can't rely on "they're really profitable".
They're not going to fold and close, because it is not in the interests of the creditors to allow that to happen. They want to maximise what they get, and that means selling the plants as going concerns.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
I know lots of you probably hate Sadiq Khan but it's an impressive move.
At least someone of power in London has the courage to punish serial incompetence.
What about the argument, if he has this power where has he been keeping it?
Why now? There is nothing in last few weeks to prompt a sudden change of heart about her?
It has to be linked to party scandal cover up, nothing else. As both Patel and Khan have indicated from nowhere last couple of days they are minded to do this. Both have them have to answer under caution when they first heard of the lockdown parties.
Britain needs the steel products they make and needs the steel production capacity and capabilities they offer. Letting the company go to the wall and the UK reliant on foreign imports is a strategic disaster.
Supposedly this is the kind of thing Brexit was going to stop. Allowing the UK government to legally provide the exact same state aid that half the EU states provide illegally. And yet as with cutting VAT on energy we campaigned for the right to do so but now choose not to.
This government really couldn't give a fuck could it?
If the company goes to the wall, the Sanjeev loses all his money. It doesn't mean everyone loses their jobs. It means that the adminstrators take over.
If the plants are fundamentally profitable at the operating level (and most are), then they will find new owners. The issue is that Sanjeev has debts of $10bn+ and has to make a $1bn interest payment each year.
And the plants don't throw off that much money in free cash flow, and he's over-leveraged, and no one wants to lend him more money.
Note that such a bankruptcy turned OneWeb from a dead turkey to a must-buy.
The plants without the debt.... yum.....
Sale of British strategic asset to American private equity incoming.
But just think, they might go to war over Ukraine, and we might fail to sign up (Boris misses the call due to a 'work event'/Joe gets the wrong end of the stick and drafts in the United Colours of Bennetton), and then we can sit it out, and agree to supply both sides, but benefitting America with its superior naval strength more. They can then liquidate their assets buying our shizz to fight the evil enemy and we can join when we're good and ready.
I know many people on this site have been critical of the outgoing Met chief and will think this big news, but in terms of the public, will there be any Dick cut through?
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Boris better hope his MPs believe that. If they don't.....cheerio.
What's going on with the 18-24s? Surprisingly right wing at their tender age. Or just loads of them voting Green perhaps (Con number is higher but not that much higher than the 25-34s).
25-34 presumably the age group most frustrated by their inability to afford property.
18-24yos still being influenced by their parents' political views, perhaps, and haven't yet realised the full extent of the scorched Earth Neoliberal hell-scape that the Tory party has created for them to live in. Nice to see that my own Gen X age bracket is still reliably left wing.
Gen X is the generation that came of age during the rise of Tony Blair, whose golden years were the halcyon days of the Berlin wall falling, the third way, the optimism of rave and Britpop and the succession of magically hot summers that was the 1990s. A generation too young to remember the winter of discontent and too young to be that bothered about the Falklands or Arthur Scargill.
Not necessarily left wing, but - I think - generally liberal and internationalist, ranging from Cameronian on the right to Brownite on the left, and with a distrust of extremism.
Well that's probably all a load of bollocks but a nice thought.
What's going on with the 18-24s? Surprisingly right wing at their tender age. Or just loads of them voting Green perhaps (Con number is higher but not that much higher than the 25-34s).
25-34 presumably the age group most frustrated by their inability to afford property.
The most surprising group is the 55-64s, that's horrific for Boris. Labour approaching landslide territory based on those splits IMO.
I know many people on this site have been critical of the outgoing Met chief and will think this big news, but in terms of the public, will there be any Dick cut through?
The head [of this story] may be poking out, yes
The really big question is whether the withdrawal of Dick presages the withdrawal of Johnson, which will leave a big chas(that's enough - ed)
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Boris better hope his MPs believe that. If they don't.....cheerio.
Sunak believes in levelling up. Just saying....
If you believe Sunak believes in Levelling Up, you’ll believe anything,
Wasn’t he suggested last time there was a vacancy, but too many people said it would be the wrong approach? Those people, being those who benefit massively from not bringing in outsiders.
He's also getting on a bit, and may not want a day job in a foreign country, when he can earn much better money doing a dozen speeches a year.
I know lots of you probably hate Sadiq Khan but it's an impressive move.
At least someone of power in London has the courage to punish serial incompetence.
What about the argument, if he has this power where has he been keeping it?
Why now? There is nothing in last few weeks to prompt a sudden change of heart about her?
It has to be linked to party scandal cover up, nothing else. As both Patel and Khan have indicated from nowhere last couple of days they are minded to do this. Both have them have to answer under caution when they first heard of the lockdown parties.
The thing I don't see is: what does Khan get out of protecting Boris?
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I think it would still exist under Rishi, but be much smaller in scope but probably actually happen. We'd dump a lot of the rubbish like freeports and have a more temporary tax incentive based system to lure big businesses with special economic zones, no employer NI for up to 100 employees in the zones, 10 years of low corporation tax rates. That sort of stuff. There won't be any big shiny stuff but a lot of jobs created, perhaps eventually self sustaining industries where nothing existed previously.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up never existed beyond a slogan. There is no substance there to die.
Levelling up will happen when people in the north take control. Expecting the south to give it to them is for the birds.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up never existed beyond a slogan. There is no substance there to die.
Levelling up will happen when people in the north take control. Expecting the south to give it to them is for the birds.
There's a lot more to regional inequality than North vs South. That's part of the problem.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I think it would still exist under Rishi, but be much smaller in scope but probably actually happen. We'd dump a lot of the rubbish like freeports and have a more temporary tax incentive based system to lure big businesses with special economic zones, no employer NI for up to 100 employees in the zones, 10 years of low corporation tax rates. That sort of stuff. There won't be any big shiny stuff but a lot of jobs created, perhaps eventually self sustaining industries where nothing existed previously.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I think it would still exist under Rishi, but be much smaller in scope but probably actually happen. We'd dump a lot of the rubbish like freeports and have a more temporary tax incentive based system to lure big businesses with special economic zones, no employer NI for up to 100 employees in the zones, 10 years of low corporation tax rates. That sort of stuff. There won't be any big shiny stuff but a lot of jobs created, perhaps eventually self sustaining industries where nothing existed previously.
Sounds good, but what's wrong with free ports within that context?
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I think it would still exist under Rishi, but be much smaller in scope but probably actually happen. We'd dump a lot of the rubbish like freeports and have a more temporary tax incentive based system to lure big businesses with special economic zones, no employer NI for up to 100 employees in the zones, 10 years of low corporation tax rates. That sort of stuff. There won't be any big shiny stuff but a lot of jobs created, perhaps eventually self sustaining industries where nothing existed previously.
Freeports are literally Rishi's brainchild. We did a paper for him on the feasibility of Freeports back in 2016 shortly after the Brexit vote.
To put the Russia - NATO brinksmanship into context, take a step back from the table and look at the strategic overview. On one side of the table we have Russia. Essentially a dictatorship, Putin can do what he wants. On the other side we have Ukraine - not remotely as strong - and the NATO powers who are really not worried about Ukraine but more worried about NATO members in the Baltic.
The advantages for Russia - its in their back yard so aside from the political claims on the area their supply chain to forces is simple, NATO are divided and relatively weak, the US President can huff but will he puff?
A united NATO - pledged to the defence of a non-NATO member in Russia's back yard - could make Putin at least pause for thought. But we don't have unity and resolve and we aren't likely to get it even if the next target is Lithuania.
Because when push comes to shove are the Europeans really going to throw their populations into the fire over that? In the Cold War they would have been fighting for their own survival against invading soviet forces - any breakout of nuclear war would have turned West Germany into molten glass. But here in 2022? They won't. And Putin knows it.
So the solution to this isn't fly a squadron of B52s in and make baseless threats of force. Its go after all the Russian money that's in our territory. You can't invade Ukraine and wherever you like without facing the wrath of the people who own the Russian state. Again, Putin has to pause for thought.
But stop making baseless cold war threats. We aren't going to risk nuclear annihilation over Ukraine and Putin knows it.
What we can do is confiscate all property and assets of anyone with known links to the Russian government or major oil/gas companies. And put a travel ban on their families as well so they can't use our schools.
So we can respond seriously without pretending we will go to war over Ukraine.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I think it would still exist under Rishi, but be much smaller in scope but probably actually happen. We'd dump a lot of the rubbish like freeports and have a more temporary tax incentive based system to lure big businesses with special economic zones, no employer NI for up to 100 employees in the zones, 10 years of low corporation tax rates. That sort of stuff. There won't be any big shiny stuff but a lot of jobs created, perhaps eventually self sustaining industries where nothing existed previously.
Freeports are literally Rishi's brainchild. We did a paper for him on the feasibility of Freeports back in 2016 shortly after the Brexit vote.
What's going on with the 18-24s? Surprisingly right wing at their tender age. Or just loads of them voting Green perhaps (Con number is higher but not that much higher than the 25-34s).
25-34 presumably the age group most frustrated by their inability to afford property.
18-24yos still being influenced by their parents' political views, perhaps, and haven't yet realised the full extent of the scorched Earth Neoliberal hell-scape that the Tory party has created for them to live in. Nice to see that my own Gen X age bracket is still reliably left wing.
Gen X is the generation that came of age during the rise of Tony Blair, whose golden years were the halcyon days of the Berlin wall falling, the third way, the optimism of rave and Britpop and the succession of magically hot summers that was the 1990s. A generation too young to remember the winter of discontent and too young to be that bothered about the Falklands or Arthur Scargill.
Not necessarily left wing, but - I think - generally liberal and internationalist, ranging from Cameronian on the right to Brownite on the left, and with a distrust of extremism.
Well that's probably all a load of bollocks but a nice thought.
I'm an elderly Gen Xer. 55. I remember the Winter of Discontent. I was 18 in 1984. The Strike was a huge influence. Hadn't heard of Blair then. He became LOTO when I was 28. Optimism of the 90's. Spot on. Was a great time to be young.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I think it would still exist under Rishi, but be much smaller in scope but probably actually happen. We'd dump a lot of the rubbish like freeports and have a more temporary tax incentive based system to lure big businesses with special economic zones, no employer NI for up to 100 employees in the zones, 10 years of low corporation tax rates. That sort of stuff. There won't be any big shiny stuff but a lot of jobs created, perhaps eventually self sustaining industries where nothing existed previously.
Freeports are literally Rishi's brainchild. We did a paper for him on the feasibility of Freeports back in 2016 shortly after the Brexit vote.
Free port in No 11. Bring your own booze in No 10.
What's going on with the 18-24s? Surprisingly right wing at their tender age. Or just loads of them voting Green perhaps (Con number is higher but not that much higher than the 25-34s).
25-34 presumably the age group most frustrated by their inability to afford property.
18-24yos still being influenced by their parents' political views, perhaps, and haven't yet realised the full extent of the scorched Earth Neoliberal hell-scape that the Tory party has created for them to live in. Nice to see that my own Gen X age bracket is still reliably left wing.
Gen X is the generation that came of age during the rise of Tony Blair, whose golden years were the halcyon days of the Berlin wall falling, the third way, the optimism of rave and Britpop and the succession of magically hot summers that was the 1990s. A generation too young to remember the winter of discontent and too young to be that bothered about the Falklands or Arthur Scargill.
Not necessarily left wing, but - I think - generally liberal and internationalist, ranging from Cameronian on the right to Brownite on the left, and with a distrust of extremism.
Well that's probably all a load of bollocks but a nice thought.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I keep finding myself in the position of defending Boris, which really isn't the intention - I'm as keen to see him go as the next man. And I suppose Rishi is who I'd want to see replace him. And yet - I can't see levelling up going better with anyone but Boris in charge. He's personally invested. Without going into my professional life too much, I know the Boris regime is trying to spend money in the north - ideally before the next election. And it is the treasury which is the biggest obstacle.
I suppose you could argue that a Rishi led government would spend less, but more effectively. Perhaps?
Johnson hasn't spent anything yet. The one major commitment was HS2 and they've cut the budget there. The IRP will never be delivered, because it is literally undeliverable, so that's worthless.
So I'm not quite sure why you think anyone else would 'spend less.'
It takes a bloody age to spend any money in infrastructure. My expectation is that the biggest levelling up spending this parliament will be on buses. Because you can spend on them quickly. There's already quite a lot of bus spending in the pipeline.
Will any of that lead to cheaper fares?
I would expect so. Not least because it's very easy to spend money on fares. Much easier to give public transport authorities to subsidise fares than to reopen a railway line (which in most cases closed for very sound economic reasons). Bus Back Better is worth a look on this. Interesting not least because Boris genuinely seems to have written the introduction in his name. It is written in pure Borisese. The only problem with subsidising fares is that you need to keep spending. It's not capital spend. Though if by doing so you drive up passengers sufficiently it dies start to pay for itself.
For your average Northerner, busses are utterly irrelevant. I'm probably pretty typical of the northern working class type on my street on this - it wouldn't matter to me if they made them completely free and every ten minutes, I'm still going to drive to work. Several major reasons for this: 1) I value my time far too highly to waste an hour a day extra commuting(the "direct" bus from my town to my work takes about an hour vs 25-35mins driving). 2) Buses are inconvenient, they don't go door to door, and leave you standing around in the rain. 3) I work in the middle of nowhere, and use my car at lunchtime to go and get a sandwich from the shop a mile away. Even if busses were free and every ten minutes, I'm going to lose my whole lunch break on this operation, rather than ten minutes of it. 4) My stuff lives in my car. Spare glasses. Socket set. Coat. Headtorch. Pen and notebook. Tape measure. Workboots. Business cards. (and a whole load of other useful stuff!). Can't cart all that with me on the bus every day, and it's a pain having to try and predict what's going to be needed day to day to take it with you. 4) Travelling on busses isn't great anyway - sitting on an uncomfortable seat next to a smelly alcoholic with some screaming kids in the row in front vs rolling smoothly along in effectively a comfy chair with my choice of tunes, my choice of temperature...
The weird thing about the whole leveling up thing is that most of the North is far better for drivers than the South, (not that there isn't room for improvement - you could remove 90% of the congestion in my town with one stretch of road about 1/4 long, following an existing minor road for all but 100 yards) but about the only sort of leveling up that's ever suggested involves hosing odles of tax money at public transport.
I'd suggest that decreasing businesses rates (and or increasing the threshold for the small businesses relief*) in proportion to the distance from Westminster would be a much better use of the cash. Or possibly do the same with income or corp tax, but you'd have to figure out how to prevent people gaiming the system by lying about which property is their main residence/place of business.
*the taper on small business rate relief wins a small prize for the worst thought out taxation system ever, as the taper is so steep as to be more like a cliff edge. My business gets 100% relief. I'd really like to rent another building on the same site to expand, but it would jump me into paying full whack on the lot to the tune of about £9k pa. So instead of expanding into the next building jumping my rent from ~£10k to ~£15k, with the rates added I'll be looking at ~£24k for an increase in usable space of around 50%. So instead I'm not bothering and just struggling on in the space I've got, and everyone loses out.
What's going on with the 18-24s? Surprisingly right wing at their tender age. Or just loads of them voting Green perhaps (Con number is higher but not that much higher than the 25-34s).
25-34 presumably the age group most frustrated by their inability to afford property.
The most surprising group is the 55-64s, that's horrific for Boris. Labour approaching landslide territory based on those splits IMO.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I think it would still exist under Rishi, but be much smaller in scope but probably actually happen. We'd dump a lot of the rubbish like freeports and have a more temporary tax incentive based system to lure big businesses with special economic zones, no employer NI for up to 100 employees in the zones, 10 years of low corporation tax rates. That sort of stuff. There won't be any big shiny stuff but a lot of jobs created, perhaps eventually self sustaining industries where nothing existed previously.
Freeports are literally Rishi's brainchild. We did a paper for him on the feasibility of Freeports back in 2016 shortly after the Brexit vote.
Boris seems more wedded to them, though.
Boris doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going. Although I agree that Rishi is more competent at execution, there’s no evidence he dissents from standard Treasury orthodoxy which is to hope that Levelling Up goes away.
Why do you think the White Paper was delayed so long. Gove couldn’t find any cash…
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up never existed beyond a slogan. There is no substance there to die.
That does raise an interesting point, in that either it had no substance, and therefore it being dropped means nothing, or it did and it would, yet I have a suspicion people will argue both.
The wrath of Khan, and hopefully a successor anxious to prove that while Dick is synonymous with Johnson, s/he isn't. Unless Chief supt Wang gets the promotion of course
What's going on with the 18-24s? Surprisingly right wing at their tender age. Or just loads of them voting Green perhaps (Con number is higher but not that much higher than the 25-34s).
25-34 presumably the age group most frustrated by their inability to afford property.
18-24yos still being influenced by their parents' political views, perhaps, and haven't yet realised the full extent of the scorched Earth Neoliberal hell-scape that the Tory party has created for them to live in. Nice to see that my own Gen X age bracket is still reliably left wing.
Gen X is the generation that came of age during the rise of Tony Blair, whose golden years were the halcyon days of the Berlin wall falling, the third way, the optimism of rave and Britpop and the succession of magically hot summers that was the 1990s. A generation too young to remember the winter of discontent and too young to be that bothered about the Falklands or Arthur Scargill.
Not necessarily left wing, but - I think - generally liberal and internationalist, ranging from Cameronian on the right to Brownite on the left, and with a distrust of extremism.
Well that's probably all a load of bollocks but a nice thought.
I'm an elderly Gen Xer. 55. I remember the Winter of Discontent. I was 18 in 1984. The Strike was a huge influence. Hadn't heard of Blair then. He became LOTO when I was 28. Optimism of the 90's. Spot on. Was a great time to be young.
Yes I suppose that's the thing with generations, they span a couple of decades. I'm at the younger end, mid-40s. Scargill and the Falklands are to me a hazy montage of disconnected images and news reports. 1997 was my first GE as a registered voter.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I think it would still exist under Rishi, but be much smaller in scope but probably actually happen. We'd dump a lot of the rubbish like freeports and have a more temporary tax incentive based system to lure big businesses with special economic zones, no employer NI for up to 100 employees in the zones, 10 years of low corporation tax rates. That sort of stuff. There won't be any big shiny stuff but a lot of jobs created, perhaps eventually self sustaining industries where nothing existed previously.
Freeports are literally Rishi's brainchild. We did a paper for him on the feasibility of Freeports back in 2016 shortly after the Brexit vote.
Huh?
Freeports date from at least the 19th century, arguably much earlier.
Is Victorian Rishi, the inventor of freeports, so diminutive that he slipped through a wormhole?
The wrath of Khan, and hopefully a successor anxious to prove that while Dick is synonymous with Johnson, s/he isn't. Unless Chief supt Wang gets the promotion of course
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I think it would still exist under Rishi, but be much smaller in scope but probably actually happen. We'd dump a lot of the rubbish like freeports and have a more temporary tax incentive based system to lure big businesses with special economic zones, no employer NI for up to 100 employees in the zones, 10 years of low corporation tax rates. That sort of stuff. There won't be any big shiny stuff but a lot of jobs created, perhaps eventually self sustaining industries where nothing existed previously.
Freeports are literally Rishi's brainchild. We did a paper for him on the feasibility of Freeports back in 2016 shortly after the Brexit vote.
Boris seems more wedded to them, though.
Boris doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going. Although I agree that Rishi is more competent at execution, there’s no evidence he dissents from standard Treasury orthodoxy which is to hope that Levelling Up goes away.
Why do you think the White Paper was delayed so long. Gove couldn’t find any cash…
I agree entirely, it's just with freeports there's something specifically shiny Boris can get named after him like the bikes or buses in London (or his impossible bridge to NI). I very much doubt Rishi would make any direct subsidies in businesses as Boris is essentially suggesting the government will do for levelling up, though I do think Rishi would pursue special economic zones in some parts of the North that are likely to vote Tory.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I think it would still exist under Rishi, but be much smaller in scope but probably actually happen. We'd dump a lot of the rubbish like freeports and have a more temporary tax incentive based system to lure big businesses with special economic zones, no employer NI for up to 100 employees in the zones, 10 years of low corporation tax rates. That sort of stuff. There won't be any big shiny stuff but a lot of jobs created, perhaps eventually self sustaining industries where nothing existed previously.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
"What first attracted to you the son-in-law of a billionaire Rishi Sunak?"
I keep finding myself in the position of defending Boris, which really isn't the intention - I'm as keen to see him go as the next man. And I suppose Rishi is who I'd want to see replace him. And yet - I can't see levelling up going better with anyone but Boris in charge. He's personally invested. Without going into my professional life too much, I know the Boris regime is trying to spend money in the north - ideally before the next election. And it is the treasury which is the biggest obstacle.
I suppose you could argue that a Rishi led government would spend less, but more effectively. Perhaps?
Johnson hasn't spent anything yet. The one major commitment was HS2 and they've cut the budget there. The IRP will never be delivered, because it is literally undeliverable, so that's worthless.
So I'm not quite sure why you think anyone else would 'spend less.'
It takes a bloody age to spend any money in infrastructure. My expectation is that the biggest levelling up spending this parliament will be on buses. Because you can spend on them quickly. There's already quite a lot of bus spending in the pipeline.
Will any of that lead to cheaper fares?
I would expect so. Not least because it's very easy to spend money on fares. Much easier to give public transport authorities to subsidise fares than to reopen a railway line (which in most cases closed for very sound economic reasons). Bus Back Better is worth a look on this. Interesting not least because Boris genuinely seems to have written the introduction in his name. It is written in pure Borisese. The only problem with subsidising fares is that you need to keep spending. It's not capital spend. Though if by doing so you drive up passengers sufficiently it dies start to pay for itself.
For your average Northerner, busses are utterly irrelevant. I'm probably pretty typical of the northern working class type on my street on this - it wouldn't matter to me if they made them completely free and every ten minutes, I'm still going to drive to work. Several major reasons for this: 1) I value my time far too highly to waste an hour a day extra commuting(the "direct" bus from my town to my work takes about an hour vs 25-35mins driving). 2) Buses are inconvenient, they don't go door to door, and leave you standing around in the rain. 3) I work in the middle of nowhere, and use my car at lunchtime to go and get a sandwich from the shop a mile away. Even if busses were free and every ten minutes, I'm going to lose my whole lunch break on this operation, rather than ten minutes of it. 4) My stuff lives in my car. Spare glasses. Socket set. Coat. Headtorch. Pen and notebook. Tape measure. Workboots. Business cards. (and a whole load of other useful stuff!). Can't cart all that with me on the bus every day, and it's a pain having to try and predict what's going to be needed day to day to take it with you. 4) Travelling on busses isn't great anyway - sitting on an uncomfortable seat next to a smelly alcoholic with some screaming kids in the row in front vs rolling smoothly along in effectively a comfy chair with my choice of tunes, my choice of temperature...
The weird thing about the whole leveling up thing is that most of the North is far better for drivers than the South, (not that there isn't room for improvement - you could remove 90% of the congestion in my town with one stretch of road about 1/4 long, following an existing minor road for all but 100 yards) but about the only sort of leveling up that's ever suggested involves hosing odles of tax money at public transport.
I'd suggest that decreasing businesses rates (and or increasing the threshold for the small businesses relief*) in proportion to the distance from Westminster would be a much better use of the cash. Or possibly do the same with income or corp tax, but you'd have to figure out how to prevent people gaiming the system by lying about which property is their main residence/place of business.
*the taper on small business rate relief wins a small prize for the worst thought out taxation system ever, as the taper is so steep as to be more like a cliff edge. My business gets 100% relief. I'd really like to rent another building on the same site to expand, but it would jump me into paying full whack on the lot to the tune of about £9k pa. So instead of expanding into the next building jumping my rent from ~£10k to ~£15k, with the rates added I'll be looking at ~£24k for an increase in usable space of around 50%. So instead I'm not bothering and just struggling on in the space I've got, and everyone loses out.
A lot of people have jobs that don’t work with public transport, but equally many, many people in the north have jobs in the cities where public transport is an option that (perhaps with extra investment) could be viable for them. This doesn’t have to be an all or nothing question.
To put the Russia - NATO brinksmanship into context, take a step back from the table and look at the strategic overview. On one side of the table we have Russia. Essentially a dictatorship, Putin can do what he wants. On the other side we have Ukraine - not remotely as strong - and the NATO powers who are really not worried about Ukraine but more worried about NATO members in the Baltic.
The advantages for Russia - its in their back yard so aside from the political claims on the area their supply chain to forces is simple, NATO are divided and relatively weak, the US President can huff but will he puff?
A united NATO - pledged to the defence of a non-NATO member in Russia's back yard - could make Putin at least pause for thought. But we don't have unity and resolve and we aren't likely to get it even if the next target is Lithuania.
Because when push comes to shove are the Europeans really going to throw their populations into the fire over that? In the Cold War they would have been fighting for their own survival against invading soviet forces - any breakout of nuclear war would have turned West Germany into molten glass. But here in 2022? They won't. And Putin knows it.
So the solution to this isn't fly a squadron of B52s in and make baseless threats of force. Its go after all the Russian money that's in our territory. You can't invade Ukraine and wherever you like without facing the wrath of the people who own the Russian state. Again, Putin has to pause for thought.
But stop making baseless cold war threats. We aren't going to risk nuclear annihilation over Ukraine and Putin knows it.
Why would Putin risk nuclear annihilation? Why is it we always forget that Putin can't start lobbing nukes at us without Russia also being totally destroyed?
Put it this way. If Russia invades Ukraine further and we help kill Russian soldiers outside Ukraine, Putin can either start throwing nukes and die, or not and live. So why would he?
The fundamental problem with the mutually assured destruction strategy of peacemaking is that it assumes every individual with their finger on the button will be sane, in perpetuity.
You don’t have to be a mathematician, or a punter, to understand just how unlikely that is.
Have fun while you can, because a madman is going to get you. One day.
What's going on with the 18-24s? Surprisingly right wing at their tender age. Or just loads of them voting Green perhaps (Con number is higher but not that much higher than the 25-34s).
25-34 presumably the age group most frustrated by their inability to afford property.
18-24yos still being influenced by their parents' political views, perhaps, and haven't yet realised the full extent of the scorched Earth Neoliberal hell-scape that the Tory party has created for them to live in. Nice to see that my own Gen X age bracket is still reliably left wing.
Gen X is the generation that came of age during the rise of Tony Blair, whose golden years were the halcyon days of the Berlin wall falling, the third way, the optimism of rave and Britpop and the succession of magically hot summers that was the 1990s. A generation too young to remember the winter of discontent and too young to be that bothered about the Falklands or Arthur Scargill.
Not necessarily left wing, but - I think - generally liberal and internationalist, ranging from Cameronian on the right to Brownite on the left, and with a distrust of extremism.
Well that's probably all a load of bollocks but a nice thought.
I'm an elderly Gen Xer. 55. I remember the Winter of Discontent. I was 18 in 1984. The Strike was a huge influence. Hadn't heard of Blair then. He became LOTO when I was 28. Optimism of the 90's. Spot on. Was a great time to be young.
Yes I suppose that's the thing with generations, they span a couple of decades. I'm at the younger end, mid-40s. Scargill and the Falklands are to me a hazy montage of disconnected images and news reports. 1997 was my first GE as a registered voter.
Ah. OK. Fair enough. 10 years probably makes all the difference. I very much came of age under Thatcher. Strange to think the oldest millenials are pushing 40 now.
To put the Russia - NATO brinksmanship into context, take a step back from the table and look at the strategic overview. On one side of the table we have Russia. Essentially a dictatorship, Putin can do what he wants. On the other side we have Ukraine - not remotely as strong - and the NATO powers who are really not worried about Ukraine but more worried about NATO members in the Baltic.
The advantages for Russia - its in their back yard so aside from the political claims on the area their supply chain to forces is simple, NATO are divided and relatively weak, the US President can huff but will he puff?
A united NATO - pledged to the defence of a non-NATO member in Russia's back yard - could make Putin at least pause for thought. But we don't have unity and resolve and we aren't likely to get it even if the next target is Lithuania.
Because when push comes to shove are the Europeans really going to throw their populations into the fire over that? In the Cold War they would have been fighting for their own survival against invading soviet forces - any breakout of nuclear war would have turned West Germany into molten glass. But here in 2022? They won't. And Putin knows it.
So the solution to this isn't fly a squadron of B52s in and make baseless threats of force. Its go after all the Russian money that's in our territory. You can't invade Ukraine and wherever you like without facing the wrath of the people who own the Russian state. Again, Putin has to pause for thought.
But stop making baseless cold war threats. We aren't going to risk nuclear annihilation over Ukraine and Putin knows it.
Why would Putin risk nuclear annihilation? Why is it we always forget that Putin can't start lobbing nukes at us without Russia also being totally destroyed?
Put it this way. If Russia invades Ukraine further and we help kill Russian soldiers outside Ukraine, Putin can either start throwing nukes and die, or not and live. So why would he?
The fundamental problem with the mutually assured destruction strategy of peacemaking is that it assumes every individual with their finger on the button will be sane, in perpetuity.
You don’t have to be a mathematician, or a punter, to understand just how unlikely that is.
Have fun while you can, because a madman is going to get you. One day.
Why would Putin risk nuclear annihilation? Why is it we always forget that Putin can't start lobbing nukes at us without Russia also being totally destroyed?
Put it this way. If Russia invades Ukraine further and we help kill Russian soldiers outside Ukraine, Putin can either start throwing nukes and die, or not and live. So why would he?
It's my observation all the "bad guys" such as Putin, Xi and Kim Jong-Un all like the finer things of life such as nice clothes, nice food, foreign travel and they probably live like kings (or Emperors).
All that ends with the first missile and while they might survive for a while in their bunkers, the lifestyle they know will be gone for ever.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I think it would still exist under Rishi, but be much smaller in scope but probably actually happen. We'd dump a lot of the rubbish like freeports and have a more temporary tax incentive based system to lure big businesses with special economic zones, no employer NI for up to 100 employees in the zones, 10 years of low corporation tax rates. That sort of stuff. There won't be any big shiny stuff but a lot of jobs created, perhaps eventually self sustaining industries where nothing existed previously.
Possible problems:
1) How would you stop business just moving from one place to another ?
2) Does business actually care about Employers NI when its effectively the employee who pays it ?
3) It would discriminate against the businesses already in the area.
4) There's a shortage of skilled workers as it is so who would be employed ?
I keep finding myself in the position of defending Boris, which really isn't the intention - I'm as keen to see him go as the next man. And I suppose Rishi is who I'd want to see replace him. And yet - I can't see levelling up going better with anyone but Boris in charge. He's personally invested. Without going into my professional life too much, I know the Boris regime is trying to spend money in the north - ideally before the next election. And it is the treasury which is the biggest obstacle.
I suppose you could argue that a Rishi led government would spend less, but more effectively. Perhaps?
Johnson hasn't spent anything yet. The one major commitment was HS2 and they've cut the budget there. The IRP will never be delivered, because it is literally undeliverable, so that's worthless.
So I'm not quite sure why you think anyone else would 'spend less.'
It takes a bloody age to spend any money in infrastructure. My expectation is that the biggest levelling up spending this parliament will be on buses. Because you can spend on them quickly. There's already quite a lot of bus spending in the pipeline.
Will any of that lead to cheaper fares?
I would expect so. Not least because it's very easy to spend money on fares. Much easier to give public transport authorities to subsidise fares than to reopen a railway line (which in most cases closed for very sound economic reasons). Bus Back Better is worth a look on this. Interesting not least because Boris genuinely seems to have written the introduction in his name. It is written in pure Borisese. The only problem with subsidising fares is that you need to keep spending. It's not capital spend. Though if by doing so you drive up passengers sufficiently it dies start to pay for itself.
For your average Northerner, busses are utterly irrelevant. I'm probably pretty typical of the northern working class type on my street on this - it wouldn't matter to me if they made them completely free and every ten minutes, I'm still going to drive to work. Several major reasons for this: 1) I value my time far too highly to waste an hour a day extra commuting(the "direct" bus from my town to my work takes about an hour vs 25-35mins driving). 2) Buses are inconvenient, they don't go door to door, and leave you standing around in the rain. 3) I work in the middle of nowhere, and use my car at lunchtime to go and get a sandwich from the shop a mile away. Even if busses were free and every ten minutes, I'm going to lose my whole lunch break on this operation, rather than ten minutes of it. 4) My stuff lives in my car. Spare glasses. Socket set. Coat. Headtorch. Pen and notebook. Tape measure. Workboots. Business cards. (and a whole load of other useful stuff!). Can't cart all that with me on the bus every day, and it's a pain having to try and predict what's going to be needed day to day to take it with you. 4) Travelling on busses isn't great anyway - sitting on an uncomfortable seat next to a smelly alcoholic with some screaming kids in the row in front vs rolling smoothly along in effectively a comfy chair with my choice of tunes, my choice of temperature...
The weird thing about the whole leveling up thing is that most of the North is far better for drivers than the South, (not that there isn't room for improvement - you could remove 90% of the congestion in my town with one stretch of road about 1/4 long, following an existing minor road for all but 100 yards) but about the only sort of leveling up that's ever suggested involves hosing odles of tax money at public transport.
I'd suggest that decreasing businesses rates (and or increasing the threshold for the small businesses relief*) in proportion to the distance from Westminster would be a much better use of the cash. Or possibly do the same with income or corp tax, but you'd have to figure out how to prevent people gaiming the system by lying about which property is their main residence/place of business.
*the taper on small business rate relief wins a small prize for the worst thought out taxation system ever, as the taper is so steep as to be more like a cliff edge. My business gets 100% relief. I'd really like to rent another building on the same site to expand, but it would jump me into paying full whack on the lot to the tune of about £9k pa. So instead of expanding into the next building jumping my rent from ~£10k to ~£15k, with the rates added I'll be looking at ~£24k for an increase in usable space of around 50%. So instead I'm not bothering and just struggling on in the space I've got, and everyone loses out.
A lot of people have jobs that don’t work with public transport, but equally many, many people in the north have jobs in the cities where public transport is an option that (perhaps with extra investment) could be viable for them. This doesn’t have to be an all or nothing question.
Research has shown that commuting in our second tier cities is very inefficient compared with European competitors.
In essence, the available labour pool for employers in places like Leeds and Birmingham is smaller than it “should be” given overall population sizes.
The answer might not be solely public transport, but public transport is surely part of the mix. Leeds, for example, is the largest city in Europe without a mass transit system.
To put the Russia - NATO brinksmanship into context, take a step back from the table and look at the strategic overview. On one side of the table we have Russia. Essentially a dictatorship, Putin can do what he wants. On the other side we have Ukraine - not remotely as strong - and the NATO powers who are really not worried about Ukraine but more worried about NATO members in the Baltic.
The advantages for Russia - its in their back yard so aside from the political claims on the area their supply chain to forces is simple, NATO are divided and relatively weak, the US President can huff but will he puff?
A united NATO - pledged to the defence of a non-NATO member in Russia's back yard - could make Putin at least pause for thought. But we don't have unity and resolve and we aren't likely to get it even if the next target is Lithuania.
Because when push comes to shove are the Europeans really going to throw their populations into the fire over that? In the Cold War they would have been fighting for their own survival against invading soviet forces - any breakout of nuclear war would have turned West Germany into molten glass. But here in 2022? They won't. And Putin knows it.
So the solution to this isn't fly a squadron of B52s in and make baseless threats of force. Its go after all the Russian money that's in our territory. You can't invade Ukraine and wherever you like without facing the wrath of the people who own the Russian state. Again, Putin has to pause for thought.
But stop making baseless cold war threats. We aren't going to risk nuclear annihilation over Ukraine and Putin knows it.
Why would Putin risk nuclear annihilation? Why is it we always forget that Putin can't start lobbing nukes at us without Russia also being totally destroyed?
Put it this way. If Russia invades Ukraine further and we help kill Russian soldiers outside Ukraine, Putin can either start throwing nukes and die, or not and live. So why would he?
Read "The Guns of August"
President Kennedy did. Arguably, that's why we are not all dead already.
To put the Russia - NATO brinksmanship into context, take a step back from the table and look at the strategic overview. On one side of the table we have Russia. Essentially a dictatorship, Putin can do what he wants. On the other side we have Ukraine - not remotely as strong - and the NATO powers who are really not worried about Ukraine but more worried about NATO members in the Baltic.
The advantages for Russia - its in their back yard so aside from the political claims on the area their supply chain to forces is simple, NATO are divided and relatively weak, the US President can huff but will he puff?
A united NATO - pledged to the defence of a non-NATO member in Russia's back yard - could make Putin at least pause for thought. But we don't have unity and resolve and we aren't likely to get it even if the next target is Lithuania.
Because when push comes to shove are the Europeans really going to throw their populations into the fire over that? In the Cold War they would have been fighting for their own survival against invading soviet forces - any breakout of nuclear war would have turned West Germany into molten glass. But here in 2022? They won't. And Putin knows it.
So the solution to this isn't fly a squadron of B52s in and make baseless threats of force. Its go after all the Russian money that's in our territory. You can't invade Ukraine and wherever you like without facing the wrath of the people who own the Russian state. Again, Putin has to pause for thought.
But stop making baseless cold war threats. We aren't going to risk nuclear annihilation over Ukraine and Putin knows it.
Why would Putin risk nuclear annihilation? Why is it we always forget that Putin can't start lobbing nukes at us without Russia also being totally destroyed?
Put it this way. If Russia invades Ukraine further and we help kill Russian soldiers outside Ukraine, Putin can either start throwing nukes and die, or not and live. So why would he?
The fundamental problem with the mutually assured destruction strategy of peacemaking is that it assumes every individual with their finger on the button will be sane, in perpetuity.
You don’t have to be a mathematician, or a punter, to understand just how unlikely that is.
Have fun while you can, because a madman is going to get you. One day.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I think it would still exist under Rishi, but be much smaller in scope but probably actually happen. We'd dump a lot of the rubbish like freeports and have a more temporary tax incentive based system to lure big businesses with special economic zones, no employer NI for up to 100 employees in the zones, 10 years of low corporation tax rates. That sort of stuff. There won't be any big shiny stuff but a lot of jobs created, perhaps eventually self sustaining industries where nothing existed previously.
Freeports is one of Rishi's ideas.
I thought they first appeared in "Tenet".
Immediate dust off on my Clear, then stay on station.
Also, some good news for the North, my old employer is opening up a giant office to consolidate and massively expand their presence in Liverpool. I've heard they're looking to hire between 200 and 250 highly paid software developers in the city in addition to the 200 or so they already have.
The policy of moving development to Amsterdam seems to be have been completely reversed, I'm told there were issues with skill levels, unrealistic demands from underskilled people and a general lack of experience. The word is that Liverpool, Cambridge and London will see a big expansion as well as some in Surrey. Two years ago people were wondering whether PlayStation's time in the UK was finished and existing studios wound up once their projects were completed. A real turnaround and win for UK game development.
Did they mention that the North South divide has actually got worse and worse, especially since the 1980s?
It’s higher than at any point since 1900. Probably since 1800 actually.
I really enjoyed it. The presenter seems to be willing to put in the hard hours and there's always side interviews with respected politicians (the Politico name must help).
Heseltine makes an appearance in the episode and specifically mentions his influence on the London docklands regeneration and also the investment in Liverpool. And yes, they try and grasp a little of the history from the Romans to the harrying of the North and the present.
Part of the trouble with our regional situation is that we have two quite distinct types of regional inequality: 2 types of poor region. The post-industrial towns and cities of the Midlands, North, Wales and parts of the central belt, where jobs are low paid and land is cheap; and the deprived rural and coastal areas where jobs are non-existent or seasonal and tourism-dependent, transport infrastructure is appalling and land and property are either dirt cheap or extremely expensive. They present different challenges. Levelling up Cornwall or Anglesey requires a different set of priorities to levelling up Sunderland.
Not sure how best we tackle our own versions of the Mezzogiorno, Andalusia or Massif Central. Do we just let them age and depopulate?
To put the Russia - NATO brinksmanship into context, take a step back from the table and look at the strategic overview. On one side of the table we have Russia. Essentially a dictatorship, Putin can do what he wants. On the other side we have Ukraine - not remotely as strong - and the NATO powers who are really not worried about Ukraine but more worried about NATO members in the Baltic.
The advantages for Russia - its in their back yard so aside from the political claims on the area their supply chain to forces is simple, NATO are divided and relatively weak, the US President can huff but will he puff?
A united NATO - pledged to the defence of a non-NATO member in Russia's back yard - could make Putin at least pause for thought. But we don't have unity and resolve and we aren't likely to get it even if the next target is Lithuania.
Because when push comes to shove are the Europeans really going to throw their populations into the fire over that? In the Cold War they would have been fighting for their own survival against invading soviet forces - any breakout of nuclear war would have turned West Germany into molten glass. But here in 2022? They won't. And Putin knows it.
So the solution to this isn't fly a squadron of B52s in and make baseless threats of force. Its go after all the Russian money that's in our territory. You can't invade Ukraine and wherever you like without facing the wrath of the people who own the Russian state. Again, Putin has to pause for thought.
But stop making baseless cold war threats. We aren't going to risk nuclear annihilation over Ukraine and Putin knows it.
Why would Putin risk nuclear annihilation? Why is it we always forget that Putin can't start lobbing nukes at us without Russia also being totally destroyed?
Put it this way. If Russia invades Ukraine further and we help kill Russian soldiers outside Ukraine, Putin can either start throwing nukes and die, or not and live. So why would he?
The fundamental problem with the mutually assured destruction strategy of peacemaking is that it assumes every individual with their finger on the button will be sane, in perpetuity.
You don’t have to be a mathematician, or a punter, to understand just how unlikely that is.
Have fun while you can, because a madman is going to get you. One day.
So let's uninvent nuclear weapons?
Or uninvent madmen.
Whichever’s easier.
Or make sure that everyone knows that the biggest madman is on your side....
There's a reason that some of the pro's call nuclear confrontation, Madman's Checkers.
What's going on with the 18-24s? Surprisingly right wing at their tender age. Or just loads of them voting Green perhaps (Con number is higher but not that much higher than the 25-34s).
25-34 presumably the age group most frustrated by their inability to afford property.
The most surprising group is the 55-64s, that's horrific for Boris. Labour approaching landslide territory based on those splits IMO.
Deltapoll disagrees:
55-64s Lab 27% Con 49%
Techne agrees:
55-64s Lab 42% Con 32%
Confused?
Not really, that one smells wrong. The Deltapoll splits look much more plausible, albeit that one always has to be treat splits in polls with even more caution than the headline figures.
Lab-Con crossover between age 45 and 50 makes sense. Above that, boomers and gen X - much more likely to be outright homeowners (or at least less financially stressed than those who've come of age as accommodation costs have got much sillier, as well as being thwacked much harder by the more difficult economic environment post-GFC.) In other words, core vote material. Lots of well-to-do elderly and expectant heirs, basically.
I keep finding myself in the position of defending Boris, which really isn't the intention - I'm as keen to see him go as the next man. And I suppose Rishi is who I'd want to see replace him. And yet - I can't see levelling up going better with anyone but Boris in charge. He's personally invested. Without going into my professional life too much, I know the Boris regime is trying to spend money in the north - ideally before the next election. And it is the treasury which is the biggest obstacle.
I suppose you could argue that a Rishi led government would spend less, but more effectively. Perhaps?
Johnson hasn't spent anything yet. The one major commitment was HS2 and they've cut the budget there. The IRP will never be delivered, because it is literally undeliverable, so that's worthless.
So I'm not quite sure why you think anyone else would 'spend less.'
It takes a bloody age to spend any money in infrastructure. My expectation is that the biggest levelling up spending this parliament will be on buses. Because you can spend on them quickly. There's already quite a lot of bus spending in the pipeline.
Will any of that lead to cheaper fares?
I would expect so. Not least because it's very easy to spend money on fares. Much easier to give public transport authorities to subsidise fares than to reopen a railway line (which in most cases closed for very sound economic reasons). Bus Back Better is worth a look on this. Interesting not least because Boris genuinely seems to have written the introduction in his name. It is written in pure Borisese. The only problem with subsidising fares is that you need to keep spending. It's not capital spend. Though if by doing so you drive up passengers sufficiently it dies start to pay for itself.
For your average Northerner, busses are utterly irrelevant. I'm probably pretty typical of the northern working class type on my street on this - it wouldn't matter to me if they made them completely free and every ten minutes, I'm still going to drive to work. Several major reasons for this: 1) I value my time far too highly to waste an hour a day extra commuting(the "direct" bus from my town to my work takes about an hour vs 25-35mins driving). 2) Buses are inconvenient, they don't go door to door, and leave you standing around in the rain. 3) I work in the middle of nowhere, and use my car at lunchtime to go and get a sandwich from the shop a mile away. Even if busses were free and every ten minutes, I'm going to lose my whole lunch break on this operation, rather than ten minutes of it. 4) My stuff lives in my car. Spare glasses. Socket set. Coat. Headtorch. Pen and notebook. Tape measure. Workboots. Business cards. (and a whole load of other useful stuff!). Can't cart all that with me on the bus every day, and it's a pain having to try and predict what's going to be needed day to day to take it with you. 4) Travelling on busses isn't great anyway - sitting on an uncomfortable seat next to a smelly alcoholic with some screaming kids in the row in front vs rolling smoothly along in effectively a comfy chair with my choice of tunes, my choice of temperature...
The weird thing about the whole leveling up thing is that most of the North is far better for drivers than the South, (not that there isn't room for improvement - you could remove 90% of the congestion in my town with one stretch of road about 1/4 long, following an existing minor road for all but 100 yards) but about the only sort of leveling up that's ever suggested involves hosing odles of tax money at public transport.
I'd suggest that decreasing businesses rates (and or increasing the threshold for the small businesses relief*) in proportion to the distance from Westminster would be a much better use of the cash. Or possibly do the same with income or corp tax, but you'd have to figure out how to prevent people gaiming the system by lying about which property is their main residence/place of business.
*the taper on small business rate relief wins a small prize for the worst thought out taxation system ever, as the taper is so steep as to be more like a cliff edge. My business gets 100% relief. I'd really like to rent another building on the same site to expand, but it would jump me into paying full whack on the lot to the tune of about £9k pa. So instead of expanding into the next building jumping my rent from ~£10k to ~£15k, with the rates added I'll be looking at ~£24k for an increase in usable space of around 50%. So instead I'm not bothering and just struggling on in the space I've got, and everyone loses out.
A lot of people have jobs that don’t work with public transport, but equally many, many people in the north have jobs in the cities where public transport is an option that (perhaps with extra investment) could be viable for them. This doesn’t have to be an all or nothing question.
Research has shown that commuting in our second tier cities is very inefficient compared with European competitors.
In essence, the available labour pool for employers in places like Leeds and Birmingham is smaller than it “should be” given overall population sizes.
The answer might not be solely public transport, but public transport is surely part of the mix. Leeds, for example, is the largest city in Europe without a mass transit system.
Certainly buses into and out of Newcastle are slow and cripplingly expensive.
I keep finding myself in the position of defending Boris, which really isn't the intention - I'm as keen to see him go as the next man. And I suppose Rishi is who I'd want to see replace him. And yet - I can't see levelling up going better with anyone but Boris in charge. He's personally invested. Without going into my professional life too much, I know the Boris regime is trying to spend money in the north - ideally before the next election. And it is the treasury which is the biggest obstacle.
I suppose you could argue that a Rishi led government would spend less, but more effectively. Perhaps?
Johnson hasn't spent anything yet. The one major commitment was HS2 and they've cut the budget there. The IRP will never be delivered, because it is literally undeliverable, so that's worthless.
So I'm not quite sure why you think anyone else would 'spend less.'
It takes a bloody age to spend any money in infrastructure. My expectation is that the biggest levelling up spending this parliament will be on buses. Because you can spend on them quickly. There's already quite a lot of bus spending in the pipeline.
Will any of that lead to cheaper fares?
I would expect so. Not least because it's very easy to spend money on fares. Much easier to give public transport authorities to subsidise fares than to reopen a railway line (which in most cases closed for very sound economic reasons). Bus Back Better is worth a look on this. Interesting not least because Boris genuinely seems to have written the introduction in his name. It is written in pure Borisese. The only problem with subsidising fares is that you need to keep spending. It's not capital spend. Though if by doing so you drive up passengers sufficiently it dies start to pay for itself.
For your average Northerner, busses are utterly irrelevant. I'm probably pretty typical of the northern working class type on my street on this - it wouldn't matter to me if they made them completely free and every ten minutes, I'm still going to drive to work. Several major reasons for this: 1) I value my time far too highly to waste an hour a day extra commuting(the "direct" bus from my town to my work takes about an hour vs 25-35mins driving). 2) Buses are inconvenient, they don't go door to door, and leave you standing around in the rain. 3) I work in the middle of nowhere, and use my car at lunchtime to go and get a sandwich from the shop a mile away. Even if busses were free and every ten minutes, I'm going to lose my whole lunch break on this operation, rather than ten minutes of it. 4) My stuff lives in my car. Spare glasses. Socket set. Coat. Headtorch. Pen and notebook. Tape measure. Workboots. Business cards. (and a whole load of other useful stuff!). Can't cart all that with me on the bus every day, and it's a pain having to try and predict what's going to be needed day to day to take it with you. 4) Travelling on busses isn't great anyway - sitting on an uncomfortable seat next to a smelly alcoholic with some screaming kids in the row in front vs rolling smoothly along in effectively a comfy chair with my choice of tunes, my choice of temperature...
The weird thing about the whole leveling up thing is that most of the North is far better for drivers than the South, (not that there isn't room for improvement - you could remove 90% of the congestion in my town with one stretch of road about 1/4 long, following an existing minor road for all but 100 yards) but about the only sort of leveling up that's ever suggested involves hosing odles of tax money at public transport.
I'd suggest that decreasing businesses rates (and or increasing the threshold for the small businesses relief*) in proportion to the distance from Westminster would be a much better use of the cash. Or possibly do the same with income or corp tax, but you'd have to figure out how to prevent people gaiming the system by lying about which property is their main residence/place of business.
*the taper on small business rate relief wins a small prize for the worst thought out taxation system ever, as the taper is so steep as to be more like a cliff edge. My business gets 100% relief. I'd really like to rent another building on the same site to expand, but it would jump me into paying full whack on the lot to the tune of about £9k pa. So instead of expanding into the next building jumping my rent from ~£10k to ~£15k, with the rates added I'll be looking at ~£24k for an increase in usable space of around 50%. So instead I'm not bothering and just struggling on in the space I've got, and everyone loses out.
Totally agree. Buses are not really a thing.
In this part of the Flatlands, the town centre is not where the jobs are, so what's the point of a bus? They take a few non-paying OAPs into town to get harassed by the ne'er do wells but not a lot else. Maybe a few people take the bus in order to get the train out, but not vast numbers.
If I have to go into town I'd rather walk the 2 or so miles anyway. It isn't really any slower. Even those working in the warehouses proliferating everywhere use a car or if they are brave, a bicycle.
What is needed is a better mix of jobs and better roads for both cars and bicycles. Once cars are all electric there really isn't much to be gained by "mass transport", and that time is not far away.
Good news regarding Dick. While I don't hold my breath for a brilliant, reforming replacement, she has set the bar so low that it would be an achievement to not clear it.
To put the Russia - NATO brinksmanship into context, take a step back from the table and look at the strategic overview. On one side of the table we have Russia. Essentially a dictatorship, Putin can do what he wants. On the other side we have Ukraine - not remotely as strong - and the NATO powers who are really not worried about Ukraine but more worried about NATO members in the Baltic.
The advantages for Russia - its in their back yard so aside from the political claims on the area their supply chain to forces is simple, NATO are divided and relatively weak, the US President can huff but will he puff?
A united NATO - pledged to the defence of a non-NATO member in Russia's back yard - could make Putin at least pause for thought. But we don't have unity and resolve and we aren't likely to get it even if the next target is Lithuania.
Because when push comes to shove are the Europeans really going to throw their populations into the fire over that? In the Cold War they would have been fighting for their own survival against invading soviet forces - any breakout of nuclear war would have turned West Germany into molten glass. But here in 2022? They won't. And Putin knows it.
So the solution to this isn't fly a squadron of B52s in and make baseless threats of force. Its go after all the Russian money that's in our territory. You can't invade Ukraine and wherever you like without facing the wrath of the people who own the Russian state. Again, Putin has to pause for thought.
But stop making baseless cold war threats. We aren't going to risk nuclear annihilation over Ukraine and Putin knows it.
Why would Putin risk nuclear annihilation? Why is it we always forget that Putin can't start lobbing nukes at us without Russia also being totally destroyed?
Put it this way. If Russia invades Ukraine further and we help kill Russian soldiers outside Ukraine, Putin can either start throwing nukes and die, or not and live. So why would he?
The fundamental problem with the mutually assured destruction strategy of peacemaking is that it assumes every individual with their finger on the button will be sane, in perpetuity.
You don’t have to be a mathematician, or a punter, to understand just how unlikely that is.
Have fun while you can, because a madman is going to get you. One day.
That's a crypto slippery slope argument. I'm asking about Putin today, not some hypothetical different person at a different time. I see no evidence that Putin is mad. I think he's evil, but not mad. Our own PM is madder (but nicer).
Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you. We’re lucky we’ve got Putin. For the survival of Homo sapiens, evil nuclear button custodian is infinitely preferable to mad nuclear button custodian.
It’s Johnson that worries me. Wiping out humankind is the ultimate deadcat.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I think it would still exist under Rishi, but be much smaller in scope but probably actually happen. We'd dump a lot of the rubbish like freeports and have a more temporary tax incentive based system to lure big businesses with special economic zones, no employer NI for up to 100 employees in the zones, 10 years of low corporation tax rates. That sort of stuff. There won't be any big shiny stuff but a lot of jobs created, perhaps eventually self sustaining industries where nothing existed previously.
Possible problems:
1) How would you stop business just moving from one place to another ?
2) Does business actually care about Employers NI when its effectively the employee who pays it ?
3) It would discriminate against the businesses already in the area.
4) There's a shortage of skilled workers as it is so who would be employed ?
Freeports tend to take employment away from neighbouring areas. This sounds like a recipe for similar.
Don't be ridiculous. He only finally did it because someone came round and read all my articles on why she had to go to him.
Slightly seriously, it was here on PB that people were first calling for the Met to be defunded (aka, basically, broken up).
I think that still applies. Dick withdrawing does not change the fact that the Met is institutionally broken. Khan can hire the hottest of hotshots from NYC and he would still have to run an infeasible mess of a national fraud agency and a local police force. It doesn't work and it can't.
Did they mention that the North South divide has actually got worse and worse, especially since the 1980s?
It’s higher than at any point since 1900. Probably since 1800 actually.
One of the interesting things about levelling up and the North South divide is that it's not about poverty. There are more poor people in London than anywhere else in the UK. The difference is that London is also full of rich people, while the rest of the country isn't (at least not to the same extent). But having loads of rich people can be a double edged sword, for instance when it comes to everyone else being able to afford a house. My sense is that the North of England was destroyed by the Normans. It got a temporary boost from the industrial revolution, although that also left a lot of disadvantages in its wake (eg undiversified economies, low levels of education). It's a long way from the centre of economic gravity in Europe (Germany/the low countries/Northern Italy) and even more cut off now thanks to Brexit. Transport links are crap. In my opinion their best bet is to declare UDI from Westminster. Raise money in the North, control it in the North. Overcome all the stupid local rivalries that stop the North from acting in a unified way. Waiting for HM Treasury to throw them some scraps is going to lead nowhere. Relying on an empty slogan from a man who doesn't give two shits about them ditto.
I keep finding myself in the position of defending Boris, which really isn't the intention - I'm as keen to see him go as the next man. And I suppose Rishi is who I'd want to see replace him. And yet - I can't see levelling up going better with anyone but Boris in charge. He's personally invested. Without going into my professional life too much, I know the Boris regime is trying to spend money in the north - ideally before the next election. And it is the treasury which is the biggest obstacle.
I suppose you could argue that a Rishi led government would spend less, but more effectively. Perhaps?
Johnson hasn't spent anything yet. The one major commitment was HS2 and they've cut the budget there. The IRP will never be delivered, because it is literally undeliverable, so that's worthless.
So I'm not quite sure why you think anyone else would 'spend less.'
It takes a bloody age to spend any money in infrastructure. My expectation is that the biggest levelling up spending this parliament will be on buses. Because you can spend on them quickly. There's already quite a lot of bus spending in the pipeline.
Will any of that lead to cheaper fares?
I would expect so. Not least because it's very easy to spend money on fares. Much easier to give public transport authorities to subsidise fares than to reopen a railway line (which in most cases closed for very sound economic reasons). Bus Back Better is worth a look on this. Interesting not least because Boris genuinely seems to have written the introduction in his name. It is written in pure Borisese. The only problem with subsidising fares is that you need to keep spending. It's not capital spend. Though if by doing so you drive up passengers sufficiently it dies start to pay for itself.
For your average Northerner, busses are utterly irrelevant. I'm probably pretty typical of the northern working class type on my street on this - it wouldn't matter to me if they made them completely free and every ten minutes, I'm still going to drive to work. Several major reasons for this: 1) I value my time far too highly to waste an hour a day extra commuting(the "direct" bus from my town to my work takes about an hour vs 25-35mins driving). 2) Buses are inconvenient, they don't go door to door, and leave you standing around in the rain. 3) I work in the middle of nowhere, and use my car at lunchtime to go and get a sandwich from the shop a mile away. Even if busses were free and every ten minutes, I'm going to lose my whole lunch break on this operation, rather than ten minutes of it. 4) My stuff lives in my car. Spare glasses. Socket set. Coat. Headtorch. Pen and notebook. Tape measure. Workboots. Business cards. (and a whole load of other useful stuff!). Can't cart all that with me on the bus every day, and it's a pain having to try and predict what's going to be needed day to day to take it with you. 4) Travelling on busses isn't great anyway - sitting on an uncomfortable seat next to a smelly alcoholic with some screaming kids in the row in front vs rolling smoothly along in effectively a comfy chair with my choice of tunes, my choice of temperature...
The weird thing about the whole leveling up thing is that most of the North is far better for drivers than the South, (not that there isn't room for improvement - you could remove 90% of the congestion in my town with one stretch of road about 1/4 long, following an existing minor road for all but 100 yards) but about the only sort of leveling up that's ever suggested involves hosing odles of tax money at public transport.
I'd suggest that decreasing businesses rates (and or increasing the threshold for the small businesses relief*) in proportion to the distance from Westminster would be a much better use of the cash. Or possibly do the same with income or corp tax, but you'd have to figure out how to prevent people gaiming the system by lying about which property is their main residence/place of business.
*the taper on small business rate relief wins a small prize for the worst thought out taxation system ever, as the taper is so steep as to be more like a cliff edge. My business gets 100% relief. I'd really like to rent another building on the same site to expand, but it would jump me into paying full whack on the lot to the tune of about £9k pa. So instead of expanding into the next building jumping my rent from ~£10k to ~£15k, with the rates added I'll be looking at ~£24k for an increase in usable space of around 50%. So instead I'm not bothering and just struggling on in the space I've got, and everyone loses out.
Totally agree. Buses are not really a thing.
In this part of the Flatlands, the town centre is not where the jobs are, so what's the point of a bus? They take a few non-paying OAPs into town to get harassed by the ne'er do wells but not a lot else. Maybe a few people take the bus in order to get the train out, but not vast numbers.
If I have to go into town I'd rather walk the 2 or so miles anyway. It isn't really any slower. Even those working in the warehouses proliferating everywhere use a car or if they are brave, a bicycle.
What is needed is a better mix of jobs and better roads for both cars and bicycles. Once cars are all electric there really isn't much to be gained by "mass transport", and that time is not far away.
Oh there will be unless the cost of electric cars gets a lot lower.
Most people can’t afford £500+ a month on a lease car
They do not need organisational change and management bollocks.
What they do need is razor sharp focus on the following:
Culture change is hard, extremely hard. It needs three things above all: (1) senior leadership who truly understand the need for change – usually learnt after a near death experience; (2) external stakeholders who put sustained pressure to make that change; and (3) persistent hard work at all levels over years to effect it.
What does good culture look like? How long have you got? But these elements are essential: - Strong leadership which takes responsibility. - Proper due diligence and thorough vetting both before recruitment and throughout employment. - No tolerance of minor misdemeanours. - A culture of “speak up” and an understanding that turning a blind eye, having misplaced loyalty to wrongdoers is unprofessional, wrong and dangerous. - An effective training system. - An effective disciplinary system. - Accepting your mistakes and treating them as learning opportunities not as something to be PR’d away.
They will need a team of senior leaders below the top whose sole focus is on this.
And they will need a team of tip top investigators to root out all the bad guys there are now. This will mean a lot of pain now but it will be worth it.
They could look at what Sir Robert Mark did back in the 1970's.
I am always willing to help for a humungously eye-watering fee.
To put the Russia - NATO brinksmanship into context, take a step back from the table and look at the strategic overview. On one side of the table we have Russia. Essentially a dictatorship, Putin can do what he wants. On the other side we have Ukraine - not remotely as strong - and the NATO powers who are really not worried about Ukraine but more worried about NATO members in the Baltic.
The advantages for Russia - its in their back yard so aside from the political claims on the area their supply chain to forces is simple, NATO are divided and relatively weak, the US President can huff but will he puff?
A united NATO - pledged to the defence of a non-NATO member in Russia's back yard - could make Putin at least pause for thought. But we don't have unity and resolve and we aren't likely to get it even if the next target is Lithuania.
Because when push comes to shove are the Europeans really going to throw their populations into the fire over that? In the Cold War they would have been fighting for their own survival against invading soviet forces - any breakout of nuclear war would have turned West Germany into molten glass. But here in 2022? They won't. And Putin knows it.
So the solution to this isn't fly a squadron of B52s in and make baseless threats of force. Its go after all the Russian money that's in our territory. You can't invade Ukraine and wherever you like without facing the wrath of the people who own the Russian state. Again, Putin has to pause for thought.
But stop making baseless cold war threats. We aren't going to risk nuclear annihilation over Ukraine and Putin knows it.
Why would Putin risk nuclear annihilation? Why is it we always forget that Putin can't start lobbing nukes at us without Russia also being totally destroyed?
Put it this way. If Russia invades Ukraine further and we help kill Russian soldiers outside Ukraine, Putin can either start throwing nukes and die, or not and live. So why would he?
The fundamental problem with the mutually assured destruction strategy of peacemaking is that it assumes every individual with their finger on the button will be sane, in perpetuity.
You don’t have to be a mathematician, or a punter, to understand just how unlikely that is.
Have fun while you can, because a madman is going to get you. One day.
So let's uninvent nuclear weapons?
Or uninvent madmen.
Whichever’s easier.
Or make sure that everyone knows that the biggest madman is on your side....
There's a reason that some of the pro's call nuclear confrontation, Madman's Checkers.
Well, it would certainly help explain Trump and Britain Trump.
I keep finding myself in the position of defending Boris, which really isn't the intention - I'm as keen to see him go as the next man. And I suppose Rishi is who I'd want to see replace him. And yet - I can't see levelling up going better with anyone but Boris in charge. He's personally invested. Without going into my professional life too much, I know the Boris regime is trying to spend money in the north - ideally before the next election. And it is the treasury which is the biggest obstacle.
I suppose you could argue that a Rishi led government would spend less, but more effectively. Perhaps?
Johnson hasn't spent anything yet. The one major commitment was HS2 and they've cut the budget there. The IRP will never be delivered, because it is literally undeliverable, so that's worthless.
So I'm not quite sure why you think anyone else would 'spend less.'
It takes a bloody age to spend any money in infrastructure. My expectation is that the biggest levelling up spending this parliament will be on buses. Because you can spend on them quickly. There's already quite a lot of bus spending in the pipeline.
Will any of that lead to cheaper fares?
I would expect so. Not least because it's very easy to spend money on fares. Much easier to give public transport authorities to subsidise fares than to reopen a railway line (which in most cases closed for very sound economic reasons). Bus Back Better is worth a look on this. Interesting not least because Boris genuinely seems to have written the introduction in his name. It is written in pure Borisese. The only problem with subsidising fares is that you need to keep spending. It's not capital spend. Though if by doing so you drive up passengers sufficiently it dies start to pay for itself.
For your average Northerner, busses are utterly irrelevant. I'm probably pretty typical of the northern working class type on my street on this - it wouldn't matter to me if they made them completely free and every ten minutes, I'm still going to drive to work. Several major reasons for this: 1) I value my time far too highly to waste an hour a day extra commuting(the "direct" bus from my town to my work takes about an hour vs 25-35mins driving). 2) Buses are inconvenient, they don't go door to door, and leave you standing around in the rain. 3) I work in the middle of nowhere, and use my car at lunchtime to go and get a sandwich from the shop a mile away. Even if busses were free and every ten minutes, I'm going to lose my whole lunch break on this operation, rather than ten minutes of it. 4) My stuff lives in my car. Spare glasses. Socket set. Coat. Headtorch. Pen and notebook. Tape measure. Workboots. Business cards. (and a whole load of other useful stuff!). Can't cart all that with me on the bus every day, and it's a pain having to try and predict what's going to be needed day to day to take it with you. 4) Travelling on busses isn't great anyway - sitting on an uncomfortable seat next to a smelly alcoholic with some screaming kids in the row in front vs rolling smoothly along in effectively a comfy chair with my choice of tunes, my choice of temperature...
The weird thing about the whole leveling up thing is that most of the North is far better for drivers than the South, (not that there isn't room for improvement - you could remove 90% of the congestion in my town with one stretch of road about 1/4 long, following an existing minor road for all but 100 yards) but about the only sort of leveling up that's ever suggested involves hosing odles of tax money at public transport.
I'd suggest that decreasing businesses rates (and or increasing the threshold for the small businesses relief*) in proportion to the distance from Westminster would be a much better use of the cash. Or possibly do the same with income or corp tax, but you'd have to figure out how to prevent people gaiming the system by lying about which property is their main residence/place of business.
*the taper on small business rate relief wins a small prize for the worst thought out taxation system ever, as the taper is so steep as to be more like a cliff edge. My business gets 100% relief. I'd really like to rent another building on the same site to expand, but it would jump me into paying full whack on the lot to the tune of about £9k pa. So instead of expanding into the next building jumping my rent from ~£10k to ~£15k, with the rates added I'll be looking at ~£24k for an increase in usable space of around 50%. So instead I'm not bothering and just struggling on in the space I've got, and everyone loses out.
Totally agree. Buses are not really a thing.
In this part of the Flatlands, the town centre is not where the jobs are, so what's the point of a bus? They take a few non-paying OAPs into town to get harassed by the ne'er do wells but not a lot else. Maybe a few people take the bus in order to get the train out, but not vast numbers.
If I have to go into town I'd rather walk the 2 or so miles anyway. It isn't really any slower. Even those working in the warehouses proliferating everywhere use a car or if they are brave, a bicycle.
What is needed is a better mix of jobs and better roads for both cars and bicycles. Once cars are all electric there really isn't much to be gained by "mass transport", and that time is not far away.
The obsession with public transport is from people who are obsessed with cities.
The realities of towns are deemed to be irrelevant.
1. You unload stuff off a ship. 2. You stick it in a bonded warehouse. 3. You load it onto another ship.
Either it's totally pointless or I'm missing something.
You missed the important point that the state gets less tax revenue, the economy gets distorted and jobs migrate from one area to another with no net benefit.
For comparison, these are the IPSOS-Mori estimates for the 2019 election; (https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election) 18-24 Lab 62 Con 19 25-34 Lab 51 Con 27 35-44 Lab 39 Con 36 45-54 Lab 28 Con 46 55-64 Lab 27 Con 49 65+ Lab 17 Con 64
And here are their graphs going further back;
Eyballing the numbers for 2019 and now, Conservatives are down almost across the board, but they've lost most votes among the oldies. If anything, the age gap is closing back up again.
1. You unload stuff off a ship. 2. You stick it in a bonded warehouse. 3. You load it onto another ship.
Either it's totally pointless or I'm missing something.
In its reductive form yes, it is fairly pointless as there are customs reliefs available that provide all the benefits of being in a freeport anyway.
As a wrapper, and an umbrella brand, for what are essentially a new version of enterprise zones they make some sense. They can come with add-ons like accelerated tax depreciation, simplified planning rules, payroll tax reliefs and so on. I know that planning is one of the biggest headaches for industrial and commercial developers (rightly so in many cases) and one of the reasons they are hesitant to make big investments in certain countries particularly in Southern Europe.
The accelerated capital allowances plans for the freeports were interesting but rendered somewhat moot when Rishi introduced the country-wide superdeduction last year.
I keep finding myself in the position of defending Boris, which really isn't the intention - I'm as keen to see him go as the next man. And I suppose Rishi is who I'd want to see replace him. And yet - I can't see levelling up going better with anyone but Boris in charge. He's personally invested. Without going into my professional life too much, I know the Boris regime is trying to spend money in the north - ideally before the next election. And it is the treasury which is the biggest obstacle.
I suppose you could argue that a Rishi led government would spend less, but more effectively. Perhaps?
Johnson hasn't spent anything yet. The one major commitment was HS2 and they've cut the budget there. The IRP will never be delivered, because it is literally undeliverable, so that's worthless.
So I'm not quite sure why you think anyone else would 'spend less.'
It takes a bloody age to spend any money in infrastructure. My expectation is that the biggest levelling up spending this parliament will be on buses. Because you can spend on them quickly. There's already quite a lot of bus spending in the pipeline.
Will any of that lead to cheaper fares?
I would expect so. Not least because it's very easy to spend money on fares. Much easier to give public transport authorities to subsidise fares than to reopen a railway line (which in most cases closed for very sound economic reasons). Bus Back Better is worth a look on this. Interesting not least because Boris genuinely seems to have written the introduction in his name. It is written in pure Borisese. The only problem with subsidising fares is that you need to keep spending. It's not capital spend. Though if by doing so you drive up passengers sufficiently it dies start to pay for itself.
For your average Northerner, busses are utterly irrelevant. I'm probably pretty typical of the northern working class type on my street on this - it wouldn't matter to me if they made them completely free and every ten minutes, I'm still going to drive to work. Several major reasons for this: 1) I value my time far too highly to waste an hour a day extra commuting(the "direct" bus from my town to my work takes about an hour vs 25-35mins driving). 2) Buses are inconvenient, they don't go door to door, and leave you standing around in the rain. 3) I work in the middle of nowhere, and use my car at lunchtime to go and get a sandwich from the shop a mile away. Even if busses were free and every ten minutes, I'm going to lose my whole lunch break on this operation, rather than ten minutes of it. 4) My stuff lives in my car. Spare glasses. Socket set. Coat. Headtorch. Pen and notebook. Tape measure. Workboots. Business cards. (and a whole load of other useful stuff!). Can't cart all that with me on the bus every day, and it's a pain having to try and predict what's going to be needed day to day to take it with you. 4) Travelling on busses isn't great anyway - sitting on an uncomfortable seat next to a smelly alcoholic with some screaming kids in the row in front vs rolling smoothly along in effectively a comfy chair with my choice of tunes, my choice of temperature...
The weird thing about the whole leveling up thing is that most of the North is far better for drivers than the South, (not that there isn't room for improvement - you could remove 90% of the congestion in my town with one stretch of road about 1/4 long, following an existing minor road for all but 100 yards) but about the only sort of leveling up that's ever suggested involves hosing odles of tax money at public transport.
I'd suggest that decreasing businesses rates (and or increasing the threshold for the small businesses relief*) in proportion to the distance from Westminster would be a much better use of the cash. Or possibly do the same with income or corp tax, but you'd have to figure out how to prevent people gaiming the system by lying about which property is their main residence/place of business.
*the taper on small business rate relief wins a small prize for the worst thought out taxation system ever, as the taper is so steep as to be more like a cliff edge. My business gets 100% relief. I'd really like to rent another building on the same site to expand, but it would jump me into paying full whack on the lot to the tune of about £9k pa. So instead of expanding into the next building jumping my rent from ~£10k to ~£15k, with the rates added I'll be looking at ~£24k for an increase in usable space of around 50%. So instead I'm not bothering and just struggling on in the space I've got, and everyone loses out.
Totally agree. Buses are not really a thing.
In this part of the Flatlands, the town centre is not where the jobs are, so what's the point of a bus? They take a few non-paying OAPs into town to get harassed by the ne'er do wells but not a lot else. Maybe a few people take the bus in order to get the train out, but not vast numbers.
If I have to go into town I'd rather walk the 2 or so miles anyway. It isn't really any slower. Even those working in the warehouses proliferating everywhere use a car or if they are brave, a bicycle.
What is needed is a better mix of jobs and better roads for both cars and bicycles. Once cars are all electric there really isn't much to be gained by "mass transport", and that time is not far away.
Oh there will be unless the cost of electric cars gets a lot lower.
Most people can’t afford £500+ a month on a lease car
I'm also puzzled why sitting in a traffic jam in an electric car is any better than sitting in a jam in a car with an engine.
For me, travelling into Leeds is a no-brainer. Train every time.
I keep finding myself in the position of defending Boris, which really isn't the intention - I'm as keen to see him go as the next man. And I suppose Rishi is who I'd want to see replace him. And yet - I can't see levelling up going better with anyone but Boris in charge. He's personally invested. Without going into my professional life too much, I know the Boris regime is trying to spend money in the north - ideally before the next election. And it is the treasury which is the biggest obstacle.
I suppose you could argue that a Rishi led government would spend less, but more effectively. Perhaps?
Johnson hasn't spent anything yet. The one major commitment was HS2 and they've cut the budget there. The IRP will never be delivered, because it is literally undeliverable, so that's worthless.
So I'm not quite sure why you think anyone else would 'spend less.'
It takes a bloody age to spend any money in infrastructure. My expectation is that the biggest levelling up spending this parliament will be on buses. Because you can spend on them quickly. There's already quite a lot of bus spending in the pipeline.
Will any of that lead to cheaper fares?
I would expect so. Not least because it's very easy to spend money on fares. Much easier to give public transport authorities to subsidise fares than to reopen a railway line (which in most cases closed for very sound economic reasons). Bus Back Better is worth a look on this. Interesting not least because Boris genuinely seems to have written the introduction in his name. It is written in pure Borisese. The only problem with subsidising fares is that you need to keep spending. It's not capital spend. Though if by doing so you drive up passengers sufficiently it dies start to pay for itself.
For your average Northerner, busses are utterly irrelevant. I'm probably pretty typical of the northern working class type on my street on this - it wouldn't matter to me if they made them completely free and every ten minutes, I'm still going to drive to work. Several major reasons for this: 1) I value my time far too highly to waste an hour a day extra commuting(the "direct" bus from my town to my work takes about an hour vs 25-35mins driving). 2) Buses are inconvenient, they don't go door to door, and leave you standing around in the rain. 3) I work in the middle of nowhere, and use my car at lunchtime to go and get a sandwich from the shop a mile away. Even if busses were free and every ten minutes, I'm going to lose my whole lunch break on this operation, rather than ten minutes of it. 4) My stuff lives in my car. Spare glasses. Socket set. Coat. Headtorch. Pen and notebook. Tape measure. Workboots. Business cards. (and a whole load of other useful stuff!). Can't cart all that with me on the bus every day, and it's a pain having to try and predict what's going to be needed day to day to take it with you. 4) Travelling on busses isn't great anyway - sitting on an uncomfortable seat next to a smelly alcoholic with some screaming kids in the row in front vs rolling smoothly along in effectively a comfy chair with my choice of tunes, my choice of temperature...
The weird thing about the whole leveling up thing is that most of the North is far better for drivers than the South, (not that there isn't room for improvement - you could remove 90% of the congestion in my town with one stretch of road about 1/4 long, following an existing minor road for all but 100 yards) but about the only sort of leveling up that's ever suggested involves hosing odles of tax money at public transport.
I'd suggest that decreasing businesses rates (and or increasing the threshold for the small businesses relief*) in proportion to the distance from Westminster would be a much better use of the cash. Or possibly do the same with income or corp tax, but you'd have to figure out how to prevent people gaiming the system by lying about which property is their main residence/place of business.
*the taper on small business rate relief wins a small prize for the worst thought out taxation system ever, as the taper is so steep as to be more like a cliff edge. My business gets 100% relief. I'd really like to rent another building on the same site to expand, but it would jump me into paying full whack on the lot to the tune of about £9k pa. So instead of expanding into the next building jumping my rent from ~£10k to ~£15k, with the rates added I'll be looking at ~£24k for an increase in usable space of around 50%. So instead I'm not bothering and just struggling on in the space I've got, and everyone loses out.
Totally agree. Buses are not really a thing.
In this part of the Flatlands, the town centre is not where the jobs are, so what's the point of a bus? They take a few non-paying OAPs into town to get harassed by the ne'er do wells but not a lot else. Maybe a few people take the bus in order to get the train out, but not vast numbers.
If I have to go into town I'd rather walk the 2 or so miles anyway. It isn't really any slower. Even those working in the warehouses proliferating everywhere use a car or if they are brave, a bicycle.
What is needed is a better mix of jobs and better roads for both cars and bicycles. Once cars are all electric there really isn't much to be gained by "mass transport", and that time is not far away.
The obsession with public transport is from people who are obsessed with cities.
The realities of towns are deemed to be irrelevant.
Did they mention that the North South divide has actually got worse and worse, especially since the 1980s?
It’s higher than at any point since 1900. Probably since 1800 actually.
One of the interesting things about levelling up and the North South divide is that it's not about poverty. There are more poor people in London than anywhere else in the UK. The difference is that London is also full of rich people, while the rest of the country isn't (at least not to the same extent). But having loads of rich people can be a double edged sword, for instance when it comes to everyone else being able to afford a house. My sense is that the North of England was destroyed by the Normans. It got a temporary boost from the industrial revolution, although that also left a lot of disadvantages in its wake (eg undiversified economies, low levels of education). It's a long way from the centre of economic gravity in Europe (Germany/the low countries/Northern Italy) and even more cut off now thanks to Brexit. Transport links are crap. In my opinion their best bet is to declare UDI from Westminster. Raise money in the North, control it in the North. Overcome all the stupid local rivalries that stop the North from acting in a unified way. Waiting for HM Treasury to throw them some scraps is going to lead nowhere. Relying on an empty slogan from a man who doesn't give two shits about them ditto.
The inequality you mention is one of the reasons why the 'become more like London' meme isn't as attractive as Londoners think it is.
Other reason also being housing unaffordability, congestion and the way things grind to a halt if something unexpected happens.
Also, some good news for the North, my old employer is opening up a giant office to consolidate and massively expand their presence in Liverpool. I've heard they're looking to hire between 200 and 250 highly paid software developers in the city in addition to the 200 or so they already have.
The policy of moving development to Amsterdam seems to be have been completely reversed, I'm told there were issues with skill levels, unrealistic demands from underskilled people and a general lack of experience. The word is that Liverpool, Cambridge and London will see a big expansion as well as some in Surrey. Two years ago people were wondering whether PlayStation's time in the UK was finished and existing studious wound up once their projects were completed. A real turnaround and win for UK game development.
Great news.
Liverpool could be / should be a real hub for creative development and already has a gaming heritage. It really should have been given Channel 4, too. Leeds should stick to professional services.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up never existed beyond a slogan. There is no substance there to die.
That does raise an interesting point, in that either it had no substance, and therefore it being dropped means nothing, or it did and it would, yet I have a suspicion people will argue both.
That’s politics for you: a bunch of idiots arguing about nothing.
I keep finding myself in the position of defending Boris, which really isn't the intention - I'm as keen to see him go as the next man. And I suppose Rishi is who I'd want to see replace him. And yet - I can't see levelling up going better with anyone but Boris in charge. He's personally invested. Without going into my professional life too much, I know the Boris regime is trying to spend money in the north - ideally before the next election. And it is the treasury which is the biggest obstacle.
I suppose you could argue that a Rishi led government would spend less, but more effectively. Perhaps?
Johnson hasn't spent anything yet. The one major commitment was HS2 and they've cut the budget there. The IRP will never be delivered, because it is literally undeliverable, so that's worthless.
So I'm not quite sure why you think anyone else would 'spend less.'
It takes a bloody age to spend any money in infrastructure. My expectation is that the biggest levelling up spending this parliament will be on buses. Because you can spend on them quickly. There's already quite a lot of bus spending in the pipeline.
Will any of that lead to cheaper fares?
I would expect so. Not least because it's very easy to spend money on fares. Much easier to give public transport authorities to subsidise fares than to reopen a railway line (which in most cases closed for very sound economic reasons). Bus Back Better is worth a look on this. Interesting not least because Boris genuinely seems to have written the introduction in his name. It is written in pure Borisese. The only problem with subsidising fares is that you need to keep spending. It's not capital spend. Though if by doing so you drive up passengers sufficiently it dies start to pay for itself.
For your average Northerner, busses are utterly irrelevant. I'm probably pretty typical of the northern working class type on my street on this - it wouldn't matter to me if they made them completely free and every ten minutes, I'm still going to drive to work. Several major reasons for this: 1) I value my time far too highly to waste an hour a day extra commuting(the "direct" bus from my town to my work takes about an hour vs 25-35mins driving). 2) Buses are inconvenient, they don't go door to door, and leave you standing around in the rain. 3) I work in the middle of nowhere, and use my car at lunchtime to go and get a sandwich from the shop a mile away. Even if busses were free and every ten minutes, I'm going to lose my whole lunch break on this operation, rather than ten minutes of it. 4) My stuff lives in my car. Spare glasses. Socket set. Coat. Headtorch. Pen and notebook. Tape measure. Workboots. Business cards. (and a whole load of other useful stuff!). Can't cart all that with me on the bus every day, and it's a pain having to try and predict what's going to be needed day to day to take it with you. 4) Travelling on busses isn't great anyway - sitting on an uncomfortable seat next to a smelly alcoholic with some screaming kids in the row in front vs rolling smoothly along in effectively a comfy chair with my choice of tunes, my choice of temperature...
The weird thing about the whole leveling up thing is that most of the North is far better for drivers than the South, (not that there isn't room for improvement - you could remove 90% of the congestion in my town with one stretch of road about 1/4 long, following an existing minor road for all but 100 yards) but about the only sort of leveling up that's ever suggested involves hosing odles of tax money at public transport.
I'd suggest that decreasing businesses rates (and or increasing the threshold for the small businesses relief*) in proportion to the distance from Westminster would be a much better use of the cash. Or possibly do the same with income or corp tax, but you'd have to figure out how to prevent people gaiming the system by lying about which property is their main residence/place of business.
*the taper on small business rate relief wins a small prize for the worst thought out taxation system ever, as the taper is so steep as to be more like a cliff edge. My business gets 100% relief. I'd really like to rent another building on the same site to expand, but it would jump me into paying full whack on the lot to the tune of about £9k pa. So instead of expanding into the next building jumping my rent from ~£10k to ~£15k, with the rates added I'll be looking at ~£24k for an increase in usable space of around 50%. So instead I'm not bothering and just struggling on in the space I've got, and everyone loses out.
Totally agree. Buses are not really a thing.
In this part of the Flatlands, the town centre is not where the jobs are, so what's the point of a bus? They take a few non-paying OAPs into town to get harassed by the ne'er do wells but not a lot else. Maybe a few people take the bus in order to get the train out, but not vast numbers.
If I have to go into town I'd rather walk the 2 or so miles anyway. It isn't really any slower. Even those working in the warehouses proliferating everywhere use a car or if they are brave, a bicycle.
What is needed is a better mix of jobs and better roads for both cars and bicycles. Once cars are all electric there really isn't much to be gained by "mass transport", and that time is not far away.
The obsession with public transport is from people who are obsessed with cities.
The realities of towns are deemed to be irrelevant.
There is some logic there though. We continue to urbanise, as does the developed world. To urbanise, to age, and ultimately to depopulate. Japan is usually a helpful pointer to our future. Its population is starting to shrink yet the Tokyo metropolitan area continues to grow rapidly, year on year.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I think it would still exist under Rishi, but be much smaller in scope but probably actually happen. We'd dump a lot of the rubbish like freeports and have a more temporary tax incentive based system to lure big businesses with special economic zones, no employer NI for up to 100 employees in the zones, 10 years of low corporation tax rates. That sort of stuff. There won't be any big shiny stuff but a lot of jobs created, perhaps eventually self sustaining industries where nothing existed previously.
You mean we'd basically do exactly what the Germans did in the former GDR, and which basically works really well?
(The Germans also offered massive tax advantages for employing the long-term unemployed, training workers up and apprenticeships.)
I keep finding myself in the position of defending Boris, which really isn't the intention - I'm as keen to see him go as the next man. And I suppose Rishi is who I'd want to see replace him. And yet - I can't see levelling up going better with anyone but Boris in charge. He's personally invested. Without going into my professional life too much, I know the Boris regime is trying to spend money in the north - ideally before the next election. And it is the treasury which is the biggest obstacle.
I suppose you could argue that a Rishi led government would spend less, but more effectively. Perhaps?
Johnson hasn't spent anything yet. The one major commitment was HS2 and they've cut the budget there. The IRP will never be delivered, because it is literally undeliverable, so that's worthless.
So I'm not quite sure why you think anyone else would 'spend less.'
It takes a bloody age to spend any money in infrastructure. My expectation is that the biggest levelling up spending this parliament will be on buses. Because you can spend on them quickly. There's already quite a lot of bus spending in the pipeline.
Will any of that lead to cheaper fares?
I would expect so. Not least because it's very easy to spend money on fares. Much easier to give public transport authorities to subsidise fares than to reopen a railway line (which in most cases closed for very sound economic reasons). Bus Back Better is worth a look on this. Interesting not least because Boris genuinely seems to have written the introduction in his name. It is written in pure Borisese. The only problem with subsidising fares is that you need to keep spending. It's not capital spend. Though if by doing so you drive up passengers sufficiently it dies start to pay for itself.
For your average Northerner, busses are utterly irrelevant. I'm probably pretty typical of the northern working class type on my street on this - it wouldn't matter to me if they made them completely free and every ten minutes, I'm still going to drive to work. Several major reasons for this: 1) I value my time far too highly to waste an hour a day extra commuting(the "direct" bus from my town to my work takes about an hour vs 25-35mins driving). 2) Buses are inconvenient, they don't go door to door, and leave you standing around in the rain. 3) I work in the middle of nowhere, and use my car at lunchtime to go and get a sandwich from the shop a mile away. Even if busses were free and every ten minutes, I'm going to lose my whole lunch break on this operation, rather than ten minutes of it. 4) My stuff lives in my car. Spare glasses. Socket set. Coat. Headtorch. Pen and notebook. Tape measure. Workboots. Business cards. (and a whole load of other useful stuff!). Can't cart all that with me on the bus every day, and it's a pain having to try and predict what's going to be needed day to day to take it with you. 4) Travelling on busses isn't great anyway - sitting on an uncomfortable seat next to a smelly alcoholic with some screaming kids in the row in front vs rolling smoothly along in effectively a comfy chair with my choice of tunes, my choice of temperature...
The weird thing about the whole leveling up thing is that most of the North is far better for drivers than the South, (not that there isn't room for improvement - you could remove 90% of the congestion in my town with one stretch of road about 1/4 long, following an existing minor road for all but 100 yards) but about the only sort of leveling up that's ever suggested involves hosing odles of tax money at public transport.
I'd suggest that decreasing businesses rates (and or increasing the threshold for the small businesses relief*) in proportion to the distance from Westminster would be a much better use of the cash. Or possibly do the same with income or corp tax, but you'd have to figure out how to prevent people gaiming the system by lying about which property is their main residence/place of business.
*the taper on small business rate relief wins a small prize for the worst thought out taxation system ever, as the taper is so steep as to be more like a cliff edge. My business gets 100% relief. I'd really like to rent another building on the same site to expand, but it would jump me into paying full whack on the lot to the tune of about £9k pa. So instead of expanding into the next building jumping my rent from ~£10k to ~£15k, with the rates added I'll be looking at ~£24k for an increase in usable space of around 50%. So instead I'm not bothering and just struggling on in the space I've got, and everyone loses out.
Totally agree. Buses are not really a thing.
In this part of the Flatlands, the town centre is not where the jobs are, so what's the point of a bus? They take a few non-paying OAPs into town to get harassed by the ne'er do wells but not a lot else. Maybe a few people take the bus in order to get the train out, but not vast numbers.
If I have to go into town I'd rather walk the 2 or so miles anyway. It isn't really any slower. Even those working in the warehouses proliferating everywhere use a car or if they are brave, a bicycle.
What is needed is a better mix of jobs and better roads for both cars and bicycles. Once cars are all electric there really isn't much to be gained by "mass transport", and that time is not far away.
The obsession with public transport is from people who are obsessed with cities.
The realities of towns are deemed to be irrelevant.
The good jobs are in the cities. The folk in the towns need to be able to get there quickly, cheaply and reliably.
1. You unload stuff off a ship. 2. You stick it in a bonded warehouse. 3. You load it onto another ship.
Either it's totally pointless or I'm missing something.
In its reductive form yes, it is fairly pointless as there are customs reliefs available that provide all the benefits of being in a freeport anyway.
As a wrapper, and an umbrella brand, for what are essentially a new version of enterprise zones they make some sense. They can come with add-ons like accelerated tax depreciation, simplified planning rules, payroll tax reliefs and so on. I know that planning is one of the biggest headaches for industrial and commercial developers (rightly so in many cases) and one of the reasons they are hesitant to make big investments in certain countries particularly in Southern Europe.
The accelerated capital allowances plans for the freeports were interesting but rendered somewhat moot when Rishi introduced the country-wide superdeduction last year.
Klaxon!
Freeports for ugly people in ugly places.
Home Counties NIMBY’s (who coincidentally vote Tory) get to keep stringent planning rules.
Don't be ridiculous. He only finally did it because someone came round and read all my articles on why she had to go to him.
Slightly seriously, it was here on PB that people were first calling for the Met to be defunded (aka, basically, broken up).
I think that still applies. Dick withdrawing does not change the fact that the Met is institutionally broken. Khan can hire the hottest of hotshots from NYC and he would still have to run an infeasible mess of a national fraud agency and a local police force. It doesn't work and it can't.
It's too big anyway. London is larger than a lot of European countries. I'd break the Met up into more manageable chunks, each headed by a new Chief Constable appointed from one of the better performing county forces, tasked primarily with reform of culture and the sacking or early retirement of dross.
I keep finding myself in the position of defending Boris, which really isn't the intention - I'm as keen to see him go as the next man. And I suppose Rishi is who I'd want to see replace him. And yet - I can't see levelling up going better with anyone but Boris in charge. He's personally invested. Without going into my professional life too much, I know the Boris regime is trying to spend money in the north - ideally before the next election. And it is the treasury which is the biggest obstacle.
I suppose you could argue that a Rishi led government would spend less, but more effectively. Perhaps?
Johnson hasn't spent anything yet. The one major commitment was HS2 and they've cut the budget there. The IRP will never be delivered, because it is literally undeliverable, so that's worthless.
So I'm not quite sure why you think anyone else would 'spend less.'
It takes a bloody age to spend any money in infrastructure. My expectation is that the biggest levelling up spending this parliament will be on buses. Because you can spend on them quickly. There's already quite a lot of bus spending in the pipeline.
Will any of that lead to cheaper fares?
I would expect so. Not least because it's very easy to spend money on fares. Much easier to give public transport authorities to subsidise fares than to reopen a railway line (which in most cases closed for very sound economic reasons). Bus Back Better is worth a look on this. Interesting not least because Boris genuinely seems to have written the introduction in his name. It is written in pure Borisese. The only problem with subsidising fares is that you need to keep spending. It's not capital spend. Though if by doing so you drive up passengers sufficiently it dies start to pay for itself.
For your average Northerner, busses are utterly irrelevant. I'm probably pretty typical of the northern working class type on my street on this - it wouldn't matter to me if they made them completely free and every ten minutes, I'm still going to drive to work. Several major reasons for this: 1) I value my time far too highly to waste an hour a day extra commuting(the "direct" bus from my town to my work takes about an hour vs 25-35mins driving). 2) Buses are inconvenient, they don't go door to door, and leave you standing around in the rain. 3) I work in the middle of nowhere, and use my car at lunchtime to go and get a sandwich from the shop a mile away. Even if busses were free and every ten minutes, I'm going to lose my whole lunch break on this operation, rather than ten minutes of it. 4) My stuff lives in my car. Spare glasses. Socket set. Coat. Headtorch. Pen and notebook. Tape measure. Workboots. Business cards. (and a whole load of other useful stuff!). Can't cart all that with me on the bus every day, and it's a pain having to try and predict what's going to be needed day to day to take it with you. 4) Travelling on busses isn't great anyway - sitting on an uncomfortable seat next to a smelly alcoholic with some screaming kids in the row in front vs rolling smoothly along in effectively a comfy chair with my choice of tunes, my choice of temperature...
The weird thing about the whole leveling up thing is that most of the North is far better for drivers than the South, (not that there isn't room for improvement - you could remove 90% of the congestion in my town with one stretch of road about 1/4 long, following an existing minor road for all but 100 yards) but about the only sort of leveling up that's ever suggested involves hosing odles of tax money at public transport.
I'd suggest that decreasing businesses rates (and or increasing the threshold for the small businesses relief*) in proportion to the distance from Westminster would be a much better use of the cash. Or possibly do the same with income or corp tax, but you'd have to figure out how to prevent people gaiming the system by lying about which property is their main residence/place of business.
*the taper on small business rate relief wins a small prize for the worst thought out taxation system ever, as the taper is so steep as to be more like a cliff edge. My business gets 100% relief. I'd really like to rent another building on the same site to expand, but it would jump me into paying full whack on the lot to the tune of about £9k pa. So instead of expanding into the next building jumping my rent from ~£10k to ~£15k, with the rates added I'll be looking at ~£24k for an increase in usable space of around 50%. So instead I'm not bothering and just struggling on in the space I've got, and everyone loses out.
Totally agree. Buses are not really a thing.
In this part of the Flatlands, the town centre is not where the jobs are, so what's the point of a bus? They take a few non-paying OAPs into town to get harassed by the ne'er do wells but not a lot else. Maybe a few people take the bus in order to get the train out, but not vast numbers.
If I have to go into town I'd rather walk the 2 or so miles anyway. It isn't really any slower. Even those working in the warehouses proliferating everywhere use a car or if they are brave, a bicycle.
What is needed is a better mix of jobs and better roads for both cars and bicycles. Once cars are all electric there really isn't much to be gained by "mass transport", and that time is not far away.
The obsession with public transport is from people who are obsessed with cities.
The realities of towns are deemed to be irrelevant.
What if you live in a town and work in a city?
I know some people who do that and others who live in a city and work in a town.
1. You unload stuff off a ship. 2. You stick it in a bonded warehouse. 3. You load it onto another ship.
Either it's totally pointless or I'm missing something.
The idea is that people will build factories in the freeports and then work on things. And businesses in the freeport would be exempt from lots of taxes, etc.
But, FWIW, I think they be essentially pointless in the UK.
Did they mention that the North South divide has actually got worse and worse, especially since the 1980s?
It’s higher than at any point since 1900. Probably since 1800 actually.
One of the interesting things about levelling up and the North South divide is that it's not about poverty. There are more poor people in London than anywhere else in the UK. The difference is that London is also full of rich people, while the rest of the country isn't (at least not to the same extent). But having loads of rich people can be a double edged sword, for instance when it comes to everyone else being able to afford a house. My sense is that the North of England was destroyed by the Normans. It got a temporary boost from the industrial revolution, although that also left a lot of disadvantages in its wake (eg undiversified economies, low levels of education). It's a long way from the centre of economic gravity in Europe (Germany/the low countries/Northern Italy) and even more cut off now thanks to Brexit. Transport links are crap. In my opinion their best bet is to declare UDI from Westminster. Raise money in the North, control it in the North. Overcome all the stupid local rivalries that stop the North from acting in a unified way. Waiting for HM Treasury to throw them some scraps is going to lead nowhere. Relying on an empty slogan from a man who doesn't give two shits about them ditto.
The inequality you mention is one of the reasons why the 'become more like London' meme isn't as attractive as Londoners think it is.
Other reason also being housing unaffordability, congestion and the way things grind to a halt if something unexpected happens.
Which is why I don't understand the resentment of Londoners. People seem to be capable of a kind of doublethink that says London gets an unfair advantage, that its inhabitants are spoilt, but at the same time "I couldn't think of anything worse than living in that shithole".
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up never existed beyond a slogan. There is no substance there to die.
That does raise an interesting point, in that either it had no substance, and therefore it being dropped means nothing, or it did and it would, yet I have a suspicion people will argue both.
That’s politics for you: a bunch of idiots arguing about nothing.
What's going on with the 18-24s? Surprisingly right wing at their tender age. Or just loads of them voting Green perhaps (Con number is higher but not that much higher than the 25-34s).
25-34 presumably the age group most frustrated by their inability to afford property.
The most surprising group is the 55-64s, that's horrific for Boris. Labour approaching landslide territory based on those splits IMO.
Deltapoll disagrees:
55-64s Lab 27% Con 49%
Techne agrees:
55-64s Lab 42% Con 32%
Confused?
Not really, that one smells wrong. The Deltapoll splits look much more plausible, albeit that one always has to be treat splits in polls with even more caution than the headline figures.
Lab-Con crossover between age 45 and 50 makes sense. Above that, boomers and gen X - much more likely to be outright homeowners (or at least less financially stressed than those who've come of age as accommodation costs have got much sillier, as well as being thwacked much harder by the more difficult economic environment post-GFC.) In other words, core vote material. Lots of well-to-do elderly and expectant heirs, basically.
I keep finding myself in the position of defending Boris, which really isn't the intention - I'm as keen to see him go as the next man. And I suppose Rishi is who I'd want to see replace him. And yet - I can't see levelling up going better with anyone but Boris in charge. He's personally invested. Without going into my professional life too much, I know the Boris regime is trying to spend money in the north - ideally before the next election. And it is the treasury which is the biggest obstacle.
I suppose you could argue that a Rishi led government would spend less, but more effectively. Perhaps?
Johnson hasn't spent anything yet. The one major commitment was HS2 and they've cut the budget there. The IRP will never be delivered, because it is literally undeliverable, so that's worthless.
So I'm not quite sure why you think anyone else would 'spend less.'
It takes a bloody age to spend any money in infrastructure. My expectation is that the biggest levelling up spending this parliament will be on buses. Because you can spend on them quickly. There's already quite a lot of bus spending in the pipeline.
Will any of that lead to cheaper fares?
I would expect so. Not least because it's very easy to spend money on fares. Much easier to give public transport authorities to subsidise fares than to reopen a railway line (which in most cases closed for very sound economic reasons). Bus Back Better is worth a look on this. Interesting not least because Boris genuinely seems to have written the introduction in his name. It is written in pure Borisese. The only problem with subsidising fares is that you need to keep spending. It's not capital spend. Though if by doing so you drive up passengers sufficiently it dies start to pay for itself.
For your average Northerner, busses are utterly irrelevant. I'm probably pretty typical of the northern working class type on my street on this - it wouldn't matter to me if they made them completely free and every ten minutes, I'm still going to drive to work. Several major reasons for this: 1) I value my time far too highly to waste an hour a day extra commuting(the "direct" bus from my town to my work takes about an hour vs 25-35mins driving). 2) Buses are inconvenient, they don't go door to door, and leave you standing around in the rain. 3) I work in the middle of nowhere, and use my car at lunchtime to go and get a sandwich from the shop a mile away. Even if busses were free and every ten minutes, I'm going to lose my whole lunch break on this operation, rather than ten minutes of it. 4) My stuff lives in my car. Spare glasses. Socket set. Coat. Headtorch. Pen and notebook. Tape measure. Workboots. Business cards. (and a whole load of other useful stuff!). Can't cart all that with me on the bus every day, and it's a pain having to try and predict what's going to be needed day to day to take it with you. 4) Travelling on busses isn't great anyway - sitting on an uncomfortable seat next to a smelly alcoholic with some screaming kids in the row in front vs rolling smoothly along in effectively a comfy chair with my choice of tunes, my choice of temperature...
The weird thing about the whole leveling up thing is that most of the North is far better for drivers than the South, (not that there isn't room for improvement - you could remove 90% of the congestion in my town with one stretch of road about 1/4 long, following an existing minor road for all but 100 yards) but about the only sort of leveling up that's ever suggested involves hosing odles of tax money at public transport.
I'd suggest that decreasing businesses rates (and or increasing the threshold for the small businesses relief*) in proportion to the distance from Westminster would be a much better use of the cash. Or possibly do the same with income or corp tax, but you'd have to figure out how to prevent people gaiming the system by lying about which property is their main residence/place of business.
*the taper on small business rate relief wins a small prize for the worst thought out taxation system ever, as the taper is so steep as to be more like a cliff edge. My business gets 100% relief. I'd really like to rent another building on the same site to expand, but it would jump me into paying full whack on the lot to the tune of about £9k pa. So instead of expanding into the next building jumping my rent from ~£10k to ~£15k, with the rates added I'll be looking at ~£24k for an increase in usable space of around 50%. So instead I'm not bothering and just struggling on in the space I've got, and everyone loses out.
Totally agree. Buses are not really a thing.
In this part of the Flatlands, the town centre is not where the jobs are, so what's the point of a bus? They take a few non-paying OAPs into town to get harassed by the ne'er do wells but not a lot else. Maybe a few people take the bus in order to get the train out, but not vast numbers.
If I have to go into town I'd rather walk the 2 or so miles anyway. It isn't really any slower. Even those working in the warehouses proliferating everywhere use a car or if they are brave, a bicycle.
What is needed is a better mix of jobs and better roads for both cars and bicycles. Once cars are all electric there really isn't much to be gained by "mass transport", and that time is not far away.
The obsession with public transport is from people who are obsessed with cities.
The realities of towns are deemed to be irrelevant.
There are people in my village who don't own a car. If it wasn't for the bus, they'd have to cycle or walk for 15 miles to do a shop. Don't tell me public transport is only for the cities.
So ?
Compare public transport use in cities to towns to rural areas and you'll see its far more dominant in cities than the others.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up never existed beyond a slogan. There is no substance there to die.
That does raise an interesting point, in that either it had no substance, and therefore it being dropped means nothing, or it did and it would, yet I have a suspicion people will argue both.
That’s politics for you: a bunch of idiots arguing about nothing.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I think it would still exist under Rishi, but be much smaller in scope but probably actually happen. We'd dump a lot of the rubbish like freeports and have a more temporary tax incentive based system to lure big businesses with special economic zones, no employer NI for up to 100 employees in the zones, 10 years of low corporation tax rates. That sort of stuff. There won't be any big shiny stuff but a lot of jobs created, perhaps eventually self sustaining industries where nothing existed previously.
You mean we'd basically do exactly what the Germans did in the former GDR, and which basically works really well?
(The Germans also offered massive tax advantages for employing the long-term unemployed, training workers up and apprenticeships.)
Your second sentence is the key issue.
Improve your workforce and you'll improve your economy.
Part of the trouble with our regional situation is that we have two quite distinct types of regional inequality: 2 types of poor region. The post-industrial towns and cities of the Midlands, North, Wales and parts of the central belt, where jobs are low paid and land is cheap; and the deprived rural and coastal areas where jobs are non-existent or seasonal and tourism-dependent, transport infrastructure is appalling and land and property are either dirt cheap or extremely expensive. They present different challenges. Levelling up Cornwall or Anglesey requires a different set of priorities to levelling up Sunderland.
Not sure how best we tackle our own versions of the Mezzogiorno, Andalusia or Massif Central. Do we just let them age and depopulate?
We don’t really have a Andalusia or Massif Central. Most of Britain is densely populated. We’re more like the Netherlands than Spain.
To answer your question, and also the comment from @another_richard, economic growth in 2022 is very very very very very much the product of cities.
We need to do everything to unlock their potential.
Thankfully, that covers the majority of the UK population.
Cornwall etc are likely to remain tourism, agriculture, and retirement focused.
“When it comes to the Conservative Party’s flagship ‘Levelling Up’ programme, UK adults are significantly more likely to think that the Chancellor would do a better job at achieving this if he were Prime Minister.”
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Levelling up is already dead with Johnson, it’s just that Rishi would smooth the grave over.
I think it would still exist under Rishi, but be much smaller in scope but probably actually happen. We'd dump a lot of the rubbish like freeports and have a more temporary tax incentive based system to lure big businesses with special economic zones, no employer NI for up to 100 employees in the zones, 10 years of low corporation tax rates. That sort of stuff. There won't be any big shiny stuff but a lot of jobs created, perhaps eventually self sustaining industries where nothing existed previously.
You mean we'd basically do exactly what the Germans did in the former GDR, and which basically works really well?
(The Germans also offered massive tax advantages for employing the long-term unemployed, training workers up and apprenticeships.)
Your second sentence is the key issue.
Improve your workforce and you'll improve your economy.
The perfect argument for abolishing private schooling.
I keep finding myself in the position of defending Boris, which really isn't the intention - I'm as keen to see him go as the next man. And I suppose Rishi is who I'd want to see replace him. And yet - I can't see levelling up going better with anyone but Boris in charge. He's personally invested. Without going into my professional life too much, I know the Boris regime is trying to spend money in the north - ideally before the next election. And it is the treasury which is the biggest obstacle.
I suppose you could argue that a Rishi led government would spend less, but more effectively. Perhaps?
Johnson hasn't spent anything yet. The one major commitment was HS2 and they've cut the budget there. The IRP will never be delivered, because it is literally undeliverable, so that's worthless.
So I'm not quite sure why you think anyone else would 'spend less.'
It takes a bloody age to spend any money in infrastructure. My expectation is that the biggest levelling up spending this parliament will be on buses. Because you can spend on them quickly. There's already quite a lot of bus spending in the pipeline.
Will any of that lead to cheaper fares?
I would expect so. Not least because it's very easy to spend money on fares. Much easier to give public transport authorities to subsidise fares than to reopen a railway line (which in most cases closed for very sound economic reasons). Bus Back Better is worth a look on this. Interesting not least because Boris genuinely seems to have written the introduction in his name. It is written in pure Borisese. The only problem with subsidising fares is that you need to keep spending. It's not capital spend. Though if by doing so you drive up passengers sufficiently it dies start to pay for itself.
For your average Northerner, busses are utterly irrelevant. I'm probably pretty typical of the northern working class type on my street on this - it wouldn't matter to me if they made them completely free and every ten minutes, I'm still going to drive to work. Several major reasons for this: 1) I value my time far too highly to waste an hour a day extra commuting(the "direct" bus from my town to my work takes about an hour vs 25-35mins driving). 2) Buses are inconvenient, they don't go door to door, and leave you standing around in the rain. 3) I work in the middle of nowhere, and use my car at lunchtime to go and get a sandwich from the shop a mile away. Even if busses were free and every ten minutes, I'm going to lose my whole lunch break on this operation, rather than ten minutes of it. 4) My stuff lives in my car. Spare glasses. Socket set. Coat. Headtorch. Pen and notebook. Tape measure. Workboots. Business cards. (and a whole load of other useful stuff!). Can't cart all that with me on the bus every day, and it's a pain having to try and predict what's going to be needed day to day to take it with you. 4) Travelling on busses isn't great anyway - sitting on an uncomfortable seat next to a smelly alcoholic with some screaming kids in the row in front vs rolling smoothly along in effectively a comfy chair with my choice of tunes, my choice of temperature...
The weird thing about the whole leveling up thing is that most of the North is far better for drivers than the South, (not that there isn't room for improvement - you could remove 90% of the congestion in my town with one stretch of road about 1/4 long, following an existing minor road for all but 100 yards) but about the only sort of leveling up that's ever suggested involves hosing odles of tax money at public transport.
I'd suggest that decreasing businesses rates (and or increasing the threshold for the small businesses relief*) in proportion to the distance from Westminster would be a much better use of the cash. Or possibly do the same with income or corp tax, but you'd have to figure out how to prevent people gaiming the system by lying about which property is their main residence/place of business.
*the taper on small business rate relief wins a small prize for the worst thought out taxation system ever, as the taper is so steep as to be more like a cliff edge. My business gets 100% relief. I'd really like to rent another building on the same site to expand, but it would jump me into paying full whack on the lot to the tune of about £9k pa. So instead of expanding into the next building jumping my rent from ~£10k to ~£15k, with the rates added I'll be looking at ~£24k for an increase in usable space of around 50%. So instead I'm not bothering and just struggling on in the space I've got, and everyone loses out.
Totally agree. Buses are not really a thing.
In this part of the Flatlands, the town centre is not where the jobs are, so what's the point of a bus? They take a few non-paying OAPs into town to get harassed by the ne'er do wells but not a lot else. Maybe a few people take the bus in order to get the train out, but not vast numbers.
If I have to go into town I'd rather walk the 2 or so miles anyway. It isn't really any slower. Even those working in the warehouses proliferating everywhere use a car or if they are brave, a bicycle.
What is needed is a better mix of jobs and better roads for both cars and bicycles. Once cars are all electric there really isn't much to be gained by "mass transport", and that time is not far away.
Oh there will be unless the cost of electric cars gets a lot lower.
Most people can’t afford £500+ a month on a lease car
True, although "not far" might be 10-15 years. If electric cars cannot get cheaper (due to battery costs) then there are going to be bigger problems than not having enough buses...
I can see the argument for mass transport in Leeds, where there are thousands of office-based jobs in the centre and a lack of space to put thousands of private cars, but in much of the Red Wall there's lots of small enterprises around the periphery and a hollowed out town centre. I don't think this can be fixed by a better bus service.
I'm not saying buses should be stopped, but improving them massively wouldn't be a good use of money.
Comments
The public are deluded.
Levelling up dies with Johnson.
Why now? There is nothing in last few weeks to prompt a sudden change of heart about her?
It has to be linked to party scandal cover up, nothing else. As both Patel and Khan have indicated from nowhere last couple of days they are minded to do this. Both have them have to answer under caution when they first heard of the lockdown parties.
18-24s Lab 67% Con 13%
25-34s Lab 61% Con 12%
35-54s Lab 44% Con 29%
55-64s Lab 27% Con 49%
65s &+ Lab 23% Con 55%
Source: Deltapoll Feb 3-4
https://deltapoll.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Deltapoll-220207_voteint.pdf
*
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amp/entry/lord-patten-boris-johnson_uk_61fd2e32e4b09170e9cfd074/
Sunak believes in levelling up. Just saying....
Not necessarily left wing, but - I think - generally liberal and internationalist, ranging from Cameronian on the right to Brownite on the left, and with a distrust of extremism.
Well that's probably all a load of bollocks but a nice thought.
55-64s Lab 27% Con 49%
Astra Space have just had a rocket launch fail. It looks as though the second stage started spinning after separation from the first.
They got their first rocket to orbit back in November. Not bad for a company founded only five years before.
Levelling up will happen when people in the north take control. Expecting the south to give it to them is for the birds.
So we can respond seriously without pretending we will go to war over Ukraine.
I was 18 in 1984. The Strike was a huge influence. Hadn't heard of Blair then. He became LOTO when I was 28.
Optimism of the 90's. Spot on. Was a great time to be young.
I'm probably pretty typical of the northern working class type on my street on this - it wouldn't matter to me if they made them completely free and every ten minutes, I'm still going to drive to work. Several major reasons for this:
1) I value my time far too highly to waste an hour a day extra commuting(the "direct" bus from my town to my work takes about an hour vs 25-35mins driving).
2) Buses are inconvenient, they don't go door to door, and leave you standing around in the rain.
3) I work in the middle of nowhere, and use my car at lunchtime to go and get a sandwich from the shop a mile away. Even if busses were free and every ten minutes, I'm going to lose my whole lunch break on this operation, rather than ten minutes of it.
4) My stuff lives in my car. Spare glasses. Socket set. Coat. Headtorch. Pen and notebook. Tape measure. Workboots. Business cards. (and a whole load of other useful stuff!). Can't cart all that with me on the bus every day, and it's a pain having to try and predict what's going to be needed day to day to take it with you.
4) Travelling on busses isn't great anyway - sitting on an uncomfortable seat next to a smelly alcoholic with some screaming kids in the row in front vs rolling smoothly along in effectively a comfy chair with my choice of tunes, my choice of temperature...
The weird thing about the whole leveling up thing is that most of the North is far better for drivers than the South, (not that there isn't room for improvement - you could remove 90% of the congestion in my town with one stretch of road about 1/4 long, following an existing minor road for all but 100 yards) but about the only sort of leveling up that's ever suggested involves hosing odles of tax money at public transport.
I'd suggest that decreasing businesses rates (and or increasing the threshold for the small businesses relief*) in proportion to the distance from Westminster would be a much better use of the cash. Or possibly do the same with income or corp tax, but you'd have to figure out how to prevent people gaiming the system by lying about which property is their main residence/place of business.
*the taper on small business rate relief wins a small prize for the worst thought out taxation system ever, as the taper is so steep as to be more like a cliff edge. My business gets 100% relief. I'd really like to rent another building on the same site to expand, but it would jump me into paying full whack on the lot to the tune of about £9k pa. So instead of expanding into the next building jumping my rent from ~£10k to ~£15k, with the rates added I'll be looking at ~£24k for an increase in usable space of around 50%. So instead I'm not bothering and just struggling on in the space I've got, and everyone loses out.
55-64s Lab 42% Con 32%
Confused?
Why do you think the White Paper was delayed so long. Gove couldn’t find any cash…
https://www.politico.eu/podcast/why-theres-nothing-new-about-leveling-up/
Did they mention that the North South divide has actually got worse and worse, especially since the 1980s?
It’s higher than at any point since 1900.
Probably since 1800 actually.
Freeports date from at least the 19th century, arguably much earlier.
Is Victorian Rishi, the inventor of freeports, so diminutive that he slipped through a wormhole?
You don’t have to be a mathematician, or a punter, to understand just how unlikely that is.
Have fun while you can, because a madman is going to get you. One day.
Strange to think the oldest millenials are pushing 40 now.
All that ends with the first missile and while they might survive for a while in their bunkers, the lifestyle they know will be gone for ever.
I suspect that's also true in the West as well.
1) How would you stop business just moving from one place to another ?
2) Does business actually care about Employers NI when its effectively the employee who pays it ?
3) It would discriminate against the businesses already in the area.
4) There's a shortage of skilled workers as it is so who would be employed ?
In essence, the available labour pool for employers in places like Leeds and Birmingham is smaller than it “should be” given overall population sizes.
The answer might not be solely public transport, but public transport is surely part of the mix. Leeds, for example, is the largest city in Europe without a mass transit system.
President Kennedy did. Arguably, that's why we are not all dead already.
Also....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essence_of_Decision#The_Organizational_Process_Model
Whichever’s easier.
The policy of moving development to Amsterdam seems to be have been completely reversed, I'm told there were issues with skill levels, unrealistic demands from underskilled people and a general lack of experience. The word is that Liverpool, Cambridge and London will see a big expansion as well as some in Surrey. Two years ago people were wondering whether PlayStation's time in the UK was finished and existing studios wound up once their projects were completed. A real turnaround and win for UK game development.
Heseltine makes an appearance in the episode and specifically mentions his influence on the London docklands regeneration and also the investment in Liverpool. And yes, they try and grasp a little of the history from the Romans to the harrying of the North and the present.
Not sure how best we tackle our own versions of the Mezzogiorno, Andalusia or Massif Central. Do we just let them age and depopulate?
There's a reason that some of the pro's call nuclear confrontation, Madman's Checkers.
Lab-Con crossover between age 45 and 50 makes sense. Above that, boomers and gen X - much more likely to be outright homeowners (or at least less financially stressed than those who've come of age as accommodation costs have got much sillier, as well as being thwacked much harder by the more difficult economic environment post-GFC.) In other words, core vote material. Lots of well-to-do elderly and expectant heirs, basically.
In this part of the Flatlands, the town centre is not where the jobs are, so what's the point of a bus? They take a few non-paying OAPs into town to get harassed by the ne'er do wells but not a lot else. Maybe a few people take the bus in order to get the train out, but not vast numbers.
If I have to go into town I'd rather walk the 2 or so miles anyway. It isn't really any slower. Even those working in the warehouses proliferating everywhere use a car or if they are brave, a bicycle.
What is needed is a better mix of jobs and better roads for both cars and bicycles. Once cars are all electric there really isn't much to be gained by "mass transport", and that time is not far away.
Much like how it will be for Boris' successor.
It’s Johnson that worries me. Wiping out humankind is the ultimate deadcat.
I think that still applies. Dick withdrawing does not change the fact that the Met is institutionally broken. Khan can hire the hottest of hotshots from NYC and he would still have to run an infeasible mess of a national fraud agency and a local police force. It doesn't work and it can't.
But having loads of rich people can be a double edged sword, for instance when it comes to everyone else being able to afford a house.
My sense is that the North of England was destroyed by the Normans. It got a temporary boost from the industrial revolution, although that also left a lot of disadvantages in its wake (eg undiversified economies, low levels of education). It's a long way from the centre of economic gravity in Europe (Germany/the low countries/Northern Italy) and even more cut off now thanks to Brexit. Transport links are crap.
In my opinion their best bet is to declare UDI from Westminster. Raise money in the North, control it in the North. Overcome all the stupid local rivalries that stop the North from acting in a unified way. Waiting for HM Treasury to throw them some scraps is going to lead nowhere. Relying on an empty slogan from a man who doesn't give two shits about them ditto.
Most people can’t afford £500+ a month on a lease car
1. You unload stuff off a ship.
2. You stick it in a bonded warehouse.
3. You load it onto another ship.
Either it's totally pointless or I'm missing something.
Let's hope they don't pick another numpty.
They do not need organisational change and management bollocks.
What they do need is razor sharp focus on the following:
Culture change is hard, extremely hard. It needs three things above all:
(1) senior leadership who truly understand the need for change – usually learnt after a near death experience;
(2) external stakeholders who put sustained pressure to make that change; and
(3) persistent hard work at all levels over years to effect it.
What does good culture look like? How long have you got? But these elements are essential:
- Strong leadership which takes responsibility.
- Proper due diligence and thorough vetting both before recruitment and throughout employment.
- No tolerance of minor misdemeanours.
- A culture of “speak up” and an understanding that turning a blind eye, having misplaced loyalty to wrongdoers is unprofessional, wrong and dangerous.
- An effective training system.
- An effective disciplinary system.
- Accepting your mistakes and treating them as learning opportunities not as something to be PR’d away.
They will need a team of senior leaders below the top whose sole focus is on this.
And they will need a team of tip top investigators to root out all the bad guys there are now. This will mean a lot of pain now but it will be worth it.
They could look at what Sir Robert Mark did back in the 1970's.
I am always willing to help for a humungously eye-watering fee.
The point of freeports is usually to enable tax avoidance and money laundering. Both things that the UK excels at, so why not have more of it!
The realities of towns are deemed to be irrelevant.
Which is why sane jurisdictions, like the EU, are clamping down on them.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/10/eu-clamps-down-free-ports-zones-crime-terror-links
(https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election)
18-24 Lab 62 Con 19
25-34 Lab 51 Con 27
35-44 Lab 39 Con 36
45-54 Lab 28 Con 46
55-64 Lab 27 Con 49
65+ Lab 17 Con 64
And here are their graphs going further back;
Eyballing the numbers for 2019 and now, Conservatives are down almost across the board, but they've lost most votes among the oldies. If anything, the age gap is closing back up again.
As a wrapper, and an umbrella brand, for what are essentially a new version of enterprise zones they make some sense. They can come with add-ons like accelerated tax depreciation, simplified planning rules, payroll tax reliefs and so on. I know that planning is one of the biggest headaches for industrial and commercial developers (rightly so in many cases) and one of the reasons they are hesitant to make big investments in certain countries particularly in Southern Europe.
The accelerated capital allowances plans for the freeports were interesting but rendered somewhat moot when Rishi introduced the country-wide superdeduction last year.
For me, travelling into Leeds is a no-brainer. Train every time.
Other reason also being housing unaffordability, congestion and the way things grind to a halt if something unexpected happens.
Liverpool could be / should be a real hub for creative development and already has a gaming heritage. It really should have been given Channel 4, too. Leeds should stick to professional services.
(The Germans also offered massive tax advantages for employing the long-term unemployed, training workers up and apprenticeships.)
Freeports for ugly people in ugly places.
Home Counties NIMBY’s (who coincidentally vote Tory) get to keep stringent planning rules.
Phew!
They all travel by car.
But, FWIW, I think they be essentially pointless in the UK.
‘Twas always thus.
Compare public transport use in cities to towns to rural areas and you'll see its far more dominant in cities than the others.
Improve your workforce and you'll improve your economy.
To answer your question, and also the comment from @another_richard, economic growth in 2022 is very very very very very much the product of cities.
We need to do everything to unlock their potential.
Thankfully, that covers the majority of the UK population.
Cornwall etc are likely to remain tourism, agriculture, and retirement focused.
I can see the argument for mass transport in Leeds, where there are thousands of office-based jobs in the centre and a lack of space to put thousands of private cars, but in much of the Red Wall there's lots of small enterprises around the periphery and a hollowed out town centre. I don't think this can be fixed by a better bus service.
I'm not saying buses should be stopped, but improving them massively wouldn't be a good use of money.