By Mike Katz
Here’s a startling fact. There are 3,480 miles of high-speed railway lines in mainland Europe with a further 2,160 miles under construction and 5,280 miles planned for the future. In Britain, despite the fact that we invented the passenger railway, we only have 68 miles in operation.
Much of the current debate on high-speed rail (HSR) is about the route for the first bit. The Tories and the Lib Dems have their own spat about who has the most detailed plans. Labour should raise its sights higher and start talking about the need for a whole high-speed network, to equip our economy for the new century and beyond.
Yesterday, Greengauge 21 – a group of transport experts who have long been campaigning for high-speed rail – launched by far the most comprehensive report presenting the case for HSR. As this says, there are three strong reasons for such a network: to provide sufficient higher quality transport capacity across the nation; to stimulate a more efficient economy and to reduce carbon emissions.
And now is the time to do it. “The longer a decision to proceed is deferred, the longer we shall need to spend inefficiently on a make-do and mend basis on an overcrowded transport network,” as the Greengauge authors succinctly put it.
What will it mean in practice? Journey times will be slashed - getting from London to Manchester will take only an hour and a quarter, saving almost an hour. The time from the capital to Newcastle will be halved.
But more than that, HSR will give a real economic boost to our regions and nations – more than £10 billion to the north-west and nearly £20 billion to Scotland (net present value at 2002 prices, according to Greengauge21).
To lay my cards on the table, I work for a new campaign called HSR\UK which has brought together 11 city councils across Britain, of all political hues, who all want to see this network become a reality. They all understand that parochial lobbying or regional hand-wringing won’t construct a network which will go to any city, let alone theirs. And don’t forget that a whole network will deliver faster journeys between cities (say, across the Pennines), as well as to the capital.
And this new economic infrastructure would be green. The entire high speed network could be around 1,500km long with capacity for 178million passengers each year. It would attract around 30m passengers a year from domestic air travel and 13 million from roads onto the rails.
The case for HSR is mounting. SERA is launching a pamphlet entitled ‘Labour’s case for high-speed rail’ at Conference. The Labour Transport Group, is seeking views on what transport policy should be in our next manifesto – with HSR in the vanguard.
Labour has made great strides in this area under our current Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis, who has set up the HS2 company to deliver a detailed business case for the next high-speed route at the end of the year. But we need to demonstrate that we can set our sights higher and focus on what the economy needs for the next 50 years, not just the next five.
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Labour has made no strides of any kind in this area. It has mouthed its customary encouraging platitudes and done SFA. Not one inch of new railway has been laid at the behest of this Government.
We must also have a policy of returning the rest of the rail network to a national public service as the franchises come up for renewal.
"THE HIGH SPEED RAIL REVOLUTION
We will build a high-speed rail line connecting London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds with the Continent through the Channel Tunnel. This will:
- Create jobs across the country with a major boost for the economies of the West Midlands and the north
- Provide a greener alternative for thousands of car and lorry journeys clogging up some of the busiest motorways in the country"
See http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Transport.aspx for more sensible transport policies.
Remember the state of the Railways & Nhs that were left with no investment during the eighties & nineties and there has been massive improvement since 1997
Labour has got to work a lot harder to get a fourth term but we should never ever ever forget the devastation the Tories left for a Labour Government to sort out when they came in 1997--- I FOR ONE WILL NEVER TRUST CAMERON & HIS SO CALLED PROGRESSIVE TORY PARTY
I'm sure Mr Cameron will manage perfectly well without your vote.
This derogatory language is familiar-------It's what Cameron & the Tory media use to attack the PM---
The facts are there for us all to make our choice in the Election The Tories & Libs show they have no alternative policies to offer the voters & Labour are proving to be decisive & successful in bringing the Country through the worst recession since the war.
Don't tell me you don't like her either?
We have different interests in Gordon Sarah & me.
I'm of an age where I am settled & satisfied with my lot but I decided to become a member of the Labour Party from the actions of Gordon Brown & Alistair Darling when they saved the banks from collapse and gave support to families & Pensioners with extra financial support to get through the recession------NEVER BEFORE HAS ANY GOVERNMENT IN THE PAST BOTHERED WITH HELP FOR THE ORDINARY PERSON IN A RECESSION ---
The eighties & nineties recessions were how not to do it the Tory way & that was let the recession take it's course.
Not the policies announcements, but the actual action on them.
I can list endless announcements over the last few years, that then disappeard and never actually saw the light of day.
How many people so far have had the mortgage help? How many small businesses have had the funding and cash flow helped?
No more words Elizabeth, show the evidence of this great "help".
I am more than happy to oblige---LABOUR HAVE HELPED AS FOLLOWS---
Prevented the banks from collapse so that peoples savings are secure and the banks can continue to function
Acting to support the economy and peoples spending power
£145.00tax cut for 22m basic rate taxpayers
vat cut worth £275 for average household
Extra £60 for pensioners & carers
£3billion capital investment for key infrastructure projects like schools and GP surgeries &
Legal agreements to make sure repossession is the last resort
Expanded free legal representation for households at risk of repossession
Help for people to keep their homes---From 13 weeks after redundancy plus £200m Mortgage rescue scheme to help vulnerable households avoid repossession
The Tories would leave us all to sink or swim
They won't back Labours £1.2billion to help the unemployed back to work but they are committed to a £200,000 tax cut to 3,000 millionaires
£145.00 cut for taxpayers was to offset the 10% removal
VAT cut was nonsense and the figure of £275 was pie in the sky.
£3 billion capital investment, is that like the academy and college investment scheme that hasn't actually delivered any money yet? The one that has made promises so building has started but can't be funded? The one that Labour backbenchers were complaining about in PMQs?
As for the "Help for people to keep their homes---From 13 weeks after redundancy plus £200m Mortgage rescue scheme to help vulnerable households avoid repossession", as I said, I'm not interested in the words, link figures that show how many have been helped as the last figures I saw showed that virutally nothing had been done despite all the fanfare.
Matthew Parris a few months ago listed loads of schemes Labour had announced to great PR fanfare then not funded or shelved afterwards, so as per the film quote, "show me the money".
Labour are long on announcements and short on action with spin, dissembling, mismanagement and waste your government's prime skillsets.
I love your comments on these pages but you are wrong in making the assertion "The eighties & nineties recessions were how not to do it the Tory way & that was let the recession take it's course."
Sorry, you are only half-wrong.
The recession of the 1990s was rescued by government borrowing, big-time : at the end of fiscal 1990/91, public sector net debt (PSND) was 26.0 per cent of GDP ; at the end of fiscal 1994/95, PSND was 40.1 per cent of GDP and it actually peaked at 42.8 per cent of GDP in September, 1996.
The Conservatives in that period were slavish followers of John Maynard Keynes, ie government borrowing to maintain aggregate demand, and net government debt increased by 65 per cent, relative to GDP.
That begs a question : why are the present generation of Conservatives so against the very mechanisms that a past (well - nearly a past) generation of Conservatives readily employed to combat the last recession?
There's no wonder that ex-Chancellor Ken Clarke is quiet these days .... after all, he supervised things from 1993 onwards ....
I am not meeting these discussions with exact science of GDP borrowing etc.
My argument may seem very basic in it's content when I discuss the eighties & nineties but I will never forget the damage to families & communities & the hopelessness that ordinary people felt No Jobs & No Money to feed their families
I agree with Ken Loach the successful Film Producer of the miners strike when he met Nigel Lawson on Newsnight on the anniversary of the strike this year He shouted Lawson down and said they should hang their heads in shame for what they did It was wrong & it was evil.
I watched TV reporters recently go around the country finding out the effects of the recession on various people---There was nobody that was destitute & there was even a majority still doing well financially.
It is devastating to lose your job & I won't make light of it--Gordon Brown & Alistair Darling are the right people taking the right decisions to get us out of recession & get Businesses back to full employment.
As for Ken Clarke he might have been in the right job as chancellor at the right time to see the economy improve in the late nineties but he was never brave enough or had the social conscience to take the measures Brown took to invest in people & services hence reduced unemployment dramatically --Cameron keeps him well under wraps he's a liability for the Tories with his support for the EU
The mess Labour governments leave behind them as a legacy massively outweigh any criticism you can lay at Tory governments.
"the measures Brown took to invest in people & services hence reduced unemployment dramatically" - once again massive investment in public sector "jobs" that were unfunded by private sector growth, hence those "jobs" will start disappearing at a fast rate soon. One benefit of which will be that areas of the country might have a lower state employee rate than Soviet Russia with any luck.
If the current debt burden is so acceptable then why is it no one believed the "Labour investment, Tory cuts" lies and now with the treasury reports painting a terrible picture we have government ministers detailing how they will cut billions from departmental budgets?
It's a mess of monumental scope and size and I think half of it isn't even known yet. Labour will lose and it will all come out and then wave goodbye to any Labour government for another generation.
You talk of a Tory & Lib Dem policy vacuum. Can you please direct me to a site (any site) that lists Labour's policies.
France, Germany, Sweden, Brazil, Japan, Portugal, Singapore (to name a few) have all now come out of recession. Strange that Gordon brown should choose to "save the world" but decide not to include the UK. So what exactly is the decisive and successful Gordon Brown waiting for? Could it possibly be that Gordon's profligacy during the good years has in fact exacerbated and prolonged this current recession?
You truly do live in an alternative dimension.
Brown was at the tiller for the last 12 years, but the Tories cheered the property bubble to the echo....and who was it came up with the Right to Buy?
Next question?
Labour can be proud of their achievements in the last 12years.
Should we have gone to war in Iraq? and should we be fighting in Afghanistan?
Whether you agree or disagree Labour took the decision with a majority vote to back our allies in the fight against Terrorism
No, Gordon took the increased revenue and primarily increased non-jobs. Diversity officers and five-a-day advisers do not increase the UK's exports. They don't add any value, merely leech from the public finances. The gap between the rich and the poor has actually GROWN during Labour's stewardship. Far too many people have less disposable income now than when Labour came into power. Whilst Tax Credits seeks to rectify this situation, it has created an additional layer of bureaucracy that brings with it increased government spending. And lets not forget those with no children aren't entitled to Tax Credits. In real terms, they are much worse off.
"Should we have gone to war in Iraq? and should we be fighting in Afghanistan?
Whether you agree or disagree Labour took the decision with a majority vote to back our allies in the fight against Terrorism"
The majority vote that involved our troops in the "fight against terrorism" was based on fabricated evidence. Remember "Iraq could use weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes"? Would Labour have achieved a majority vote to go to war if it had been truthful? Highly doubtful. Please don't try to palm this off on the Tories or Lib Dems.
When the off balance sheet debts are looked into, when the pension rights to half a million civil servants are investigated and the amounts of cash spent on failed project after failed project, I very much doubt you will be proud of what Labour have achieved because life is no different now is it? In fact for many life is worse because they may well have the same amount of money due to the tax credit system, but pride has gone because working people are forced to claim these benefits because otherwise they wouldn't be able to afford to live.
The crowning achievement was the minimum wage, but since then give me some good solid Labour policies that really have made a difference to wealth creation in this country? Tell me one project that will outlive us all and provide benefits for generations? For that matter, name me something that Labour have done that doesn't sound like a Conservative policy? Genuinely, I'm interested. Tell me I'm wrong, but tell me why I'm wrong. Show me something Labour have done that is groundbreaking, something the nation can be proud of for generations to come?
When you've come up with something that Labour have done that is groundbreaking, how about the unemployed. How many real jobs have been created by this government? Not by companies who would have come here to trade anyway, how many have been created? What industries have been supported or grown over the past decade? And for all the arguments that GB has saved jobs, where precisely has he saved them? I can put together a list of hundreds and thousands of jobs that have been axed, so surely you could give me a couple of thousand jobs that have been saved?
Mortgages, how many have been helped with the government scheme? £2000 scrappage, how many would have bought a new car this year anyway? Housing projects, where have they been built and how many? And the real kicker, power stations. Where is the plan for our future power needs that isn't wrapped up in a big green blanket of unreliable, untested and undemocratic schemes?
If you really do believe I'm spouting rubbish and you can prove otherwise, save the usual banter and prove me wrong. Give me links to read through and I promise I will read them, not only that, if you prove me wrong I will publically admit I am wrong. Give me provable facts that Labour have not only done a good job, but they have improved lives for a 3rd of the country. Something that has benefited at least 20 odd million people. But there is one catch. What ever it is you can prove and name, you also have to prove and name roughly what it has cost.
Can you do it, or do you expect those who read the LL to have blind faith in your every word?
You know you will never be satisfied with any information that proved the Achievements of Labour since 1997.
There is concrete proof if you search the web.
That proof is highlighted if you go around the UK and see a before & after 1997 film shot and see the changes made for the better.
The majority of the UK benefited substantially from funding that came from central Government to improve Towns,Cities & People.Thousands of jobs created in the Public Sector 60,000 in the Nhs alone
This Government has stepped in more than any other previously to save Business's & Jobs in the private sector and that was the right thing to do. Tories would do nothing.
It is widely reported that Country's turn to the right of politics during a recession and UK is no different.
I have read so called lefties on here. They like what Cameron & his party are saying & planning in their manifesto. The party that's going to increase inheritance tax if they are elected---THE TORIES OF OLD---THERE IS NO CHANGE TO THEIR PRIORITIES.
Anybody will do except Gordon Brown (A Scot)Who practices Socialism by ensuring all peoples no matter of creed,colour religion,gay or straight are being protected.
What a disgrace!
If he's not allowed to continue the good work he's started in getting the UK through this financial tsunami then as Broadcaster Clive James says "The UK will have lost the only person capable of ensuring a full recovery happens"
Gordon Brown has proved he is the man to lead us to Recovery & past 2010
I don't expect readers of LL to have blind faith in my every word,
However, I do expect them to do a comparison of Achievements of our Government & Gordon Brown over the last 12yrs----YES THEY HAVE A LOT MORE TO DO--SO WE MUST MAKE SURE THEY GET A FOURTH TERM.
Hang on, so we are faced with massive debt and a government who has spent far more than it had coming in and you think creating thousands of jobs in the public sector that we can't afford to pay for is an achievement?
Exactly how many private sector jobs have been created? You know the private sector? THat sector that created wealth rather than uses it up like the public sector.
As for your nonsense on IHT, I've been taxed all my life, when I die I'll leave not a penny to the state. Now you can either accept this and raise the thresholds so I stay in the UK and get the benefit of my spending, or you can push your socialist nonsense in which case I'm off (like tens of thousands of other brits) upon retirement and you get 0% IHT and 0% spending whilst I live.
That's the tax reality the Tories have accepted as have Labour to a lesser extent, but never let a regressive tax and spend Labour party socialist tealeaf cotton on to it?
Your chances of a 4th term are as high as Elvis being alive and well.
There are plenty of productive people in both the Public and Private sectors, Guy.
It pleases you to DEFINE people in the Public sector as "unproductive" because they are in fact unproductive of profits for rentiers. Orwell would have been proud.
There are for sure plenty of unproductive non-jobs in the Public Sector, I agree.
What you miss is that the majority of people in the City are not just unproductive but actually ANTI-productive, leeching money from the truly productive sectors, both Public and Private.
It surprises me that you just can't see it.
I'm not saying we need no financial service providers at all - merely that the sector is cosmically overpaid, and truly is a Vampire Squid on the face of humanity, as Matt Taibbi put it so well.
The public sector can be as productive (in terms of efficiently getting a job done) as the private, though it often isn't I have to say, but that wasn't the point.
The point was that endlessly creating public sector jobs will unbalance an economy as public sector jobs on the whole do not "produce" wealth, they use up the wealth that the government taxes from private wealth producing companies and individuals.
Make me PM and I absolutely promise that I will create millions of "new jobs", what I can't promise is that those jobs will still be there when the money runs out to pay for them. Sounds a bit like the current situation with this Labour government and "cuts" doesn't it?
But could you explain to me why it is that a Company owned by the State (ie all of us) would be using up wealth while the same company, with the same management, but owned by rentier shareholders, is producing it?
It's purely a matter of definition, isn't it?
Take a simple matter of having your appendix removed : done by BUPA or Private Patients, it 'adds' to GDP and is 'wealth creating' because it's done by the 'private sector.'
Done by the NHS (and possibly/probably by the same bloke), it's taxation and a 'drag' on the 'wealth-creating' sector.
Orwell was quite right in identifying that we become prisoners of the rhetoric, or the narrative and literally cannot think beyond them.
Fortunately, there are new complementary narratives, agreements, and hence legal and financial structures, now available for anyone who wishes to use them.
"Fortunately, there are new complementary narratives ...."
There have been 'old' narratives : J K Galbraith was a warrior against 'conventional wisdom' and how it suits those who benefit thereby.
Could that company be owned by central government? Absolutely. Would it be anywhere near as efficient commerically or as attractive a place to work? Absolutely not.
As for the "rentier" shareholders, I would far rather the company was owned by independent shareholders than by employees or by the state or by any mixture you might propose.
The other is that the management's interests as agents of the owners conflict with those of the owners.
Whether it's the State, the employees, the customers, the suppliers, or pure rentiers who are the owners makes not a blind bit of difference.
The Joint Stock Limited Liability Company is not only a dysfunctional legal anachronism, it is one of the two elements of financial capital - the other being money created as interest-bearing debt - which have combined with human greed to bring the economy to the position it is in.
If Gordon Brown practices socialism then I am a Lama from Alaska with swine flu. Gordon Brown makes the rich richer.
Labour have destroyed the economy just as they did in the 1970s.
They will be consigned to the dustbin of history in a few months time and rightly so.
They have done nothing that has been of any worth to me in 12 years and I will not shed one tear for any of them.
"Labour have done nothing that's of any worth to you"
I see you have a Conservative mentality "A I'm alright Jack and I don't care about anyone else"
Like every voter in the country you will make your choice and it's a simple one vote for a Labour Government that stands up for working people or waste your vote and vote for the Tories who will take away employment rights and leave working people at the mercy of the Global recession
This Labour government have done nothing for me, my family or my job propsects thanks.
What they have done is destroy the England I grew up in with the undermining of so many basic freedoms, drop unprecedented debt on everyone and constrain business with miles and miles of red tape.
You say a Conservative metality is "A I'm alright Jack and I don't care about anyone else", I would reply with what I think the socialist mentality is but I doubt Alex would print it. Suffice to say I work for my family and myself, not for you, not for your causes and not for your beliefs.
I don't equate your political beliefs and the taxation based theft that comes with it as for the "greater good" and I'd bet heavily the vast majority of the electorate in a few months will feel the same way.
Fortunately we are now begining to see the truth and scale of the economic crisis and the debt levels we will face. Ed Balls annoucement this morning is but the tip of the iceberg. So despite all the lies and mistruths over the summer in a desperate attempt to con the public, Labour will be found out.
What price your "Labour can be proud of their achievements in the last 12years" nonsense then I wonder?
Labour have done NOTHING that was any worth to me in 12 years but they have done lots that will cause both me and every other person in this country untold misery financially for years to come.
You're beginning to show your true (Nationalistic)colours
One thing you can't say about Gordon Brown eh! that he's a "Nationalist" or he would have chosen SNP & Not the Labour Party he joined at 15yrs old.
Last time I counted there were four Country's in the UK and England is the largest in the Union Approx. a population of 55m.
England has had massive funding during the past decade.
Labour did mend the roof when the sun was shining---300 new schools-----149 new Hospitals-----3000 Sure Start Children's centres & Free health checks for people over 40 All these as well as the list of achievements for Nhs,Rights for you at work(minimum wage)etc etc etc
The Country's Debt will have to be tackled & part of the security for us all is the coming together of all the wealthy countries during this credit crunch & as the population of the world grows building economies will be easier-----For the present the rich that benefited more from the good times will see their taxes raised & we await the pre budget report to find out what & where cuts will come.
So Guy Nothing to fear everything is under control. THE WORLD IS SORTED RIGHT HERE ON LL HA! HA!
I see it as no more "nationalistic" to say I'm English than I would to say I'm "British".
You run off a list of "achievements" of NuLabour and I feel tempted to produce a long list in return that show the utter worthlessness and waste of 12 years of maladministration once again from your party. But what's the point, you live in lala land where dear old Gordon is the greatest PM we had and aren't we lucky to have him.
I live in the reality that the cuts in spending will likely be savage, that unemployment will continue to grow and that an incoming Tory government will hopefully unravel years of pointless legislation stiffling the hell out of private industry.
I do find it hilarious that you just parrot off Labour party lines such as "the rich that benefited more from the good times will see their taxes raised", no they won't they'll clear off elsewhere and the 50% rate will likely be little better than revenue neutral at best. The 50% was a political sop to Labour's electoral base and nothing more.
As for "we await the pre budget report to find out what & where cuts will come", why? It seems leaked Treasury reports and government minister free for alls will do the job far better for us. With any luck our "great" PM can lie a little bit more at PMQs in the next few weeks as well.
You're going to be decimated at the next election and history will not look kindly on you in a few years once the truth of the financial position you leave behind you comes out.
You obviously have no idea of Guy M's beliefs. You'd have zero chance of Guy M voting Labour.
Why vote for a party who engineered the recession, who depleted our reserves to such an extent and who so many depise?
You assume that Conservative voters just care about their own, please try to convince me that the Labour party will not just steal or re-distribute wealth to their comrades?
As for worker's rights do you agree with Harpie's Bill that is sexist and racist?
Nationalisation won't affect any of this.
I'm fully supportive of improvements in integrated public transport, but the aims have to be realistic and related to population centres. Any attempt to spread the good word to the shires will be a waste of both effort and money, so my message is concentrate on spending the money where it will be effective.
And another point, which I've banged on about before. If were going to spend zillions on the railway, devise some way of kick starting a home grown rolling stock industry instead of making Hitachi rich. I know all the arguments about feather-bedding inefficient industries; we're on our uppers, and need to start helping ourselves. There has got to be a way of doing this without accepting an overpriced unreliable product as an end product.
The economics stink.
If trains were taxed like cars, there would be no trains...
Anyone got an odd £50 billion to travel to Scotland? Why should ANYONE in their right mind want to build a high speed network to Scotland.
It makes no sense.. (unless you are A Scot)
Oh I forgot . The PM and COE are Scots. That's all right then..
Didnt we have a ten year transport plan written by john presscot a few years ago ? and if we did this high speed link would we still allow the 3rd runway ?
I know this is part of a seris of ideas on Labourlist and is good and positive if we could stick to this instead of torys eat babies ( they dont well my friends who vote tory didnt eat any babies why i was around ) posts .
As many have said they only have a couple of policys and we will all get to read there manifestos when the election comes along , Lets stick with the postive posts and the crictial ones of our labour goverment and try and change our Labour party .
ricki