The Times: Labour considering cuts to Restoring Your Railway and dropping HS2 Euston

[scouseyb123]

Bang goes any chance of a payrise for Drivers etc.

 

[Magdalia]

Any tower at Euston would block a part of the view, a narrow part. Presumably that means part of the dome of St Pauls would not be visible, but the majority of London would still be visible.

The protected views specifically relate to St Paul's Cathedral and the Palace of Westminster, though this serves to protect the panorama more generally.

Any tower at Euston would block a part of the view, a narrow part. Presumably that means part of the dome of St Pauls would not be visible

In that case it would not be permitted.

 

[BingMan]

HS2 has always been about relieving capacity congestion on the West Coast Main Line. The politicians came up with the high speed line gimmick as a great way to sell it.

Could capacity be improved simply by having longer trains?

 

[Topological]

The protected views specifically relate to St Paul's Cathedral and the Palace of Westminster, though this serves to protect the panorama more generally.


In that case it would not be permitted.

Indeed, though we are currently debating whether the "protection" can be justified and whether there would be any mass national outrage if such protections were waived to enable the funding of HS2 with development on the Euston site.

 

[yorksrob]

Neither are really government responsibility though.

IF we all insist on following fashion then we are all compelled to buy from stores who sell to many (hence are large) and that means multinationals.

Governments could tax multi-nationals, but again you are looking at a group who can find a tax way round it.

Governments always used to be concerned about the balance of payments.

I wouldn't mind the likes of O2/Virgin Media so much if they invested in their data networks for example, however they seem to get continually worse. Too much money being sent to Madrid/New York I suspect.

 

[BingMan]

IT must be very advanced indeed if it can replace the need for sending freight by rail. Impressive. Can we teleport goods now? And no doubt when you meet friends and family, you do it via Zoom, yes?

But none of those things require a faster train. When I take a leisure trip from Manchester to London I never think "I wish this journey was 25 minutes shorter": the journey is part of the fun.
And I am sure that freighters aren't concerned about getting their widgets to London 25 minutes sooner.

 

[HSTEd]

HS2 has always been about relieving capacity congestion on the West Coast Main Line. The politicians came up with the high speed line gimmick as a great way to sell it.

HS2 was optimised to be a very fast, very high capacity railway for long distance journeys.
The problem, as I see it, with this conception was that the WCML corridor couldn't possibly fill that line, which is why we ended up with a huge all encompassing scheme to take over almost all north-south long distance traffic.

Personally, I would have preferred a scheme that concentrated on taking over as much WCML traffic as possible (London Midland as well as Avanti). However, that ship has now sailed and we are stuck with a length of track between Old Oak Common, Curzon Street and Handsacre. So far as I can tell, about all it will be good for as it stands is running a high intensity shuttle to Birmingham. I can't see it being overwhelmingly attractive for a lot of longer distance journeys, although Curzon Street might be able to take some load out of New Street.

 

[lachlan]

But none of those things require a faster train. When I take a leisure trip from Manchester to London I never think "I wish this journey was 25 minutes shorter": the journey is part of the fun.
And I am sure that freighters aren't concerned about getting their widgets to London 25 minutes sooner.

Depends how far you're going. It takes a long time to travel from the southwest to Scotland, and HS2 trains to Edinburgh would allow me to make the journey with a change in OOC, avoiding going across London.

 

[JamesT]

Could capacity be improved simply by having longer trains?

See the review of the 51M proposal in https://assets.publishing.service.g...59c6/hs2-review-of-strategic-alternatives.pdf
You'd have the disruption of upgrading the existing line to cope with slightly longer trains, but nowhere near the same benefits as a new line would give.

 

[Richardr]

You'd be right. Over 70% of overall long distance travel is leisure travel, with visiting friends and family being the biggest component of this.

Cancelling spending on infrastructure is crazy. The UK already spends comparatively little on infrastructure. Its a huge drag on economy and one of the main reasons productivity has stalled. Its also a false economy to cancel HS2 to Euston for the sake of £6 billion. It means that the £45 billion+ spent on the rest of phase 1 has far lower returns. HS2 needs to get to Euston, it needs to get to Crewe, and it really should be linked to the East Midlands to maximise return.

Agree - it is only the mis-accounting by governments that looks at investment expenditure in the same way as current expenditure. The country needs investment in transport, hospitals, and education desperately, and to cut these because of over expenditure on current spending is short sighted, and is a drag on the economy.

 

[MarkWi72]

I wondered , prior to HS2, if it would have been viable to upgrade and electrify the Chiltern Line. Maybe adding 4 track sections in between Marylebone and Aynho, then Leamington to Hatton/Solihull to Moor Street. The space is there. Trains going on to Worcester/Kidderminster etc. could have been hybrid stock like 801-5s.

 

[Topological]

Governments always used to be concerned about the balance of payments.

I wouldn't mind the likes of O2/Virgin Media so much if they invested in their data networks for example, however they seem to get continually worse. Too much money being sent to Madrid/New York I suspect.

Balance of payments, yes. Helped by supporting business to export and promoting consumption of local produce (which also has the benefit of reduced carbon emissions). You could tax imports to help the balance of payments, but that tends to be met with tariffs on UK exports and a race to the bottom (see Trump).

Not "100's of billions" - far, far less than that.

Figures from 2021 but £ 35bn of which about half was believed to be fraud related - the rest due to entirely legal behaviour.

Tax lost in UK amounts to £35bn – almost half, say campaigners, due to fraud

Annual snapshot from HMRC comes as public finances are under biggest strain since the second world war

www.theguardian.com

The question then is how much of the £35bn is "one off" and how much recurring. If most of it is "one off" then you won't get that in future years.

Quite

I was being a little sarcastic because the answer to everything is usually "chase the unpaid tax", but as you note the figure is nothing like as large as people would like it to be.

 

[yorksrob]

Because taxing wealth is generally quite hard. Taking a slice of a transaction as it happens is relatively easy.
For many people, their 'wealth' is the value of their house. They would struggle to find the cash if they were being taxed on a percentage of that value.
For others their wealth is tied up in the valuation of companies, again they don't necessarily have the cash on hand to pay a tax on it. It's also often a nominal value, a bit of good news and your value doubles, bad news and it plunges. I worked for a company where the shares were £4 when I started and 40p when I left 9 months later. I wasn't there long enough to have joined the share scheme. If I had, would it be fair for me to have had to pay taxes on the shares at £4? Would I get a refund the next year at 40p? We already have taxes such as capital gains tax which apply when someone sells their shares and actually gets the money.

Capital Gains Tax is one area where it is possible, yet certain sections of society are always screaming blue murder about it.

Balance of payments, yes. Helped by supporting business to export and promoting consumption of local produce (which also has the benefit of reduced carbon emissions). You could tax imports to help the balance of payments, but that tends to be met with tariffs on UK exports and a race to the bottom (see Trump).

Well "balance of payments" is surely all about balance. If one party is flooding the market in a destructive way, it surely makes sense to address that.

The other option is to take a more critical look at takeovers and mergers to prevent the country becoming a bargain basement, as Heseltine once put it.

 

[BingMan]

I've never understood why its apparently so much better to tax peoples hard-earned income, rather than wealth, much of which is windfall/inheritance.

Wealth tax is problematic because wealth is often in the form of tangible things, often property, which cannot easily carved into 90% - 10% split.
And it would quickly become a stealth tax with the thresholds fixed as with income tax allowances.

Depends how far you're going. It takes a long time to travel from the southwest to Scotland, and HS2 trains to Edinburgh would allow me to make the journey with a change in OOC, avoiding going across London.

Plymouth to Edinburgh vie Brum is an eight hour journey. HS2 would reduce that by twenty-five minutes: hardly a game changer.

 

[Topological]

Capital Gains Tax is one area where it is possible, yet certain sections of society are always screaming blue murder about it.



Well "balance of payments" is surely all about balance. If one party is flooding the market in a destructive way, it surely makes sense to address that.

The other option is to take a more critical look at takeovers and mergers to prevent the country becoming a bargain basement, as Heseltine once put it.

Balance is a bit of a red herring in that way, because it is not even certain that there should be balance, or that balance is desirable.

We could be stronger on competition law, but again you would be looking at ways to treat all firms equally rather than create diplomacy issues.

Note that none of this would work in the EU, or indeed any free trade agreement area.

 

[yorksrob]

Wealth tax is problematic because wealth is often in the form of tangible things, often property, which cannot easily carved into 90% - 10% split.
And it would quickly become a stealth tax with the thresholds fixed as with income tax allowances.

I can understand the practicalities about it, however even where we manage it with CGT and IT for example, some people seem to put up a tremendous objection to it, whereas they don't with taxing income.

 

[mike57]

HS2 was optimised to be a very fast, very high capacity railway for long distance journeys.

And as conceived originally with Western and Eastern legs would have acheived that. As currently being delivered, Old Oak Common to Curzon Street/Handsacre, looks close to a (very expensive) white elephant. With an additional change for London journeys not starting on the Elizabeth Line and the time penalty of a connection at OOC what will centre to centre times look like for London to Birminghan via HS2 compared with current route. Which then means it has become a very expensive southern WCML bypass for some journeys

 

[yorksrob]

Balance is a bit of a red herring in that way, because it is not even certain that there should be balance, or that balance is desirable.

We could be stronger on competition law, but again you would be looking at ways to treat all firms equally rather than create diplomacy issues.

Note that none of this would work in the EU, or indeed any free trade agreement area.

Not every country can run a trade surplus, therefore balance is surely desirable otherwise one party out of two is being negatively affected.

Sorting out our overreliance on energy imports would go a long way to addressing the issue.

 

[geoffk]

I think a lot of people infer promises that weren't there.

The only promises I recall were not to increase any of the following taxes, which means other taxes are ripe for increase (and will need to be increased unless we want to continue with the failed policy of austerity):

1. VAT
2. Income Tax
3. National Insurance

Gordon Brown said the government could raise billions of pounds from the banks.​

Why taxpayers are paying £40bn in interest on Bank of England reserves

Change in rules could free £1.3bn for public services, says former chancellor Gordon Brown.

uk.finance.yahoo.com

 

[Topological]

Not every country can run a trade surplus, therefore balance is surely desirable otherwise one party out of two is being negatively affected.

Sorting out our overreliance on energy imports would go a long way to addressing the issue.

Yes, but running a trade deficit may not be a bad thing. That is why the language of the balance of payments is misleading.

Gordon Brown said the government could raise billions of pounds from the banks.​

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-03-27/gordon-brown-says-the-government-can-raise-billions-of-pounds-from-banks

How did his own government get on with that.

Does he still think he has ended boom and bust? Taking economic advice from Gordon Brown is like asking Dominic Cummings for directions to your local opticians.

 

[Magdalia]

Governments always used to be concerned about the balance of payments.

Not for a long time. That dates from the era of fixed exchange rates, credit controls and exchange controls.

Financial deregulation in the 1970s and 1980s changed all that. Since then the UK Balance of Payments deficit has got very big.

At first it was mainly financed by private sector borrowing, but the 2008 financial crisis changed that.

Since then the Balance of Payments deficit has been mainly funded by public sector borrowing. Very broadly speaking, the Public Sector Financial Deficit and the Balance of Payments deficit are two sides of the same coin.

Think of it as a giant financial carousel: the government borrows money from abroad, it pays that money to persons, mainly through wages and benefits, those people by lots of imports, mainly from China, who then invest the proceeds in more government bonds so that we can do it all again.

The carousel only keeps spinning if foreign investors carry on investing in government bonds, which is why the focus is now on the public sector finances not the balance of payments.

 

[yorksrob]

Yes, but running a trade deficit may not be a bad thing. That is why the language of the balance of payments is misleading.

If you want to end up living in the pockets of unfriendly countries and forever at the mercy of global trade shocks, then maybe not.

 

[urbophile]

IF the Times is Tory

IF!!! Have you noticed bears using urban public conveniences lately?

 

[JamesT]

Capital Gains Tax is one area where it is possible, yet certain sections of society are always screaming blue murder about it.

The screaming for it to be increased tends to be on the very simplistic 20% CGT rate is less than 40% Income Tax rate. However, the current CGT system ignores inflation. There was a previous CGT system which did have the tax rates aligned, which also included the effect of inflation 'taper relief'. If you bought an item for £100 last year and sold it for £100 this year and inflation was 10%, have you really made a gain? It made the taxing of capital gains complex both for the payer and HMRC trying to collect.
The last Labour Government reduced the rate and abolished taper relief. So a trade-off, that you'll be taxed on both nominal and real gains but the rate will be less to make up for that. Hopefully when they did that the calculation was it would be roughly neutral in revenue.
The concern is that people demanding the increase and making calculations on how much extra taxes this will bring in are entirely ignoring the indexation side and how unfriendly to investment high CGT would be.

 

[yorksrob]

Not for a long time. That dates from the era of fixed exchange rates, credit controls and exchange controls.

Financial deregulation in the 1970s and 1980s changed all that. Since then the UK Balance of Payments deficit has got very big.

At first it was mainly financed by private sector borrowing, but the 2008 financial crisis changed that.

Since then the Balance of Payments deficit has been mainly funded by public sector borrowing. Very broadly speaking, the Public Sector Financial Deficit and the Balance of Payments deficit are two sides of the same coin.

Think of it as a giant financial carousel: the government borrows money from abroad, it pays that money to persons, mainly through wages and benefits, those people by lots of imports, mainly from China, who then invest the proceeds in more government bonds so that we can do it all again.

The carousel only keeps spinning if foreign investors carry on investing in government bonds, which is why the focus is now on the public sector finances not the balance of payments.

This model is looking increasingly problematic as the century moves on.

 

[nr758123]

There was already the new line Manchester-Marsden (route never disclosed), and more recently a Huddersfield-Bradford line magicked out of nowhere.
Sunak also tossed in £3 billion for electrification in Yorkshire, and another £1 billion for North Wales wiring which was studiously ignored in Cardiff Bay.
We'll see today if any of that survives. Maybe the current TRU project is all we can expect.

The current TRU project was always the limit of what we could expect.

As for a new railway to Marsden I always thought it would never happen

I had my doubts. I'd settle for transpennine electrification TBH.

The proposal for a new railway to Marsden coincided with the cancellation of the HS2 eastern leg to Leeds. Its sole purpose was to enable Grant Shapps to go on regional TV and claim that high speed rail was still coming to Yorkshire. There was never the slightest intention to build it.

The same can be said about the completely unrealistic idea of a high speed line from Huddersfield to Bradford, announced on the day when the HS2 western leg to Manchester was cancelled.

 

[lachlan]

Wealth tax is problematic because wealth is often in the form of tangible things, often property, which cannot easily carved into 90% - 10% split.
And it would quickly become a stealth tax with the thresholds fixed as with income tax allowances.


Plymouth to Edinburgh vie Brum is an eight hour journey. HS2 would reduce that by twenty-five minutes: hardly a game changer.

It obviously depends on where you start from but for myself at least it's faster to go via London than via CrossCountry today.

 

[urbophile]

You mean labour lied when they promised the world and will only actually deliver bugger all?

Consider me shocked

I'm a very sceptical and no way pro-Starmer supporter of the current government. It strikes me that before the election Labour went out of its way to avoid making any promises whatsoever. What I think they will be, once (!) they have sorted out the current inherited mess, is less wasteful and irresponsible than the last lot.

 

[CdBrux]

Bang goes any chance of a payrise for Drivers etc.

Not that I am very familiar with the topic, but seeing the suggested settlements with doctors, teachers etc... then I wouldn't rule it out. In a couple of years I would assume majority of railway staff will directly become public employees.

 

[urbophile]

That was the one I was thinking of. I think those of us outside of London would feel pleased that Labour were taking on a rule which helps people in some of the nicer suburbs of London, but has no parallel in other cities*

I'm sorry but London does not just belong to Londoners. Yes it might be nice for the residents of Hampstead and Highgate to be able to see St Paul's, but the rest of us too need a capital city that isn't just a monument to capitalism.