In fact, McLoughlin is even looking to build cross party support for the project, observing that Labour are in favour of proceeding. That means that he has consigned the TPA’s letter, and its views, to the bin. So that’s another glorious failure for the TPA.

And yet in the end the TPA will win. Because people this incompetent should not be trusted with that much money.

And because there is no economic case for it.

Presumably at some point they will have spent enough on their mates pretending to be consultants and it will all be scrapped. Rightly.

@1

Couldn’t agree more. As someone living in a village close to the proposed line I think it’s an absolute disgrace that we should spend so much money attempting to connect the northern slurry to us more sophisticated folk in the southeast. Notwithstanding the importance of capital projects such as these in reviving the nation’s fortunes some of us have to consider the serious impact on our landscaped gardens. Thank god I have my Monti carlo residence to retreat to.

As SMFS, there is no solid case for it.
Wildly optimistic numbers of trains/passengers projected.
This, despite the hype and spin will be another Millenium Dome.
Look at HS1 for an example.

TPA will lose because the project will go ahead. Ecoomic case or not the political decision is well and truly made.

Also I suspect the case is better than portrayed, but we tend only to do 30 year projections for returns, even on projects that will put infrastructure in place lasting 150 years. The UK government and public and campaign world is ludicrously short-sighted in its conventions. This may be why WEF ranks us 24th in the world for infrastructure.

So are you in favour of HS2? Or are you just gloating that the TPA have been ignored.

If the former then you are in favour of an extremely expensive method of helping the rich business people in the North commute to London. Not something I would have expected from a Labour person who is all for the poor.

If the later, then you are for the government to waste as much money as it wants. For example you want the state to waste, sorry spend, money on union Pilgrims.

@5

I wonder if externalities such as reduction in air transport and Carbon impacts have been included.I would suspect that one of the biggest impacts long term will to relieve housing stress in the SE.

The TPA is just another small gog in the giant wingnut welfare system. Just smell all that lovely corporate welfare.

@5

‘Not something I would have expected from a Labour person who is all for the poor.’

This was proposed under Labour I believe.

@Barrie J #3:

<blockquote.This, despite the hype and spin will be another Millenium Dome.

And what was wrong with the O2? The problem with the Millennium Dome was that short termist politicians deliberately made it impossible for it to make its money back, by insisting that the Millennium exhibition would only last for a year (forcing unrealistic ticket prices), and making no real provision for subsequent usage.

The exhibition itself was well-received by those who actually went to see it; and it generated significant ticket sales (£189m in that year, even though only half the projected numbers attended) that could have gone a long way to repay the cost had it remained open.

As it is, the O2 is now making money…

@5

You are a Henry Cole sock puppet AICMFP.

I am not a “Labour person”, and do not hold a membership of any political party, nor of a Trade Union.

Moreover, I have never advocated that Government, nor any other organisation, should spend more on facility time (let’s keep the puerile Fawkes blog nicknames out of it, shall we?), but rather have found adversely upon the efforts of the TPA and their pals to misrepresent the practice. Let’s see facts, not ideology and ignorance.

My opinion on HS2 is consistent and straightforward: if anyone can find a solution that doesn’t need this expansion in capacity, let’s see it. And if there isn’t a practical one – the advocacy of Atkins RP2 by the TPA doesn’t make it on that score – then it has to go ahead.

@ 10 Tim Fenton

I happen to know the person who comments as SadButMadLad and you are quite wrong about any relationship with Cole or Fawkes. Please withdraw that unfounded allegation.

And perhaps you could explain.

If HS2 is such a commercial necessity, why hasn’t a private contractor built it by now?

That was always how railways used to be built.

HS2 will not fulfill the promises, these large projects never do. Whether there is a case for it as a congestion reliever for the West Coast Main Line is another matter and given the constant cock ups with that route it will be virtually impossible to tell.

pagar

Private firms tend not to build such big projects for a number of reasons, many of which come down to basice market failure.

For example – the ROI on a project of that sort is not entirely monetisable by the company that owns the asset. That building a railway link and stations increases the land value of land around the stations that result is of great economic and social value (some one mentioned the housing opportunity elsewhere) – yet it is not a benefit to the economy or societ that the owner of the railway will be able to profit from. It doesn’t and couldn’t own Birmgingham or Royal Oak or a lot of places between.

Likewise as another example – the ROI is well beyond the working lifetime of those making decisions on its construction. Most employees, and especially those of a level of seniority to make investment decisions of this kind, will not be in post ten years from now. As such there is little to no market insentive for those individuals to commit to the hard work involved in starting up such a project. That it may be of immense value to their firm beyond their working lifetime makes little difference. They have no self interest in their company’s long term well-being and so largely ignore such matters.

Another market failure in this instance is the politics itself. The project might make a great deal of economic sense. But political interference is likely to be significant in a project of such scale and impact. As such investment is unlikely to materialise because companies tend to avoid investing in areas where politicians may change the terms of the project (eg. demanding lots of deep cuttings for the lines to win round MPs facing a NIMBY revolt).

Then add in national regulation of prices, complications around multiple planning jurisdictions and so on – things you as a free-market zealout would be more comfortable complaining about – and the notion that a private company would just come along and build it becomes absurd beyond belief.

Thornavis

I shouldn’t be too defeatist about major projects proving their worth. 100 years from now it is likely to have more than justified itself economically. Even the Channel Tunnel is on course to achieve that. It is only if we think in very narrow terms (as we tend to with infrastructure in the UK) that there is a great deal of ambiguity on this matter.

The wider economic benefits of this kind of development are big and are long lasting. People and the economy will be benefiting long after everyone posting here is dead.

@ M4E

In 1840, when the decade began, railway lines in Britain were few and scattered but, within ten years, a virtually complete network had been laid down and the vast majority of towns and villages had a rail connection and sometimes two or three.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport_in_Great_Britain

This was achieved by private companies investing their own money. Now it takes government 30 years to build a single line without hope of a visible return on the investment.

Why?

“I shouldn’t be too defeatist about major projects proving their worth. 100 years from now it is likely to have more than justified itself economically”

Well that’s a nice safe prediction from the comfort zone of being long dead by the time it’s falsified. The 1955 rail modernisation plan, which is perhaps the nearest equivalent to the HS2 spend, suggests that you are wrong.

Pagar

I’m pretty much in agreement with you but I don’t think your comparison with the 1840s is valid. Railways were part of an opening up of an undeveloped rural economy the situation now is very different. We shouldn’t forget also that this was the era of the Railway Mania, a classic bubble, many of those lines were decidedly dodgy and based on the same sort of over optimistic assumptions that we get with HS2. However the great difficulty that private companies often found in getting capital investment and running lines profitably shows us that this isn’t an easy task and the assumption that state investment makes it easier and more viable is the kind of faith based economics we could do without.

M4E

let’s take a look at a railway building project from a century or so ago. The Manchester Sheffield and Lincoln Railway’s London extension ( The Great Central ), in many ways comparable with HS2, was opened in 1899 and railway historians have been arguing about its financial viability ever since. It was a forward looking line built with a future extension to a Channel Tunnel in mind but that didn’t happen of course. As it was the line never really fulfilled its potential, although being shackled to the impecunious LNER after 1923 probably didn’t help. It closed in 1966 although it would be very useful now, so who knows really whether it justified the investment ? I suspect that there are so many variables and unforeseen events surrounding the future HS2 that no one will ever know the truth about that either.

pagar

Because we are now a democracy.

This really isn’t difficult to comprehend. I appreciate from past conversations that you are thought-challenged. But even so – to imagine England could be run now as it was in 1840 is bizarre, especially given you linked to a wiki page that itself highlights your example of the 1840s was exactly when things changed dramatically – with state involvement in ticket regulations and safety matters. for the first time. Indeed there was even talk back then of making the railways state owned because of their strategic importance to the country (a hint that even then, there was some grasp of market externalities meaning a free market does not reflect true value – something you may have overlooked in your myopic zeal).

so…

Put in its simplest terms – people expect a say over the infrastructure we build nowadays. They expect recourse to the law for the collecting up of their land for use in major national works. They expect a right to object to projects on their (metaphorical) doorsteps. They expect that prices will be regulated. They expct that people won’t die in large numbers in the construction of major projects. etc etc. And they expect all of this because, whether people understand the economists’ terms for externalities – they understand the concept that a market is not a comprehensive measure of the value of something.

In 1840 – much of that just wasn’t the case. We were not a democracy. The public had little concept of a state regulating or controling a market to generate greater utility. People dying at work was a normal part of life.

Ironically much of this is still true in places like China. But fortunately England is culturally more advanced than that. We have democracy and public justice and so on.

I hope this explained the “why?” that you asked about. I’m sure it will to most people. You, my experience tells me, probably just won’t understand it because you are not very bright. But I hope I’m wrong about that in this instance.

“Now it takes government 30 years to build a single line without hope of a visible return on the investment.

Why?”

Because people who object to such schemes get to challenge planning applications, rather than being fired from their jobs for expressing a view.

@ Thornavis

We shouldn’t forget also that this was the era of the Railway Mania, a classic bubble, many of those lines were decidedly dodgy and based on the same sort of over optimistic assumptions that we get with HS2.

I agree that a comparison with the 1840′s is not entirely fair but at least the investors in Railway Mania were gambling with their own money, and not wasting mine.

M4E

You are correct that I am not very intelligent. For example, I had completely forgotten that you are incapable of entering into any kind of debate without indulging in gratuitous insults.

M4Ew

The state involvement in safety matters you mention was not direct state intervention. The Board of Trade established the railway inspectorate which could generally only advise and had very limited enforcement powers, there were disadvantages to this but on the whole it worked very well, the inspectors were respected and companies often did act on their recommendations. The truth is that even at their least safe Victorian railways were generally well run and passengers only had a small risk of death or injury – things weren’t quite so rosy for the staff.
Yes there was talk of state ownership but sensibly the idea was never carried through because it was understood that the private companies were much better at discovering what their customers actually wanted. If anything the state was too concerned with inter company competition, a lesson we still haven’t learnt, so that it set its face against sensible mergers. When it finally came to see the need for that in typical politicians style it imposed an amalgamation in 1923 that only the professionalism of the private operators and their staff made workable and even then only just – see my comment above on the LNER.

Thornavis

The Great Central is, ironically, a wonderful example of the problems presented to a major infrastructure project by political interference. Be it cricketers or others, Nimbys made the project far more costly than it would otherwise have been and held it up for a long time.

Also – it ceased to be used as a passenger service at the same time as the M1 was opened (1959) – which marked a major phase of decline in railway use as cars and road freight took over.

For a long time though, it served a lot of communities and industries that prospered in part from its services. Calculating the real value of that is very difficult of course – but the longer a piece of infrastructure remains in use, the greater that wider economic benefit is likely to have been. 60 years is of course a very short lifespan for a railway. Yet projections of economic value tend to be set for 30 years only – the short period conventionally connected to a member of staff being given a gold watch for long service.

I agree that HS2 has similarities. There is the massive cost burden of Nimby objections that will now see much of the length tunnelled at least in cut aways. It is also not part of a wider bubble for rail construction in the UK – though generally I’d take that to be a good sign. Bubbles lead to exuberence from policy makers and businessmen alike.

But there are differences too. HS2 offers something distinct (which the Great Central didn’t). Speed carries value. You need only look to Ashford, and the thousands and thousands of family homes being built there now to recognise that. Likewise it adds a great deal of capacity in an area where capacity is at a massive premium. This was not so with the London extension, which served places that already had good capacity for their needs at the time.

Of course rail demand might shrink over the coming 50 years. But there is little evidence to suggest that will happen after continuous growth in rail usage over the last 20 years – driven in part by rising populations, and in part by the internet (ironically offered up as a reason people will travel less, yet it serves as a connector between places that makes firms and lives more geographically fragmented/diverse – resulting in more travel).

If we did a comprehensive study of HS2 based on the experience of HS1 we would probably find significant economic value to the project. Sadly in England we tend to take a narrow and short term view of such things – so limit the economic value we calculate to 30 years, and to econimic activity directly linked to the project – ignoring value in the 31st year, and value from a great many externalities.

@11

I’ll bet you know them. Request declined.

Governments have been intervening in the rail industry openly for around 100 years – well, it will be 100 years in 2014, and the then Government requisitioned the railways as part of the war effort. Successive Governments enforced the mergers into the “Big Four”, requisitioned the system again, and nationalised them.

This idea that private firms built all the lines in the Victorian era is an initially appealing one, but what this involved was getting investors to put up their money with the promise of future rewards that mostly never came (the capacity of the UK economy to do that right now is, I suspect, not so great). Shareholders often received no dividends, and the idea that they could ever get their money back really is laughable. And Government occasionally intervened even then, as it had the power to allow or block bills.

One prime example is the – mentioned elsewhere – Great Central. It was not known as the “Gone Completely” for nothing, with ordinary shareholders – most of them, that means – getting no dividend throughout its 20-odd year existence. The GC’s successor, the LNER, also never AFAIK paid a dividend to its ordinary shareholders, and some builds of locomotives only went ahead after Government offered grants for their construction, or part thereof.

The GC’s predecessor company, the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, was known similarly as the Money Sunk and Lost. Also, the standard of the Victorian railway, in terms of the permanent way (rudimentary), signalling (that, to an extent, came later) and overall safety (appalling)would not be tolerated today.

And, bear in mind, the Victorian railway came into being firstly to carry freight. Passenger traffic came on the back of that. It was freight that was profitable, and still is. One pay-off of HS2 would be to provide more freight paths – current estimate is three per hour, every hour – along the southern part of the West Coast Main Line.

AFAIK that is not part of the financial case for HS2.

Pagar – only with you. Because I remember you tend not to be very bright and tend not to understand basic concepts such as market failure.

Thornavis

Completely agree that the relatively light touch approach of state involvement in those early days of the railway worked very well.

To be fair, if there was any chance of a return to the relatively christian operation of companies as was common among the industrialist classes of the 1800s – there would probably be far less cause to distrust and regulate companies now. But there isn’t sadly. Companies no longer believe they are serving society and god – except in rare (for some reason silicon valley firms) cases. Nor do their workers or the wider public expect them to and thus accept the bad in light of a percieved wider good.

Companies now serve profit for profit’s sake. I don’t say that as a criticism. But they don’t tend to serve profit for charity’s sake as they did 200 years ago (plenty of industrialists believed that it was harder for a rich man to pass into heaven than to thread a cammel through the eye of a needle, and so earned in order to give away).

And that unfortunately means society has to take a more hands-on approach to save lives and ensure we live in a decent world. All be it we still screw that up with heavy-handedness or just incompetence sometimes.

Perhaps if we were not so good at storing wealth for passing it from generation to generation within families – we might see less focus on acquisition in the first place, or keeping in the second – and we could get back to a more socially driven capitalism.

M4E
You are making assumptions again and that speed carries value is one of them, as Tim Worstall has pointed out, in the age of the laptop and Wi Fi that is probably now longer so important, a good example of events and their tendency to overtake predictions. You are factually wrong about the closure date of the Great Central it was 1966 not 1959 and the route had been in decline for some time before that, really very little to do with the M1. It was actually most useful as a through route between the north and the south coast, which wasn’t envisaged when it was first proposed, another example of how things don’t turn out according to predictions and economic plans. Your assertion about Victorian Nimbys doesn’t stand up either, it was pushed through areas of working class housing with little problem and the fairly minor difficulty of Lord’s cricket ground was solved amicably, although the construction of the tunnel under the ground did add to cost but that was the kind of thing Victorian engineers were good at. Anyway what is this about Nimbys ? Are you suggesting that large projects should just be bashed through willy nilly without any right of objection, how does that sit with your fine talk of democracy earlier on ?

M4E
I think your view of the nineteenth century capitalist is rather romantic and what does socially useful mean ? I suspect if you asked a hundred people at random you’d get two hundred contradictory answers, not counting the people who hadn’t a clue what you were getting at.

Always good to see the moronic brownshirt trolls wanting to go back to the 19th century. Speaks volumes for their idiocy. Most of them wouldn’t last 5 minutes.

Maybe one day science will invent a time machine and we can send them back there. One way ticket only though.

Tim Fenton
“The GC’s predecessor company, the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, was known similarly as the Money Sunk and Lost. Also, the standard of the Victorian railway, in terms of the permanent way (rudimentary), signalling (that, to an extent, came later) and overall safety (appalling)would not be tolerated today.”

Epithets like that were common at the time and really tell you little about what the railways were actually like and how financially sound they were, there is still dispute about this now in the case of the GCR and I doubt if it’s possible now to reach an objective conclusion. Your generalisation of safety and infrastructure standards of Victorian railways is equally superficial and just plain wrong for the most part.
As for the post grouping financial problems of the railways, doesn’t the fact that this was a state enforced merger suggest something to you about that ? Considering the state didn’t compensate the railway companies fully for the massive wartime efforts and expenses and what a dog’s breakfast the Grouping was, not to mention the state of the economy during the period, it’s a great credit to those companies that they functioned as well as they did.

Sally

WTF are you on about ? Do you actually have anything to contribute here or are you just fulfilling the daily quota of far leftist cliche ?

Thornavis

I agree that it is a romantic idea – and of course socially useful is a rather vague term for a reason. But it was generally true that industrialists considered it a black mark against a man’s name if he died wealthy because it should all have been put back into serving mankind.

Of course it was up to individuals to decide what that meant. Some gave to church, some started housing schemes, some donated to botanical gardens and museums and so on. That sort of capitalism is long dead. Now people are very comfortable dying young and living wealth to their children.

On the Nimby bit – I think no such thing. I was just emphasising that in the modern world nimbyism is a democractic right, and even where it is overcome, it must be done according to a due public process that ensures all views are given their fair hearing and are taken into account wherever possible. This is a time consuming and risky process for a company committing money to a project – and thus is part of the reason private companies tend not to privately fund major infrastructure works.

And I have to say, while I accept the notion in principle that time on the train is no longer utterly unproductive in the way it once was – this does not mean there is no demand for shorter journey times. After all – look at the growth of Ashford compared to towns of similar distance to London but that don’t have a high speed rail line. That is a fairly verifiable evidence that the time rather than distance spent on a train is a significant factor in demand for that train’s service – and thus on its price and on the economic impact it has.

The extent of the value of those journey times is of course open to some debate. But saying “the internet” and hoping that debunks the case for HS2 has left the various nimbys railed against it at a loss when trying to influence people with deeper insight (like civil servants and ministers).

So yeah, I agree that some assumptions need making in the case for HS2. But if we assume nothing we build nothing and we starve to death. Some assumptions are fair. And a rail line offering faster journey times and providing new capacity to areas with a shortfall of capacity is likely to have a positive economic impact. That’s an assumption – but it’s not a ludicrous one.

M4E
Well one reason why there is less philanthropy about in capitalist quarters these days is that the state has crowded it out, when there is tax funded welfare provision the general attitude to giving, not confined to business, can become one of, ‘that’s the government’s job and I’m already paying for it anyway’. This is probably the reason why animal charities get a lot of money, there’s no NHS vets and also why the RNLI can be self sufficient, the state hasn’t got involved so people are willing to contribute. Still we’re a bit OT now, so back to HS2. When you say this, “So yeah, I agree that some assumptions need making in the case for HS2. But if we assume nothing we build nothing and we starve to death. Some assumptions are fair. And a rail line offering faster journey times and providing new capacity to areas with a shortfall of capacity is likely to have a positive economic impact. That’s an assumption – but it’s not a ludicrous one.” My response is but is it a reasonable assumption given the cost involved ? Money that could be doing something else, such as staying in people’s pockets so that they get to decide what’s important or not rather that having the state decide for them. Things that are seen and things that are unseen and all that.

30 I realise you’re stupid to understand this is a left of centre site. So if you don’t like those views why don’t you piss of to tory central. Or conservative home.

They are full of moronic brownshirt fucks just like you.

Oh and by the way troll, you may think it terribly clever and impressive to quote Tim Worstall. But most people with any sense just roll around slapping their thighs when his opinion is quoted. Warmed up Adam Smith institute clap trap is not seen here as anything to take seriously.

Tim Fenton has done an excellent job of destroying all your arguments, and half baked theories. I repeat,I do so wish you fake libertarians could go back to this time you see as a great panacea. As I said you wouldn’t last 5 mins.

Thornavis.

Is there any evidence that companies and share holders give less to social well being (charity being a rough approximation of this) in countries with higher tax and social protections? If so please post it as I’m all for evidence informing my opinion, and just a little skeptical about assertions that might be more about justifying an ideology than real evidence.

But back to topic. You are right if we discount market failure as a factor in the wellbeing of individuals, or if we take a zealous view that government has no role in correcting market failure in the service of its people. Since neither of us believe the second, we have to acknowledge that government can’t leave everything to individual choice. The economy simply spent work if we do that. Now one could argue that hs2 doesn’t correct market failures and would happen anyway if there was genuine utility. The latter part of that assertion obviously isn’t true, as I set out to pagar. The first part of that assertion requires an awful lot of assumptions about the UK’s need for that rail capacity.

I’ll agree, ironically, that one could make the cheaper case for a non high speed line along the same route to solve capacity problems. Ironically though, the rail industry and property developers show little enthusiasm for such a line and plenty for a higher vale, higher fare high speed line.

This may be somewhat irrational. But markets often are. Consumers for example, often pay far more to save time on a journey than that time would be worth in wages, suggesting an irrational valuation placed on time by human beings. But irrational as it may be, this plays a big part in the potential for private investment.

@35

I am not so much interested in the movement of people that these projects offer but the long term movement of freight.
I wonder if any cost benefit analysis has been carried out that considers this, particularly in relation to threatened road charging and CO2 emissions. I’d also quite like to see a map designed in terms of time rather than distance which demonstrates the changing geography brought about by HS2.
Any ideas/links would be appreciated.

@ 33 Sally

“30 I realise you’re stupid to understand this is a left of centre site. So if you don’t like those views why don’t you piss of to tory central. Or conservative home.”

To be fair, it’s also meant to be a space for people who want to discuss politics (like Thornavis), not people incapable of doing anything except spewing hysterical hate-filled garbage with an average of two Godwins per post (like you).

#36

HS2 won’t carry freight, but it holds the potential to free up other track capacity for freight, which may prove valuable. I don’t know of any projections for this though. Sorry.

In terms of mapping the UK by infrastructure – the royal town planning institute has a really good campaign at the moment looking to bring about sevent different data maps (all held by government but held seperately) to create a comprehensive strategic map of the UK.

I don’t know if they have the data needed to then generate a time rather than distance map – but if they have hold of the right maps so far they could conduct that kind of work and it might be worth asking them about it.

37 Oh look our very own concern troll. Always defending the tory trolls. Tory trolls are not to be taken seriously, or treated with respect. They come here to cause trouble END OF.

No wonder the Lib Dems have destroyed themselves by trying to be ever so serious by going into govt with right wing monsters. No doubt their party is full of naive people like you. Always trying to appease people and ideology that wants to destroy you.

Oh, and Godwin’s law is so last century. Even he admits it was never meant to be raised all the time as a way of stopping criticism.

Sally

Unlike the rather stupid trolls who genuinely have no capacity for intelligent thought – Thornavis does tend to have something to contribute in regards to real information and ideas.

Sure, some bits of what get said are not fully backed up (though there may yet be evidence provided that shareholders donate more to chairty in countries with lower social provision). But it is never a bad thing to be asked questions about a view and to have information challenge one’s view and help improve one’s view.

As I say, many of the trolls on here are incapable of offering such benefit. They are either rather stupid in general or are so fixated with the worship of “market as solution” to all problems, that when some one who studied economics (like me) actually confronts them with facts and the nature of economics – they tend to just vanish for a while before returning with the same ill-informed nonsense as before, or worse, they just start sniping, deliberately misunderstanding comments or generalising about imagine bogeyman lefties so they can still play the “big I am”.

But in my limited experience on here, Thornavis is no such troll. A Tory? Quite possibly. Of no value to debate? Not to my mind.

Also, I agree about Godwin’s law. Godwin himself never said there was an inherrant failure in use of nazi anaology as part of political debate. He just said that over time the chances of an online debate reaching such an anaology verged towards one.

The British education system is so heavilly weighted to WW2 in its history curriculum we can hardly be surprised by that, nor should we condemn it.

@ 39

Ah, so you call someone a troll on the basis of sweet FA, I defend them, that makes ME a troll… I spot a pattern! I think you might have got the definition of “troll” back to front, kiddo.

Oh, and you’re right that Godwin’s law isn’t meant to be used to stop discussion. What it’s meant to do is identify and mock absolutely mental attempts to compare people to Nazis – you know, your raison d’etre.

@ 40 m4e

“The British education system is so heavilly weighted to WW2 in its history curriculum we can hardly be surprised by that, nor should we condemn it.”

Surprised, no, but it can get pretty ridiculous. I’ve seen people compared to the Nazis in a seemingly serious way because they supported the smoking ban, for instance. Or told that they’re equivalent to Hitler because they don’t believe in god. And then of course we have our resident hate-troll, who apparently thinks that the term “Nazi” includes all human life except herself.

Basically, it’s all ad hom, but it’s a particularly common, extreme and offensive ad hom, and it’s good that Godwin’s made people more aware of it. Although it can be annoying when the “law” is clumsily applied.

Chaise

Labelling people nazis as an insult is obviously a bit ridiculous. Not sure about the smoking ban context, but while it is illiberal, it is hardly the thing that made Nazis Nazis so it’s a good example of the misuse of the reference.

As for us atheists – it’s just incorrect in many regards. Hitler was actually quite keen on his mythology – he just wasn’t inclined to the all powerful deity myths. Atheists meanwhile tend not to believe in any religious silliness, deity based or otherwise.

This all seems a long way off topic now though.

31. margin4error

Of course it was up to individuals to decide what that meant. Some gave to church, some started housing schemes, some donated to botanical gardens and museums and so on.

More importantly, they spent it well. The legacy of those individuals is vastly greater than the legacy of the British welfare state even though the welfare state spends vastly more – at least outside the area of health but I think there too.

I was just emphasising that in the modern world nimbyism is a democractic right, and even where it is overcome, it must be done according to a due public process that ensures all views are given their fair hearing and are taken into account wherever possible.

Why? Nimbyism may be a democratic right – but that is a problem with socialism, not democracy. We, or rather you, insist that the government knows best and should control every decision of note. Naturally that gives the voters a chance to influence their politicians and so all politicians are at the mercy of any organised lobby group. But it is not an inherent feature of democracy. Nor does it serve most of us well. There is absolutely nothing stopping us from ending the farce. A simple reassertion that an individual is entitled to do what he likes with his property as long as it does not damage someone else should work fine.

That is a fairly verifiable evidence that the time rather than distance spent on a train is a significant factor in demand for that train’s service – and thus on its price and on the economic impact it has.

Time has always been important for air travel – the key distance being how far a man can go and still get back home in time for dinner. But in the UK that means almost anywhere as the train system stands now.

And a rail line offering faster journey times and providing new capacity to areas with a shortfall of capacity is likely to have a positive economic impact. That’s an assumption – but it’s not a ludicrous one.

I agree. But is the economic impact more or less than what it will cost us to build? That is the key question. And I think it is a reasonable assumption that no, it will not provide more wealth than it destroys.

35. margin4error

Is there any evidence that companies and share holders give less to social well being (charity being a rough approximation of this) in countries with higher tax and social protections?

The US gives more than most other people do.

Since neither of us believe the second, we have to acknowledge that government can’t leave everything to individual choice.

There is a vast gap between everything and nothing.

I’ll agree, ironically, that one could make the cheaper case for a non high speed line along the same route to solve capacity problems.

We had one once. The Great Central Mainline. Which lost a lot of money and which Beeching closed. Wrongly in my opinion, but admittedly it did not make a great deal of money when it was open. So given we have tried it, it did not work, and re-opening it would depress property values in some of the richest parts of the UK, why would we want to re-open it?