The Conservative Party drains its shallow pool of talent

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I’ve suspected for quite a while that the Tory talent pool would run dry, but we seem to be seeing the final drops of run out. 

What am I talking about? Well, the story starts some years ago, when Labour was in power and Gordon Brown was, so briefly, the prime minister. He committed the country to building HS2, a high-speed rail line that would link London with the north–Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds. Whether it was a good idea is open to raucous debate, but since then one government has tossed it to the next–from Labour to a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition to a series of Conservative governments–and it’s gone further and further over budget. 

The initial budget was £32 billion. Okay, it was £32.7 billion, but when you’re dealing with billions, who cares about the .7? According to some estimates, the whole thing would now cost £100 billion.  

Irrelevant photo: Not a dandelion but one of a zillion flowers that look like them but aren’t.

Ah, but the whole thing won’t be built. One leg of a Y-shaped line was canceled years ago, and now the prime minister du jour, Rishi Sunak, has announced that the entire northern part of the project is going in the scrap bucket and the money that saves will be spent on other transportation projects in the north of England. 

Why the north? Because the whole thing was sold as a way to connect London and the north, and prime ministers du days past, especially Boris Johnson, made a lot of noise about how that would bring prosperity to the north, which could use a bit of that, thanks. His favorite phrase was the annoying leveling up. I expect he was nervous about letting that scary word leveling run around bare-ass nekked, because folks might think the project would take something away from London. 

So he reassured London that it would continue to be the favored child, but the north would now become just as favored, just as rich. Every child would be the favorite. And I’ll become my own grandmother.

It’s in this context that, in the midst of the Conservative Party conference, the government published a 40-page prospectus to back up Sunak’s cancellation of the northern leg of the line: Network North: transforming British transport. On the first page, it plonks Manchester down where Preston’s supposed to be. Since I can’t locate either Preston or Manchester, I’m taking the word of two sources, one of which says, cautiously, “At first glance . . . it seems to relocate. . . .”

I’m not sure what happens at second glance or why it only seems. Still, even appearing to misplace a major city does give the impression of carelessness.

But let’s not be hasty. The prospectus is clearly the product of deep thought and careful work. It promises to fund an extension of the Greater Manchester Metrolink system to the airport, although the system linked to the airport in 2014. It promises improvements in Plymouth, which even I can find, right down there on the south coast, which is another way to say, Not in the north. Bristol–also not in the north–was promised a £100,000 investment until, overnight, the promise disappeared in the online document and was replaced with some vague verbiage about the west. Which is, likewise, not in the north. And then there’s a commitment to upgrade a road near Southampton (situated where the name makes you think it would be, not in the north), but that was a mistake. They meant Littlehampton, which isn’t on the south coast but is pretty damn close. 

I don’t know about you, but I’ve come to love British politics.

 

So what’s left after the cancellation?

What’s left is an expensive train from London to Birmingham. Which–I’m getting tired of typing this–isn’t in the north. It’s in the Midlands, where it’s always been. After trains reach Birmingham, they might end up using the existing track to Manchester, but instead of being high-speed, they’ll run slower than the trains that already run on that line. The existing trains tilt. The new ones won’t. The article I stole this from doesn’t say so, but I assume that means they have to slow down on the curves. 

Oh, and the platforms are too short for the high-speed trains the system was originally planned for, so they’ll be replaced by skateboards. 

Can’t stay upright on a skateboard? Get out on the highway and stick out your thumb.

The transport secretary, Mark Harper, has since clarified that his department was only giving a few examples of where the money might be spent so we needn’t get so starchy about it all. 

And did I mention that £1 billion has already been spent on the canceled part of the line–or at least invoices amounting to that have already been submitted? You see why I can’t get worked up about the £.7 billion, right?

36 thoughts on “The Conservative Party drains its shallow pool of talent”

  2. Hey, come on – at least they know how many women have penises!

    The Government keeps giving the impression there’s a drawer somewhere marked, “HS2 Money” (somewhere close to the “NHS Money” cupboard) stuffed with somewhere a bit short of £100 billion, so now they’ve scrapped the scheme they’ll just stick a new label on it, “Network North Money…and Potholes”. The country’s coffers are looking rosy, although just in the sense of being in the red and getting redder.

    Never mind, Starmer is rolling into town on his rainbow-coloured bulldozer, ready to ignore local planning objections and build zillions of new houses on Green Belt land, and whole new towns on the scrubby bits of wasteland we’ve forgotten about. Green Belt is mostly farmland, so this will reduce our food security and increase our import costs.

    In fact, planning objections are routinely bulldozed already, just slowly. Councils have to solicit local opinion and review all the environmental and infrastructure issues, and very often reject the application on reasonable grounds, whereupon the building company puts in an appeal, offers to plant a few trees or put in traffic signals, pays a nice backhander, and another field has “affordable” housing put on it (affordable by someone eventually), with new roads for all the cars to reach the local traffic jams. It would, however, be “quicker” (as Keir says) to miss out the middle bit.

    Red or Blue, I’m not sure it matters anymore who pretends to run the country. It’s run by corporations and their shareholders, some of whose bank balances are distinctly in the black.

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    • I agree with you about who’s running the country, although I’d much rather see Labour headlining the show because I believe they’ll be far less awful than the current shitshow. Sorry, I mean government. I noticed Starmer ducked the whole issue of who can afford housing. A few commentators I’ve read hold out hope than in office he’ll come through with some useful policies–like making affordable housing affordable, maybe. I’m not betting any money on it, but I’d still rather see him as PM than Sunak.

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  3. This talented bunch of people obviously missed this explanation in Wikipedia. “Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England.”

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  5. As one who actually lives In The North, all this levelling up and HS2 malarkey makes us laugh. The North starts around Richmond and the River Tees, Manchester and Leeds are in South Yorkshire, and not included in the true North. Hope that helps someone, somewhere!

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    • You might want to see the explanation of the North that Paulinell pulled from Wikipedia. It’s elsewhere in the comments and it–um, yeah. It explains everything. Really. You can’t afford to miss it. It’s a pity the government didn’t see it.

      As for me, I understand from maps that all I have to do it look upward and sooner or later I’ll find North. This is so simple. How did they get it wrong?

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    • I have no first-hand evidence on either side of that. My assumption’s always been that they are, and that this doesn’t speak well for the human race.

      Sorry. You caught me at a down moment.

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  7. As we over here in the former colonies are sadly seeing, “leveling DOWN” is a distinct possibility…

    Issuing a 40 page prospectus to explain a cancellation sounds – to this old public school teacher – like something the State Dept. of Ed. would issue to explain why we aren’t having art classes this year.

    Misplacing Manchester recalls the classic “New Yorker” cover showing How New Yorkers See the World

    “Nothing changes but the changes…”

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    • I remember that cartoon. It’s inspired. As for the prospectus–art classes aren’t being entirely canceled, but they’re definitely being downgraded. Along with all the arts. And, you know, the other silly fripperies no one needs. I think they’ve already decided to downgrade geography, but maybe after this they’ll reconsider that.

      Nah. Probably not. What was I thinking?

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  8. As we over here in the former colonies are sadly seeing, “leveling DOWN” is a distinct possibility…

    Issuing a 40 page prospectus to explain a cancellation sounds – to this old public school teacher – like something the State Dept. of Ed. would issue to explain why we aren’t having art classes this year.

    Misplacing Manchester recalls the classic “New Yorker” cover showing How New Yorkers See the World

    “Nothing changes but the changes…”

    (Is it possible the not-dandelion-fluffy thing is a Coltsfoot ? They are yellow and go to fluff, but I seem to remember them as smaller. https://wildadirondacks.org/images/Adirondack-Wildflowers-Coltsfoot-Tussilago-farfara-Adirondack-Interpretive-Center-Rich-Lake-Trail-11-May-2019-61.jpg)

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  13. Brilliant post Ellen, you got it in one !! Most of us northerners saw leveling up as a false promise from the day it was announced. When has any tory ( small ‘t’ intentional ) ever wanted to give the North anything to improve life up here. For them, at the next general election, ‘WINTER IS COMING’

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    • Glad to hear that. I’ve been reading that the storm cheated, what with sneaking in from the east and all, so there’s no telling what else it could have done. Start by flooding the hills first, for all we know.

      Glad you’re okay.

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