Government spraying big numbers up the wall

A range of vital skills and instincts are frequently found lacking in the populace at large, and often also in places where they are badly needed.  Numeracy is one: adequate skepticism concerning the Voice of Authority is another; and, the vital ability to conduct a two-second "do we believe this?" credibility check.

So: WTF can it possibly mean when we read:

Rachel Reeves is set to unveil an £86bn package for science and technology in next week’s spending review 

??   This is "expected to be worth more than £22.5 billion-a-year by 2029".  We know she's recently decided that government capital expenditure needs have no upper limit, but what on earth does anyone imagine this "package" means?  For calibration: the entire UK defence budget is about £60 bn this year, and the government's existing R&D spending somewhat less than £20bn right now.  Government S&T money for the higher education sector is in low single-digit billions. 

OK, higher education isn't the only place where government S&T money is spent, but unless Reeves has just "unveiled" the existing £20bn R&D budget slightly re-classified, how is the balance of "22bn p.a. by 2029" going to be doled out, and to whom?  Either (a) we can ignore it because it's empty; (b) it's gonna be pretty inflationary in some sector or other; or (c) it'll be embezzled on a large scale for purposes not really encompassed by "science & technology": I can see the queues forming already.

I suppose some people ignore these things anyway: but all too many supposedly fact-checked media outlets print them uncritically, and one kinda supposes they are half-believed, in a vague sort of way.  Maybe Reeves thinks that all those Trump-fleeing US academics will read it, and jump on the next plane for Blighty.

But who, exactly, rushes to vote Labour on the back of all this?  I think they'll find there's a great deal more focus on their failure to deliver, e.g., 1.5m new houses and cheaper electricity, come 2029.  Because fail is what they are gonna do. 

ND

HS2 - the costs get worse but what options are there?

You may expect the us here at C@W to deplore the rising costs of HS2 (hint, looking back to 2013, we have amazingly been consistent on this) as the gross workings of an excessive public sector.

The sheer rise in costs in incredible, nearly quadrupling from the initial estimates and there are some reasons why which make it so:

1) Ploughing through the home counties and London has led to a lot of legal challenges as a lot of expensive compulsory purchases of land. In China, where they doe things more cheaply, they given you an option of leaving your house or being bulldozed within it - saves on funeral costs too.

2) In a bid to be green a lot of allowances have been made not to damage the countryside. Again in many countries the simpler and cheaper option is to build up and over the forests etc on a raise trainline. It looks terrible and long term is more costly to maintain but is much cheaper to get going with.

3) With a dearth of other big contracts to do, the private companies involved have gold plated the contracts to extract as much value as they can from the Government.

Despite this, what else are the Government going to do to revitalise the North. In a less climate change affected state we could build a ton of new airports like the US and have much easier access to flying but that is not 'going to fly' with politicians today. There are no easy choices that will enable large scale upgrades and whilst extending motorways is all very well that needs to be done as well, not instead of HS2.

Additionally, electric trains can be run off a main grid so again they are long term a more sustainable form of mass transit.

All in all, it will be very disappointing if the Government cave in to lobbying and cancel this project at a time when UK borrowing costs are still near all time lows. If anything we should be pressing the button on these projects and looking to extend the service to Scotland and Northern Ireland over the next few decades.

New Zeitgeist: a Fusing of C@W Themes

A propos of our last two C@W posts - CU's on Mrs May having been led by her civil servants to the Magic NHS-Money Tree, and mine on the Swansea Lagoon decision, a neat coming-together of these two themes emerges in the columns and letters pages of the Telegraph and Welsh media passim.

Tory anger as clean energy project shelved (!)

... roars the DTel (paywall), and its corresondents provide the proof.  Welsh Tories were also dead keen on it too, in large numbers.  Yes, there are no end of self-identifying Tories who think the Lagoon to be deserving of public largesse.  What, at any price?  Electricity costing four or five times the going rate?  Apparently, yes.

It even looks like the old Tory logo ...

It would seem, then, that T.May is not merely lame and lazy, she's discovered that the Money Tree is popular across the board!  If she'd only realised this last week instead of pussy-footing around with just the NHS, the lagoon would have been saved.  Can the Defence-Money Tree be far away? 

A whole *moneytree* policy, no less!   (Sorry, must be the sun - pass me another drink.)

Nice weekends all round - 

ND

High Tax Labour and High Tax Tories is a hell of a choice

This is the choice we are presented with in the Country at the moment. The current Conservative Government, devoid outside of Michael Gove, of any reforming zeal have transmogrified into New Labour - all the worst bits of it.


Unable to agree or solve the gordion knot of Brexit, their domestic agenda is a barren wasteland.


Into this policy-free zone jump our ever eager civil servants. All with bright ideas about how to make things better in each Government department. Every idea well thought out and researched by Love Island contestants. Of course, these policies cost money, they need more civil servants to enact and more importantly directors on higher pay scales to manage them. So the net impact is a large request for more money.


This is exactly how New Labour operated - well meaning lefties in the civil service dreaming up new ways to control our ways and shove 'improvements' onto the populace all at their expense. What jollies!


Only the strongest and best governments, who have their own agenda and Ministers with the peoples' interests at heart can avoid this trap. For Cameron, he had George Osborne and the recession to keep things tight, but that is now over.


Of course the real loons in the Labour party will be far worse. Rather than asking the Civil Service for ideas, they have their own crazed spending commitments - so crazy the Civil Service might think about trying to turn the volume down on some of them. Either way, the country will be bankrupt within 3 years of a Corbyn/McDonnell Government.


So what a choice, it is yet another reason to get rid of the dismal May as Prime Minister - for into the vacuum only bad things are projected.

UK Public Borrowing out of control

At £20 billion a month, the latest public sector borrowing requirement number to be published this week, the UK's finances are officially out of control.

We currently have printing money, low interest rates and Government spending out of control. Never in my life has the year ended on such an abysmal macro note for the UK. 2010 may well end up as difficult as 2009, which is not what many are seemingly thinking with all the talk of a recovery now.

John Smith, the ex-Labour Leader, once berated John Major for borrowing £20 billion in a year (even inflation adjusted this is less than £40 billion in today's money)!

What a shocking set of numbers this is - the overspend per month is equivalent to the entire annual spend of the Department for Transport and Department of Overseas aid combined.

No wonder the Treasury is getting nervous, I would guess the UK can only really sustain a few more months like this before there is a severe run on the gilts market that will force up base rates significantly - and so ensure a double dip recession. The story you hear from Labour, that it is the spending that is keeping us out of a deeper recession, is rapidly becoming the opposite of the truth.