The cost of living agenda - how should the railway contribute ?

Magdalia said:

It has everything to do with it, because London is so different from the rest of the UK. Every part of the UK benefits from London's outlier performance on economic activity and tax payments, getting a higher standard of public services than would be the case if London only performed at roughly the same level as the rest of the UK.

HM Treasury know that London's railway plays a critical part in London's outlier economic success, and that, if they didn't support it, economic activity and tax revenue would collapse, leaving less money for public services all round the UK.

The fundamental point that people here need to understand is that government support for the railway in London doesn't just benefit Londoners, it benefits everyone, because it keeps the tax revenues from London flowing in.

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I disagree. The flow of tax revenues isn't a key political principle. The ecomic growth which supports that revenue is. And growth is poorly served by spending money on infrastructure in the south east, as the economy there is already overheated. There's much more room for growth elsewhere. In effect the majority of the population of England which isn't in the south east has subsidised London's economic future for decades. It doesn't help everyone else to have most of the population cut off from economic opportunities while some people are suffering badly from the consequences of being priced out of their local area through overheating.

The Treasury has never been interested in growth, as that's not their purview. They're only interested in revenue. Unfortunately you seem to be doing exactly what they do as you consistently misinterpret economic needs through the financial lens.

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NCT said:

Edinburgh is a bus city with (predominantly) slow diesel suburban lines and its strong economic performance predates its tram network. Sheffield is a similar-sized bus city with slow diesel suburban lines but a much more substantial tram network.

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This isn't true. Edinburgh has five fast high-capacity EMU corridors for commuters with three more in conversion, and a very intensive, well-run and effective local bus and tram service and a well-developed express bus market. Sheffield has no high capacity electric commuter trains at all, most of the DMUs are two or three car and very few fast trains. The local buses are basically unusable compared to Lothian Buses and the express bus market is tiny. It also has no EMUs planned for the foreseeable future, and the DMUs won't be getting a capacity upgrade for many years. The only advantage in Sheffield is that the tramway has two extra axes, though they're served less intensively than in Edinburgh.

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Magdalia said:

I agree that the UK has overinvested in education and underinvested in infrastructure. The one exception I'd make is construction industry skills, which we need to build the infrastructure (and the houses).

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We certainly do need to do far more on supporting trades skills, as much of our excellence is confined to the office desk or the research laboratory. Things like installation of heat pumps, plumbing, building, water plants etc need skilled manual labour which is very difficult to find.

Burnham has just committed to (or is it reaffirmed a commitment to) 'No borrowing to fund day to day spending'.

Starmill said:

The Treasury has never been interested in growth, as that's not their purview. They're only interested in revenue. Unfortunately you seem to be doing exactly what they do as you consistently misinterpret economic needs through the financial lens.

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When the country has debt about the size of a year's GDP, and lenders are charging more than 5% interest on that debt, there is no choice but to look through the financial lens. That's even more the case once the commitment to spend 3% of GDP on defence is also added in.

Of course the Treasury are interested in revenue, because it funds expenditure, and determines how much the country needs to borrow.

Looking at economic needs while ignoring financial needs is not an option, that's a privilege only for countries that don't have huge debts.

I read the Treasury budget and spending review documents. The Treasury are interested in growth, but it is a relatively recent phenomenon. It has taken a long time for them to realise that increasing revenue needs growth and that they can't take growth for granted.

Starmill said:

In effect the majority of the population of England which isn't in the south east has subsidised London's economic future for decades.

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London has funded its own with enough left over to help fund the rest of the country too.

Starmill said:

The ecomic growth which supports that revenue is. And growth is poorly served by spending money on infrastructure in the south east, as the economy there is already overheated. There's much more room for growth elsewhere.

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I don't agree that the London economy is overheated, it is much more productive than the rest.

Where growth is served by spending money on infrastructure is where there is growth, but a risk that it will throttled without new infrastructure. 30 years ago that was London, and it took a very long time to deliver the infrastructure that was needed, for example Thameslink and the Elizabeth Line.

I do think that, now that London has had a lot of infrastructure investment, there are diminishing returns from adding more. The priorities for infrastructure investment now are places outside London that have growth now but need infrastructure to ensure that their growth is not throttled. The Trans Pennine Upgrade is a good example, and there are growing cities all over the UK that can benefit from the right investment. But infrastructure investment follows growth, it does not lead it. With interest rates so high there is a strong case for small schemes that can be delivered quickly. Big schemes that take a long time will only unshackle growth if there is confidence that they will actually be seen through to completion.

And it will take a very long time for any infrastructure investment to alleviate the cost of living crisis, beyond the economic activity of the construction itself.

Starmill said:

We certainly do need to do far more on supporting trades skills, as much of our excellence is confined to the office desk or the research laboratory. Things like installation of heat pumps, plumbing, building, water plants etc need skilled manual labour which is very difficult to find.

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Which means that there is also a supply side constraint on how much infrastructure we can do.

Magdalia said:

When the country has debt about the size of a year's GDP, and lenders are charging more than 5% interest on that debt, there is no choice but to look through the financial lens. That's even more the case once the commitment to spend 3% of GDP on defence is also added in.

Of course the Treasury are interested in revenue, because it funds expenditure, and determines how much the country needs to borrow.

Looking at economic needs while ignoring financial needs is not an option, that's a privilege only for countries that don't have huge debts.

I read the Treasury budget and spending review documents. The Treasury are interested in growth, but it is a relatively recent phenomenon. It has taken a long time for them to realise that increasing revenue needs growth and that they can't take growth for granted.


London has funded its own with enough left over to help fund the rest of the country too.


I don't agree that the London economy is overheated, it is much more productive than the rest.

Where growth is served by spending money on infrastructure is where there is growth, but a risk that it will throttled without new infrastructure. 30 years ago that was London, and it took a very long time to deliver the infrastructure that was needed, for example Thameslink and the Elizabeth Line.

I do think that, now that London has had a lot of infrastructure investment, there are diminishing returns from adding more. The priorities for infrastructure investment now are places outside London that have growth now but need infrastructure to ensure that their growth is not throttled. The Trans Pennine Upgrade is a good example, and there are growing cities all over the UK that can benefit from the right investment. But infrastructure investment follows growth, it does not lead it. With interest rates so high there is a strong case for small schemes that can be delivered quickly. Big schemes that take a long time will only unshackle growth if there is confidence that they will actually be seen through to completion.

And it will take a very long time for any infrastructure investment to alleviate the cost of living crisis, beyond the economic activity of the construction itself.


Which means that there is also a supply side constraint on how much infrastructure we can do.

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Without a sound economy, sound finances are never again possible. The UK currently has neither, as it has prioritised the latter over the former for decades. Continuing to do so will ultimately be self-defeating, as more and more subsidy is necessary for increasing healthcare needs, climate-destruction mitigation and other things which are utterly non-negotiable needs. Unless there's an increase in productive capacity we wouldn't ever hope to be able to pay for those, but without structural reform and major capital programmes, there is simply no possibility of the kind of growth that we need. I didn't suggest that a financial aspect is entirely irrelevant, just that it's never to be considered first and foremost because such an approach is doomed to failure. These same flawed arguments, some of which you repeat frequently and yet don't understand you're even doing it, have been heard time and again: "but the bond markets!" "it'll take too long" "the private sector should be doing more" "it's skills not infrastructure". These technical failures and short-sighted political analyses are contributing factors to the current serious economic failures we have. There can be no route to sustainable growth without better infrastructure leading it.

The Treasury have recently begun to insert explicit reference to growth into their public-facing material. Unfortunately they're rather slow on the uptake about anything other than fiscal policy. No evidence of change has fed through. They're also vastly incompetent - for example, they managed to bounce Rachel Reeves into announcing a cut to English winter fuel payments just a few days after winning the election, because they have been desperately going on at politicians about doing something to means test that in England for years and years. It has totally backfired on them - now in the future, seeing the enormous political price Starmer and Reeves ultimately paid for a very trivial cash saving, much of which they actually climbed down on and paid back to voters anyway, politicians will be even less likely to take good financial decisions, and if they are, that particular policy area is even less likely to see meaningful reform to make it more efficient. The backlash was totally predictable and avoidable - Reeves' real weakness was letting someone who has no comprehension of political reality take a fiscal decision. Even in a flawed, exclusively financial analysis, the Treasury are consistently awful custodians of our money.

Magdalia said:

The fundamental point that people here need to understand is that government support for the railway in London doesn't just benefit Londoners, it benefits everyone, because it keeps the tax revenues from London flowing in.

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Financial support for the railway in London existing in order to make just London more pleasant and productive should be enough to justify it.
When that above-average tax revenue flowing in from London is used to invest even more in London, it doesn't benefit the rest of the country that much, or at least not while the gap between London and less productive cities is increasing day by day. Even if there is occasionally a little left over, drip-feeding funding from what little is left after the costs of keeping London relatively pleasant is far from the amount that's needed to help other cities catch up. We shouldn't treat other parts of the country as charity cases just because of a number of policy decisions over the years that have reinforced that belief, and the fact that right now they aren't doing as well as Oxford, Bristol or London - they're simply areas which haven't reached their full potential yet.

Magdalia said:

There is a mix of bus users and a mix of rail users, nobody is excluded from either. But more people squeezed by the cost of living crisis are bus users than train users. In Cambridge that's clearly obvious from the postcodes: the poorest parts of the city are on the bus routes and not near the rail stations. The people in Cambridge squeezed by the cost of living crisis in Cambridge will benefit far more from the £2 bus cap than they would from a railcard.

It is you who thinks that the railway is a rich man's toy: if that's the case, then it is those rich men who would most benefit from your proposed railcard.

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This was a quote from a transport secretary no less.

The way to stop it becoming a rich man's toy would be to have cheaper fares.

Magdalia said:

And what is kitchen sink economics when its at home?

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The sort of economics over the past forty years that's got us into the current mess.

Magdalia said:

No. London produces far more GDP per head and has many more higher rate taxpayers than elsewhere. Remember that 75% of the tax take comes from income tax, NICs, corporation tax and VAT, all of them taxes on economic activity.

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London could try making all that GDP without all the agricultural, industrial, dormitory, environmental etc services provided by the rural/outside areas. It might have difficulty.

Magdalia said:

What other European countries do is irrelevant. Their financial circumstances are different, in particular they have the advantage of much lower interest costs through being in the Euro.
.

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Yet we fall into line with things such as ticket refunds.

Most European countries just have a more sensible idea of who the railway is for.

Magdalia said:

And this is what we should be discussing. The railway has almost no part to play in the cost of living crisis, but it has a huge part to play in loosening the shackles on economic growth. Part of that is big Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects, like Trans Pennine Route Upgrade and East West Rail, but now there is also greater prospects for smaller projects prioritised locally.



Which is why the railway needs to reduce its operating costs deficit. The bond markets need to be convinced that the borrowing is for capital projects that deliver future economic growth, not cack-handed schemes that only show that the railway and the government don't have current spending under control.

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It's pointless spending billions on railway infrastructure if the general public can't afford to use it.

You state that you think that a railcard will primarily benefit "rich men".

Thank you for admitting that train fares are too expensive for working age, working class people.

yorksrob said:

The way to stop it becoming a rich man's toy would be to have cheaper fares.

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You have many cheaper fares outside the SE. In the SE, even with a purchased railcard, cheaper fares are only available after 09:30 or 10:00 on weekdays.

yorksrob said:

London could try making all that GDP without all the agricultural, industrial, dormitory, environmental etc services provided by the rural/outside areas. It might have difficulty.

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Much of the wealth that London contributes to the GDP comes from international banking, insurance and other non-manufacturing services. That of course happen anywhere but London is a global centre of expertise. Of course that expertise needs somewhere to go home to so as a consequence of that there are train service that carry extremely large number of passenger but that capacity is only maxed out in the peak hours. So in order to recover some of the essential infrastructure and equipment costs necessary to provide that capacity, space outside those peaks is sold for leisure travel, hence the Network card. Nowhere else in the British network has such a demand profile to address with reduced off-peak fares for all

yorksrob said:

It's pointless spending billions on railway infrastructure if the general public can't afford to use it.

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... add to that the environmental need for mass public transport where the road system cannot support the volume of work-related travel. Those who work in London and live in the Home Counties have to get to work somehow, and the railway is the most practical and cost efficient mode available, - the sheer volume required means that some provisioning costs "billions".

Starmill said:

These same flawed arguments, some of which you repeat frequently and yet don't understand you're even doing it, have been heard time and again: "but the bond markets!" "it'll take too long" "the private sector should be doing more" "it's skills not infrastructure".

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These are just tired decades old slogans, they don't pass for serious analysis. The Government and the Treasury can't be so self indulgent, they have to face the facts and do the maths.

Starmill said:

"but the bond markets!"

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It is not just the wildfire burning in the bond markets, with many countries facing interest rates at multi-decade highs.

The markets lending money to governments appear to be changing more fundamentally too.

Over summer, the message has been made clear: countries will have to pay more to borrow cash.

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Read it, and in particular, look at the graph. Then come back with a cogent economic case for how the UK government can ignore the bond market, not just a slogan.

Starmill said:

"it'll take too long"

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It may have escaped your attention, but in any infrastructure project, the costs are up front and the benefits come later, sometimes much later. That has to be funded, usually by borrowing. Time is money: the longer it takes to get to payback, the bigger the interest cost on the borrowing, that's especially the case when interest rates are high.

Starmill said:

"the private sector should be doing more"

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The payback from infrastructure investment comes from the private sector, through company profits and employee wages. Given the time cost of money, getting the private sector to contribute up front helps the finance. That's particularly important with infrastructure that facilitates housebuilding, where capturing some of the benefit up front avoids the chance of the private sector being able to wriggle out of it later.

Starmill said:

Unless there's an increase in productive capacity we wouldn't ever hope to be able to pay for those, but without structural reform and major capital programmes, there is simply no possibility of the kind of growth that we need.

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Structural reforms yes, especially in the energy and housing markets, and the water industry.

But Cambridge demonstrates that the growth we need can come without major capital programmes.

yorksrob said:

You state that you think that a railcard will primarily benefit "rich men".

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yorksrob said:

The way to stop it becoming a rich man's toy would be to have cheaper fares.

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No, it is you who keeps on raking up the "rich man's toy" argument. Though I note that you haven't identified who said it and when, or given a source.

And, if you are right that the railway is "a rich man's toy", then the main beneficiaries of your proposed railcard will be those "rich men", who will get lower fares. You are arguing against yourself!

yorksrob said:

The sort of economics over the past forty years that's got us into the current mess.

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Another tired decades old slogan.

yorksrob said:

London could try making all that GDP without all the agricultural, industrial, dormitory, environmental etc services provided by the rural/outside areas. It might have difficulty.

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It wouldn't, because London can afford to buy what it needs from others.

yorksrob said:

Yet we fall into line with things such as ticket refunds.

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We fell into line on ticket refunds when we were in the EU and it was required by regulation.

yorksrob said:

It's pointless spending billions on railway infrastructure if the general public can't afford to use it.

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The point is that the railway will enable economic activity, from which taxes are paid, and everyone benefits. You make a fundamental mistake in thinking that the only people benefitting from the railway are those that are sitting on the trains.

Magdalia said:

No, it is you who keeps on raking up the "rich man's toy" argument. Though I note that you haven't identified who said it and when, or given a source.

And, if you are right that the railway is "a rich man's toy", then the main beneficiaries of your proposed railcard will be those "rich men", who will get lower fares. You are arguing against yourself!

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No, you stated that a national railcard would mainly benefit rich men.

If that were the case it would stand to reason that without the railcard discount, the railway must already be benefitting rich men, therefore is too expensive for non-rich men.

You are making my argument for me.

Magdalia said:

Another tired decades old slogan.


It wouldn't, because London can afford to buy what it needs from others.

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It would have to pay a lot more for it with a much less certain supply chain.

Magdalia said:

We fell into line on ticket refunds when we were in the EU and it was required by regulation.

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This happenned this year when there was no need to fall in line with anyone.

Magdalia said:

The point is that the railway will enable economic activity, from which taxes are paid, and everyone benefits. You make a fundamental mistake in thinking that the only people benefitting from the railway are those that are sitting on the trains.

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I'm well aware that the railway has its wider economic benefits.

As a public service, it should be able to benefit working people directly as well.

yorksrob said:

No, you stated that a national railcard would mainly benefit rich men.

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Only that it follows from your argument that the railway is a rich man's toy. I don't share that view.

yorksrob said:

It would have to pay a lot more for it with a much less certain supply chain.

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On both the difference would be marginal.

yorksrob said:

As a public service, it should be able to benefit working people directly as well.

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And it does. Lots of people on trains are working people. They are not all rich men.

Magdalia said:

These are just tired decades old slogans, they don't pass for serious analysis. The Government and the Treasury can't be so self indulgent, they have to face the facts and do the maths.

Faisal Islam: Why bond market wildfire is keeping world leaders up at night

Huge AI spending plans and the ongoing war in Iran are driving up borrowing costs around the world.

www.bbc.co.uk

Read it, and in particular, look at the graph. Then come back with a cogent economic case for how the UK government can ignore the bond market, not just a slogan.


It may have escaped your attention, but in any infrastructure project, the costs are up front and the benefits come later, sometimes much later. That has to be funded, usually by borrowing. Time is money: the longer it takes to get to payback, the bigger the interest cost on the borrowing, that's especially the case when interest rates are high.


The payback from infrastructure investment comes from the private sector, through company profits and employee wages. Given the time cost of money, getting the private sector to contribute up front helps the finance. That's particularly important with infrastructure that facilitates housebuilding, where capturing some of the benefit up front avoids the chance of the private sector being able to wriggle out of it later.


Structural reforms yes, especially in the energy and housing markets, and the water industry.

But Cambridge demonstrates that the growth we need can come without major capital programmes.

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You're right! They are tired old slogans without meaningful evidence to support them.

If you'd like to support them you're welcome to go off and come up with an argument for doing so but I'm certainly not going to be wasting my time trying to prove a negative, which is so very rarely possible.

Magdalia said:

Only that it follows from your argument that the railway is a rich man's toy. I don't share that view.


On both the difference would be marginal.

And it does. Lots of people on trains are working people. They are not all rich men.

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So you agree that a national railcard would help working class people and their access to the railway.

One way the railways might help with the cost-of-living saga, might be if it froze HS 2, and instead the money was put into adding better railways where they are needed, and reopening some closed lines, where there is a viable case to be had, for example communities have, or could grow, especially where journey times create more options for rural living away from the big towns, especially if it's cheaper to live away from a city centre,

Grow the network, by reconnecting communities, such as Bude, and along the north Cornwall coast, parts of East Anglia, parts decimated by the Beeching cuts.

Starmill said:

You're right! They are tired old slogans without meaningful evidence to support them.

If you'd like to support them you're welcome to go off and come up with an argument for doing so but I'm certainly not going to be wasting my time trying to prove a negative, which is so very rarely possible.

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I have already explained, in my last reply, why the bond market matters, why it is better to have projects that deliver quickly, and why private sector finance is important. Here they are again:

Magdalia said:

"but the bond markets!"

Faisal Islam: Why bond market wildfire is keeping world leaders up at night

Huge AI spending plans and the ongoing war in Iran are driving up borrowing costs around the world.

www.bbc.co.uk

Read it, and in particular, look at the graph. Then come back with a cogent economic case for how the UK government can ignore the bond market, not just a slogan.

"it'll take too long"
It may have escaped your attention, but in any infrastructure project, the costs are up front and the benefits come later, sometimes much later. That has to be funded, usually by borrowing. Time is money: the longer it takes to get to payback, the bigger the interest cost on the borrowing, that's especially the case when interest rates are high.

"the private sector should be doing more"
The payback from infrastructure investment comes from the private sector, through company profits and employee wages. Given the time cost of money, getting the private sector to contribute up front helps the finance. That's particularly important with infrastructure that facilitates housebuilding, where capturing some of the benefit up front avoids the chance of the private sector being able to wriggle out of it later.

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The sloganeering is you sneering at them as excuses, putting your fingers in your ears and pretending that the government can ignore them.

I'm not asking you to prove a negative, I'm asking you to explain how you are going to fund big infrastructure projects without borrowing from the bond markets or bringing in private sector finance.

Magdalia said:

The sloganeering is you sneering at them as excuses, putting your fingers in your ears and pretending that the government can ignore them.

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This makes absolutely no sense, and you are being utterly rude now. I'm not going to invest time in debating this with you as I have better plans.

Magdalia said:

These are just tired decades old slogans, they don't pass for serious analysis. The Government and the Treasury can't be so self indulgent, they have to face the facts and do the maths.

Faisal Islam: Why bond market wildfire is keeping world leaders up at night

Huge AI spending plans and the ongoing war in Iran are driving up borrowing costs around the world.

www.bbc.co.uk

Read it, and in particular, look at the graph. Then come back with a cogent economic case for how the UK government can ignore the bond market, not just a slogan.


It may have escaped your attention, but in any infrastructure project, the costs are up front and the benefits come later, sometimes much later. That has to be funded, usually by borrowing. Time is money: the longer it takes to get to payback, the bigger the interest cost on the borrowing, that's especially the case when interest rates are high.


The payback from infrastructure investment comes from the private sector, through company profits and employee wages. Given the time cost of money, getting the private sector to contribute up front helps the finance. That's particularly important with infrastructure that facilitates housebuilding, where capturing some of the benefit up front avoids the chance of the private sector being able to wriggle out of it later.


Structural reforms yes, especially in the energy and housing markets, and the water industry.

But Cambridge demonstrates that the growth we need can come without major capital programmes.





No, it is you who keeps on raking up the "rich man's toy" argument. Though I note that you haven't identified who said it and when, or given a source.

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Maybe I can help here...

...if I remember correctly this statement, or a very similar one, was made by an erstwhile Transport Secretary (or even 'Minister") many years ago - possibly twenty or thirty.

It was a comment made after the publication of a survey or analysis which showed that Socio-economic Groups A, B and possibly C1 according to the ONS' classification used the railways less than those in Socio-economic Groups C2 to E.

To be expected really...

I remember it because Modern Railways ran an article accompanied by a photograph of crowds of people getting off a train at, IIRC, Waterloo in the rush hour. The caption was 'The rich at the gates of paradise?' which tickled me.

Magdalia said:

And, if you are right that the railway is "a rich man's toy", then the main beneficiaries of your proposed railcard will be those "rich men", who will get lower fares. You are arguing against yourself!

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See above!

Magdalia said:

Another tired decades old slogan.


It wouldn't, because London can afford to buy what it needs from others.


We fell into line on ticket refunds when we were in the EU and it was required by regulation.



The point is that the railway will enable economic activity, from which taxes are paid, and everyone benefits. You make a fundamental mistake in thinking that the only people benefitting from the railway are those that are sitting on the trains.

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This is interesting as one of the arguments often made in this Forum is that getting people off the roads onto the trains improves life for those not on the trains by reducing congestion and so on.

Starmill said:

This isn't true. Edinburgh has five fast high-capacity EMU corridors for commuters with three more in conversion, and a very intensive, well-run and effective local bus and tram service and a well-developed express bus market. Sheffield has no high capacity electric commuter trains at all, most of the DMUs are two or three car and very few fast trains. The local buses are basically unusable compared to Lothian Buses and the express bus market is tiny. It also has no EMUs planned for the foreseeable future, and the DMUs won't be getting a capacity upgrade for many years. The only advantage in Sheffield is that the tramway has two extra axes, though they're served less intensively than in Edinburgh.

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The relative prosperity of places like Polmont and Linlithgow far predates E&G's electrification. If rail were the determinant of economic performance, then the A2B served north side of Livingstone would be richer than the Shotts served south side, yet it is the reverse. If rail were the determinant then Shettleston would be as rich as Milngavie, or Edmonton would be as rich as Chingford. It's not the transport, it's the people.

Lothian buses are good, but Sheffield's are hardly terrible. As it happens, it's the bus served west side of Sheffield that supplies the highly educated knowledge workers, not the tram served east side. Again, it's not the transport, it's the people.

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Starmill said:

... as more and more subsidy is necessary for increasing healthcare needs, climate-destruction mitigation and other things which are utterly non-negotiable needs.

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Correct. Which is why the state must shrink in other areas.

Unless there's an increase in productive capacity we wouldn't ever hope to be able to pay for those, but without structural reform and major capital programmes, there is simply no possibility of the kind of growth that we need.

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Correct again. The problem is we have spent finite resources on subsidising current consumption, leaving not enough for investing for the future.

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Starmill said:

Either way, it doesn't really matter. The UK opprates on a centralised solidarity model. Everyone receives almost exactly the same NHS services for example no matter where they are in the country. People are entitled to them, because it's been paid for with their money.

It's public money; the clue is in the name. It doesn't belong to people who pay more tax over less, or to citizens over non-citizens, it belongs to everyone equally. Being salty about it because you paid a lot of tax won't help anyone.

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In your opinion. The pooling of fiscal resources, the amount and manner or conditionality of that pooling, is subject to the consent of the electorate. That consent is not unconditional. It's subject to constant debate and that consent can be withheld or withdrawn at any time, if enough of the polity choose to do so. This is why we have elections. This is why parties have tax policies in their manifestos.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Sep 2026 ==

Starmill said:

They are equivalent at the infrastructure level. Healthcare infrastructure and transport infrastructure must be available if people need them, it's a non-negotiable part of the government's job.

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In your opinion. It's up to the democratic consent, not your personal edict.

coppercapped said:

Maybe I can help here...

...if I remember correctly this statement, or a very similar one, was made by an erstwhile Transport Secretary (or even 'Minister") many years ago - possibly twenty or thirty.

It was a comment made after the publication of a survey or analysis which showed that Socio-economic Groups A, B and possibly C1 according to the ONS' classification used the railways less than those in Socio-economic Groups C2 to E.

To be expected really...

I remember it because Modern Railways ran an article accompanied by a photograph of crowds of people getting off a train at, IIRC, Waterloo in the rush hour. The caption was 'The rich at the gates of paradise?' which tickled me.

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The difference between NRS social grades ABC1 and C2DE is much more one of white-collar vs. blue-collar than anything directly reflecting income or wealth.

martin butler said:

One way the railways might help with the cost-of-living saga, might be if it froze HS 2, and instead the money was put into adding better railways where they are needed, and reopening some closed lines, where there is a viable case to be had, for example communities have, or could grow, especially where journey times create more options for rural living away from the big towns, especially if it's cheaper to live away from a city centre,

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The HS2 money is largely spent or committed. Freezing it now would be a ridiculous waste of our money.

One of the greatest needs for a better railway is to increase capacity between London, the Midlands and the North…

NCT said:

The relative prosperity of places like Polmont and Linlithgow far predates E&G's electrification. If rail were the determinant of economic performance, then the A2B served north side of Livingstone would be richer than the Shotts served south side, yet it is the reverse. If rail were the determinant then Shettleston would be as rich as Milngavie, or Edmonton would be as rich as Chingford. It's not the transport, it's the people.

Lothian buses are good, but Sheffield's are hardly terrible. As it happens, it's the bus served west side of Sheffield that supplies the highly educated knowledge workers, not the tram served east side. Again, it's not the transport, it's the people.

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Correct. Which is why the state must shrink in other areas.



Correct again. The problem is we have spent finite resources on subsidising current consumption, leaving not enough for investing for the future.

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In your opinion. The pooling of fiscal resources, the amount and manner or conditionality of that pooling, is subject to the consent of the electorate. That consent is not unconditional. It's subject to constant debate and that consent can be withheld or withdrawn at any time, if enough of the polity choose to do so. This is why we have elections. This is why parties have tax policies in their manifestos.

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In your opinion. It's up to the democratic consent, not your personal edict.

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You are in denial about British politics if you think you personally can overrule the consensus about spending. That's precisely the political element which you are missing. Even if you thought you could, a small minority of people in the country are in London's economic orbit, so they'd easily be outvoted if it were made into a binary choice as you suggest, though this isn't likely because no serious party ever has suggested trying to separate the rest of the country from London as you advocate.

The hard constraint on spending isn't the bond market, it's the electorate, which is why it's so foolhardy to listen to the Treasury orthodoxy. It has recently claimed many political scalps, arguably including the most recent Chancellor and Prime Minister. It's very likely to claim the ones of the incumbents too.

Your arguments about Sheffield are mendacious and being made in bad faith, you know what you are saying about it is wrong. Good public transport infrastructure is a necessary condition for economic prosperity. It is not a sufficient one.

The bond markets are in a tizzy globally at the moment due mainly to the Iran war.

AM9 said:

You have many cheaper fares outside the SE. In the SE, even with a purchased railcard, cheaper fares are only available after 09:30 or 10:00 on weekdays.

Much of the wealth that London contributes to the GDP comes from international banking, insurance and other non-manufacturing services. That of course happen anywhere but London is a global centre of expertise. Of course that expertise needs somewhere to go home to so as a consequence of that there are train service that carry extremely large number of passenger but that capacity is only maxed out in the peak hours. So in order to recover some of the essential infrastructure and equipment costs necessary to provide that capacity, space outside those peaks is sold for leisure travel, hence the Network card. Nowhere else in the British network has such a demand profile to address with reduced off-peak fares for all

... add to that the environmental need for mass public transport where the road system cannot support the volume of work-related travel. Those who work in London and live in the Home Counties have to get to work somehow, and the railway is the most practical and cost efficient mode available, - the sheer volume required means that some provisioning costs "billions".

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We also have many overpriced fares outside of the South East, added to which wages are on average lower, so that argument doesn't hold up (we seem to have been over this ground many times before.

The point about London is that it may make its GDP from abroad, however it still needs food, water, housing etc. Theoretically a rich city state could buy it all in, but one as big as London relies on a hinterland for its services. I'd have more sympathy for the City anyway if it didn't make so much of its money by flogging off all our businesses to foreign multi-nationals and private equity.

I've never called for the South East to be deprived of its Network card, let alone its extensive infrastructure (it would be off-topic apart from anything) so I'm not sure what point you're making in your last paragraph.

yorksrob said:

The bond markets are in a tizzy globally at the moment due mainly to the Iran war.

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The Iran war is a factor, but there are two much more fundamental structural developments that are pushing bond yields upwards. That means that the UK can't just hope that the Iran war will end and then everything will be fine. It won't.

One fundamental structural development is that the UK is not the only sovereign borrower, most other western economies are borrowing too. Some are borrowing a lot more, especially the USA and Japan.

The other is the huge increase in borrowing by big tech, mainly to build data centres for AI.

The bond market is demonstrating the basic laws of supply and demand: more bond issuers are competing to persuade lenders to choose them and not someone else, so the price/yield goes up. Not many lenders want to choose the UK, except at a high price. Many lenders prefer to lend to big tech to build data centres.

yorksrob said:

I'd have more sympathy for the City anyway if it didn't make so much of its money by flogging off all our businesses to foreign multi-nationals and private equity.

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Like government borrowing, selling assets is just the other side of the same coin as the UK's huge balance of payments deficit. Borrowing is one way of funding that deficit, selling assets is another.

If the UK wants to avoid being constrained by the bond markets, and doesn't want to sell assets, then the solution is simple to state, but difficult to achieve. The Balance of Payments needs to come back into balance, by increasing exports and shrinking imports.

The worst economic fiction of the last 40 years has been that the Balance of Payments don't matter.

eldomtom2 said:

The difference between NRS social grades ABC1 and C2DE is much more one of white-collar vs. blue-collar than anything directly reflecting income or wealth.

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You may well be right, but I can only go on the ONS's own definitions, a description of which may be found at https://cy.ons.gov.uk/methodology/c...ioeconomicclassificationnssecrebasedonsoc2010

it states:

1.1 Two socio-economic classifications – or SECs – were widely used in the UK in both official statistics and academic research: Social Class based on Occupation (SC, formerly Registrar General’s Social Class) and Socio-economic Groups (SEG).

1.2 In 1994, the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, now part of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), commissioned the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to undertake a review of government social classifications.

1.3 As a result of the review, the ESRC recommended that a new SEC, the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC) replace both SC and SEG. (You can find full details of the review and its conclusions in Rose and Pevalin with O’Reilly 2005. A researcher’s guide to the classification has also been produced (see Rose and Pevalin 2003).

1.4 The final phase of the review involved rebasing the NS‑SEC on the new Standard Occupational Classification 2000(SOC2000) published in June of that year. This led to some important changes to the interim version of the NS-SEC previously published in Rose and O’Reilly 1998. This volume presents the NS-SEC as rebased on SOC2010.

1.5 Since 2001, the NS-SEC has been available for use in all official statistics and surveys. More recently, as a result of an EU Sixth Framework Programme project co-ordinated by ONS, a similar classification to NS-SEC has been produced for comparative European research, the European Socio‑economic Classification (ESeC – see Rose and Harrison 2010).

1.6 The NS-SEC was developed from a sociological classification that has been widely used in pure and applied research, known as the Goldthorpe Schema (see Goldthorpe 1980/1987, 1997, 2007; Erikson and Goldthorpe 1992).

1.7 The decision to adopt the Goldthorpe Schema as the basis for the NS-SEC was made because it is accepted internationally and is conceptually clear. It has also been reasonably validated both as a measure and as a good predictor of health, educational and many other outcomes. However, the NS-SEC improves on the Goldthorpe Schema as a result of its more thorough validation.

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These groupings may not be perfect as you suggest, but I note that you do not dispute the conclusions of the study/survey/analysis reported many years ago concerning the use of trains.

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Magdalia said:

The Iran war is a factor, but there are two much more fundamental structural developments that are pushing bond yields upwards. That means that the UK can't just hope that the Iran war will end and then everything will be fine. It won't.

One fundamental structural development is that the UK is not the only sovereign borrower, most other western economies are borrowing too. Some are borrowing a lot more, especially the USA and Japan.

The other is the huge increase in borrowing by big tech, mainly to build data centres for AI.

The bond market is demonstrating the basic laws of supply and demand: more bond issuers are competing to persuade lenders to choose them and not someone else, so the price/yield goes up. Not many lenders want to choose the UK, except at a high price. Many lenders prefer to lend to big tech to build data centres.


Like government borrowing, selling assets is just the other side of the same coin as the UK's huge balance of payments deficit. Borrowing is one way of funding that deficit, selling assets is another.

If the UK wants to avoid being constrained by the bond markets, and doesn't want to sell assets, then the solution is simple to state, but difficult to achieve. The Balance of Payments needs to come back into balance, by increasing exports and shrinking imports.

The worst economic fiction of the last 40 years has been that the Balance of Payments don't matter.

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Hear, hear.

It used to be that once a month the Balance of Payments was an item in news broadcasts and newspapers. Exports, Imports and Invisible Earnings were seen to be important.

coppercapped said:

These groupings may not be perfect as you suggest, but I note that you do not dispute the conclusions of the study/survey/analysis reported many years ago concerning the use of trains.

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I'm saying that it doesn't really say much about how much "the rich" vs. "the poor" use trains.

Magdalia said:

The Iran war is a factor, but there are two much more fundamental structural developments that are pushing bond yields upwards. That means that the UK can't just hope that the Iran war will end and then everything will be fine. It won't.

One fundamental structural development is that the UK is not the only sovereign borrower, most other western economies are borrowing too. Some are borrowing a lot more, especially the USA and Japan.

The other is the huge increase in borrowing by big tech, mainly to build data centres for AI.

The bond market is demonstrating the basic laws of supply and demand: more bond issuers are competing to persuade lenders to choose them and not someone else, so the price/yield goes up. Not many lenders want to choose the UK, except at a high price. Many lenders prefer to lend to big tech to build data centres.


Like government borrowing, selling assets is just the other side of the same coin as the UK's huge balance of payments deficit. Borrowing is one way of funding that deficit, selling assets is another.

If the UK wants to avoid being constrained by the bond markets, and doesn't want to sell assets, then the solution is simple to state, but difficult to achieve. The Balance of Payments needs to come back into balance, by increasing exports and shrinking imports.

The worst economic fiction of the last 40 years has been that the Balance of Payments don't matter.

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Regarding the balance of payments, I agree completely !

It also means becoming more self-sufficient in basic things such as energy - which I believe the Government is moving towards.

yorksrob said:

It also means becoming more self-sufficient in basic things such as energy - which I believe the Government is moving towards.

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Agreed, however it is the population and industry that are moving towards self sufficiency in energy, albeit following policy decisions by this and previous Governments. (Which the right-ward placed opposition parties seem determined to undo).

NCT said:

Correct again. The problem is we have spent finite resources on subsidising current consumption, leaving not enough for investing for the future.

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Most currently underinvested parts of the public sector would cost the economy far more in the long-run if they were left as they are or cut back even more. Better public transport creates better urban environments and connects people more efficiently, better healthcare and education means more people contributing more to the economy, and so on. It doesn't make much sense to reduce quality of life as a financial sustainability measure because it's not as if we know when to stop saving and start spending, plus an unproductive economy and declining welfare system will implode on itself much faster than a thriving one (see the various 'Broken Britain' slogans thrown around by people on all sides of the political spectrum). We decide when we run out of money, and while reckless spending can speed that up, so can austerity - the issue is not with the spending, but the fact that a lot of that spending is not invested and instead thrown around in short-termist policy or vote-winning freebies.

Starmill said:

You are in denial about British politics if you think you personally can overrule the consensus about spending. That's precisely the political element which you are missing. Even if you thought you could, a small minority of people in the country are in London's economic orbit, so they'd easily be outvoted if it were made into a binary choice as you suggest, though this isn't likely because no serious party ever has suggested trying to separate the rest of the country from London as you advocate.

The hard constraint on spending isn't the bond market, it's the electorate, which is why it's so foolhardy to listen to the Treasury orthodoxy. It has recently claimed many political scalps, arguably including the most recent Chancellor and Prime Minister. It's very likely to claim the ones of the incumbents too.

Your arguments about Sheffield are mendacious and being made in bad faith, you know what you are saying about it is wrong. Good public transport infrastructure is a necessary condition for economic prosperity. It is not a sufficient one.

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Quite the master at projecting aren't you.

When was the last time the British electorate voted in and rewarded a state expansionist government? Those who want to use other people's money are outnumbered by the very other people whose money is wanted. London would probably vote for tax rises for itself, but the Home Counties and Middle England (which make up the majority of the country) would not.

The electorate defines the fiscal budget constraint and the bond market checks we spend within it. Treasury orthodoxy reflects the political priorities of the electorate, of which you are in complete denial.

Sheffield's east/west divide (and other similar divides across the country) is easily verified through things like Indices of multiple Deprivation or things like Electoral Calculus. It shows skills and urban densification in East Sheffield is a more worthwhile investment priority than say rail based transport for West Sheffield. Strong fundamentals can overcome a level of transport weakness, but strong transport is a fiscal drain without strong fundamentals.

NCT said:

Quite the master at projecting aren't you.

When was the last time the British electorate voted in and rewarded a state expansionist government? Those who want to use other people's money are outnumbered by the very other people whose money is wanted. London would probably vote for tax rises for itself, but the Home Counties and Middle England (which make up the majority of the country) would not.

The electorate defines the fiscal budget constraint and the bond market checks we spend within it. Treasury orthodoxy reflects the political priorities of the electorate, of which you are in complete denial.

Sheffield's east/west divide (and other similar divides across the country) is easily verified through things like Indices of multiple Deprivation or things like Electoral Calculus. It shows skills and urban densification in East Sheffield is a more worthwhile investment priority than say rail based transport for West Sheffield. Strong fundamentals can overcome a level of transport weakness, but strong transport is a fiscal drain without strong fundamentals.

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Quite the contrary, the public continously reject the attempts of politicians to rein in spending and demand more and more in real terms. That's likely to continue increasing. The traditional duopoly accepted this and were in a race to outspend one another at the last election.

Like I say though, none of this genuinely matters to me. Currently the industry delivers a huge amount of value to me essentially for very little in return. It's no less completely unsuitable for a publicly funded organisation though just because I do very well out of it, as do a lot of other members of the forum. I get, in my own case, all of the savings of not having to pay for a car on top!

Starmill said:

Quite the contrary, the public continously reject the attempts of politicians to rein in spending and demand more and more in real terms.

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They reject tax rises even more.