The south of England received almost 50pc of public spending on the UK railway last year, official figures show, despite having slightly under a third of the total population.
The North, by contrast, was allocated just 18pc, yet is home to almost a quarter of the national population.
The South is where the population density is, density being what makes railways work….
They don’t need trains in the north. They have those carts pulled by whippets.
A more useful measure would be how much of the infrastructure they’ve got, or how many people use it.
Absolutely. Per capita figures based upon actual usage is the key metric.
Lots of trains running up here in Scotland, mostly empty since they’re too expensive to use so people get the bus (mostly for short distances) or drive.
Cheaper for the government to legislate for infrastructure and let the private sector decide what works best and where. But instead we have politicians making these decisions from a position of total ignorance.
@Joe Smith – Spending other people’s money is always easier than spending your own, especially if it’s stolen through taxation since government spending is so nebulous as to be opaque.
We’re reaching a crunch point soon though, simply because we’re reaching a point where additional increases in taxation will no longer render additional revenue, essentially all the Laffer curves for each type of taxation being at or beyond optimal.
Going to be fun watching Labour try though. I suspect the “markets” reaction to their debt funded spending spree will make Liz Truss look like an amateur.
Rachel Reeves is going to need the IMF on speed dial.
This isn’t wholly true. VAT at 25% would raise more and that would be about that peak. But the political cost of doing that would be, umm, interesting…..
What political cost when you have 4.8 years left of a supermajority?
A few by-election defeats that are already priced in?
You can also mitigate by saying “we hear you, this hits the poorest and hard working families” so create a new benefit to offset and a new tax to “make the rich pay their fair share”.
With additional bureaucrats to administer the new benefit and new tax its quintuples all round!
64% of rail use is London and the South East. Everyone else including the yokels in Cornwall, the sheep shaggers, the Brummies, the weirdos in Bristol, the cousin fuckers in Lincolnshire and the haggis eaters should be sharing 36%.
And if you break down the 36% it’s a few main lines and some commuter rail. Like Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow. But even with those, it’s a small bit of them. You don’t drive right into the middle of Bristol, but if you have to see a client in Salford or Clifton, driving is also OK. The morning train from Swindon, stopping at Chippenham and Bath was never more than half full at peak time. It would be cheaper and more environmentally friendly to put petrol-powered Mercedes E class taxis on than running many regional services.
Sure, but VAT is worse in some ways because it knocks back that consumption and hits business turnover. Would a 5% increase in VAT translate to an increase or decrease in overall revenue and if you impact growth then other taxes (adjusted for inflation) return less.
If VAT were included on stuff you have to buy (like foodstuffs) then maybe, but for the most part it doesn’t.
A look at Ely train station shows it’s situated on the East side of the town, and there’s almost no development on the East side of the station.
I don’t know if this was deliberate : to avoid the prevailing wind polluting a nice cathedral and all the residents in the age of steam, but the days of the smoky ‘wrong side of the tracks’ being a thing.
So build baby build till there’s no edge stations left.
The south of England received almost 50pc of public spending on the UK railway last year…
The North, by contrast, was allocated just 18pc,
So where is the other 32% allocated? Islamabad??
@Bongo: the area you refer to is susceptible to flooding.
@Cjnerd: so build Queenslanders i.e. houses on stilts. It’ll also protect them from the crocodiles that global boiling will bring to the fens.
Simon Neale: Exactly. You can’t throw a brick in that London without hitting some species of railway station. Here in the West End of Glasgow, my nearest station of any kind is half a mile away as the crow flies, and it’s over a mile to the nearest National Rail one. I haven’t been on the Subway in months, and a “real” train in… it must be getting on for 20 years, I think.
We keep being told the railways are privatised – this being why they are crap – so if they are private, his/why is public money involved?
Truth is: the railways are still State-owned, but passenger services are outsourced.
the area you refer to is susceptible to flooding
There’s a reason it’s called the Isle of Ely.
64% of rail use is London and the South East.
Duh, yeah, because that is where all the railways are.
This isn’t wholly true. VAT at 25% would raise more
How would it raise more Tim? You must be at or near the limit of consumer spending capability. Raise the VAT rate & people will just spend the same, VAT included. You can’t take money from where there isn’t any. Unless you’re suggesting people can run down savings to bridge the gap. I’m not even sure how that would work. If you stop thinking in terms of money & think in terms of value created in commerce, where’s the value coming from? At the moment savings are just a ledger entry in government money. Basically, an illusion.
As I’ve said before, there are only goods & services in an economy. There is nothing else. Taxation is taking G&S from some people & giving them to someone else