I have always that predicting the future is risky, but here goes.
I do not think BREXIT will happen, but the threat of it will linger for years, and this alone will make the government want to invest more diversely and cheaply in the future.
So, I expect HS2▸ to be downgraded, Heathrow will be expanded but with the much cheaper split runway option to give 1 long runway and two short runways, and Gatwick will get a new runway.
Seriously, none of the likely two conservative candidates has been an HS2 fan, and whilst both will probably want to be seen as rail friendly, I think HS2 as it stands now is toast. Neither candidate has been a backer of Heathrow expansion, but some form of expansion will be needed, preferably funded by Heathrow itself. The most interesting investment to ponder will be HS3. With devolution of Manchester, Merseyside, West and South Yorkshire this scheme become more important.
I'm not that good at predicting the past with any degree of accuracy!
I think, with sadness in my case, that Brexit is all but inevitable. The various surveys have shown the various dividing factors in the vote - north more likely to vote Leave than the south, young more likely to vote Remain than the over 55s by a large margin, but a lot less likely to bother to vote, AB groups more for remain than
CD▸ etc. There will be no second vote because, as Jeremy Clarkson, the columnist, said so succinctly in yesterday's Sunday Times:
...this would infuriate millions of idiotic north of England coffin-dodgers who are prepared to bankrupt the country simply because they don’t want to live next door to a “darkieâ€Â. Many will write angry letters full of capital letters and underlining to their local newspapers. And there will be lots of discontent in various bingo halls, but who cares? They’ll all be dead soon anyway.
before qualifying this somewhat courageous stance by adding:
It’s also true to say that a second vote would make us look ridiculous on the world stage. But better to look silly for a short time than to live for ever in a dimly lit, poverty-stricken, festering nest of warts, mud and minority-bashing incidents on the bus home every evening.
I think we have our chief Brexit negotiator's name already. Shut him in a room with Jean-Claude Juncker, a vat of wine, and no steak dinner, and let's see who comes out looking smug!
This is not, however, the constituency of voters that will elect the new leader of the Conservative Party, and therefore the Prime Minister. After the Parliamentary Conservative Party has whittled the field down to two candidates, the decision will be made by the same grass roots members of local Conservative and Unionist associations who voted 2 to 1 to leave Europe.
The threat of Brexit may loom over us for years, or if Andrea Leadsom (but not the rest - pun) gets her way, it may be replaced by the reality within 12 months. Either way, economic stimulus will be needed, and that will largely come from government borrowing, now that George Osborne has binned the fag packet with the original recovery plan on the back. Infrastructure spending will be crucial.
Theresa May is pro-HS2, but the price tag may frighten her. There is another plan for
HS1▸ ½ costing just over half of HS2, with less engineering, a top speed of around 180mph, and probably no buffet car. The work that has taken place so far will fit this plan easily, but surely it is a step back from the future? My own take on HS2 is that we need an extra rail line between south and north because the existing ones are full. If we are building it, why not make it high speed, rather than a very long copy of the Severn Beach line? HS2 will stay, but expect compromise solutions to save cash, such as much smaller termini. Andrea Leadsom is a former investment banker who can see the need to take a major project forward quickly, as well as the loot to be gathered by the City along the way. Michael Gove's opinion is probably utterly irrelevant by now.
The Northern Powerhouse, and therefore HS3, currently lives in hope because of George Osborne. It will survive him when he is thrown onto his sword, because the northerners, particularly Lancashire and Yorkshire, are a stubborn lot who know their own minds, are not afraid of saying so, and who have been proven right in the past. Look at the campaign of almost civil disobedience when Alistair Darling had the temerity to cancel the last-but-one upgrade of Manchester's tram system. He was shamed into changing his mind, and Metrolink has gone from strength to strength since, linking some of the more deprived towns in the area (my birth town included) to the fast growing Metrolopse.
To my mind, it makes sense to crack on with it, with or without HS2. The new Chancellor may find the coffers a little sparse, but he will borrow what is needed, other than a small almost token rise in taxes somewhere to remind us that we are a poorer nation for leaving the
EU» , whether that is true or not.
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