2024-09-24
What to make of this magnum opus?
As a review of "Why Britain has Stagnated" it is timely, but as an article for wide circulation it (severely!) lacks an "Executive Summary" that might enable one to determine whether or not one wants to read such an enormous document (it probably ought to be a book - perhaps it may be in due course).
It is however on the plus side very thorough, and if, as one must, one allows the authors some leeway in their beliefs as to the presumed efficacy of left- and/or right-leaning politics, it makes for some very pertinent reading.
My simplistic take-away is that it is a worthy (and apparently independent) contribution to our national debate.
What it doesn't quite explicitly state is that progress in major infrastructure projects is highly dependent upon the motivations (actual, not necessarily formally stated) of those involved.
It also depends upon the size of the project team - smaller is always better, but major government-sponsored projects always find reasons to expand, which leads to predictable results (greater opportunity for cronyism, unanticipated delays and cost overruns, wider opportunities for mismanagement).
Commercial corporate entities have perforce to meet the requirements of their "bottom line" - yet perhaps we forget that the smaller the entity, the necessarily sharper that focus, and the larger, the more opportunity for extraneous factors to intrude.
Where governments of all hues are involved, the focus on performance and delivery is surely dissipated by political considerations, and the motivations of those who may pay the costs (tax-payers) and those who may reap the profits (land and property owners in the case of transport infrastructure developers) are likely to be misaligned or even conflicting.
Which leads me to my contribution to the debate:
- All large projects should include an up-front formal motivations analysis of the major participants and funding partners.
In circumstances where government policies (and consequently laws) are aligned with fairy-tales rather than robust reality, we quite likely get legal requirements (protection of highly localised habitat for example) causing vastly detrimental implications for major infrastructure projects. We are too ready to grandstand by making such laws and not at all good at managing the results.
Even so, the conurbations now linking up along the railways and roads across the South of England are threatening to cut the country off from large stretches of its coastline!
If our statistics are to be believed (not any longer a given) Britain is already one of the most populous countries in Europe (excluding city-states such as Monaco).
At what point do we draw the line and say that Britain is as complete as we would like it to be and that further population growth is to be very carefully managed (rather than deliberately increased by immigration in defiance of the population's wishes and the politicians' promises?). If we value our green and pleasant land then we will have to find ways of not building on it. If we want to expand our population we will have to build ever smaller (but nobody wants to live in a rabbit-hutch) or higher (lower would technically be an option but nobody wants to live underground even if the seasonal temperature would be more consistent).
When will we decide to talk about it sensibly?
