Tags
This morning certain national and other newspapers are uncritically rehashing a DfT press release, claiming that money released from scapping phase 2 of HS2 is going to fund new bus services next year.
This is very frustrating because those newspapers and journalists are helping the government publicise the con. Not one of the journos has stopped to think, do any analysis, or ask any awkward questions. For example, discussing the theoretical size of the slice of a non-existent pie rather than pointing out the fact the pie itself doesn’t exist. Is it any wonder people in the UK are so woefully ill-informed when members of the 4th estate become an uncritical arm of government propaganda?
Here’s the DfT press release journalists have cut and paste to cobble their stories together from.
Note some important points;
This funding won’t be available to sometime (unspecified) in the next financial year – subject to all the usual caveats about bids, business cases, approvals etc. No-one knows what it will actually be spent on. No-one actually know where it’s really coming from. The press release makes some wild guesses on what it ‘could’ be spent on – like this;
“While it is up to local authorities in partnership with operators to decide how best to use the funding, the new funding for next year is enough to support up to 25 million miles of new bus services across the North and Midlands”
Note the word ‘support’. They mean subsidise. Sunak himself is quoted as claiming this;
“We’re backing buses with one of the biggest ever support packages and keeping bus fares down to ensure the country’s favourite means of transport is more affordable for millions of people”
*More* affordable? The Government has already announced it’s keeping the fare cap, so how does this make buses ‘more’ affordable? It doesn’t. It’s yet more weasel words and part of Sunak’s con. This is yet another example of Sunak’s ‘illustrative’ claims that will never be delivered before the next election when he’s out on his ear.
There’s also a huge financial elephant in the room here that not a single journo has picked up on. This is using Capex as Opex.
Let me explain. Capex (capital expenditure) is when you invest money in long term assets which are an investment for the future – such as building a new green railway with a design life of 120 years that actually generates a return. Opex (operational expenditure) is money spent on short-term, day to day expenses, like wages – or subsidising bus fares! You need to replenish that money every year because once it’s spent it’s gone. There’s a good explanation here.
Instead of having a new green railway, the modern spine of our crumbling network which is beset by Climate Change we’ll have what to show for the money? Nothing – apart from the abandoned, half built structures on HS2’s route to Crewe – a monument to Rishi Sunak and this governments short-term thinking and lies.
It’s no wonder some perceptive commentators are calling Sunak ‘Truss lite’. This is similar to her economic madness of borrowing money from the markets to fund tax cuts.
Yet again Rishi Sunak is trying to con you with ‘jam tomorrow’ – and large sections of the media are helping him to do it.
I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312