I would never have guessed that The Spectator would become a "what the North needs is a return to industry not a modern economy with a strong services sector" magazine. But there it is. 
There's been quite a lot of that in recent days. The "real people" of the North need to get back in their mines and mills and leave the clever services stuff to London and the clever boffin stuff to Oxford and Cambridge. Wrapped up in the language of equality. From the right. 🤦♂️
"Humberside needs more industrial jobs, and connectivity by rail and road" > so the roads bit is done. Humber Bridge plus M62 plus M180. The rail is shocking. Yesterday cancelled* electrification to Hull and any hope of Grimsby, Cleethorpes, Scunthorpe et al. trains to Leeds.
The Northern Powerhouse Rail stuff that was cancelled was about freeing up room for rail freight from Immingham to the West. Currently it shares track with Leeds to Manchester express trains. The HS2 stuff was about freeing room on the East Coast from Immingham to the South.
Transport for the North actually spoke to the people who do the industry. People like @Juergen_Maier who has done more for industry in the North than most. They did the work. Drew up the plans. And we get this "get back in the mines and mills" stuff back after it's cancelled.
The North needs industry and connectivity and brains. Building wind turbines in Hull isn't metal bashing. Making the lipids for the mRNA Covid vaccines in Snaith isn't boiling some wool in a pot. You need Dutch-style connectivity to move goods and people and talent. That was NPR.
The Dutch built a new railway from Rotterdam to Germany to keep Rotterdam as Europe's leading port and to get freight off the passenger railways. They build a new high speed railway from Amsterdam South to get to Antwerp, Brussel, Lille, Paris and free up space within Holland.
They also built a new railway from Holland to the North East as part of adapting to their newest deindutrialisation (end of gas in the North East) and I have quite high confidence they will succeed, as they have in Limburg (capital Maastricht) and North Brabant (Eindhoven).
But maybe the Dutch would be even more more prosperous than us if they paid more attention to British right wing economic thinking. 🙃
Read more about what the people of the Dutch red wall do now. Live from Eindhoven, once their most industrialised city. Probably jobs better left to boffins in London, Cambridge, and Oxford by UK right-wing thinking. economist.com/business/2020/…
"Eindhoven doesn't need improved access to Europe by rail and to the world via Rotterdam and Amsterdam,... it just needs better local buses, free parking, and to bring back the glory days of its light bulb factory" > The Spectatoor in 1978, probably.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
