Share this page!

Tom Forth Profile picture
Twitter logo
19 Nov, 4 tweets, 2 min read
No surprise to me. UK central government has always been embarrassed by how much better Transport for the North were at many things than core DfT and the Treasury. So Whitehall and Westminster have been killing it off. manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-m…
If you fail in the North, it's your own fault. If you succeed in the North, changes will be made until you fail. It's a common pattern. Used all the time.
I wrote up how the UK government killed off Tech North because it was too successful here. I have many more examples. tomforth.co.uk/technation2/
It's just basic stuff. Basic competence. Knowing the difference between Bolton and Poulton. Between Bury and Burnley. Between West Yorkshire and West Midlands. Basic stuff that Transport for the North can do easily and the UK government just can't.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Tom Forth

Tom Forth Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @thomasforth

Tom Forth Profile picture
20 Nov
"How has the Government managed to spark a great trainline robbery row despite capital spending rising almost 50 per cent in the early 2020s and transport getting a big share of this rising pie?" ask @TorstenBell in his Top of the Charts. I'll explain. resolutionfoundation.org/comment/happy-…
@TorstenBell This is a "that's your GDP not ours" type story. Capital investment in transport in England (elsewhere is partly devolved) has been rising for two decades now and is at a record high. But it's not risen at all in Yorkshire or North East England. The increase is very London.
@TorstenBell The UK government has tried a few times to cook the books on this stuff. They tried (very quickly smacked down) to not assign Crossrail spending to a region because it was a "national project". They tried (for longer) with HS2 to assign the spending to regions it would benefit.
Read 12 tweets
Tom Forth Profile picture
20 Nov
There is a pretty large group of people in North England who think that we don't need a tram, nor rail of any form, to achieve economic success. We can do it all with cars and buses and still be prosperous and pay more of our own way within the UK.
I've listened to and read their arguments, I think they're nonsense, so I mostly ignore them. But the part I always wonder about is why they think that everywhere else in the whole world has come to a different conclusion to them.
ps. if there were no restrictions on building on the greenbelt and if Leeds was allowed to sprawl like Houston,... I think they might be quite close to being right. For all the other downsides I do believe that a car-based economy can be successful (GDP measure).
Read 4 tweets
Tom Forth Profile picture
19 Nov
They are also all massive double-decker trains that run on electricity. Eindhoven is a city about the size of Hull.
Oh and the Dutch national railways require no operating subsidy*. Zero. Zilch. None. Nada. Not a €. When you invest in infrastructure (almost all Dutch railways are electrified, stations are modern with level boarding and loads of bike parking) you save money over time.
At the risk of sending @GarethDennis into a pit of despair, a Dutch railway person once explained to me why they were doing level boarding at the stations. Just brutally honest in saying it would mean they didn't have to pay staff to help people get on and off trains.
Read 4 tweets
Tom Forth Profile picture
19 Nov
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.
Read 11 tweets
Tom Forth Profile picture
18 Nov
Let's say you wanted to compare spending over the past 12 years by region/nation of the UK on detailed things like "railway" and "local public transport". We built a tool @ODILeeds to let you do that. open-innovations.org/projects/jrf/u…
@ODILeeds All open source code for the analysis. All open data for the data. Lets you make graphs like this. Does all the "yes but per capita" and "yes but inflation" and "yes but what about current spending vs. capital spending" that people will demand that you do. open-innovations.org/projects/jrf/u…
@ODILeeds If you're happy with less detail, you can have twenty years of data. open-innovations.org/projects/jrf/u…
Read 6 tweets
Tom Forth Profile picture
18 Nov
This is a really important graph. Most people don't know about it. Some people who do know about it misrepresent it, some of them deliberately and there's been a fair bit of that in recent days. So I thought I'd stick my neck in,.. trying to offend everyone equally.
First of all, I'm just going to look at the regions of England. Wales, Northern Ireland, and (especially) Scotland already host lively debates about their fiscal position within the UK. I am not going to help with those, so I'll just look at England.
The UK is a nation of regional solidarity. Public spending varies little across the nation while tax receipts vary enormously across the nation. Big spenders (VAT), high wages (income tax and NIC), expensive houses (stamp duty), etc... mean London & SE England pays lots of tax.
Read 20 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @thomasforth has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @thomasforth!

Read all threads by @thomasforth

:(