We pride ourselves that there are few instances of corruption in the UK. At any rate, “brown envelopes” are rare. However, we have a deeper and more pernicious malaise, namely vast salaries and careers built and dependent upon giving advice which panders to a pre-existing policy or belief or supports some power group, regardless of how wrong that advice may be. A reverse proof of that is the dire consequence which “whistle blowers” suffer. HS2 represents the top end of that pernicious and damaging state of affairs. Here are some examples.

HS2 lobbyists claim that the project will be transformational and lead to economic growth, a project which the nation simply cannot do without.

However, the effect will be to increase passenger-journeys by rail by a trivial 1.5% and passenger journeys by all modes by an even more trivial 0.05%, or one in 2,000. “Transformational”, Ha, Ha.

The Y-network is supposed to create 100,000 jobs although many, if not most, may be no more than relocations. The cost, including the trains and the (otherwise omitted) links to the new stations, will be £80 billion, equivalent to £800,000 per job. How many will that destroy in that part of the economy which makes a profit?

Job creation? You must be joking. Jobs for the boys more like it. Applying these HS2 principles to the nation as a whole would bankrupt us all in no time.

The KPMG report of September 2013 claims that this scheme will generate £15bn per year in Wider Economic Benefits (WEBS).

However, these WEBS can only be generated by the new or generated business and commuter trips (the supply side), since all the rest pre-exist. Dividing the £15bn by those new trips, yields a value which is between 14 times that of the average for the nation as a whole – a result which illustrates how ludicrous the £15bn is.

Presumably those highly paid KPMG employees did not carry out a reality check. Had they done so they could not have published the £15bn, or at least not with straight faces.

Stewart Joy, Chief Economist to British Railways in the late 1960’s wrote in his book ‘The train that ran away’, that  “ …there were those who were cynically prepared to accept the rewards of high office in the British Transport Commission and the Railways in return for the unpalatable task of tricking the Government on a mammoth scale. Those men”, Joy wrote, “were either fools or knaves”. There were no libel actions, but Joy had been forced out, too honest to work with railway men. We comment, now as then.

Our view is that HS2 Ltd’s executives and associated lobbyists should be indicted for mis-selling on a gigantic scale – shamelessly promoting a project which, together with the trains and the links to the stations, may cost £80bn and generate a financial loss, after accruing fares out to the remote year of 2096, of the same amount, equivalent to wasting the lives of 80 thousand working men.

For detail see our previous blog or click here to open Item 9 of Topic 17 on the Transport-Watch web site.

Paul Withrington