Off the rails

3 October 2008.

In David Cameron’s big speech this week he confirmed that the Tories would scrap proposals for a third runway at Heathrow in favour of a high-speed rail link between London and Manchester. This is quite possibly the most underwhelming announcement since, well two weeks ago when Joe Kinnear was appointed Newcastle United manager.

Perhaps idiotic ideas are a Tory theme at the moment, however: Boris Johnson’s view on the matter was to build a new airport somewhere in the Thames estuary or, in other words, stuff the environmental impact (a new runway would have to be built there) and stuff the cost factor (millions would have to be ploughed into a new airport terminal). The worst approach on both counts but anything except increasing Heathrow’s capacity is obviously acceptable in these circles.

David Cameron’s other big election promise this week was to not increase council tax for two years. Wow, that really makes me want to dance on the rooftops. In any case, he’ll probably up it at eighteen times the rate of inflation in the third year and take in more in tax revenues overall.

And his solution to the UK’s tax system that millions are calling unfair and is pushing more people to poverty as costs rise? Increase the inheritance tax threshold. Just what the working class families struggling to eat this winter need (well I suppose it could come in handy when whole families start dying of starvation as they could be the way things are going). As long as his cronies who spend their days asleep in the House of Lords do not have to surrender any of their vast inheritances upon death, all is well in the world of David Cameron.

For the UK to retain its economic power, it is absolutely essential Heathrow’s effectiveness as the world’s leading airport is made a priority. Heathrow is already at greater than full capacity. What this country does not need is another railway line linking the country’s infrastructure-rich cities in order to relieve Heathrow of at best one-sixth of the extra passengers it needs to service.

In addition, at £27 billion and not due for completion until 2027 – by which time the UK will have faded into the economic wilderness – the plan appears to be a bigger waste of time and money than Damien Hirst’s latest “art” collection, Betamax and the Sinclair C5 put together. I’d rather play hide and seek with a komodo dragon than see my taxes allocated in this way.

Forgive my ignorance but surely a runway only requires the laying of a strip of tarmac. At worst this should cost a few million pounds and take a couple of years to complete. Give me a cement mixer and steamroller and I’ll do it for them at half the cost. The other £26.9 billion allocated for the high speed railway line can be spent instead undoing the last preposterous railways decision – the destruction of lines and stations by Beeching in the 1960s.

Restoring desperately-needed rail links will provide a real service to the millions of citizens of this country who actually need it and not those anus-bashing, Eton-schooled, Oxbridge-educated, John Lewis list-abusing idiots charged with running this country who cannot be bothered to wait an extra 45 minutes to get to Manchester for another hot air-filled bondage session to discuss how they can con more money from the public to service their lavish lifestyles.

To those that claim that cuts to the railway network were needed because some lines were cost effective, go engage in coitus with a peacock. The NHS was set up to provide this country’s people with a service badly needed but it has never been cost-effective.

Indeed, the thousands of inefficient bus services retained in this country are not still in abundance because they are cost-effective but because there is an essential requirement for them. The same principle should be applied to trains – except trains should gain preference as they do not emit noxious gases and slow road users down.

Reopening these stations and lines does not even have to be expensive. Some of the lines are still around but simply not in use. Meanwhile, why not just invest in smaller stations where fewer passengers would pass through? There is no requirement for staff to work there or even for much of a building. Just insert one computerised ticket booth on the platform at each station and have perhaps one train passing through an hour.

There is no need for full stations in population-sparse areas like the Silverlink line currently exemplifies. For these occasional, unprofitable travellers they now have their necessary service but it is not costing an arm and a leg: Income low but now cost low - job done. In fact, some of the current stops on this nation’s rail links can barely be classified as stations as it is so little would change.

In any case, the sheer size of the money allocated by David Cameron to build yet another line between London and Manchester would mean there would probably still be some left over even after building the third runway, reopening useful railway links, paying the BBC to shunt the incessant US election coverage, funding the deportation of Kerry Katona and employing DC’s personal rectum-scratcher to shut up the minority of Greenpeace activists with payments for carbon offsets or investment in other green projects.

In the meantime the Government will drag its heels and distribute taxpayers’ money into its Heathrow “inquiry” quicker than drug dealers their poorly-bred canines. The inquiry will doubtless be more drawn out than a Stephen Hawking rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody so as to delay any finding until after the next general election. The conclusion, furthermore, will probably simply state that more analysis is needed and any action delayed until that is undertaken. All the while Amsterdam’s Schipol airport will probably be adding to its five runways.

For the miniscule proportion of the population opposed to a third runway at Heathrow, i.e. the local inhabitants, their defence seems to be predicated on the fact that its creation will increase noise pollution and disruption to the area. Do these halfwits not think any chance of peace and quiet slightly went out the window when the first runway was built?

An extra runway is hardly going to make a seismic difference to these people’s apparently pointless lives. Yes, there is a need to reduce the UK’s carbon footprint but one runway is hardly going to change the face of the planet. Most traffic there would only be existing flights transferred from the current overcrowded runways.

This is where the UK’s political system falls apart – the development of the majority is constrained by a minute number of inbreeding reprobates with about as much concept of altruism as a paedophile’s toenail. If a referendum on the matter had been called when a need for a third runway was recognised, it would already have been built. The minorities which seem to cause inertia in every facet of UK life would be defeated more emphatically than a Brazilian trying to board an underground train with a rucksack.

Swiss citizens are said to be among the happiest in the world. Surely it is no coincidence that it its citizens are also involved in more referendums each year than Russell Brand gets through bottles of Herbal Essences.

After all, what proportion of Brits support the bailing out of all of its banks? While the Government bends over for the banks more often than an armless dwarf experiencing their first taste of prison, I would wager thousands on a successful referendum which asks whether the UK supports the mass execution of bankers – or just ordering repayment of their earnings to the poorest UK citizens – who made millions out of the boom years in exchange for now plummeting the masses into financial difficulty.

Or one which allows the bail-out on the condition that the banks actually pass on the Government’s generosity to the taxpayers that are bailing them out in the form of cheap, minimal-deposit mortgages and abolition of bank charges and overdraft interest.

Let’s be honest if you or me went to the Government and said “Please Mr Brown, I’m going to go bankrupt unless you bail me out” how likely is it that he’ll drop his pants, get on his knees and stump up the cash to someone like us who has actually been sensible with their money?