The proposed third way for Heathrow has been thrown out by the courts. That is a good decision, but having unelected judges strike down laws made by elected politicians is bad. Bad political decisions should be overturned politically not by the courts, who will be a first line of defence of the ruling class should a Workers Government, or even a radical social-democratic government begin to make laws that challenge the power of capital.
The decision against the third runway is good, because far too much economic power and influence already resides in London. London is massively subsidised by the rest of the country in meeting its needs for labour, although the revenues created in London, and appropriated by the capitalist state, in turn subsidise the activities of the state, including the provision of welfare, in the rest of the country. But, vast amounts of that welfare are also expended wastefully in London itself. The government spends an astonishing £22 billion a year on Housing Benefit. The average per person is around £5,000, with 4.6 million recipients, but the majority of those recipients are in London, and the average payment per recipient in London, is much higher than in the rest of the country, because of the exorbitant costs of housing in London. The government has to make these payments, because otherwise, the cost of living for millions of workers in London would be just too high, and businesses in London would not be able to recruit the workers they require without paying far higher wages than they do now. That would be a big incentive for those firms to relocate their activities elsewhere, including elsewhere in Britain, though with Brexit they are increasingly likely to relocate to Dublin or other centres in Europe.
But, Housing Benefit, which pours these billions of pounds into the pockets of landlords that could otherwise have been spent on capital investment, is only one of the subsidies given to London employers. Commuters to London complain about the cost of rail fares, but the fact is that those fares are themselves massively subsidised by the taxpayer, i.e. by all of the other workers in the rest of the country who do not commute to London, or even use the trains. The reason again that the government has to subsidise these rail fares is, because, as living costs in London have soared uncontrollably, businesses could only recruit the labour they required, at wages they were prepared to pay, by drawing in workers from further and further away from London, where living costs are lower. The subsidies given to the private rail companies are today far greater than any support the state gave to British Rail. But, without the huge subsidies to rail fares, commuters to London would need much higher wages to cover their cost of working in London, and that would mean that employers in London would again be incentivised to relocate their business. The HS2 decision is just the latest huge subsidy being given to London employers, to enable them to draw in cheaper Labour from the rest of the country, which again will act to the detriment of the economy outside London.
If the government really were committed to rebalancing the economy in Britain it would scrap all of these subsidies that go to employers in London, so that economic development could be encouraged elsewhere. If all of that £22 billion handed to landlords as Housing Benefit were instead used to invest in infrastructure in the rest of the country, it could go to producing well paid employment for workers. In the process, providing well paid employment would be the best way of removing the need to spend billions on welfare payments. Its all well and good saying that London is the hub that draws in all of this revenue, which is then used to finance welfare elsewhere in the country, but if the subsidies to employment in London were not there, so that the true cost of labour in London had to be borne by capital, it would encourage employment to shift to other parts of Britain, so that the requirement for welfare was reduced to begin with. Workers in the rest of Britain don't want a life of welfare dependency subsidised by rich Londoners, we want proper, well-paying, permanent and secure jobs!
If you want to rebalance the UK economy, though good luck with that in the context of Brexit, and the governments intention to undermine workers rights, and to introduce further distortions via the introduction of freeports and so on, then the decision not to go ahead with a third runway at Heathrow is a necessary start. Instead we need a huge expansion of airports outside London, so that the rest of the country can have a direct and quick connection to the rest of the world, without it all being channelled through London.
Early this morning, I spent three hours taking my son to Manchester Airport, because he's flying off to the Canaries, giving appropriate disregard to the ridiculous moral panic going on over coronavirus. Normally, I'd take him to Crewe Station to go by train to Manchester, but in the middle of the night, there are no trains. But, its ridiculous to have to spend three hours to get to Manchester Airport and back. That's longer than the flight to the Canaries. Indeed, its ridiculous to have to drive from Stoke to Crewe and back to be able to get a train, so as then to get a flight.
But, many flights still are only practical from London, which at best means a two hour train journey prior to the flight. In the past, when we used to go to the Canaries every Christmas on last minute Ceefax deals, I've driven as far as Newcastle on Tyne, and even Glasgow to be able to get the available package. Every major conurbation like North Staffordshire should have its own regional airport, so that the economies of these areas can be directly linked to the world outside. That is a fundamental requirement for balanced regional economic development.
Environmentalists will undoubtedly complain, because restricting air travel has become a latest hobby horse, but the benefits for balanced and increased economic growth, and for reducing all of the waste of energy, time, as well as pollution caused by journeys to more distant airports, more than offset it. In any case, the answer to pollution caused by air travel is not to ban air travel, but to impose greater restrictions on aircraft makers, in order to encourage them to produce cleaner, and more efficient engines and aircraft, including a more rapid development of electrically power craft.
2 comments:
While the anti-aviation campaigns of environmentalists may in part be (like vegan activism) more about virtue signalling than anything else, they do have a point in that it is very doubtful that electrically-powered airliners will ever be practical. Batteries have a far lower energy density than hydrocarbon fuels, and weight is obviously far more critical in aviation than it is in surface transportation. And while nuclear energy is far better in energy terms, the huge weight of radiation shielding that nuclear reactors require would also likely make it impractical for aviation use.
On the subject of environmentalism more generally, how much was the Tory capture of constituencies like North West Durham, Bishop Auckland and Sedgefield (which were noted in a Resolution Foundation report to be some of the most car-dependent areas of England) down to a yellow vest style backlash against an overly-green Labour party? It is notable that one of the main concerns of a lot of the newly-elected Tory MPs in places like this is to keep petrol prices down, and I have noticed myself a proliferation of new-build housing estates in my local area located miles away from any amenities.
George,
On aviation, I disagree. I have written previously about the fact that there are already pilotless, electrically powered 2-seater taxis capable of flying at 90 mph, for medium distances, already in operation in New Zealand, with plans for similar in Europe and elsewhere, it seems clear to me that the potential for advance is considerable. Batter technology is advancing by around 30% a year. But, that is before considering the potential for the use of solar cells as inflight battery generation etc. We have already had a round the globe flight powered solely by solar cells, or example.
But, my point was that rather than banning flying, or imposing draconian limits, the emphasis should be on placing constraints on airlines and aircraft manufacturers, much as happened with the Factory Acts, or indeed with early car safety, and fuel efficiency, to put the onus on producers rather than consumes, that if they want to keep flying and making profits they have to innovate. So, there could be much greater savings in pollution by more efficient engines and so on. There is also the use of hyrdrogen fuel cell technology and so on.
On the role of environmentalism, in the seats you mention, I wouldn't like to make any claims to any insight. What I notice, however, is that people are getting increasingly pissed off with the onus of protecting the environment, and whatever the latest fad is, on them rather than on producers, or on the state. A good example is local authority recycling. The time and requirements placed on residents have become ridiculous, and much of it is for show. In Germany they have instead focussed on the state investing in recycling technology so that all waste can be sent to large recycling centres where the job of separating out different types of waste is done mechanically, and thereby far more efficiently.
There is also little in the way of such planning of alternative solutions. I was talking to the Sainsbury's delivery driver the other day about the scrapping of plastic bags, which is causing a huge waste of time in terms of deliveries, particularly of individual items such fruit and veg. There seems to have been no advanced planning of system that might replace the plastic bags. For example, I suggested that instead of having a dozen individually turnips rolling around, it might be useful to put them in string bags like onions, etc.
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