I’m happy to introduce Andrew Collingwood as a guest contributor today. Andy is a native of the North East, works in the financial sector, and is the co-host of the Multipolarity podcast.
There's no hiding from it. Everyone can see that something has gone terribly wrong, and that Britain is threatening to sink as the world’s first submerging economy.
We already have many third-world indicators: a low productivity-low wage economy; high inequality; grotesque trade imbalances; feckless and incompetent public administration; insufficient and dilapidated infrastructure. And above all, we have regional disparities that increasingly resemble Lagos and the rest of Nigeria more than the capital and regions of a modern, western economy. The Long March has chronicled many of these problems, sometime in righteous fury, but now it's time to do something -- to imagine a NorthernFuturism that draws upon northern culture, heritage and history, yet transcending all of that to create a thrilling and unique vision for the future.
Demoralisation must be trumped by realistic expectations of a dramatically better future. It is not impossible: we can create a new, powerful industrial and commercial centre in the North – as an end in itself, but also finally, at long last, to liberate London from the unholy imperial assumptions it can now exercise only on its fellow-countrymen.
So let's take stock: the population of West Yorkshire (centred on Leeds, but including Bradford, Huddersfield, Wakefield and Halifax) is some 2.3 million). Greater Manchester alone (including Manchester, Oldham, Salford, Wigan, Rochdale, Stockport, Bolton and Bury, but excluding nearby large towns like Burnley, Blackburn and Preston) is almost 2.9 million. Pull in Sheffield, Barnsley and Merseyside and its surroundings, and we have a population larger than Greater London.
The benefits of drawing together these urban areas to create a single, effectively seamless economic unit (the Roses Megalopolis?) are obvious: costs would fall, productivity would rise, specialisation would bloom, commercial cross-pollination would soar, labour mobility would increase, capital would be magnetised. The returns to agglomeration are acknowledged everywhere. It’s why China is working to create the Greater Bay Area mega city out of Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macau around the Pearl River Delta. Tokyo has long since subsumed great cities like Yokohama into a mega city around the Tokyo Bay. Seoul has agglomerated Incheon, Goyang, Ansan and others into the Capital Area metropolis.
For us it must start with developing a world class transport system which can knot together this megalopolis. Here's the dire state we're in now: the distance between Leeds city centre and Manchester city centre is only 36 miles as the crow flies. Yet the average train journey time is one hour and 17 minutes. The very fastest train is 47 minutes and the ‘express’ train norm is 50-60 minutes, if they run on time. This is barely an improvement on the era when men walked in front of trains waving red flags. The alternative, a drive down the M62, can take anywhere from an hour to eternity.
And when the slow-train stumbles across the finish line into Leeds, it is greeted by . . . a transport wasteland, with no tram or metro system. Leeds has a population of about 800,000 even before accounting for its hinterland: is there a city in Europe of a similar scale without a tram system, without a metro system? Most have both.
The pre-modern cross-Pennines trains, and Leeds's lack of mass transit, are not only a national disgrace. They are also an economic burden everyone in Britain is carrying whether they know it or not: the burden of lost opportunities, senseless poverty, depopulation of the brightest, and demoralisation of those who remain. That’s costly, as policy failures often are.
It also means, however, that there is plenty of low hanging fruit, and the first juicy peach is the creation of a beautiful and efficient mass transit system that would allow anybody who lives anywhere in Leeds to get to Manchester city centre, within an hour. If we want a single economic area, there must be a single jobs market and a single commerce market, and fast and efficient transport is the key.
Now let's look at the technology already available to achieve this. Japan is presently constructing the Chou Shinkansen - a quantum leap for its bullet train system - to link Tokyo to Osaka by maglev train, which will travel the 180 miles in 67 minutes and reach a top speed of 314mph. But Britain should not look at this as high-speed rail, but rather as a mass transit solution. Today, the world’s only working maglev system carries passengers the 18 miles from Shanghai Airport to Shanghai in a little over seven minutes. With that tech (from Siemens), the 36 miles between Manchester and Leeds could be covered in some 15 minutes. Given each train, as configured in Japan, can carry 1,000 passengers, it would be possible to carry 48,000 people between the cities in the three hours from 6:30 to 9:30 every morning if trains left every eight minutes in rush hour.
Japan is desperate to export its maglev technology. So much so that in 2015, Shinzo Abe, the then Prime Minister of Japan, promised that if the US chose SCMaglev as the solution to upgrade the Washington - New York Acela rail corridor, Japan itself would pay for the first section, from Washington to Baltimore. Interestingly, this is almost exactly the distance between Manchester and Leeds. Meanwhile, Washington to New York is almost exactly the distance of a Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds - Darlington - Newcastle route.
Could Britain commit to the latter, connecting Liverpool with Newcastle (as well as lines to, say, Hull and Sheffield) and get the Abe deal for the first section, from Manchester to Leeds? Why not? Britain was historically a Japanese ally before the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, and the Nissan factory in Sunderland is a great and longstanding Northanglo-Japanese success story. Britain is currently moving toward a partnership with Japan on Sixth Generation Fighter development (Japan’s Mitsubishi F-X and the British Tempest), especially on engines (Rolls Royce). Britain also seems intent on sending the Royal Navy east of Suez again, as part of an incomprehensible foreign policy decision to inject ourselves into the unimaginably large and dangerous conflict emerging between the US and China in the Western Pacific. If we are going to do such a damn fool thing, we should at least consider ways to get something out of it beyond a pat on the head from Washington.
Maglev requires flat, straight lines, so crossing the Pennines might seem problematic. But is it really? Japan's interior is truly mountainous, but they have solved the problem with the revolutionary new technology of tunnels. The central Pennines, magnificent though they are, surely pose a lesser challenge than the Japanese Alps.
To complement the Maglev link, Leeds needs a proper mass transit system. This should be based on the Zurich Model of frequent, clean, reliable, warm and comfortable trams, and their equally impressive S-Bahn light railway. In his book, Status Anxiety, Alain de Botton wrote that:
"There are communities... whose public realms exude respect in their principles and architecture, and whose citizens are therefore under less compulsion to retreat to a private domain. Indeed, we may find that some of our ambitions for personal glory fade when the public spaces and facilities to which we enjoy access are themselves glorious to behold: in such context, ordinary citizenship may come to seem an adequate goal. In Switzerland’s largest city, for instance, the need to own a car in order to avoid sharing a bus or train with strangers loses some of the urgency it has in Los Angeles or London, thanks to Zurich’s superlative tram network, which is clean, safe, warm and edifying in its punctuality and technical prowess. There is little reason to travel in an automotive cocoon when, for a fare of only a few francs, an efficient, stately tramway will provide transportation from point A to point B at a level of comfort an emperor might have envied."
Imagine that! Imagine a Leeds that had a tram and S-Bahn system so good that even senior business executives would prefer to leave the 7-Series at home. Before you scoff at such dreams, take a good heady draught of NorthernFuturism. The time of acceptance of decline and hopelessness is over: the new era starts with dreams and ends in achievement.
Starting from scratch a tram system should cover Leeds densely with lines and stops in all directions as far out as Horsforth, Farsley, Black Moor, Morely, Middleton and Garforth. Satellite towns should be serviced by purpose built light rail in the S-Bahn style, making use of existing infrastructure where possible, but where time and efficiency might be compromised, building and tunneling anew. The target must be to get from terminus to city centre in 40 minutes.
Manchester must get the same treatment, with the Metrolink tram system significantly expanded, and new dedicated light rail S-Bahn systems connecting towns like Preston, Blackburn and Burnley to the centre. Again, anybody should be able to get into the city centre in 40 minutes, and thence on the maglev to Leeds in 15 or 20.
This would also have the benefit of unblocking the congestion on existing lines, freeing space to get freight back on the tracks again, and vastly improving the logistics capacity of Hull and Liverpool. With fewer cars on the road, in city centres, promenades could be broadened, cycle paths created, and the space currently taken by wide and choking roads returned to greenery or productive commerce – all without heaping misery onto the remaining drivers.
But the money? How much is this all going to cost? The first part of the project in Japan, the 164 miles from Tokyo to Nagoya, is set to cost $64 billion, half of the current (but rising) price tag for HS2, yet another inexplicably expensive London boondoggle. But Tokyo to Nagoya is a longer stretch than the aforementioned Liverpool (Manchester) - (Leeds) Newcastle route, and has to be earthquake-proofed and put 90% in tunnels (two things not required in Britain). Given Japan’s desire to export the technology, and the fact Britain would be a showcase as the first line outside of Japan, the Japanese management team would be highly motivated to complete the project on time and under budget.
Even so, the shadow of the Westminster Upas-tree (under which nothing can grow) falls upon us. The motto must be this: for 40 years Westminster has offered the North nothing, and it has nothing good to offer us now. Above all, such a project must be kept out of the hands of the Civil Service. Whitehall has proved beyond doubt that it cannot be trusted with a sprawling, hugely complex, multi-billion pound project like this. Business as usual would mean trundling around with the alacrity and precision of a doped waterbuffalo, spaffing tens of billions on feasibility studies, byzantine procurement procedures, stakeholder consultations and diversity targets -- and then tens of billions more on fees for McKinsey and PWC to explain why it had cost so much before building had even started.
Rather, we should remember how Goh Keng Swee overhauled the British-legacy disgrace of Singapore's housing shortage to kick-start a proper public housing system. He hired a businessman Lim Kim Sam, who took the job only on the promise that he could manage it with a free hand. "This is what happened next: ‘He then slashed the bureaucratic red tape to achieve rapid results. According to him, the 10-15 committee system which managed the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), the predecessor of the HDB, was too cumbersome. ‘He decisively changed the system, asserting: ‘I’m the Committee’. (See ‘Lee’s Lieutenants’ - by Lam Pen Er and Kevin Yl Tan) The result? Within the first two years, the HDB built 26,168 new homes - approximately the same number built by the SIT in its 32 years.
More achieved in two years than in the previous 32 years of British rule-by-committee government.'
The project should be run by a small group modelled on the vaccine development and procurement team set up during the pandemic. Whatever one thinks of the British response to Covid, or the vaccine policy itself, that team was a singular bright spot, outperforming both the US and EU. This team must integrate with the Japanese maglev team, and with planners, engineers, British manufacturers and local politicians. It must also be given broad licence to act quickly: for such projects, speed, to misquote Lenin, is a quality all of its own.
'I'm the committee' management means there can be no vexatious legal challenges (where needed, legislation can be changed), no NIMBYs or local campaign groups, and no corporate lobbying. Political control must be hands off, with Andy Burnham preferrable as political lead to anyone ensconced in Number 10 or – heaven forbid! – Number 11 Downing Street. Meanwhile, chop-licking consultants must be shooed away: every detail of planning must be completed in house at the beginning and fit into the greater whole of the project. The discipline to say ‘no’ firmly and often will be crucial to prevent bits being bolted on or hacked off at the whim of politicians, interest groups and bean counters. Most of all, there must be total firewalling from Whitehall.
Why this suspension of 'checks and balances?' Because we're dealing with an economic, social and political emergency that has been 40 years in the making - 40 years in the making!
Long-term profits will come from associated real estate, with residential, business and consumer exploitation of station land. This is the model used by the Hong Kong government for their MTR light rail/metro system, and it makes so much money that not only are public subsidies unneeded, but it is one of the main contributors to the government’s budget. Now the Roses Megalopolis will never be quite like Hong Kong, but real estate planning should feature right from the start: shopping malls, hotels and business centres on city centre interchanges; micro convenience stores at small suburban stops; everything in between. Ultimately, such commercial revenues, in addition to ticket sales, and the huge economic benefits available, would pay for our first NorthernFuturist project many times over.
Nevertheless, large up-front sums must be raised to fund the project. These would ultimately come from taxation, spending cuts or debt. Can this be done? Should it be done? It can and should -- in fact it must. Britain finds billions to house Channel migrants. Britain found hundreds of billions to deal with Covid. Britain conjures tens of billions to support Ukraine.
Economic decline linked with catastrophic regional equalities is no less of an emergency.
Besides which, what is the point of a medium sized economy having a financial sector the size of Jupiter if it cannot be used to raise capital for such a project? Issue long-term Great Northern Bonds like 1940s War Bonds, offering a healthy interest rate, and place the liability in a 50 year sinking fund (knowing that the economic boost would easily cover the principle repayment costs over that period).
So this is a founding vision for NorthernFuturism: a vision of smart modern trams ferrying a once-again industrious population along handsome and tidy northern streets; of dedicated light-rail S-Bahn trains powering smoothly from hinterlands to city centre stations that recall the finest Victorian and Edwardian architecture; of a hyper-modern maglev system carried by superconducting magnets and red brick viaducts through the bucolic loveliness of the Pennines at over 300-miles an hour.
Fingers crossed...
The Northern Rail bonds can be issued straight to UK pension funds and insurance companies which are always begging for inflation linked assets (ticket prices on rail fares are linked to inflation so this should be easy enough). This would keep the dividends in the country to an extent. The equity can come from central government to absorb cost overruns and bad patches like the last 2 years.
Love sentiment, love the direction of travel (boom boom!) but what hope when the civil service can't even stop unwanted migrants washing up on our shores?
I cross my fingers anyway!