I know one shouldn’t take Liberal Democrat policy seriously, but I went along to their first lobby briefing today just to see. Anyone who believes Gordon Brown is detached from reality should have taken a seat as Nick Clegg and Norman Baker faced lobby journalists. It was on their transport policy, to reverse Beeching cuts with a new generation of railways as seen in, em, no other country in the world. What cost? They haven’t worked that out yet. But the money would come, Baker explained, from train companies in return for even longer franchises. One problem though: train operating companies don’t have money of their own other than what the taxpayer gives them – apart from Gatwick Express and a couple of others all rail franchises run at a substantial loss. (Their profit comes from the fact that the subsidy exceeds that loss.) You can bet this would be true with bells on for any obscure route they reopen for ecological reasons. So the taxpayer would end up funding this, whether through the train operating companies or directly.
Baker complained that people refer to road “investment” but rail “subsidy”. That’s because roads repay their construction costs in economic wealth generated several times over, unlike rail: hence, the word “investment”.
Next Baker wants a new UK road tax. Would that apply to Scotland too, he was asked. Yes of course, he said, it is a UK tax. But isn’t that unconstitutional seeing as transport policy and control of A roads is devolved? It had to apply to Scotland, he said, otherwise it would be “unfair”. But when challenged if he would then change the law and reclaim such powers for Westminster he backed down, saying he’d reach an “accommodation” with the Scottish authorities. So it is a plan for England then, not the UK.
As for Clegg, his most significant intervention came as I was slipping out the door. He claimed that drives a second-hand, diesel-fuelled Ford Galaxy people carrier—setting a challenge for enterprising Sunday newspapers who will bet that a millionaire couple like the Cleggs have something a little more flash tucked away for the off weekend. What a pantomime.
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