Season 1 · Episode 372
Stand, but don’t deliver
Is the cancellation of the HS2 bad news for Britain? The reason Rishi Sunak gave was the high cost and changes in behaviour. This week we discuss how both are fallacious arguments
Debunking Economics - the podcast · Steve Keen & Phil Dobbie
October 11, 202340m 50s
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Show Notes
Rishi Sunak is seemingly proud to have cancelled the only real nation building project Britain has had for decades. Instead, the money will be spent on sticking-plaster solutions to existing infrastructure, without any business case or overarching strategy. The reason? It all got too expensive. The other reason, Mr Sunak obviously thinks it’s a vote winner and he is well behind in the polls. This week Phil asks what’s happened to the £25 billion that has already been spent. The answer, of course, is that it has been pumped into the broader economy, aiding economic growth well before anyone enjoys the benefits of the completed project. There’s discussion about why public sector investment doesn’t need to undergo the rigorous cost-benefit analyses of private projects and why the UK is so bad at delivering large scale engineering projects. Will we see any visionary engineering feats again in our lifetime?
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