Let us begin by praising the good. Rishi is right to cancel HS2 for the time being. The British State is not capable of delivering high speed rails on time and to budget without frittering away billions on legalised corruption; EDI initiatives, obscure consultancy and audit fees and planning challenges.
My view has always been that the 2017 Act should have been a much more radical piece of legislation (schedule 17 uses the diseased language of ‘collaboration’, it should not have, nobody has voted for local ‘concerns’ to have these vetoes). A revolutionary government will eventually complete this infrastructure project at a fraction of the cost; it is regrettable that the land will have to repurchased – but there is no use crying over spilt milk. That Cameron/Osborne want this disaster run in to the hundreds of billions to save face on the international stage just shows how navel-gazing these people are. Yeah, that Businessman in Shenzhen, he wakes up thinking about the inter-connectivity between England’s two largest cities. Should he invest in Global Britain? Is it Credible?
Sunak has also shifted gear on Net Zero, and has brought relief to millions of landlords, and by extension their renters, with the EPC reversal. The 2030 electric car target was always nonsensical, and would have been pushed back by whoever was in power at the time, but it’s very easy to see how Net Zero initiatives that hurt landlords and renters (without them realising) could pass through politically – since these groups are badly distributed electorally. As someone who lives in an area with a lot of nuisance renters I am also furious about plans to stop no fault evictions. I don’t think landlords should have to prove in a court of law that their tenant is being a disruptive nuisance. I have been kept awake by too many smoking mothers screaming at their infant children, stepped over too many soiled nappies tossed on the ground.