HS2 jobs claims pulled apart

1. But there is an even more basic logic fault in the jobs “creation” argument. According to HS2 if you build office blocks with space for 14,000 people then you have created 14,000 jobs.

   Anybody who is unblinkered and has half a brain will see the fallacy in that argument. Firstly the 14,000 work stations may not all get filled. Secondly even if they do then the vast majority of those jobs will simply be relocated from somewhere else.

   In the case of Curzon Street that will mean relocations from elsewhere in Birmingham City Centre as well as relocations from the wider Birmingham & Midlands area. There may be relocations from London but unlikely to be more than a small percentage.

   This sort of “creative thinking” has come into the estimation of the economic benefits of HS1. High speed advocates added £ 10 billion for “regeneration benefits” being an estimate of the present value of the salaries of the people expected to move into places like Ebbsfleet. Completely ignoring the fact that those people will have moved from somewhere else.

   This is the difference between Gross and Net Investment or Gross and Net Job Creation. When talking about “Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics” this falls firmly into the Damn Lies category.

2. The fallacy of the TSSA position is that HS2 is being designed to MINIMISE rail jobs – ‘driverless’ trains and unstaffed ticket offices (you have to purchase tickets online or from machines). This is already being implemented on the Continent where you can’t turn up and buy a ticket to many of the high speed services.

   Also, HS2 is an elite train for the wealthy – much like Concord was an elite service to New York. So it is extraordinary that TSSA is in favour of a rich man’s service; which minimises jobs; and will absorb a massive amount of public borrowing that their union members will be paying off for years to come.

   HS2 is the opposite of progressive left politics and certainly the opposite of a ‘one-nation’ policy as it will favour a few large cities, downgrading services elsewhere to do so, and pinching jobs from excluded areas to support the big city stitch-up.

   If you are interested in policies that will do something for the working class, you need massive rail investment right across the country for the desperately needed commuter services which are where the top priority capacity crisis is.

   TSSA is locked into the Communist Party position that new technology just ‘has’ to be progressive. HS2 is a class strategy to benefit the richest travellers and to generate massive profits paid for by the working class. It is politically bonkers that TSSA support it.

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