Rolled-up Trousers

Glasgow - making the Dear Green Place even greener

SNP candidate for Glasgow Central talking about wind farms on brownfield sites at Polmadie, green jobs at Strathclyde Uni, and High Speed Rail from London to Glasgow. Duration 2:48.

Environmentalists on High Speed Rail to Scotland

Commenting on the government white paper on a high-speed rail link, Juliet Swann, Friends of the Earth Scotland Head of Campaigns, said:

"Suggesting a high-speed rail link from London that ends in Birmingham is like swapping a horse for a donkey mid journey.

"An essential component in making climate friendly choices open to all is investing in a high-speed rail link between Aberdeen and London. It makes a mockery of the government's carbon reduction targets to propose that the line ends in Birmingham.

"A UK wide high-speed rail link is exactly the kind of project we should be investing in to combat the climate crisis and the economic crisis. This half-hearted effort shows a lack of ambition and is profoundly short-sighted."

Business on High Speed Rail to Scotland

Liz Cameron, chief executive of Scottish Chambers of Commerce, said: "Scotland must be a part of our national high speed rail network from the outset, and this announcement does not go far enough for Scottish businesses.

"Independent research has estimated the economic benefits of HSR to Scotland to be in excess of £7bn, and there are significant environmental and productivity benefits to be gained from the modal shift from air to rail that such an investment would bring to Scotland".

Treasury says 'It's trains or Trident'

From today's Times about High Speed Rail:

Treasury officials acknowledge that the project would compete for funds with Trident, prisons, an NHS database and other capital projects.

So Trident becomes even more of an election issue than it was already. The UK government is acknowledging the negative impact it has on other investment the country needs.

I am actually flabbergasted by today's announcement that the UKG is planning HSR to Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield, but not Glasgow. The biggest obstacle to HSR coming here was supposed to be cost - in the region of £30bn. What the government have announced today is that package of money - but what they've done is served more locations in England through it. Read more in the press release I've put out.

Tories in Northern Ireland show the power of smaller parties

Labour and the Tories are keen to talk down the amount of influence the SNP are likely to have after the general election.

David Cameron's manoeuvrings in Northern Ireland give the lie to this though. He has been wooing the Ulster Unionists assiduously and has entered into a pact with them. It's caused him a number of headaches but the hassle can't be for no reason.

Analysts say it is because the next Parliament is going to be tight. How many UUP MPs are there? One.

And she's not happy with the alliance. Lady Hermon is now standing as an independent meaning it's even possible there won't be any UUP MPs in the next parliament.

Make no mistake about it, any number of SNP MPs is going to have a major effect. The larger the number, the more beneficial that will be for Scotland.

High Speed Rail – who pays for the Scottish leg?

The UK government will shortly comment on its commissioned report into building a High Speed Rail line from London to Birmingham.

The £7bn plan will cut journey times from the current 1hour 20min to just under one hour. Meanwhile there are only vague commitments towards the substantial shortening of distance that would be achieved by the line coming to Scotland. It may happen, say the UK government, at some stage but they are not examining the detail on this in the same way as with Birmingham.

UK transport minister Lord Adonis has said if HSR is to come north of the border then the Scottish Government would need to pay for the tracks from Carlisle. This would be at least one quarter of the distance from London and would cost a likely unaffordable £7bn. Even that would depend on the munificence of the UK government building the similar 100 miles north of Manchester.

Jim Murphy, Scotland’s man in the cabinet apparently, has backed this up. Except this is not the devolution settlement we have. The Scotland Act states that the Scottish Government is responsible for:

“The promotion and construction of railways which start, end and remain in Scotland.”

Cross-border rail remained reserved to Westminster. If we are going to have this constitutional morass where one government can borrow for major infrastructure projects while denying the other that ability, and that one government is also to take all the revenue from the other government’s oil, can they not at least stick to their obligations as laid out?