Every time a project like HS2 becomes a costly fiasco, we wonder why. So let me tell you: it's clientelism

The relationship between those profiting from these big projects and those in power is such that no one truly costs or controls them In 2010, when a high-speed rail line from London to the north - HS2 - was proposed by the outgoing Labour government, I wrote an article arguing that the numbers didn't add up. The environmental benefits had been inflated by a series of blatant accounting tricks and concocted figures. What the government called the "business case" for the scheme was in fact a cost-benefit analysis, in which the supposed economic benefits had been amplified by outright assaults on common sense. The case for HS2 always was a baggage train of bullshit.After reading all available documents and finding no justifications for the assumptions the Department for Transport had made, I pressed it for an explanation. After a flurry of panicked phone calls, it eventually told me there was a model for justifying its analysis, but this was "frightfully complicated". It did not volunteer to send me a copy. The books, it seemed to me, were cooked - thoroughly and fatally. Continue reading...