London's dominance is "not healthy" for the economy

[VectraMan]

You need to get it to a point where its self supporting before you remove the subsidy, that is the difficult part. But once you have a diverse (not wholly interdependent like Detroit) set of businesses then it will survive changes. Of course if you see it as new business then you can happily continue to subsidise up to the value of the tax take and still be in profit.

But is the industry outside London not already self supporting? None of these places are economic wastelands that need big government regeneration cash. I don't buy that it's as simple as building a railway line: boost the economy, but at least it's a permanent thing and not a short term subsidy that'll be taken away as soon as the political wind changes.

[original PM]

how long does driving in take you?

If they made it much faster and £5 would you consider it?

well outside of rush hour can be done in 45 minutes

however the first 25 miles only takes 25-30 minutes at most regardless of the time of day it is just the last 5 miles which takes can take 30-60 minutes

So yes if they had a something which took just 15-20 mins and cost a fiver I would be interested.

Having said that with childcare ect I am rarely travelling in rush hour anyway so....

[TheFaQQer]

Well lets see now return ticket is £7.00 per day + at least £5 per day parking - £12 it only costs me £13.50 from my home town on the train.

It costs me £3.00 per day to park in Manc City Center.

It needs to be not much more than £3.00 including parking.

Oh and bus is not going to be much better as it has to use the roads and there are limited bus lanes in Manchester

Suppose my other option is to stop moaning and if it bothers me that much get a job closer to home!

So when you say "decent", you mean "cheap"?

[ZARDOZ]

Doncaster has had a fast train link to London for years, yet it's still one of the poorest towns in the UK. There is no link between building a HS rail line and prosperity, see east Kent for another example. What he does want however, is to open up the countryside to development and fracking, step 1 compulsary purchase green belt under premise of a new railway in 30 yrs time when everyone will be working from home anyway. Add to that his Father in Law has financial interests in High Speed rail and Fracking .

[BrilloPad]

Doncaster has had a fast train link to London for years, yet it's still one of the poorest towns in the UK.

And thats why it is one of the poorest towns in the UK. The idea of HS2 is to suck the life out of Birmingham.

[MicrosoftBob]

I do find it bonkers that now I'm commuting 300 miles each way to spend most of my time logging into computers remotely and then accessing other remote servers

If the government spent more time encouraging working from home, rather than promoting the insourcing of bobs to try and drive rates down across the UK they could maybe for once do something that would benefit the country rather lining their own pockets and thinking vague marketing speak is a substitute for having any real policies

[MicrosoftBob]

And thats why it is one of the poorest towns in the UK. The idea of HS2 is to suck the life out of Birmingham.

If you can suck the life out of a corpse, it's been dead since the 60s

[scooterscot]

I say we nuke the whole site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[BrilloPad]

If you can suck the life out of a corpse, it's been dead since the 60s

London can always do with more cheap wage slaves.

[Zero Liability]

My answer would be no, it isn't healthy, particularly since a lot of it is concentrated in financial markets, which have grown divorced from the real economy. On the other hand, does this imply that I would like some meddlesome twat like Milliband to try and take wealth from London and move it elsewhere? No. Stop favouriting particular areas? Yes. We have enough meddlesome idiots savants in this country as it is.