Transport Funding: The government created it's own problems and now they're getting in the way of the real debate

Photograph: 43207 Departs Leeds by Joshua Brown (License)

The government's homemade problems on transport rumbled on this weekend, with blowback from their cancellation of funding for infrastructure in the North. This can at best be described as falling at first hurdle.

Having a debate about funding at all ignores the guarantee of huge benefits that any investment produces and obscures the real, and much deeper, debate that comes after: how that funding is structured to best serve communities.

The current distraction began when the government cancelled the full electrification of the Manchester to Leeds rail links, which had been at the heart of plans for George Osborne's so-called 'Northern Powerhouse'.

In response Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, gathered the political and business leaders of the North to a summit. It's purpose was to call for long overdue investment in the transport infrastructure of the North.

Only together, argued Burnham, could Northern leaders achieve greater parity of funding and overturn a situation that has London receiving eight times more in investment than the North - recently expressed in the cancellation of Northern electrification plans prior to the approval of further investment in London.

Chris Grayling, the government transport secretary, responded to the anger at the government by following the Tories' longstanding approach: shifting responsibility. Grayling and transport ministers announced that it is on the North to develop plans for the government to fund - as if Burnham's summit was what it wanted all along.

The government also took time out to complain that it wasn't invited to the Northern summit. But the summit was clearly the first step in building the solidarity necessary to construct a collective negotiating platform. Burnham himself adopted a stern stance, saying patience has run out, that London cannot continue to be developed at the expense of the North.

George Osborne, the former Chancellor and now Evening Standard editor,  couldn't help but wade in. In what was seen as an attack on his successors for not following through on his own policies, Osborne called for Theresa May to relaunch her premiership on investment in the Northern railways that could help geographically rebalance the national economy.

There are plenty of reasons for the North to be disgruntled at the government for it's failure to deliver and not least is that infrastructure spending alone is a boost to a local economy.

In the long term it is an unflinching in it's positive affect on economic growth. But in the shorter term it also creates a lot of jobs and a lot of contracts from which local businesses can benefit.

The rail links themselves reduce the time and distance between key locations. That is a boost for business, widening their customer base and giving them access to the benefits of operating at scale. It's also a boost for workers, widening opportunities while reducing the time spent on a commute.

But there is a downside - and it is this that the questions, of whether to provide funds at all, delays and distracts from. The better connections, the widening of opportunity can also encourage centralisation.

As a business pursues cheaper ways to work and greater efficiency, they have a tendency to gather in key locations, close to important suppliers, partners and customers. That raises big questions about how this will all impact the local business environment.

It cannot be taken for granted that plans for transport links will be a good in themselves. We must ask how they will serve each area. The answers we come up with must empower people, and empower them where they are.

Getting to the roots of that is tackling a microcosm of the bigger problem with globalisation, which has left behind entire communities, concentrated growing wealth and opportunity, and excluded the welfare of ordinary people from it's expansion.

Averting those outcomes means services must be tied to and benefit local people. Whether that means local cooperative or municipal rail companies, or some sort of statutory reinvestment, or some other solution, communities must profit from their local services, not be drained by them.

It is in many ways the same as for the energy sector, where action is needed to counter the impact of operating at scale and centralisation that leaves communities disinherited from the product of their own regional resources - exploited instead for private gain.

But first, we must start that debate. That means first getting passed the Conservative austere reluctance to invest in the future. Public investment is beneficial. So let's get beyond that point, and get down to how to get services working for communities, not rendering them little more than glorified or abandoned suburbs.

Little Victories: Tackling energy costs would be a small win with big consequences

Photograph: Power Lines from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

We're living in times of big conflicts. Fascism has reared it's ugly head (in various guises), there are big changes under way in international politics and for the first time in three decades, a nuclear war is again talked about as something that might actually happen. It can all get overwhelming.

If you're feeling overwrought, remember that the big problems are rarely overcome with grandstanding solutions. More often, they're broken down into more manageable problems with little victories adding up to a much more profound and lasting change. As Bobby Kennedy put it:

"Each time a man [sic] stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression and resistance."

That is the task ahead of progressives in Britain: to send out the little ripples that build into a wave. But where to start? One opportunity on the horizon is opening on the cost of living.

Over the summer recess, pressure has been building within the Conservative Party over the May Government's decision to drop promises of tough measures to tackle the energy sector. That pressure is mounting towards a rupture.

On Sunday, 53 Conservative MPs signed a letter to Theresa May that demanded a reinstatement of the energy price pledge - that promised to protect ordinary households from the 'Big Six' energy companies - which was dropped from the Queen's Speech.

This backbench rebellion won't be completely selfless concern. At the last election, Tory MPs caught wind of public unhappiness at the unfair burdens that are being piled onto them. These MPs have to act to save their seats.

But there-in lies an opportunity. 53 rebel MPs is a huge problem for Theresa May, who holds only a slim majority. If the opposition is united, the government will have little choice but to take action or face a possible defeat in the Commons.

In the short term, that might lead to a small material improvement for the most vulnerable households. That in itself would be a welcome and tangible help to people just trying to get by. A small win for a good cause.

Little victories, however, build into much larger ones. Changing the government's direction would also have a much wider and lasting impact. Acting to regulate the energy market strikes a blow against deregulation - the market fundamentalist belief that outcomes are better when oversight and rules are limited.

Acting to regulate the energy market admits market failures. Admits that, left to their own devices, companies in deregulated markets can fall into unfairness and exploitation that produce worse outcomes for the many to the profit of the few.

For those feeling overwhelmed in tumultuous times, this is a grounded cause. A small win for people trying to keep their living costs down, would strike blow against exploitative capitalism. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time.

World on Fire: This week just shows how important empowered local government and international cooperation really are

Ada Colau, the Mayor of Barcelona, and Barcelona En Comu are the most recognisable face of the municipal movement. Photograph: #‎PrimaveraDemocratica‬ amb Pablo Iglesias i Ada Colau by Barcelona En Comú (License) (Cropped)

The last week brought another of those sad and scary moments we're becoming dangerously accustomed to. What 2016 taught us was that we can always find something bad happening somewhere if we have broad enough news coverage.

But in the past week the most powerful man in the world escalated tensions, with a much smaller country, to the brink of a nuclear war. He then failed to identify and condemn fascist terrorism occurring right under his nose, virtually in his own back yard.

These things cannot become a new normal.

We are living in a fragmented and further fragmenting world. The far right are not ascendant, but they are flourishing, and the most powerful man is acting like a lone wolf - in all of the worst possible meanings of that phrase.

These are exactly the reasons why we so need municipalism and internationalism. We need real and empowered local democracy, coupled with a sense of international cooperation, in order to change our perspective - and fight off the dying embers of the nationalist conflagration that so many times has nearly burned our world.

It can be understood why people feel so attached to nations and flags and the pride they inspire, but nationalism has taken us all to some very dark places. And in the present, that means far right terrorism - near indistinguishable, whether Islamist fundamentalism or white supremacist and Christian nationalist - and raised the spectre of a limited exchange nuclear war.

For more than a century and a half, nationalism has been a poison in our veins. Domestically, our lives and the wealth we create is directed away from our wellbeing and progression, into the service of destruction - even while some are left completely without.

Abroad, people - ordinary citizens - are reduced unfairly, unjustly and inaccurately to being colluders in the deadly games of tyrants and terrorists. And it is these people, usually the frontline of victims for these criminals, over whose head the Sword of Damocles dangles. They deserve compassion, but get the point of a spear.

The big challenges of our time - environmental, energy, economic, population - are the problems of the whole world. No zealous corner, putting itself first, can address these issues alone. Cooperation is the best strategy.

But cooperation between who? For more than a century, people have been rendered synonymous with their nations - for better and mostly worse. That has to stop. People need to be empowered in their communities and have a voice through them.

The last few years, the past few weeks in particular, make it hard to believe, but the great trend of history is that things get better. That is the lesson of the work of the late Hans Rosling. And even our empathy too is widening.

There was a slogan in the sixties: "Think globally, act locally". It's never been more relevant. We need to see that our problems don't respect artificial borders. We need to pitch in and make change happen on our own doorstep, in cooperation with our neighbours and neighbouring communities.

We can take back control, but it isn't achieved by falling back into nationalism. It doesn't involve drawing crude borders between territories, drawing crude distinctions between peoples - looking always for difference rather than commonality.

We need to give people real power over their lives. We need to give people consent over their lives and how their communities are shaped. We need to build bridges within communities and between them. And, from the bottom up, reshape our perspective.