On 23 Jul, 12:28, wrote:
An hour or two ago the Crossrail Bill became the Crossrail Act, which
means as soon as the funding agreement is signed (due in September)

Given the governments record level of borrowing and deficit its
building I wouldn't get too excited just yet. Just because its
approved doesn't mean it'll happen.

The national debt since 1970 has averaged about 50% - currently it's
39% (including PFI but not public sector pensions, since the former's
new and the latter hasn't changed). So the government has a decent
amount of room for manouevre.

(see: http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn26.pdf )

I can't see the government delaying or axing Crossrail - even if the
economy turns to absolute disaster, rather than the more likely 0-1%
growth for a couple of years, the most sensible political decision
would still be to pledge the funding, begin work, and let the Tories
either continue it or leave it half-built, waste huge amounts of
money, and lose large amounts of London support.

[and the best bit for Labour is that if it is built to time, its
opening date in 2019ish would roughly coincide with their next chance
of getting back in: "see what we did? see how the Tories have invested
nothing in new transport routes over the last 10 years?"]

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org