On 23 Dec, 23:30, Mr Thant
wrote:

On 23 Dec, 19:03, Mizter T wrote:

a 16 billion pound question stands out in particular.

What 16 billion pound question? CROSSRAIL HAS FUNDING! Earlier this
month TfL and the DfT signed the long-awaited contract that obliges
them to provide all of the £16bn funding apart from the ~£3bn covered
by Network Rail, BAA and the City, which I believe also now have
binding deals in place. For some reason the press releases chose to
emphasise the latter over the former, presumably thinking we'd been
hoodwinked by the non-deal funding deal announced a year ago. I even
specially reopened my supposed-to-be-dead blog to cover this event, as
it seems to have passed everyone by.

(Even the £3.5bn business rates question mark is covered by TfL/The
GLA, as they're underwriting that portion)

Crossrail has funding in as committed a form as there ever will be
until they actually start digging. There isn't another announcement to
come.

U


That's great - and sh!t - yes, I had completely and totally missed
this absolutely critical bit of news - or at least what I had read and
heard at the beginning of December didn't remotely equate whatsoever
to what in my mind I had thought a firm commitment to a properly
funded go ahead would sound like. If the importance of this
announcement has already been made clear on utl or uk.r earlier this
month then I missed that too, as I wasn't really around here then. And
I don't have your late and distinctly lamented blog as an RSS feed or
anything fancy like that... but I have just read your sublime blog
entry on this topic - if I may I will put the link here and urge
readers to take a moment to read this little fable...

http://londonconnections.blogspot.co...this-time.html


Whilst I had heard about the City of London Corporation's funding
contribution, I didn't put too much stock in that - it was after all
just a £350 million contribution - nothing to be sniffed at but rather
short of the £16bn needed. Back at the beginning of November BAA had
made a great song and dance of their contribution of £230 million, and
this had made headlines - so I though the latest announcement was more
of that, with a possible further hullabaloo to come when the Canary
Wharf Group handed over their cheque.

In addition this 9 December article that I'd read on the website of
Building magazine didn't exactly convince me of the project's futu
http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3129537

But of course, as you detected, hidden in the 4 December announcement
was confirmation that Crossrail was indeed go...
http://nds.coi.gov.uk/environment/fu...2&NewsAreaID=2


Dare I suggest two bits of reasoning for 'their' decision to do it
like this. The first is, according to the official narrative,
Crossrail has been green for go ever since the Prime Ministerial
announcement back in October 2007 - of course behind the scenes things
have been rather shakier, but whilst this uncertainty may have
dribbled out a bit (or indeed been intentionally leaked out by some
protagonists), the official story never changed.

The second is that getting money out of the City has been something of
an uphill struggle, and it is not quite over yet - the announcement
says...
"The City of London Corporation has agreed to make a direct
contribution of £200m to the Crossrail project. In addition, the City
Corporation will seek contributions from businesses of £150m, and has
guaranteed £50m of these contributions."

So, that's £200 million in the Crossrail piggy bank for certain.
However the remaining £150 million is somewhat more precarious, as the
Corporation still needs to try and squeeze £150 million out of City
firms. It's not entirely clear to me what is meant when the
announcement says that the Corporation has "guaranteed £50 million of
these contributions" - though I presume it means the Corporation is
confident enough that it will get at least £50 million in
contributions from City businesses, so essentially it is giving a gold-
plated guarantee that Crossrail will get at least £250 in total from
the City. (It could alternatively mean that if the Corporation fails
to reach the £150 million level of contributions from City firms, it
will pay in £50 million itself on top of say a £75 million business
contribution - but I don't think it does mean that.)


Seems to me that the £350 million contribution from the City could
fall to £250 million if City business don't open their chequebooks. I
therefore contend that the manner of this somewhat bizarre and
obscurantist Crossrail announcement of the go ahead serves two
purposes...

(a) It sets up the City of London Corporation to begin their
"Crossrail Funding Appeal" amongst City businesses, a sort of Square
Mile version of a 'Save the Church Steeple', 'Spitfire Fund' or 'Save
the Town Clock' type appeal - call it 'Crossrail in Need' if one
wishes to be flippant - where failure would be regarded by City big-
wigs as a humiliation to be avoided at all costs - well, at a cost of
£150 million actually. Whether this might result in a big totaliser
sign hanging over Guildhall, Mansion House or London Bridge is
unclear.

(b) It allows the government to use this announcement to confirm, in
cipher, that the project is actually, really, genuinely going ahead.
Only those who are attentive observers will actually spot this and be
able to decode what is really going on. Thankfully former UN Secretary
Generals, being used to this game, often fall into this bracket.