On May 6, 4:45*pm, Mizter T wrote:
Of course the probability that *none* of this will happen is increasing
by the day.

I think John B is on the record as saying he'll eat a hat factory if
there hasn't been an announcement by the end of the year. That said,
perhaps he's calculated that there won't be any hat factories left!

Hehe.

Electrification is an uncontroversially popular programme, except
among wilful contrarians ('Polsons'). The government is
uncontroversially screwed.

An announcement would very slightly reduce the extent by which the
government lost the next election, and it would also make the Tories
look like public-transport-hating, gas-guzzling *******s if they were
to cancel after winning.

Therefore, there is no reason for the government not to announce it,
and every reason for them to do so.

(it's possible that I'm underestimating the current government's
potential to do deliberately stupid things for no reason that makes
everyone hate it, c.f. Gurkhas. In which case I suppose I should look
into hat factory closing-down sales).

Of course an announcement in the next year doesn't mean that what gets
announced will actually happen - the government's going to change next
May, and the Tories are talking about making lots of "hard
choices" (see the other thread about the purported Tory threat to
Crossrail... though I do wonder if this is a pre-emptive strike by
Boris & co or some other interested pro-Crossrail protagonist(s)... )

If the recent Crossrail fuss isn't coming directly from Boris himself,
the campaign has conveniently forced him to nail his Crossrail colours
to the mast (as well as stitching up Blears, which is an excellent
pursuit in and of itself).

Given that the Tories will be nervous about winning next time round -
they were on track for an epic loss in 1983 after Thatcher failed to
halt the recession, right up until the mad Argentinian general invaded
- and that London is historic swing-land, which they need to hold to
keep the country, I'd be amazed to see Crossrail axed (the cost
doesn't matter one way or another: that kind of electoral calculus
always allows an extra few billion to be dug out of the woodwork).

GWML and MML electrification, although *actually* necessary and
although cancellation would be unpopular, aren't *electorally*
critical in the same way, so might indeed be canned when the Stupid
Party get in.

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