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by OliveMate 738 days ago
The title is too clickbait for my tastes and I found it a tad too dismissive – but a lot of what it touches on paints a clear image of why things here feel increasingly bleak, and that's without the multiple crises currently wracking the country. And the sad thing is that a simple change of government won't try to fix it until it's impossible to fix because of how rooted some of these issues are.

A key example being HS2. How much taxpayers' money was wasted over HS2, buying up land & property over the last few decades only for it to be scrapped and for money to be spent on potholes instead[0]. Can't wait for people to cry out for high speed rail infrastructure in the next few decades for us to restart it, then scrap it when it becomes 'unaffordable'

A factor that isn't mentioned regarding infrastructure is Technological/Infrastructure Lock-in. Britain was a pioneer in industrial infrastructure, but being a pioneer means that you make the mistakes others learn from and avoid – and replacing the obsolete with better technology takes time and money.

[0] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/revealed-the-roads-being-...