[gib444]

In the UK infrastructure projects are about creating jobs and making their friends rich first, and providing some kind of useful infrastructure last (and also optional)

There is so much thievery of public funds it's just corruption disguised as incompetence and the public believe it every time

[fer]

In Spain it is the same, the Metro de Madrid being an anomaly rather than the norm (for now).

Some flagrant cases:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Real_International_Airp...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castell%C3%B3n%E2%80%93Costa_A...

https://maps.app.goo.gl/8BRnx8eQFfihvHmv5

https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/05/17/inenglish/15580...

The 2008 crisis had a special flavor in Spain, cajas de ahorros (privately owned, but politically controlled banks) worked with politicians -surprise- to grant mortgages (i.e. lending someone else's money) to buyers of the housing constructions they themselves had their fingers in, at a time regular banks were already wary of the direction of the housing market. It wasn't uncommon people being told which bank to go to to obtain a mortgage that'd be usually refused.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_bank_(Spain)

[miguelxt]

To say they were "privately owned" doesn't sound right. Cajas de ahorros had no shareholders so profits were not distributed to any "private owner". Leaders and executives of the Cajas were appointed by a mix of local councils, unions, autonomous regions, and other non-private organizations. Juridically, they were "private organizations", but factually, they were just a form of state-owned company, as it was the municipalities and regions that made the important governing decisions.

[flr03]

At least Spain has something, UK has something to show for it the numbers are crazy.

[KaiserPro]

> the UK infrastructure projects are about creating jobs and making their friends rich first,

So out and out corruption is rare in the UK. For example Farage has just received 5 million in dodgy money, which is more money than all of the previous political money scandals since Mandelson.

But to your point, most of the time and money in uk infra is spent trying to navigate planning laws and nimbys

[zipy124]

That depends how you define political money scandals. Just looking in recent history you have COVID-19 and the associated scandals [1] which includes the govt trying to get £122 million + extras back from a company run by Baroness Mone in the house of lords. That's a political money scandal.

Or you could go for the Greensill scandal [2] with David Cameron who may have made as much as up to $60 million from it.

Nick clegg received $20 million + from working for meta after being in power.

There are so many more to choose from, Farage has just been the most obvious and worst at hiding it.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_regarding_COVID-...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensill_scandal

[hylaride]

> Nick clegg received $20 million + from working for meta after being in power.

That's not corruption. That's just proof he had no principles.

[zipy124]

It doesn't have to be, but it probably is at least a form of soft corruption. If he wasn't the ex-leader of one of the coalition parties do you think he'd have got the job?

He isn't paid well because of his skills or anything else, but because of who he knows and his access. Whilst you can make the argument this is just lobbying, I would make the argument that a well-functioning democracy with no corruption would not value his access at such a high price. See the revolving door [1] and how that links to corruption and how these could be seen as examples of it.

For this specific example, Nick Clegg set the precedent, that a current high-standing MP might decide to push for laxer regulation on big tech, knowing that it will get them the high paying job afterwards as was already established in other industries like Defence. I am not saying he pushed for laxer regulation, but a current MP can now see it as a valid exit-opportunity and would be incentivised to do so.

This is corruption just on a longer time-scale as they are using their political power and position for personal gain.

A specific quote from the wikipedia entry below shows that this exact issue happens: "The Channel Four Dispatches programme 'Cabs for Hire', broadcast in early 2010, which showed several sitting members of Parliament and former ministers offering their influence and contacts in an effort to get lobbying jobs, has generated renewed concern about this issue."

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)

[gib444]

And who ensures those planning laws remain as they are - expensive and annoying and enabling of NIMBYs? Politicians. These things were created with laws, they can be undone with them

We rarely have impediments such as a minority government who can't change laws

You don't need to dig too deep to connect the dots.

[KaiserPro]

I share your frustration, but having seen the last two governments, can you, hand on heart, actually see them _deliberately_ trying to keep planning laws the same to benefit certain companies? I mean you can see them try, but actually succeed and keep it a secret? [1]

They do not have the cognitive capacity to run a party, let alone a secret conspiracy.

The sad truth is this: Planning law is a huge tangled web of laws, and common law. It is painful to unpick because one of the biggest drivers of local anger from voters is a new development of x. ( be that housing, shops, turbines, industiral unit, path, sign anything) The same people that make local pressure groups are the same people that vote.

Any change to planning law is hard, and ripe for smear campaigns.

"We want lower power bills"

ok we need to build some infrastructure

"POWER LINES ARE BAD, DOWN WITH POWER LINES"(sad picture in the newspaper, the new power lines block my view [powerlines are 4 miles away from their house] they are an affront to us living here. When we moved here they wern't there [when they moved there it was cheap because they are 5 miles away from a massive power station])

"kids have nothing to do, lets have a new playground"

Ok, let me plan that out

"NEW PLAYGROUND DUBBED THE TEENAGE DRUG PALACE HAS A BILL OF 450K" (angry photo of a man outside an empty field. "I don't like the noise" said many wearing two massive hearing aids)

Worse in the facebook age, its now a hate campaign where people are accusing others of being peadophiles for holding any kind of opposing view on local planning.

[1] yes yes, Jenrick and section 106 money.

[tancop]

planning law changes today are either made to benefit loud nimbys or rich developers. i dont think pressure groups actually represent an average person from the neighborhood. imo the best way to fix it is by-right development for public interest projects (the government can build power lines or cheap housing anywhere it wants) and democratic resident vote for anything else. no fixed zoning maps or years long meetings. that way a loud minority cant block a project but if most locals really dont want it they still have a way to fight.

[KaiserPro]

> I dont think pressure groups actually represent an average person from the neighborhood

I think for most places, that is a safe assumption.

[graemep]

With Mandelson its not so much the amount of money directly received, it is the damage done by leaking information.

[amiga386]

That's somewhat unfair.

In rail, it's more like is that there's nothing for 20 years, then the government announces one project. Everyone piles onto that one project and gold-plates everything because they already know there's not going to be any more projects after this one for 20 years.

Then the project overruns by billions.

The government pays, then vows not to make that mistake again, so they don't have any more projects for 20 years.

Rinse and repeat.

A much more healthy cycle is like the Italian build-out of high speed rail, where they have multiple projects going, working their way from one city to another, and the line is usable after each part is done.

(in the case of HS2, a lot of the blame can be laid at the feed of NIMBYs, and the government pandering to them. Oh you lovely Tory-voting home counties voters! Yes, it's essential we preserve this ancient forest and that protected species, I know, so important, we'll make the entire line underground for your part of HS2, of course we have the extra billions to pay for that. Fuck you, you dirty northerners. I've just had to stump up a fuckton more than expected to pay off my voters, so I'm cutting your part of the line. You'll be lucky if HS2 goes north of Birmingham)

[gib444]

Sorry but it's errant nonsense that HS2 is the only rail project of the last 20 years

Crossrail, Transpennine Route Upgrade, East West Rail, MML upgrade, Borders railway, Thameslink upgrades

[amiga386]

If it wasn't clear, I was talking about high-speed rail. Of course the other lines are very welcome! You can throw in the electrification projects too, all good.

HS1 was meant to start in 1996, only began in earnest in 2001, and was completed by 2007. HS2 was launched in 2009, only began in earnest in 2019, and is still ongoing.

So all we currently have to show for the past 30 years and billions in investment is a little bit of high-speed rail between London and the Channel Tunnel.

By comparison, the Italian high-speed network expands every year or so, as they keep completing phases of routes all over the country.

[jodrellblank]

> "the public believe it every time"

This reads a lot like GB News announcing in Feb 2026 "The "biggest scandal in British history" [South Asian child grooming/rape gangs] has been blown wide open this week as an independent inquiry into the grooming gang epidemic heard harrowing testimonies. Rupert Lowe, Independent MP for Great Yarmouth, launched the proceedings on Monday"

Despite Andrew Norfolk being "2014 Journalist of the Year" for breaking the scandal in The Times and writing about it since 2010.

And despite a 2003 TV documentary reporting on an 18 month police and social services investigation, the Ivison Trust trying to bring it to national attention since 2010. the Independent writing about it in 2010. The former Home Secretary talking about it on Newsnight TV in 2011. A 2011 National Crime Agency (NCA)'s analysis. Convictions of Rochdale gang members in 2012. A 2013 NCA analysis. Rotherham council commissioning the independent Jay Report in 2013. A 2014 investigation into the Rotherham Council by the government. Andrew Norfolk winning two other awards for his reporting on it in 2014. The largest investigation into that kind of thing in UK history in 2017. A 2017 report from a thinktank. In 2017 a former Policing and Justice minister urging the Attorney General about it. A 2017 article in The Sun by the MP for Rotherham about it and the media attention that got. A 2020 report by the Home Office, a petition by The Independent with 130,000 signatures pressuring the Home Office to release their report. A 2021 investigation by The Times, A 2023 article by The Guardian, A 2023 announcement by Prime Minister Sunak starting a taskforce... but now The Right is trying to tell people that nobody has noticed it and the mainstream media isn't covering it.

But yeah, sure, the public "believe government grift every time" and weren't angry about the COVID PPE scandals, or HS2, or any of the rest of them, at all, only YOU noticed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooming_gangs_scandal

[gib444]

You've been dying to find a tangentially related comment to shoehorn that into haven't you? Hah

Good info though mate well done

The rape gangs are truly horrific and one of the worst things to happen to Britain in recent history