Sometimes the reforming radicals are those
who also seek to conserve.

Via Survival of the unfittest: why the worst infrastructure gets built—and what we can do about it:

[...] Taken together, the UK and US studies both account well for existing data on cost underestimation and benefit overestimation. Both studies falsify the notion that in situations with high political and organizational pressure the underestimation of costs and overestimation of benefits is caused by non-intentional technical error or optimism bias. Both studies support the view that in such situations promoters and forecasters intentionally use the following formula in order to secure approval and funding for their projects:

underestimated costs + overestimated benefits = funding

Using this formula, and thus ‘showing the project at its best’ as one interviewee said above, results in an inverted Darwinism, i.e the survival of the unfittest. It is not the best projects that get implemented, but the projects that look best on paper. And the projects that look best on paper are the projects with the largest cost underestimates and benefit overestimates, other things being equal. But the larger the cost underestimate on paper, the greater the cost overrun in practice. And the larger the overestimate of benefits, the greater the benefit shortfall. Therefore the projects that have been made to look best on paper in this manner become the worst, or unfittest, projects in reality, in the sense that they are the very projects that will encounter most problems during construction and operations in terms of the largest cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and risks of non-viability. They have been designed like that, as disasters waiting to happen.

The paper goes on to say, “Professional and occasionally even criminal penalties should be enforced for managers and forecasters who consistently and foreseeably produce deceptive forecasts”. Wise words yet we shall have to hope the HS2 project and all the other infrastructure projects planned by the Government are unique in not suffering from the endemic flaws described in the paper.

I’ll leave interested parties to read the paper for themselves but I will add this: while the Government has cloaked itself in the legacy of the great British railway pioneers, they were entrepreneurs risking private capital in commercial projects. The same cannot be said of HS2.

That matters and it matters for all the reasons we have historically defended free societies from the encroach of planning.

From the Conservative Poster Archive, poster 1929-31, “Socialism would mean inspectors all round”.

Conservative Poster 1929-31

Too true, unfortunately: see Harry Snook’s Crossing the Threshold - 266 ways the State can enter your home from the Centre for Policy Studies (PDF) and my related question in debate.

Update: amended links for public read access.

This afternoon, I am presenting five books which illustrate that ideas are more powerful than armies at the Young Briton’s Foundation conference. Here are the slides:

Click for slides

Or browse here:

Yesterday, I attended and intervened in the debate on reform of our extradition arrangements. The motion was as follows:

That this House calls upon the Government to reform the UK’s extradition arrangements to strengthen the protection of British citizens by introducing as a matter of urgency a Bill to enact the safeguards recommended by the Joint Committee on Human Rights in its Fifteenth Report, HC 767, and by pursuing such amendments to the UK-US Extradition Treaty 2003 and the EU Council Framework Decision 2002 on the European Arrest Warrant as are necessary in order to give effect to such recommendations.

I made the point that “never again must anyone spend seven years in prison awaiting extradition”. The debate was quite technical and legalistic but that was for me the key point: it is unjust for anyone to spend so long in prison without conviction. People must stand trial for offences and they must stand trial in the appropriate jurisdiction but it is clear that the present arrangements fall short of what we should be able to expect from our justice system.

In the debate, David Davis said,

There is a balance between justice and security, but security without justice is a very fragile security. It is our job to defend our lives and way of life, and in this respect I do not think that we have done so.

He went on to point out the implications of treating people as innocent until proven guilty and I recommend his speech in full.

The Human Rights Joint Committee Fifteenth Report The Human Rights Implications of UK Extradition Policy is available here. I was glad that the House approved this motion without dividing.

Great stuff from Mike Weatherley MP: