Latest news with #Euston
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Why is it that Britain cannot get anything done?
When elected to power, Labour promised to be the party of the builders, not the blockers, and committed itself to unleashing a housebuilding and infrastructure boom. Nearly a year into government, and the legislation that is supposed to make this happen, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, is slowly wending its way through Parliament, having not yet been submitted to the House of Lords for scrutiny. The intention is to cut planning restrictions, but whether it also delivers in reducing the spiralling costs and interminable delays of development in the UK is anyone's guess. There are good reasons for scepticism. Meanwhile, the endless sorrow of HS2, the most expensive piece of infrastructure ever built in Britain, continues apace. According to a recent report in Rail magazine, which has not been denied, the London to Birmingham route is now likely to be pushed back a further six years, and may not be complete until 2039. Estimated costs have also further escalated to a jaw dropping £100bn, this despite the fact that the northern leg has been scrapped and that initially at least, the line will terminate not as planned at Euston but at Old Oak on the outskirts of London. Just to add a touch of the surreal to this towering example of ill-spent taxpayer pounds, the spanking new Birmingham terminal at Curzon Street is likely to be completed years before the line itself, and will therefore stand empty, its seven platforms gathering tumble weed in the long wait for their first passengers. In any case, the travails of HS2 have become a symbol of Britain's seemingly stultifying inability to get anything done. Somewhat misleadingly so, as it happens. The largest part of the problem with HS2 is not the planning constraints, or even the ruinous project management, but that it should never have been attempted in the first place, an admission disarmingly made by Peter Mandelson, now Britain's ambassador to Washington, more than 12 years ago. The previous Labour government only went ahead with the project, he admitted, because it was afraid of being upstaged by the Tories in creating a high-speed, north-south link. The economic case for it was always 'flimsy', he further conceded. Back then, it should be pointed out, the line was expected to cost 'only' £35bn before rolling stock, and include stage two branch lines to Manchester, Leeds and Wigan. The whole thing should have been axed there and then, but the Coalition government was terrified of the stick it would get from northern lobbies and voters for cancelling a project seen as totemic in any levelling up agenda. What's more, so much time, effort and money had by then already been expended that it was considered too big a write off to be politically palatable. So on it went, but the main explanation for its mounting costs was already obvious. Planning restrictions, constantly changing specifications, outlandish environmental demands such as the notorious £100m 'bat tunnel', were admittedly a part of it. Yet the contrast with HS1, which came in roughly on time and on budget, could scarcely have been greater. HS1, which links the channel tunnel and London, actually had a purpose and an economic rationale. Furthermore, it had a responsible minister, John Prescott, who after taunts from the French to the effect that the British couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, was determined to grip the project and push it through. HS2 has never commanded a similar consensus or a convincing commercial justification, making it an ongoing object of bitterness, compromise and delay. Oppressive planning rules and environmental impact studies can no longer be used as an excuse; for HS2, these have all been put to bed, but still the costs keep rising. Shockingly, according to a report by the National Audit Office, simply cancelling the second phase of the project linking Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds is in itself likely to consume £100m. Why? Apparently it's to do with 'safely and efficiently' when closing down Phase 2 construction sites, insignificant though these are. Losses on land already compulsorily purchased but no longer needed further up the ante. And they wonder why the country is going bust. The Department for Transport, the authority responsible for overseeing and funding the project, might seem a particularly egregious example of Britain's inability to get anything done, but sadly these failings are not confined to the public sector. The other standout example is the privately funded Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in Somerset. It should have been up and running by now. Indeed, the one-time boss of the sponsoring company, EDF Energy, once ventured that by 2017 people would be cooking their Christmas lunches on power supplied by Hinkley. It scarcely needs restating that the latest target date for completion stretches out to 2031. In the meantime, costs have ballooned from an initial estimate of £18bn to £46bn in today's money. Once up and running, Hinkley will be one of the most expensive sources of electricity anywhere in the world. If it's any consolation, the UK is far from alone in the sclerosis that seemingly grips infrastructure development, gainful or otherwise. Like the UK, Germany used to be good at this kind of stuff, but became a laughing stock after Berlin's Brandenburg airport came in nine years behind schedule at a cost of more than three times the initial estimate. A McKinsey study of more than 500 global infrastructure projects found that only 5pc of them were completed within their original budget and schedule. The average project ran 37pc over budget and 53pc over schedule. Separate research by Oxford's Saïd Business School found that of more than 3000 infrastructure projects studied, only 0.2pc were completed on time and to budget. All the same, the situation appears to be notably worse in the UK than elsewhere. According to the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (Nista), the cost of construction in Britain has risen by nearly a third more than GDP per capita since 2007. That often asked question – why is it that we seem to be getting ever fewer bangs for our bucks in terms of public services and state-backed infrastructure – is partly answered by phenomena such as this. It's not just about population growth or the demands of an ageing society; it's also about incompetence, lack of clear objectives, and a cartel-like contracting industry that knows how to play the system to its own ends. At both national and local level, it's endemic and verging on the corrupt. As it embarks on the fantastically costly and disruptive decarbonisation of Britain's electricity network, the Government promises that it will be addressing these and many of the other issues that have been slowing things down and compounding their cost.
The Sun
4 days ago
- Business
- The Sun
UK's £2billion ‘super station' reveals huge step forward with new train platforms & plans for 250k passengers a day
A HUGE step forward for a £2 billion 'super station' has been announced. Work has begun at the site as part of the Government's plans to build a station which will serve 250,000 passengers a day. 5 5 5 Engineers have started installing the concrete slabs that passengers will use when boarding at the HS2 station Old Oak Common. Six platforms at the London station are being constructed to serve the high-speed trains which measure a staggering 400m long. As work continues, the delivery director for stations at HS2 said the station will benefit 'generations to come'. Huw Edwards said: 'The installation of the first passenger platforms represents a real step forward in taking HS2 from purely a construction project to the future of Britain's railways. 'Whilst there is still much more to work to do, standing where passengers will alight HS2 services is a reminder of what this railway will achieve – creating connections between people and places, that will benefit generations to come.' Old Oak Common will be the launching point for HS2 services, while development continues at Euston station. The Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced last year that her government would be funding a pair of 4.5 mile tunnels between the two stations to make travelling even easier for commuters. It is not yet known when the widely-criticised Euston station will reopen in its new form, after development was halted under Rishi Sunak's government. The then-Prime Minister had hoped to pay for the station's refurbishment using private funding. Old Oak Common will also have platforms for eight other train lines, including the Heathrow Express and the Elizabeth Line. Labour Govt will invest in job training under Rachel Reeves The Elizabeth Line will be the first train route to use the station when it opens. A massive public parkland will be opened outside, along with pop up events such as markets, to make commuting easy. Peter Gow, the HS2 project director for Old Oak Common, said: "We will open between 2029 to 2033 [and] will aim for the front end of that but there are lots of things still to do. 'It's going to make a massive difference to Londoners and nationally." 5 5
Daily Mail
24-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Chance meeting between two epidemiologists on the number 18 bus in London helped save an estimated one million lives during Covid and paved the way for the end of the pandemic
What Britain has to offer to the world was never clearer than in the leading role we took in the Covid crisis – and all because of a chance meeting on a number 18 bus from Marylebone to Euston in London. Martin Landray found himself next to another epidemiologist Sir Jeremy Farrar and they began to talk about a new respiratory disease, SARS-CoV-2, which had originated in China and now reached the UK. At that stage life was still normal, as demonstrated by the packed bus they were on. But the new coronavirus was crippling the health system in the north of Italy. The two scientists agreed it would spread through the UK in a fortnight and they had to start searching for treatments – fast. Clinical trials were necessary. Ordinarily, such trials would take around a year to get off the ground. But the two medics knew that in a global emergency things had to be different. Within nine days, they had recruited their first patient, after which the study was rolled out to 175 hospitals and an extraordinary 10 per cent of all patients hospitalised with Covid. By this point the pandemic was tearing through populations across the world, so pressure to deliver was huge. The worst affected patients were being put on ventilators, with a survival chance of 50 per cent. There were no treatments and no vaccines – no one even knew if a working vaccine was feasible. The trial investigators kept cool heads and picked their drugs carefully. Positive results were emerging from an unexpected source, an anti-inflammatory drug called dexamethasone. It had two big advantages: it was cheap and was already stocked in the cupboards of all pharmacies. Amazingly, it worked – the first time any drug had been shown to save lives in the crisis. Better still, it worked best on the sickest. The discovery of dexamethasone was a chink of light at a moment when the pandemic had taken nearly 40,000 lives in the UK. But despite the urgency, the two professors held back from saying anything publicly. For another week they probed and double-checked the data. Then the drug was announced to the public; it was in use the same day and saving lives by the weekend. It is estimated to have saved a million lives across the globe. The next stage was to develop a vaccine, spearheaded by Oxford-based Professor Sarah Gilbert. Soon large-scale vaccine trials were underway and a deal was made with Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. As the miserable pandemic year drew to a close, the vaccine was approved for use. UK regulators, usually criticised as being too slow and bureaucratic, showed themselves to be the nimblest in the world as Britain became the first country to approve a vaccine tested in clinical trials. Vaccines and treatments discovered in the UK likely saved more lives globally than those from any other country. The Press focused remorselessly on failings in other aspects of the country's response, but British scientific capabilities were central to the global effort. No other country made a bigger contribution to the Covid fight. Yet just a few years on, progress in preparing for the next pandemic has stalled. There are still many infectious disease classes for which we don't have vaccines, including the Marburg virus, Rift Valley fever and Lassa fever. Finding vaccines can be phenomenally difficult – after 40 years of trying, we have still failed to discover one for HIV. The threat of a new pandemic has not gone away. Particularly worrying are respiratory pathogens with high adaptability and transmissibility that spread without visible symptoms. Increasing urbanisation and globalisation mean when one emerges, it will spread fast. At the same time other threats are starting to loom larger. Bacterial infections are becoming very effective at resisting antibiotics we throw at them. We are starting to lose the race to develop the new second and third-line antibiotics needed for when this happens, with more than a million people dying every year because they cannot access an antibiotic that works. A recent study in the Lancet found that this could double to two million a year by 2050. In that same year, another eight million deaths could occur from associated causes while infected with a drug-resistant bacteria. By the middle of the century anti-microbial resistance could become as big a killer as cancer. Is there a role for cash-strapped Britain in preventing the devastating impact of another pandemic, blessed as we are with a superb science base? The answer is yes. Britain often boasts of having nurtured more Nobel Prize winners than anywhere except the US. Less well known is that nearly a third of prizes have been awarded to scientists born outside Britain but affiliated with a UK institution or resident in the UK, demonstrating just how successful we have been in attracting the brightest minds. That happens largely because the UK has many top-ranked universities playing a major role in many of the scientific discoveries shaping a medical revolution in the sequencing of cancer genomes. Many have had rare diseases diagnosed as a result and personalised therapies for cancer patients have become possible. Britain has played a major role for centuries when it comes to life-saving discoveries, from Edward Jenner and the smallpox vaccine to Alexander Fleming's penicillin discovery. Such a tradition of innovation has been good business. Off the back of it, the UK has become Europe's largest hub for life sciences with more than 300,000 of the world's most sought-after scientists working here. What needs to happen now to avoid another global health catastrophe is to make urgent progress on vaccines, treatments and diagnostics and a new class of antibiotics. The UK's science base has made it a global leader in genomics, vaccine development and bio-technology. The more the world invests, the more Britain benefits. Doing the right thing for the world can be profitable too.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Boris and Carrie Johnson announce birth of fourth child
Carrie and Boris Johnson have announced the birth of their fourth child, a girl. Poppy Eliza Josephine Johnson was born on 21 May, Mrs Johnson wrote in an Instagram post accompanied by a series of images of the baby. "I can't believe how pretty and tiny you are," she said. "Feel so incredibly lucky. We are all totally smitten." The new baby joins their sons, Wilfred and Frank, and daughter Romy. Poppy - or "Pop Tart", as she has been nicknamed - is the former prime minister's ninth child. Pictures of the new arrival included Poppy lying in a bassinet with their other children standing over her, as well as being held by Carrie, 37, and Boris Johnson, 60, in hospital. "Not sure I've slept a minute since you were born as can't stop looking at how completely lovely you are," Mrs Johnson wrote. She also thanked the maternity team at University College London Hospital in Euston, north London, "and particularly to Asma and Patrick who have looked after me so well through all my pregnancies". View this post on Instagram A post shared by Carrie Johnson (@carrielbjohnson) The Johnson's first two children - Wilfred and Romy - were born while the couple were in Downing Street during the Covid pandemic. Frank was born in July 2023, their first after Boris Johnson left office. Mrs Johnson, a former communications director for the Conservative Party, hinted that their fourth child would be their last, describing Poppy as a "final gang member". She said her other children were "utterly delighted" with the addition to the family, noting Romy was "desperate for a little sister". The former Tory leader has four grown-up children with his second wife, Marina Wheeler, and another daughter from an affair. He was prime minister from July 2019 until his resignation in September 2022. Boris and Carrie Johnson announce birth of son Boris and Carrie Johnson announce birth of a girl Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds name baby son
BBC News
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Boris and Carrie Johnson announce birth of fourth child
Carrie and Boris Johnson have announced the birth of their fourth child, a girl. Poppy Eliza Josephine Johnson was born on 21 May, Mrs Johnson wrote in an Instagram post accompanied by a series of images of the baby."I can't believe how pretty and tiny you are," she said. "Feel so incredibly lucky. We are all totally smitten."The new baby joins their sons, Wilfred and Frank, and daughter Romy. Poppy - or "Pop Tart", as she has been nicknamed - is the former prime minister's ninth child. Pictures of the new arrival included Poppy lying in a bassinet while being stroked by their other children, as well as being held by Carrie and Boris Johnson in hospital."Not sure I've slept a minute since you were born as can't stop looking at how completely lovely you are," Mrs Johnson also thanked the maternity team at University College London Hospital in Euston, north London, "and particularly to Asma and Patrick who have looked after me so well through all my pregnancies". The Johnson's first two children - Wilfred and Romy - were born while the couple were in Downing Street during the Covid pandemic. Frank was born in July 2023, their first after Boris Johnson left Johnson hinted that their fourth child will be their last, describing Poppy as a "final gang member". She said her other children were "utterly delighted" with the addition to the family, noting Romy was "desperate for a little sister".The former Tory leader has four grown-up children with his second wife, Marina Wheeler, and another daughter from an affair.
