Political commentary
Adventures underground
Ferdinand Mount
The record for receiving the greatest number of publisher's advances for a single literary work used to be held by the late Humphrey Slater. He was said to have received at least three, perhaps four and possibly even five lump sums from different publishers for a book on the Channel Tunnel. Slater, a delightful veteran of the Spanish Civil War (in which he had changed his name to Hugh, in order to sound more proletarian), said that each fresh publisher treated him with renewed respect on the basis of his previous advances. Although no actual manuscript had resulted, it was felt that his expertise had somehow increased through the signing of contracts and the passing of time.
This, I fancy, had something to do with the project itself. The Channel Tunnel is, both in publisher's and politician's terms, a natural. There is the romance of tunnelling under the seas, a magic region of the mind where Jacques Cousteau meets theHobbits; but there is also the political charm, the revival of the Entente Cordiale and the Golden Arrow, perfectly encapsulated in the Proustian person of Leo D'Erlanger, for many years the presiding genius of the tunnellers. To ask whether the project was in any sense necessary or profitable was to spoil the sport.
This charm had itself gone underground during the revulsion of the late Seventies against jumbo 'make-work' projects. But now it has surfaced again, and in the most spectacular fashion. The first time I heard the Channel Tunnel mentioned recently among devices to end the recession I took it as a baroque flourish. But there is no mistaking the seriousness now.
Norman St John Stevas included it in his list of capital projects to reduce unemployment. Every Labour MP throws it in. Along with electrification of the railways and modernisation of the sewers, the Channel Tunnel forms a trinity, belief in which spreads across the Labour Party, through the Social, Democrats to include a considerable number of :Tory dissenters.
The real Budget rebellion is not the reflex revolt of country MPs against the 20p on petrol. It is a wider rebellion in favour of more public spending on capital projects. Not only half the Cabinet but dozens of backbenchers like Maurice Macmillan, Geoffrey Rippon, Charles Morrison, Ed ward Du Cann and Peter Tapsell openly quarrel with the whole purpose of the Budget. Throughout the four days of debate, the Thatcherites looked like a distinct minority in the Conservative Parliamentary Party, let alone in the House of Commons. To find such an extraordinary deep split, you would have to go back to the days of Chamberlain and Churchill.
The division is quite clear: between those who believe that there will be no recovery unless the Government inspires one and those who believe that a sustainable recovery can come only from the market. The argument is not just about money; it is about the role of government in industry. In fact, that seemed to be Mr Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler's prime reason for crossing the floor. There may be times in life when it is an advantage to be called Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler. This is not one of them. One would do better to have been christened something like Dirk Strong. He started well, with a fine sweeping attack on Mrs Thatcher and all her works.
But then when he started talking about proportional representation, a low hum set in, which rose to a mezzo-forte buzz when he revealed that his ultimate grouse against the government was its scant regard for the Brandt Commission, a theme never far from the lips of Norfolk constituents as they hoe the sugar beet and select the morningpicked peas.
Still, it isn't every day you see someone physically cross the floor. It does give you a thump as you see Brock — as I prefer to think of him — trot down the steps and walk the half-dozen paces across to the bench below the gangway where Mr Russell Kerr — a one-man beet mountain — sits surrounded by Social Democrats. Time was when he had the tough eggs of the Tribune group.
Now he is encircled by neat, dark-suited men shaking hands in an unpleasantly continental fashion. The giggles from both sides of the house as this ceremony proceeds sound uneasy. The sight of allegiance sloughed is always upsetting.
Yet as far as economic policy goes, Brock has simply moved to another part of the same consensus. It was one of his new Social Democrat colleagues, Mr Tom Bradley, who chaired the House of Commons Trans port Committee which recommended the revival of the Channel Tunnel. Now Mr Bradley, like three of his four former Labour colleagues, used to work on the railways and is sponsored by a railway union. And it is from British Rail that the most consistent enthusiasm has come for the building of the tunnel — only rivalled by the British Steel Corporation's eagerness to sell the huge quantities of otherwise unsaleable steel that would be needed.
You would, therefore, expect the case made by the Transport Committee (on the basis of BR's evidence) to be the best case Spectator 21 March 1981 only for a rail-only tunnel. And yet some disquieting caveats emerge. The government insisted last year that any Channel link should be one capable of attracting 'genuine risk capital'. But even a keen tnnneller like Sir David Nicolson, British Chairman of the European Channel Tunnel Group and a Euro-MP, suggests that 85 per cent of the capital would have to be fixed-interest debt guaranteed by the Government, with onlY a token 15 per cent equity. In other words, 85 per cent would be gilt-edged stock. Although the Bradley committee believes the enterprise would be profitable, it must be more an act of faith than a commercial judgment, in view of the reluctance of private investors to risk their, cash and of the 'concern about the railways ability to generate the necessary traffic at competitive tariffs.' Already the service to be provided looks less attractive than it did when the project was abandoned in 1975. Journeys between London and Paris were then expected to take 3 hours 40 minutes, falling to 2 hours 40 minutes with the introduction of high-sPeed trains on both sides of the Channel. Under BR's new proposal, the journey would take 41/2 hours.
For the first few years after the comPle" tion of the Tunnel, the cross-Channel traffic would still be too small to fill both the trains and the ferries. Would British Rail use its privileged financial position to undercut the ferries just as BSC is exploiting its privileged position to the detriment of the private steel companies? The underlying fallacy is the claim that the Tunnel represents an improvement to 'infra-structure'. When you already have cheap boats or cheap jumbo jets, to add an, extra, dubiously economic method or covering the same ground is not infrabunt super-structure. In the same way, the f8u million Humber Bridge — Barbara's 130°11,. doggie — is not an improvement to Hull s infra-structure (which was improved by the M62 and the M18), it is primarily a beautiful toy.
Let us always remember the immorta words bf the chairman of the Hunlberf Bridge Board: 'the bridge is needed, eV When we hear of countries in Africa or er° words bf the chairman of the Hunlberf Bridge Board: 'the bridge is needed, eV When we hear of countries in Africa or only a few people are going to use it.' the Arab world where there are errP,tY six-lane motorways leading from the cre• serted airport to the unoccupied multi,: storey conference centre, we tend to thint, that money has been wasted somevvhere;. We do not laugh off the huge inflation arta public borrowing that have resulted froit°. these conspicuous government expert°. tures. Whether you describe the public ntol already poured into British Leyland, Britis,1 Steel and Coal Boards as 'investment' 'subsidy' the one sure thing is that the suinir; involved are far from niggardly. I arn al h favour of nationalised industries like Britisa, Rail borrowing from private sources. Wile; matters is not where the money cum from, but the rate of return.
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