Build a third runway? Heathrow should drop its shorthaul flights
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The chancellor declares that “by backing a third runway at Heathrow, we can make Britain the world’s best-connected place to do business” (“Reeves looks to the skies in search of economic growth with support for Heathrow”, Wednesday 29 January).
A much better way of making Britain better connected would be to improve rail connections with the continent.
When high-speed trains started running regularly between Brussels and Paris, flights between the two cities stopped. There is absolutely no reason why the same shouldn't happen between London and Brussels, or London and Paris.
The problem is that there are not enough of them, the fares are overpriced – because of the Eurostar monopoly – and passengers are crowded into waiting areas for an hour or more while passports and visas are checked.
It feels more like travelling from a crowded and badly managed airport than catching a train. Of course, Brexit has made the bureaucracy involved even worse.
Improving the rail links with Brussels and Paris would not take seven years, would not involve moving the M25, and would not involve knocking down houses.
Rather than expand, Heathrow should drop many of its shorthaul flights, which are not only environmentally damaging but completely unnecessary.
Dr Mark Corner
Brussels, Belgium
The cost of Brexit keeps growing
As she unveiled a series of proposals to boost the UK’s economy, Rachel Reeves repeated her commitment that “economic growth is the number one mission of this government” (”Rachel Reeves’s plan for Heathrow to ‘turbocharge’ economy struggles to take off”, Wednesday 29 January).
Putting aside the fact that these are long-term projects, with nothing for Scotland, businesses are currently being hindered by an increased tax burden. Action is needed now.
Yet, the elephant in the room greatly hindering this growth ambition is, unsurprisingly, little talked about: Brexit.
As we mark the fifth anniversary of the UK officially leaving the EU, the UK is trying to deliver economic growth with one hand tied behind its back.
The cost of our divorce settlement from the EU alone amounts to a staggering £30.2bn to date – and that excludes impacts on the economy. There was a drop of £27bn in goods exports to the EU in 2022 alone, due to the introduction of trade barriers since Brexit.
As revealed in the recent Budget forecast, Brexit will deliver an estimated 15 per cent long-term hit to UK trade. Analysis published this week by the Scottish government has estimated Brexit trade barriers could impact Scotland’s economy by £4bn, with exports lower by 7.2 per cent or £3bn compared to continued EU membership.
If the UK government truly wants to deliver economic growth, there is an urgent need to reverse the damaging impact of Brexit and end one of the biggest acts of economic suicide in British history.
Alex Orr
Edinburgh
Money isn’t everything
Has there ever been a government in this country more preoccupied with money at all costs than the current one (”Reeves’s growth drive rubbished by charity as report exposes scale of UK poverty”, Wednesday 29 January)?
In the interest of economic gain, it is ignoring the repressions of the Chinese regime. It has chosen to ignore concerns about the dangers of AI. In its recent Budget, it set about destroying family farms and other industries, again for the same reason.
It is lifting planning restrictions in order to expand airports, create rail links and roads, and build on the landscape between the beautiful towns of Oxford and Cambridge. It will mean that, ever more, our diminishing countryside will be covered in housing; not “necessary” housing, but housing for the sake of “economic growth” – the Labour Party's overriding and perhaps only concern.
And while they cover the land in concrete and tarmac, they disingenuously claim that they care for the environment!
What we really need now is a government that understands the need for moral growth – one that remembers that the route of all evil is the desire for money.
Rodney Munday
Much Hadham, Hertfordshire
Growth can be green
With her latest proposals, I think the chancellor is grasping at straws (“Rachel Reeves’s growth speech felt more like an emergency Budget”, Wednesday 29 January).
At best, any returns on her plans will be many years in the future, and in the process will alienate other Labour MPs, an electorate that was promised green policies and, most importantly, the residents of west London who are already living next to a massive airport.
Surely, the government can come up with some policies to improve growth without adding to pollution and climate change?
David Felton
Crewe, Cheshire
A liberal vision
I cannot but agree with the sentiments expressed in Emma Clarke’s article about US liberals (“Sorry, Selena Gomez – it’ll take more than liberal tears to defeat Trump”, Wednesday 29 January).
The article also exposes the principal issue facing liberals in the US, in Europe and elsewhere – the lack of a coherent vision.
Somehow, right-wingers have created a simple and coherent doctrine that many people have completely bought into: it is us versus them.
It has caught the imagination of a significant proportion of Americans and, dare I say, Europeans.
Meanwhile, liberals have failed to form a coherent picture of what a liberal society might look like. Nor is it clear how they might develop a coherent vision that the public can relate to – one that might be of benefit to them as well as others.
Antony Robson
Westbury, Wiltshire
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