The Friends of the Far North Line
Cairdean Na Loine Tuath
the campaign group for rail north of
Inverness - lobbying for improved services for the local user, tourist and freight
operator
This article in The Herald came just too late for our last issue. Andy Maciver was Head of Communications for the Scottish Conservatives. There are many things here with which it's hard to disagree. But as Highlands railway campaigners we might take some convincing that economic growth in the Central Belt is for the benefit of the country as a whole?
Given the lack of money for infrastructure, which seems to be permanent and makes campaigning for rail sometimes feel near-pointless (no pun intended), it is obvious that something needs to change. Devolution can feel like an uncomfortable halfway house. Westminster has been relieved of the obligation to fund infrastructure in Scotland but has not put in place a method by which Scotland can do it itself.
The Herald - 10 January 2025
As a party with no friends in a proportionally representative Parliament, the Scottish Conservatives have never been particularly proximate to the levers of power during the 25 years of devolution. However, as the only party in the Parliament which could claim to be from the traditional centre-right, it has often generated good ideas, especially when it comes to growing Scotland's lame economy. This was particularly true in the era before 2011, when the constitutional debate encompassed everyone and everything.
I worked for the party in the early stages of devolution, and so it was with a wry smile that I read on the pages of The Herald on the first day of the year that in 2009 the Scottish Government had considered whether there should be an ultra-fast Maglev train running on stilts along the M8 between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Two years before that, in 2007, the very same idea had appeared in the Scottish Tory manifesto which I wrote, generated by the then deputy leader and economy lead for the party, Murdo Fraser.
The idea at the time was to in effect create a twin-city which would be in a better position to compete globally, attract investment and supercharge economic growth in the central belt, for the benefit of the country as a whole. It is not at all unlike the thesis promoted recently by Donald Anderson, former leader of Edinburgh Council, and his former Glasgow opposite number Steven Purcell.
Had it begun then, when the Scottish Government had discussed it, it would likely have been completed by now. Imagine the difference it might have made. Alas, though, the proposal never made it any further, having apparently been rejected immediately on the basis that there was no government budget from which the cost could have been met.
Sadly, this is a familiar tale in devolved Scotland. There is shared blame. It is a long time since the Scottish Government could credibly claim to have outlined a genuinely ambitious vision on transport infrastructure, certainly using the definition of ambition that similar countries like Ireland or the Scandinavians would use. Its latest strategic plan - STPR2 - was long on detail but short on high-level aspiration. Gone are the days of high-speed rail between Glasgow and Edinburgh, or indeed linking up the north, which is arguably even more significant given the gradual movement of Scotland's economy "up and out".
The focus on trunk roads remains the A9 - critically important, no doubt, but hardly the final piece of the puzzle.
However, I said "shared blame" earlier for a good reason. This new Scottish Government of John Swinney and Kate Forbes has put in place a sensible, foundational Budget, but there is no denying that their government does not control the levers it needs to deliver a truly ambitious, generationally transformational programme of infrastructure.
The primary issue is that major infrastructure build can no longer take place from within the public purse. The money the Scottish Government can find down the back of the sofa could not have paid for Maglev in 2009, and it also cannot pay for even one new road, tunnel, bridge or railway, let alone all of them. Instead, these must be paid for by private capital, and private capital must be borrowed. These peer countries borrow, build, and pay back through tolling. We can't, because borrowing powers (and for that matter powers over road and vehicle tax) are not remotely adequate.
It is frankly baffling that supporters of independence fail to deploy this argument more regularly. Travelling the 104 miles between the two great cities of Scotland's north - Aberdeen and Inverness - takes nearly three hours by car and not much less by train.
Only a few miles shorter as the crow flies, you can drive from Birmingham to Manchester in significantly less than two hours, or go by train in less than 90 minutes. The Aberdeen-inverness corridor is critical to our energy future, and it is unthinkable that it would be in the state it is in if it was closer to London.
This is a glaring opportunity for a struggling Scottish Labour as much as it is for the SNP. If Anas Sarwar and his team are not in a position to extract a pledge from Westminster to create the mechanism to revolutionise Scotland's infrastructure, then I'm not entirely sure who is.
This is, I am afraid, something of an indication of a lack of self-confidence in devolved Scotland. Devolution is 25 years old. We have spent the first half of it getting our feet under the desks, and the second half of it talking about whether or not we should be an independent country. Meanwhile, our competitors have their feet on the accelerator.
Most countries in the world could open a map and wish they were Scotland, geographically. Lots of land. Lots of water. Lots of wind. Potential; but not yet reality.
Infrastructure is political gold. Building it creates growth. Delivering it creates jobs. Using it creates voters. And with only a little over a year to go before the Holyrood elections, there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for the party, and for the leader, who offers the people of Scotland something bigger and better and brighter than they have been offered before.
There are plenty of other countries who seem pretty good at it. Why not us?
