Houchen, we have a problem

But the problem is not Teesside Mayor, Lord (Ben) Houchen of High Leven; au contraire, he’s part of the solution. The problem is that it’s impossible to effectively deliver on a demonically complicated, conflicted, conflated, mega-sized mega-faceted project by tenaciously following the rule book and ticking all the boxes. A compromise has to be made between outcomes and process – if you want more favourable outcomes then you have to cut corners on process.

Sometimes, speed is of the essence e.g. to take advantage of short-term tax breaks. Other times, you need people you know and can trust to get the job done; no one else will do, so why waste time and (taxpayers’) money with a sham recruitment process?

It’s not cronyism; it’s common sense.

The decontamination and redevelopment of the old Teesside steelworks is one such project. Because corners were cut, by Mayor Ben, a Tory, a mate of Boris to boot, it was enough for the vultures to look for crimes where there were none. They were gutted when an independent investigation and report cleared Mayor Ben of corruption. The report did recommend numerous improvements to processes – the investigators were council officers after all – which the Mayor accepts unequivocally.

But that’s not good enough for the cross-eyed complainants though. They include: the bland, unfunny, left-leaning, sensation-seeking Private Eye; the mediocre, financially ignorant Financial Times; and a lily-livered Laborious MP who refused to repeat, outside the House of Commons, unfounded criminal accusations against Mayor Ben. Given that the Guardian published a not-unflattering article about the Mayor a couple of years ago, and its recent account of the independent report didn’t raise my hackles as much as this Marxist mouthpiece usually does, that’s pretty strong circumstantial evidence for Mayor Ben to be doing something right for the taxpayer and workers.

The problem (again) is that in order to do right by the taxpayer and workers, he has to create opportunities for astute businessmen to potentially make a killing. No rich businessmen mean no redevelopment of Teesside which means no jobs and no higher income for thousands of locals. But socialists seem to think that if you can’t help the poor without enriching the rich then you should call the whole thing off. Here’s some (made-up) numbers to illustrate my point:

1.     At the beginning of a project:
a.       the workers have a total of £100
b.       the taxpayer (Government coffers) has a total of £5,000
c.       the businessmen have a total of £1,000.

2.     According to Private Eye, the Financial Times, that Labour MP, and the BBC (which has presided over two car-crash interviews with the Mayor, who rode roughshod over the hapless presenter each time), it’s possible to:
a.       maximise support for the workers to increase their total to £200
b.       maximise value for money for the taxpayer (new total of £10,000)
c.       and the businessmen will be rewarded for their investment, walking away with £3,000.

3.     Further, monetary gains would accrue to all three parties at the same time with no one losing out even temporarily, all while Mayor Ben is ticking boxes, meeting with DEI officers, checking reports for grammatical errors, patting schoolkids on heads, and wiping his arse backwards while singing the Blaydon Races in a Cockney accent.

4.      Luckily, Mayor Ben lives on Planet Earth, not Cloud Cuckoo Land. He realised early on that were he to follow 3 above, he wouldn’t be able to secure the land until it was too late to take advantage of some tax breaks and other time-pressing advantages, meaning:
a.       the workers would stick on £100
b.       the taxpayer would end up with just £1,000
c.       and the businessmen would manage somehow to increase their wealth to £1,500, because that’s what businessmen do.

5.     So Mayor Ben devised a clever scheme whereby:
a.       the workers will end up with £400
b.       the taxpayer will walk away with £13,000 down the line
c.       and the businessmen will call it a day at £12,000.

6.     It’s that last figure – the huge profit for the businessmen – that sticks in some craws. It doesn’t matter that the less-well-off would quadruple rather than double their lot, or that the taxpayer makes a larger profit than they might have done (albeit the rewards are delayed a little bit). No. What contaminates socialist thinking is that private investors should not be allowed to make a lot of money, even if by doing so the less-well-off make more money as well.

The problem isn’t limited to money. Personalities, Tory personalities, have complicated thought

processes. The vultures were always going to go after Mayor Ben. It was only a matter of time. His

card was marked when he and Boris hooked up to deliver levelling up on Teesside, Boris’ flagship 

policy (apart from Brexit that is). Mayor Ben supported Boris, Mayor Ben started to deliver on Boris’s

flagship policy, so Boris rewarded him with a title. Of course, that drew accusations of cronyism from

the usual suspects. I see it as loyalty. Loyalty means you look after your mates and your mates look after

you. Doesn’t always work like that, mind. Sometimes, you look after your mates, only for your mates to

spit in your face in your hour of need. Cronyism not looking so bad now, is it.

 

I’m not without criticism of Mayor Ben. He renationalised the local airport for one thing. As you know,

I don’t like airports. They’re noisy, polluting, economy-distorting behemoths. On the other hand, by

renationalising the airport, Mayor Ben delivered on a key election pledge. Not often you can say that

about a politician.

And as the Guardian said, “What Houchen is doing is a textbook example of a ‘super-cluster’, turning

Teesside into a self-reinforcing virtuous circle of complementary industries in a public-private

partnership, supported by the local university and FE colleges … Teesside voters … like what they see.

It has imagination, verve and a vision … Houchen was born locally, took his law degree at Northumbria

University and cares passionately for where he lives and works.”

Hang on a sec. Did I just quote from the Guardian to support my case?

Houston! I have a problem!