Binary numbers

One of the most depressing aspects of contemporary debate on major issues is the way lobbying cynically reduces complex issues to simplistic, binary choices.

On energy production it’s:

Concentrating on wind and solar is the only route to carbon reduction.

or

If we don’t it’ll be back to coal, oil and gas for our power.

On mainline rail capacity it’s:

We must build the whole HS2 scheme exactly as it was in its entirety.

or

We won’t be able to secure any carbon advantages of shifting passengers and goods to rail.

On home building, it’s:

We must allow more sprawl building of market homes, including in green belts + tower clusters in cities.

or

Young people won’t ever be able to buy or rent homes.

None of these can actually be reduced to these stark alternatives, but you wouldn’t know it from current discourse, including the increasingly nasty debates on Twitter/X and other social media. Yet the current government planning consultation pretty much buys into the first and third of these and the Green Party’s vote to support the entire HS2 scheme buys into the second.

And here’s the thing – they all follow well-resourced lobbying campaigns over a period of years designed to reduce the options available to busy politicians to these simplistic binary choices.

Even questioning whether these should be binary choices will be followed by:

“So you’re opposed to renewable energy?”

“So you don’t think we should increase rail capacity?”

“So you’re happy to deny young people a home and increase homelessness?”

Followed by

“Well, what would you do?”

As if discussion of complex alternatives were possible in 280 characters.

But this is one of the dangerous opportunities that social media has opened up for unscrupulous commercial interests. So, without getting into any of these debates in detail here, can I say that none of them are genuine alternatives.

Wind and solar, including onshore, are a central part of the renewables mix but we shouldn’t be trashing farmland, nature or great landscapes to achieve them when alternatives exist. And other renewables, notably tidal barrages which offer cheaper, faster and more reliable alternatives to nuclear, have been shamefully neglected, in part because of lobbying.

We urgently need more rail capacity but the HS2 scheme was over-specified, ill-connected and expensive. But boy, did it do some lobbying. We urgently need faster ways of increasing mainline rail capacity and providing rail-based transit in all our cities, which would generate the carbon benefits before HS2, yet to listen to some supporters, you’d think it was some precious heritage railway.

As for the Tufton Street think-tank backed lobbyists pushing to trash the planning system and allow house builders to pursue their most precious dream – opening up green belts around prosperous southern cities to build their most expensive luxury homes – this isn’t the place to open up that discussion in detail. But please make sure you respond to the Government consultation by 24 September.

And please examine these issues in detail. Modern life is hectic, but it’s worth shining a light on the hidden persuaders who want to flog you simple, binary choices – and their own interests too.

Jon Reeds