Rebirth of England

A five-year term as prime minister seems relatively long, but now Cameron feels that compared with what he wants to do, this term is simply not enough.

It is also because more than three years have passed since his five-year term as prime minister, and there will be another general election in less than two years. Therefore, from now on, Cameron needs to consider preparing for his re-election.

For this reason, he really hopes to promote the smooth progress of High-Speed ​​Rail Line 2 - of course, it would be best if some small and medium-sized enterprises in England can get orders from this "huge" project. .

This meeting with Barron was also after he heard that His Royal Highness the Duke proposed that if the EU monopoly could not give the other party a commitment to acquire it, he would rather give up the EU's relevant subsidies and cooperate with China to participate in the HS2 project. Most of the project matters were communicated specifically with Barron.

"As for the EU, we are conducting consultations and believe that there will eventually be an acceptable result. As for the EU's high-speed rail construction fund, Your Highness, if the EU does not subsidize the British high-speed rail plan, then the next EU budget will , we will reduce the funds handed over..."

Cameron said:

"Although I have promised to hand over the leadership to you for the high-speed rail line 2 project, in the contracting and procurement of this project, we still need to consider companies within the EU, especially British companies..."

"I will definitely consider this. Mr. Prime Minister, even if we cooperate with China, the specific subcontractors and procurement projects will not exclude British companies. But at least when facing the EU, I You need to show your attitude.”

With Cameron, Barron did not need to put on any pretense. He told the other party directly that if he took on this project, he would also bear great operating pressure. Naturally, he would need to consider the investment and final income. Only if he could achieve profitability, Only then will it be a healthy business project and have the conditions to be replicated later.

Similarly, because he invested in this project, the British government was able to save a lot of money in the construction of high-speed rail.

The operation of High-speed Rail Line 2 itself will be of great strategic significance to the local transportation in Britain and the exchanges between the north and the south.

So if it hopes to use this to attract related domestic enterprises, the government can use part of the saved funds as subsidies for these enterprises to strengthen the competitiveness of British enterprises in participating in the HS2 project.

For Barron, he understands that cooperation with China will definitely greatly reduce the total investment of high-speed rail line 2. If you make a comparison, you can find that the current estimated total investment of the HS2 project is close to 40 billion pounds. Its cost is How outrageous.

High-speed Rail Line 2 is divided into three sections, roughly a Y-shaped route...

Among them, Birmingham is the hub in the middle. One section is from London to Birmingham, and then extends from Birmingham in two directions, reaching Manchester and Leeds respectively.

According to the latest plan, the entire high-speed rail Line 2 has a total length of approximately 531 kilometers. Based on this calculation, even if the budget has not yet increased significantly, its cost per kilometer is as high as 75 million pounds (approximately 700 million Chinese dollars).

For comparison, China's Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, which opened to traffic in 2011, has a total length of 1,318 kilometers, which is nearly 2.5 times as long as HS2. Its cost per kilometer is only 130 million Chinese dollars, which is one-fifth of the current estimated cost per kilometer of HS2. One is less.

The most important thing is that the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway started construction in 2008 and was opened to traffic in 2011...

I can only say that there is no harm without comparison...

Even considering that the cities connected by HS2 are all important cities in the UK - London is the largest city in the UK; Birmingham and Manchester are both important transportation hubs in the UK and claim to be the second largest city in the UK. The Leeds region is also the only one. The second largest borough in England after Greater London...

After the completion and operation of this high-speed rail line, there will be acceptable profits.

Of course, if we only rely on train ticket income, I am afraid it would be good to be able to make a profit in 50 years...

But if we calculate the operating income of high-speed rail stations along the way and the operating income on high-speed rail cars, then the profit expectations will be greatly increased.

This is one of the reasons why Barron was willing to take on the project.

In addition, mastering the operation of such an important passenger transport line in Britain will also bring him other benefits.

…

"We have reached an agreement with Southern Scotland Electricity (SSE), and British Electricity will complete the acquisition of this company for 7.5 billion pounds..."

Although the acquisition of South Scotland Electricity Company was initially questioned by some politicians, this doubt was quickly quelled.

Three of the five councilors who initially opposed the acquisition of Southern Scotland Power Company by British Power Company, a subsidiary of United Power Group, quickly changed their attitudes and expressed support for the acquisition after friendly negotiations.

As for the remaining two congressmen, scandals were exposed by the media last month. Finally, under the pressure of public opinion, they had to resign as congressmen. One of them even had to face prosecution from the prosecutor. I am afraid it will be difficult. Escape from jail.

After completing the acquisition of South Scotland Electricity Company, British Power Company's share of the British local electricity market will reach 40%, becoming the largest power group in the UK.

This acquisition has also been welcomed by residents in northern Scotland - because after merging the Southern Scotland Power Company, the British Power Company announced that it will build a new LNG power station in the area to increase the supply of local power. At the same time, because The decline in international energy prices, coupled with the overall synergy advantage of British Power Company, will reduce the electricity price for residents in northern Scotland by 5%.

This is the first electricity price reduction in the region since 2007, which naturally makes local users welcome this merger.

After discussing the acquisition of British Electric Power Company, Dalula Riley glanced at Barron and said:

"Your Highness the Duke, the House of Lords will hold a meeting next week. Mr. Speaker has written a letter hoping that you can attend then..."

Well, if Dalula hadn't reminded him, Barron would have almost forgotten that he was still a member of the House of Lords.

The main reason is that Barron himself does not need to "check in" to attend meetings to receive subsidies like some members of the House of Lords...

Therefore, if there was nothing important, he would almost never attend a meeting of the House of Lords.

Speaking of which, he may have done so with the idea of ​​saving seats for the House of Lords conference room.

After all, despite the streamlining of the House of Lords staff during the Blair era, the number of members of the House of Lords has once again exceeded 760...