> the UK infrastructure projects are about creating jobs and making their friends rich first,
So out and out corruption is rare in the UK. For example Farage has just received 5 million in dodgy money, which is more money than all of the previous political money scandals since Mandelson.
But to your point, most of the time and money in uk infra is spent trying to navigate planning laws and nimbys
That depends how you define political money scandals. Just looking in recent history you have COVID-19 and the associated scandals [1] which includes the govt trying to get £122 million + extras back from a company run by Baroness Mone in the house of lords. That's a political money scandal.
Or you could go for the Greensill scandal [2] with David Cameron who may have made as much as up to $60 million from it.
Nick clegg received $20 million + from working for meta after being in power.
There are so many more to choose from, Farage has just been the most obvious and worst at hiding it.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_regarding_COVID-...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensill_scandal
> Nick clegg received $20 million + from working for meta after being in power.
That's not corruption. That's just proof he had no principles.
It doesn't have to be, but it probably is at least a form of soft corruption. If he wasn't the ex-leader of one of the coalition parties do you think he'd have got the job?
He isn't paid well because of his skills or anything else, but because of who he knows and his access. Whilst you can make the argument this is just lobbying, I would make the argument that a well-functioning democracy with no corruption would not value his access at such a high price. See the revolving door [1] and how that links to corruption and how these could be seen as examples of it.
For this specific example, Nick Clegg set the precedent, that a current high-standing MP might decide to push for laxer regulation on big tech, knowing that it will get them the high paying job afterwards as was already established in other industries like Defence. I am not saying he pushed for laxer regulation, but a current MP can now see it as a valid exit-opportunity and would be incentivised to do so.
This is corruption just on a longer time-scale as they are using their political power and position for personal gain.
A specific quote from the wikipedia entry below shows that this exact issue happens: "The Channel Four Dispatches programme 'Cabs for Hire', broadcast in early 2010, which showed several sitting members of Parliament and former ministers offering their influence and contacts in an effort to get lobbying jobs, has generated renewed concern about this issue."
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)
And who ensures those planning laws remain as they are - expensive and annoying and enabling of NIMBYs? Politicians. These things were created with laws, they can be undone with them
We rarely have impediments such as a minority government who can't change laws
You don't need to dig too deep to connect the dots.
I share your frustration, but having seen the last two governments, can you, hand on heart, actually see them _deliberately_ trying to keep planning laws the same to benefit certain companies? I mean you can see them try, but actually succeed and keep it a secret? [1]
They do not have the cognitive capacity to run a party, let alone a secret conspiracy.
The sad truth is this: Planning law is a huge tangled web of laws, and common law. It is painful to unpick because one of the biggest drivers of local anger from voters is a new development of x. ( be that housing, shops, turbines, industiral unit, path, sign anything) The same people that make local pressure groups are the same people that vote.
Any change to planning law is hard, and ripe for smear campaigns.
"We want lower power bills"
ok we need to build some infrastructure
"POWER LINES ARE BAD, DOWN WITH POWER LINES"(sad picture in the newspaper, the new power lines block my view [powerlines are 4 miles away from their house] they are an affront to us living here. When we moved here they wern't there [when they moved there it was cheap because they are 5 miles away from a massive power station])
"kids have nothing to do, lets have a new playground"
Ok, let me plan that out
"NEW PLAYGROUND DUBBED THE TEENAGE DRUG PALACE HAS A BILL OF 450K" (angry photo of a man outside an empty field. "I don't like the noise" said many wearing two massive hearing aids)
Worse in the facebook age, its now a hate campaign where people are accusing others of being peadophiles for holding any kind of opposing view on local planning.
[1] yes yes, Jenrick and section 106 money.
planning law changes today are either made to benefit loud nimbys or rich developers. i dont think pressure groups actually represent an average person from the neighborhood. imo the best way to fix it is by-right development for public interest projects (the government can build power lines or cheap housing anywhere it wants) and democratic resident vote for anything else. no fixed zoning maps or years long meetings. that way a loud minority cant block a project but if most locals really dont want it they still have a way to fight.
> I dont think pressure groups actually represent an average person from the neighborhood
I think for most places, that is a safe assumption.
With Mandelson its not so much the amount of money directly received, it is the damage done by leaking information.