Do you mean the Marshall plan? The UK got more than twice as much money in loans and grants as West Germany.

I suspect/speculate that West Germany and Japan benefitted more from (enforced) minimal military spending.

No, it was a third more, not double.

Quote: "No, it was a third more, not double.'" Aye, that is what it says in this article - fair enough. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/mo ... l_01.shtml These use the approximately double estimate. https://www.marshallfoundation.org/libr ... countries/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan https://fullfact.org/europe/kawczynski-marshall-plan/

Quote: "No, it was a third more, not double.'" Aye, that is what it says in this article - fair enough. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/mo ... l_01.shtml These use the approximately double estimate. https://www.marshallfoundation.org/libr ... countries/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan https://fullfact.org/europe/kawczynski-marshall-plan/

Quote: "Aye, that is what it says in this article - fair enough. loads of conflicting views, https://fullfact.org/europe/kawczynski-marshall-plan/, anyway, way off topic. But it does begbthe question, what was it spent on, was more infrastructure in GB damaged than in West Germany, did the restriction in allowance of spending on military mean West Germany spent it "better", did Great Britain "squander" large amounts on joining the NATO club and aligning itself with the USA, a very interesting set of questions and probably worth a thread of its own.

Quote: "Aye, that is what it says in this article - fair enough. loads of conflicting views, https://fullfact.org/europe/kawczynski-marshall-plan/, anyway, way off topic. But it does begbthe question, what was it spent on, was more infrastructure in GB damaged than in West Germany, did the restriction in allowance of spending on military mean West Germany spent it "better", did Great Britain "squander" large amounts on joining the NATO club and aligning itself with the USA, a very interesting set of questions and probably worth a thread of its own.

Seeing how Britain operates when there are large pots of cash and contracts floating around, I'd imagine there are generations of families who are still living the high life today from some of that money.

I completely agree with that - I know of one company that has become huge on the back of buying MOD land after the war very cheap and developing it

you seem to hate our country, why don't you go live somewhere else?

Oh, here he is, Gordon Gekko and his 'greed is good' mantra.

I just like to question things as opposed to just accepting the crap I'm fed. Smart motorways is another one. Someone will have been making a fortune out of those, and now they're on hold due to safety issues! Any regular motorway user could have told you when they first started installing them that they were an accident waiting to happen. You can't implement constantly changing speed limits and eradicate the hard shoulder and not expect major issues. Surely even someone so capitalistically blinkered as you could have seen that?

Its a trade off - hundreds of motorists queuing or use of the hard shoulder and the minimal risk of an accident - given how many vehicles use motorways how many accidents have there been with stranded vehicles - infinitesimal.

[iFrom a societal perspective the benefits . . . are probably worth a dead kid once a year.[/i

Yeah - bugger off to one of those European countries you love so much!


Oh wait...

And yet, the smart motorways were supposed to be modelled on part of the M42, where the refuge areas were 600 yards apart and not, as we have in some cases, every 1 1/2 to 2 miles.
Corners have been cut, that study not fully reviewed and the price is people being killed way to regularly.

Also and I dont know if any studies have been carried out yet, there appear to be many more long delays when lanes, quite rightly, are taken out.
These actually seem to make the hold ups both more frequent and longer than they were previously.

The solution, as it always was, is to reduce the amount of traffic on the roads and not to keep on encouraging more and more motorists to drive.
Improving our rail services would be a start and making kids walk to school.
Less traffic, healthier kids, cleaner air etc, etc

Interesting comments on the rail service.
I would suggest that this has simply been a secondary thought/neglected for decades and the lack of a decent East/West rail service in the North of England is verging on Criminal.
It's little surprise that considering the time to go trans Pennine, that most people opt to travel by car but, this is just a symptom of how mickey poor the rail service actually is.
My lad now lives on the dark side and travels over to us regularly but, a journey that takes an hour in the car can take over double using the train and that assumes they are not either full or cancelled.
As for the time and cost of creating infrastructure, much of the increase in cost, compared to budget, comes from delays in getting the plans through due to bureaucratic waste, which then further delays the project as they repeatedly go round the circle again,
HS2 being a prime example - perhaps we should hand over our capital projects to the Chinese ?

Our rails service is second rate in pretty much all aspects

It would be worth investing or even subsidising our public transport to help reduce congestion but, some of our politicians only see the cost in pound notes without considering the benefits.