Oh how we laughed! Jeremy Corbyn was enjoying himself at the despatch box for once, dismissing the government’s latest transport announcements: HS2 to go ahead after all, an extra £5 billion allocated for buses, more designated spaces for cyclists.
The soon-to-be ex-Leader of the Opposition was unimpressed: “The Prime Minister is clearly fond of announcing big shiny projects, like the scheme to build a bridge over the Irish sea”, he said. “Why not go the whole hog and make it a garden bridge, connected to an airport in the sea?”
It certainly looks like Boris Johnson is over-fond of the unattainable. The much-derided Garden Bridge was always a stupid idea that wouldn’t have taken up as much time, money or attention were it not for Johnson’s apparent desperation to indulge the scheme’s originator, national treasure Joanna Lumley.
The “floating” Thames estuary airport was conceived entirely to avoid Johnson having to make a decision about expanding Heathrow and the bulldozer-related shenanigans to which he had personally committed himself in the event of a go-ahead for a third runway. The rarely-used cable car near the O2 Arena in London’s east end was another of Johnson’s pet projects.
And yet, what’s wrong with having a prime minister who embraces the grand design, who imagines schemes that others dare not? All such infrastructure projects have their supporters and detractors: I was once sceptical of high-speed rail but had Johnson announced HS2’s cancellation, I would have felt deeply troubled at the loss of a truly transformative and ambitious project.
