Tuesday 6 October 2020

Building Bridges, Roads or Gazebos our neighbours will make us pay for them.

News that  Prime Minister has said he will look again at the M4 relief plan around Newport. despite the Welsh Senedd not being in support (if not actually fully opposed) is a worrying development.

In an interview with ITV Wales, Boris Johnson said it "will certainly be one of the things that we'll be seeing if we can take forward".

"The £1.4bn plan to cut congestion around the motorway in Newport has been rejected by the Welsh Government and Mark Drakeford recently said that the "decision is over" and people should move on.

But Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that he would try to find a way to revive the project.

He said of the Internal Markets Bill, "one of the things that it will enable us to do is to strengthen our ability to support people in Wales, for instance in transport spending."

In a new interview with ITV Wales, he was asked if that meant ministers in London would try to force it through if local authorities and Welsh Conservative MPs supported it but the Welsh Government continued to oppose it.

He said: "What we’re going to do is look at projects like the relief road, and I must say it was quite extraordinary that the Labour Welsh government managed to spend £144 million on a study … which they then filed vertically.

"So we'll look at the relief road and look at how to relieve congestion in the Brynglas tunnels, that will certainly be one of the things that we’ll be seeing if we can take forward."

Now this may be political posturing  like a bridge or tunnel actually be built between Scotland and Northern Ireland? I an idea that has been suggested several times by Boris Johnson and will now be looked at as part of a national review into UK transport connections.

The aom as with the M4 relief road is to give the impression that it is the UK goverment  that is innovative and to lead people to asl Why do we need, a devolved government.

A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!) is a 1972 alternate history/science fiction novel by American writer Harry Harrison. It was serialized in Analog magazine beginning in the April 1972 issue.

The title refers to the construction of a submerged floating-tube pontoon bridge/tunnel across the Atlantic Ocean in the novel.

In an alternative history, the United States lost the American Revolutionary War and George Washington was executed for treason. Thus, America in 1973 is still under the control of the British Empire. The divergence point between this world and our own occurred far earlier, however, when the Moors won the battle of Navas de Tolosa on the Iberian peninsula, on July 16, 1212. Thus it was that Spain was unable to become unified, owing to the survival of an Islamic presence in its territory, and therefore could not finance the expedition of Christopher Columbus in 1492. Instead, it was John Cabot who discovered America, just a few years later and the bridge seems just as fanciful.

The study will investigate the feasibility of a fixed link between the two nations including cost, practicality and demand.

But some critics have already dismissed the idea as impractical, arguing the money would be better spent elsewhere.

Mr Johnson has previously put a price of "about £15bn" on building a bridge which could stretch from Portpatrick in Scotland to Larne in Northern Ireland - a distance of more than 20 miles across the Irish Sea.

I doubt that the bridge will not get any further that the study even if it's report is positive.

What we are seeing is efforts by the Tories  to make elaborate plans which may capture the imagination but that's its intention  "castle in the air", reduced to a bridge.

The M4 relief road may be a bit more  realistic , the intention to undermine the Senedd and build the relief road whether we need it  or want it.

Its a kin to your neighbour saying.

"I've bought you a gazebo for your garden"

"But I don't want a gazebo at the moment it will take up to much space".

"Never mind that I've brought you a new gazebo, well when i say"bought" you are going to pay for it"

"What".

It will be interesting how "Welsh" Tory Senedd leader Paul Davies will spin this a manifesto , which makes promises  dependent on thier London masters decision will be somewhat controversial , though not unique.

1 comment:

dafis said...

The man is a complete and utter fake. Hot air machine spouting drivel which some people still suck up because he is seen in some way as being quite funny and entertaining. Well I don't think people vote for any politician in the expectation of seeing a top comedy turn. This man is toxic, a complete con artist, not worth a light and the sooner his nonsense gets snuffed out the better for all of us.

So F*** off Boris you've had enough time to show any real capacity for leading any sort of government and you ain't got it.