Firstly let's talk about increasingly dreary Dave who is not responding well to a growing national feeling that after 18 months in power it's time to stop talking, sounding bullish, and then backing off. Instead it's time for him to square his jaw, stand firm and GET THINGS DONE...........
-£400 million boost to housing today. If you're going to do something, do it big. £400million doesn't look big.
-Meanwhile over in Europe it appears that Dave may have done a deal for the UK to duck out of the very restrictive working hours directive so that he can claim he has successfully repatriated some powers from Brusells in return for agreeing to support more centralisation (ie German/French)of power to dictate Eurozone members financial policies. This looks a poor deal in view of the relative long term significance of the 2 issues to both the UK and EU. Merkels has gained another step towards political as well as financial Eurozone and ultimately EU integration in exchange for a relatively minor face saving concession to the UK. Cameron does not look like a good or sufficiently tough negotiator. Add to that his lack of a driving political philosophy and vision and the feeling of lack of impetus becomes real and worrying.
- Our roads are clogging up as well as breaking up. Despite us being an ever more populated country with 4 million more cars forecast to flood onto the roads , we have no national plan to substantially increase capacity, take out bottlenecks or build new motorways. We had more vision on that in the 1940s/50s and 60s. National schlerosis is the only plan we have. There has been talk of putting what money we have into infrastructure development, both because it's needed and for the jobs it can create in the recession. Talk, but little sign of action. Time for something tangible
Elsewhere......
-Boris Island for new Heathrow. Airport in the sky. In UK timescales at least 30/40 years would be needed even if planning, enquiries, reviews, appeals went without a hitch to plan. Add to that slow building (8-5, 5 days a week if the same as T5)= high costs of plant hire and labour and the £50bn easily doubles. Another mind boggling cost would be the devastating effect on the West London economy and the M4 corridor which as far as Wales. Much of this areas success, especialy in attrcating new high-tech businesses is Heathrow related.
On the pros and cons arguments, we are beginning to see an HS 2 pattern of terminological inexactitudes (lies, distortions, misrepresentations to the less genteel) spoken. Much of the stuff about the comparative number of destinations served from London and the major European airports is spurious. Heathrow still serves most of the big business routes considerably better , more often and with more competing airlines than any of its competitors .Its home carrier, IAG's BA has the flexibility to reallocate its slots and do more although it is hamstrung at the moment by the lack of the A380( 2 years away) and 787 (3 years?). Don't forget that BA's focus on First and Business traffic over the past 12+ years has meant small Economy Class cabins and the deliberate offloading of much low yield but high volume leisure business and this has meant that Heathrow's overall passengers numbers have been less than they would have been.
- Saif-al-Islam. His arrest in Libya raises the question of whether he will be tried in the country or handed over to the ICJ at the Hague. If he has a Libyan trial, a guilty verdict looks highly likely and that would almost certainly end with a death sentence. Giving a potential threat a chance to eventually make a comeback is likely to be seen as unwise. There is only one way to remove that possibility for all time and there is no doubt that most Libyans would like that to happen .His chances look better with the ICJ where he would presumably argue that he successfuly mitigated the worst of his father's excesses, built the mutually advantageous bridges between the West and Libya and that everyone was much better off for his efforts. At the very least there would be no noose or bullet and prison life in the Netherlands would be a big improvement on its Libyan equivalent.
- Egypt. After the first peace, now the realities of the new power struggle. Extremists remain on the sidelines, knowing that to pick a fight with the military is unwise. They will let the independent young,- also their target,- do that and take the pain. Like military organisations around the world , their fingers itch for control and they have a fundamental dislike for real democracy and the loss of control over the right to literally call the military shots. Past portents are not good.
-UK. You thought that their voices had faded into the past. You are right,- they should have. Every now and then though the media chuck these ghosts of the past a few quid and give them a platform to regurgitate all the old muddled thinking nonsense. Yes,-we are talking about those masters of Euro-naivity, Messrs Hesseltine and Ashdown, masters of denial . They are again going on about on about how the UK should be in the Euro, how much better off it would be, and now amazingly how it wouldn't have the current level of national debt if it had been in it and subject to Eurocrat regulation. Hmm. Aren't Ireland, Greece, Italy, Spain and the rest also well into the government overspending/debt trough and now facing austerity programmes at least as serious as ours,- but in most cases only implimented much later? Never mind, most people have stopped listening to them quite a while ago so they aren't likely to gain more of a hearing now. It's just an annoying repetitive drone.
That's it for now. Have a good afternoon and evening.
