Ex-Prime Ministers moan that Sunak has made the wrong call on HS2 – is there ANY limit to what they would spend on it?
High speed wail
SPARE us the wailing of ex-Prime Ministers and Chancellors over their “legacy”, HS2, finally being put out of its misery.
They could have built nuclear power stations, reservoirs, roads and repaired the crumbling infrastructure we do have.
All would have brought immense national benefits for less money.
Instead we now find ourselves in critical need of cheaper UK-generated energy, more water storage for dry summers and new motorways to ease congestion.
But none of those were as sexy as a bullet train, were they?
Despite the mind-boggling, ever-expanding cost — and a business case as wafer-thin as Labour knew it was when they first dreamed up this grand folly in 2009.
Even now David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson moan that Rishi Sunak has made the wrong call.
Is there ANY limit to what they would spend on it?
This PM, though, must hope their complaints keep coming and that the BBC and others continue to amplify them.
Because if “13 years of Tory failure” is the millstone Labour and its pet media hope to hang around his neck, a principled spat with his predecessors is only going to help distance him from them.
Rent denial
THE Left’s consternation over the shortage of homes to rent is a wonder to behold.
They cannot concede that one of its root causes is the mass immigration they consider an unalloyed joy.
Yes, there are other factors which lead to 25 tenants chasing every property and rents rocketing by ten per cent.
Demand now massively outstrips supply. Far too few homes are built.
Pricier mortgages made matters worse, forcing more potential buyers to rent and some landlords to sell up.
The new renters’ rights Bill, commendable though it is, may deter yet more of the latter.
But net immigration soared last year to 606,000, the vast majority renting privately, close to half of them in London and the South East.
No building programme could keep pace with that.
It is utterly hypocritical to bemoan the plight of renters, not to mention our besieged public services, while screaming “racist” at anyone justifiably concerned with the scale of the influx.
Flown goal
FIFA’s contempt for fans has long been self-evident. But its 2030 World Cup on three continents is a jaw-dropping insult.
Three games in South America. Then it’s 6,000 miles back to Spain, Portugal and Morocco for the rest.
Ordinary folk will never afford it, unlike Fifa’s fatcats.
And how can an organisation remotely bothered about the climate sanction all those flights?
The beautiful game is tainted . . . by Fifa’s ugly greed.