On your first point, yes, you are.
On your second point nothing is stopping us undertaking great projects with the entrepreneurial drive the Victorians showed. Except that the majority of those projects were funded privately. Boris, in this scenario, would be irrelevant. It is the present British society that seems to lack the drive, and enthusiasm, to stump up their own, not taxpayers’, cash that our ancestors showed.
During the same period the Americans were also investing and building great projects and many citizens invested their cash on the stock market to fund them. Some people got richer, some went broke. Their country grew to what it is today. The same happened in Great Britain. The difference is the the Americans still do so, we in the UK, seem to have lost the habit. And we are where we are today.
On the other hand when Boris or his party get involved we end up wasting vast amounts on “getting sometimes ridiculous ideas done” (your words) such as HS2, the London garden bridge fiasco, the idea of the wholly uneconomical NI bridge/tunnel you mention and, I believe, Brexit.
I would prefer he did not continue as PM, indeed not continue in politics at all. Then again Starmer does not impress me at all.
What to do, eh?
I agree most of these projects were financed privately, yet I do not see Boris as irrevalant. I think he is the person pushing people to get into the spirit of thinking big like we did before. Now, my knowledge of previous PMs in the 19th century is lackluster but I imagine either Queen Victoria or previous PMs were the ones pushing for these projects as a way to improve the UK. One PM springs to mind, Benjamin Disraeli.
We have great engineers we just dont have the public will to realize these big projects. This is where BoJo comes in.
As for HS2. I think it is a good idea we scrapped the leeds section of the HS2. HS2 itself though is not a bad idea. And I hope it gets completed.
We just need to start acting a bit like China who have been speeding ahead of us for far too long.edition.cnn.com/travel/article/ … index.html
Its silly that it will take the UK to 2030 ish to complete HS2 which is just a couple hundred miles of track. When China has managed to lay 10,000 in 5 years. Yea, China does not have to worry about routing a train through a crowded country with many buildings in the way but still. its shocking how slow we are at getting stuff done compared to the Chinese.
One factor is obviously that China has a leader for life. Whereas, we have a PM for 5 years then another PM comes in who cuts the project then another PM comes in that changes the project then another PM comes in that funds the project… etc etc. This is the inherit problem with democracy lol.
As for the Garden Bridge. Not too bothered about some London ‘bubble’ project. From what I heard it cost like £200 million. so pretty much chump change. Also seems a lot of the issues were around planning. Think its fair to say its not down to the london major to supervise the project but just to get it green light and ensure funding is there.
I want not to like Boris. But I can not find a reason to justify voting for any other PM.
Yea, I could throw my vote away to the reform party and pretend it counts. Or maybe to Farages next party. but at the end up the day soon as the fail to win they will just disband.
As for Labour. I’ll never vote for them until they bring Corbyn back into the fold. Think what you want of him but he is not an anti semite. And I hate how the media have basically done a smear campaign on him. But that’s what happens when you openly support palestine…
I despise the useless barstewards of the main parties as they’re not fit for purpose & have zero merit in this day & age.