Suspending planning regulations so that hosueholders can, in some cases, cover almost the whole of their back gardens with house extensions without seeking permission might not quite get us back to prosperity, and so a little investment in 'infrastructure' is now in order. That's roads of course, and so we dust off the old plans for roads that decades ago we judged socially, economically and above all environmentally undesirable. That's the way to face up to the new international challenges our prime minister has just been telling us about at the Conservative party conference - sink or swim, do or die.
For the Confederation of British Industry this is the brave new world, that has such middle eastern and asian investors in it. They will finance these new old roads so that the cash hoards we have left them with by buying their oil and manufactured products will finance the building of our roads which we will then pay them to use. Another turn of the wheel. According to the CBI our road system is the last unprivatised utility or public service left in the UK. Presumably they think the National Health Service has gone already - the police on its way? Move along there, there's nothing to see.
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| The CBI's green and pleasant land |
