Last week the Conservative Party Conference rolled into Manchester, and what an adventure it was. The calamitous former Prime Minister Liz Truss attempted a relaunch in front of banners declaring she would “Make Britain Grow Again”. He probably meant “Moan”. A lot of delegates and press passed by. I guess people like to watch a car crash.
Speaking of cars, the current Prime Minister began the week by denouncing the “war on the motorist”, the irony of which was not lost on the good people of Manchester, given that half of the roads in the center of city had been booked to host this jamboree.
“One of the seemingly new projects was an extension of Manchester’s tramway to the city’s airport, a project that was completed a decade earlier.”
The man without a warrant was in an optimistic mood and he wasn’t going to do it lettuce distracted by the antics of his immediate predecessor. Recently dubbed the “man of inaction,” he proved himself to be a total doer, well, acting for the cancellation and abolition of just about everything he could lay his hands on. He canned so many things you’d think he worked on the production line at Heinz. Oddly appropriate, given that the conference featured a bunch of half-baked ideas promulgated by a bunch of bigots.
His decision to save money by cutting the western section of HS2 was certainly brave, not least because he announced it in the city most affected by its cancellation, and at one of its former railway stations.
It leaves the project literally without legs – a state one can only assume its policy officials were experiencing when they came up with ‘Network North’, the plan to reinvest £36bn of the savings into ‘hundreds of new transport projects across North and Midlands”. .
Unfortunately, this generally included numerous re-announcements of long-promised but never-delivered projects and was unleashed within hours. The coup de grace was the unique use of ‘new’ – one of the apparently new projects was an extension of Manchester’s tramway to the city’s airport, a project that was actually completed a decade earlier.
The Prime Minister later admitted that Network North was “just illustrative” of the kind of things the money “could” be spent on. Like honesty, integrity and competence are merely illustrative of the qualities that government ministers ‘might’ display.
Pushing the axe
Elsewhere, slashing and burning continued. An ax was brought to Tory environmental policies in a way not seen since a hormonal Northumbrian teenager worked out his rage at Sycamore Gap. They used to say “vote blue, pass green”. Well, we sure have someone in charge who looks very green.
Meanwhile, former transport secretary Chris “Failing” Grayling announced he will stand down at the next election. Given his record of mishaps and accidents, I bet he accidentally stands up.
Returning to the cut and having run out of infrastructure projects to cancel, the Prime Minister announced that the cigarettes are being smoked. The age at which they can be sold will continue to increase so that eventually no one can buy them. A laudable policy, and one that could over time allow funding to shift from treatment to investment in new health infrastructure, but one wonders how new policies will come up without a pack of fags nearby to write them down.
All in all, a pretty disappointing week of slash and burn from the Prime Minister, in which he basically slashed the entire north and burned our hopes for the future like there was no tomorrow. Given the fate of its recent predecessors, it might be.
Next time: A look at the inspiration and enlightenment of the Labor conference in Liverpool. It could be a short piece…
