Who is popular today?

Boris Johnson’s vanity projects are not going to reboot the economy. That takes cash
Build, build, build, says Boris Johnson. Building has been the vanity of the populist politician down the ages from Nero to Napoleon. Johnson is no exception. The hardest-hearted Tory may treat ordinary public spending as wasteful, but spending on capital projects is glorious.
This week history is to repeat itself. David Cameron and George Osborne answered the 2008-09 crisis by slashing spending on public and local services by a third in a decade of austerity. Yet they sailed ahead with nuclear power stations, aircraft carriers, high-speed trains, airport runways and garden cities. Billions were promised, though little or nothing was seen in short-term benefit. Continue reading...