Barling:
It depends on your definition of infrastructure I suppose, but I have to admit that the Labour governments did have some positive achievements including the largest hospital building programme ever with over 100 new hospitals opened, and over 4000 schools were rebuilt or refurbished.
Financed by PFI. So the Labour government did not actually pay for these improvements - we are paying for them now, and our children will paying for some time in the future. Admit it, the majority of all that enormous Brownite borrowing (borrowing during the good times!!) went on social engineering - and they never had the guts or decency to ask anyone at the polls if this is what they wanted.
They failed to support the Severn Tidal Barrage which would provide renewable energy for decades to come.
I would not place much hope on the Severn Barrage - this is another Greeny pipe-dream that will be as hopeless as all those wind turbines.
Tidal barrages stop working either 4 times a day or 2 times a day, depending on how you operate them. Plus they generate next to nothing during neap tides (twice a month). And when peak tidal flow coincides with midnight and midday, the energy produced is unwanted and useless.
Thus every barrage needs a new fossil fuelled power station next door - burning and turning 24 hrs a day, and ready to take up the slack when the barrage quits generating 4 times a day. Thus you double the infrastructure and maintenance costs, and save bugger all in fuel costs and CO2 output. Barrages are Green window dressing, to salve the troubled consciences of Grauniad readers.
I suppose Labour's White Paper on airport development from 2003 expressed support for runway extensions and terminal developments at several airports including Bristol, Stansted and Teesside - but then, as far as I'm aware, no finance was provided to support any of these developments. Hopeless.
But who needs to extend Bristol airport's runway (if that is possible), when you have Bristol Filton next door - with a runway long enough to take a Brabazon ?!!
And why would you need to extend Birmingham, when you have Gaydon down the road?
And why would you need to extend Leeds, when you have Finningly next door?
This was a failure in political decision making, not finance.
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