GUY STENHOUSE

Picture the scene. You are twenty years old, it’s your birthday. You get a new jersey and a book on social media etiquette. Not a bad haul but then your favourite uncle, who has recently made it big in London, leads you outside to see the present he has bought you.

There it sits. The gleaming Ferrari - for you. What do you do? Do you start gurning that you don’t like red cars, moan that you would prefer a Porsche or whine that he should just have given you the money and you would have spent it on sensible stuff.

You might do that but it wouldn’t be very wise. Your uncle - let’s call him Boris - jumps back in “your” car and zooms off. No present for you.

This is essentially how Scotland’s politicians have treated Boris Johnson’s desire to investigate seriously the idea of building a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland, petulant sneering derision has been the order of the day.

This reaction is a mistake and a disservice to Scotland, it’s strategically inept and tactically immensely stupid.

The key question we need to ask ourselves is whether a bridge (or tunnel) between Scotland and Northern Ireland is a good idea. The answer is that it’s an absolutely brilliant idea. A physical connection between Great Britain and Ireland would increase the economic wellbeing of both islands. Whether you believe in the UK, independence for Scotland, re-joining the EU or any flavour in between this can only be a good thing.

For all of Scotland it would be good but it would be a once in 100 year opportunity to regenerate the economy of our South West - it’s a lovely place but faces significant economic challenges. A bridge and the infrastructure needed to connect it into the wider transport network - a dual carriageway from Gretna to Stranraer - would transform Dumfries and Galloway. No other project would come close in terms of positive impact.

The trap the Scottish Government and others have fallen into is one which has harmed the geographically peripheral parts of the UK and especially Scotland for decades. Cost benefit analysis sounds sensible but is catastrophic for those far removed from the centres of economic activity. Using cost benefit analysis you spend your money where it will have the best economic return. You widen the M25 to 10 lanes but ignore the A1, you build the southern part of HS2 but forget the rest, you build another crossing across the Thames East of London but never ever consider bridges between the Western Isles of Scotland, you build another expensive cross London railway and forget Hull to Liverpool.

If you care about places which are far away from the centres of economic activity - and in Scotland you absolutely should, and the Scottish Government claims it does, then you have got sometimes to ignore cost benefit analysis and spend money precisely where it does not give the highest payback but transforms a disadvantaged area and so improves economic opportunity, equality and social cohesion across the whole nation. The Boris bridge is such a project.

The unimaginative “Not invented here” reaction of Scotland’s politicians to the possibility of the bridge does not surprise me. What is surprising is its tactical stupidity. We are either going to get the bridge or we are going to get nothing, there is not a choice of a bridge or £20 billion in our bank account.

If the Scottish Government is smart it will change its tune and say that the bridge is a wonderful idea and must be built and if it isn’t it proves the British Government doesn’t care, we are being conned etc. etc. Make it a test for the UK. Grab the Boris bridge with both hands and make it happen.

Guy Stenhouse is a Scottish financial sector veteran who wrote formerly as Pinstripe.