Best laid plans
QUESTION POSED by Sir Alastair Mor- ton, chairman of Eurotunnel: how do you make God laugh? Answer: tell Him your plans. Now the Government is planning on Sir Alastair. Kenneth Clarke has conjured up a new working party to find new ways of bringing private finance into public pro- jects, and has called him in to lead the charge. As for the question, he tried it on an audience of engineers on All Fools' Day last year, talking of the new railway through Kent to his tunnel: 'Will it really happen, or is talk of it just a great big ghastly joke? Let us think, and pray, as we wait for the Trea- sury to go to work to minimise everything in the project, starting with its own contri- bution.' Now we know — he has got his tunnel built and ready in less time than Whitehall has needed to make up its mind. His mistake, as I maintain, was to surface at Folkestone. He should have gone on dig- ging in the direction of London, without waiting for the Government's plans. .
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