Britain doesn't need buildings tomorrow, it needs jobs today | Simon Jenkins

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 loca...