The release of the declassified Cabinet papers this New Year revealed Alex Salmond seriously considered building a high-speed railway line between Glasgow and Edinburgh in 2009, such a line cutting travel between the cities to a mere 15 minutes.

I don’t think it’s unfair to surmise that this scale of ambition said a lot about the emerging swagger that was by then surrounding a government still very much in its infancy. Yet the fact the proposal wasn’t jettisoned at the focus group stage and was under serious consideration by the First Minister, and at the beginning of the global financial crisis, also spoke to an ambition and confidence the country has sadly seen little of since.

Infrastructure has been a hot topic of late with another Labour reboot last week concentrating on economic growth through a series of initiatives, which truth be told are rather vague and uninspiring. I’m sure if you’re a Manchester United fan, the notion of the taxpayer digging into his pockets to help your club build an even bigger stadium is a winner, but beyond the Lazarus-like resurrection of the third runway at Heathrow, swagger and confidence are hardly oozing from Keir Starmer’s team.

The third runway has been talked about for some 20 years and has been supported and opposed by both Labour and the Conservatives over that time. Its future may yet be as certain as HS2.

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All political giants want a legacy – it’s the nature of the beast. Margaret Thatcher could point to the Falklands and Channel Tunnel, Tony Blair rather less enthusiastically to the Iraq War and........

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