The only thing Boris is burrowing is his head in the sand. Here’s why.

Firstly, the wildly ambitious proposal to burrow a tunnel from Stranraer to Larne may be a step up from the previous suggestion of a bridge, but the unlikely project would still set us back a whole fifth of our total GDP.

Maybe instead of throwing out fantasy suggestions to diffuse the political hand grenade that Boris Johnson himself ignited, it would be wiser to actually improve the decaying infrastructure in the north which currently has some of the worst in the UK. The eastern half of the region still has no motorway or rails and is in dire need of investment as most funding is directed primarily at Belfast and its surrounding areas.

On top of this, us students have received only a measly one time £500 payoff to keep us subdued - barely a drop in the ocean compared to the £9K fees that some are still paying for courses which are entirely online. Not to mention the many international students who have gotten no relief payments at all despite paying far more for their courses.

Many students who would have supplemented their loans with part-time jobs have now found themselves out of work as the hospitality sector has shut down almost entirely and with learning now completely online, there is a clear inequity between those who have the latest technology and those who have nothing and £500 is not enough to remedy this - not to mention the price of textbooks.

I’m lucky enough to have the ability to study from home but I can’t imagine how awful this situation must be for those stuck in low-quality housing or cramped university accommodation. Abuse by landlords was rampant before the pandemic with many student areas resembling slum housing and, deposits being withheld for whatever flimsy reason comes to mind.

So the question remains: why does the Conservative administration feel it can suggest such a massive waste of money after spending so long trying to sell themselves as ‘fiscally responsible’?

They have overseen one of the most catastrophic and deadly responses to the pandemic and on top of that the largest fall in GDP of the G7 nations - an indictment of the last ten years of austerity which were nothing but needlessly cruel and prevented any significant recovery in the wake of the recession.

Students have paid over a billion in unused accommodation in the UK over the last year but pressure from students protesting have managed to get partial refunds from Unite and Student Roost. Without any reassurance of getting a refund for a service which they cannot use, however, this is only a little bit of comfort for student renters who are habitually taken advantage of for every last penny that they have.

For over twenty years, students have been told that tuition fees are necessity - despite much of the rest of Europe avioding this measure.

The most Johnson could spare for the doctors and nurses who saved his, and countless others’, lives was a once a week clap on the doorstep before offering them a measly pay-rise of one per cent after a decade of pay freezes.

Now a ten billion splurge is being touted as a real possibility by a government who have done their best to convince us that they’re broke? Never mind all the funding that strangely seems to be awarded to companies run by friends of and donors to the Conservative party, but is never around for public services or education.

Johnson won on by promising to ‘Get Brexit done’ and it’s clear that any way would do, without any consideration for the people who it would directly affect. He would have implemented a hard border if it had been the politically convenient option but instead, he’ll continue to talk big about improving connections within the UK with the hopes that it’ll make the unionist community forget all about the NI protocol - which has clearly been a failure as recent news has shown.

Eoin McCaul is a first year PPE student at Queen’s

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