Britain is about to spend £1.5 billion connecting some rocks in the North Sea with underwater tunnels while the rest of the economy is having a quiet breakdown. Shetland officials have announced plans to link the islands with submerged concrete tubes within eight years — a project so audaciously timed that you have to admire the sheer confidence.
Let’s be clear: this is not a bad idea in isolation. Shetland genuinely struggles with connectivity, and a fixed link beats the ferry roulette. But the timing is spectacular. We are living through a period where people are choosing between heating and eating, where the NHS is rationing itself into irrelevance, and where local councils are quietly deciding which services to abandon. And somewhere in a planning meeting, someone said: “You know what Shetland needs? A submarine highway.”
The real absurdity is not the tunnel itself — it is the conversation it represents. This is what happens when long-term infrastructure planning meets short-term political desperation. The UK gets to announce something shiny and futuristic while ignoring that the roads in the Midlands are returning to gravel. Shetland gets to dream of being connected while everyone else is metaphorically drowning.
The tunnel will probably work fine when it opens in 2034, assuming inflation does not make it cost £4 billion by then. By that point, we will all be living in some other crisis, wondering why we ever thought underwater concrete was the priority. But for now, at least someone is building something. Even if that something is hidden eight meters below the surface, where nobody has to see it.