Boris Johnson reportedly wants to build a bridge across the Channel between the UK and France in an idea that was mocked almost instantly.
Sources close to the Foreign Secretary have told The Telegraph and The Sun the one-time Tory leadership hopeful thinks it is “ridiculous” that the main link between the two countries is an underwater rail line.
The newspapers report the idea was floated during the Anglo-French summit in Sandhurst on Thursday, and echoes previous reports by journalist Tim Shipman that Johnson proposed a “submarine highway” ahead of the Brexit vote.
It isn’t the first time Johnson has floated a symbolic infrastructure project that met with ridicule.
As Mayor of London, he threw his weight behind plans for the Garden Bridge.
The “garden paradise” stretching over the Thames was backed by Joanna Lumley and George Osborne. As much as £37m of public money was spent trying to get the project off the ground, but many viewed it as an expensive indulgence.
Plans were eventually canned by the new Mayor Sadiq Khan, who said he could not justify the £200m construction.
Others were quick to highlight Johnson’s questionable record as Foreign Secretary of boosting international relations.
Many were alarmed when Johnson said the EU could “go whistle” for its Brexit divorce bill.
Anglo-Spanish relations were put at risk by Johnson saying that the bid to stop bullfighting was “political correctness gone mad”.
He recently ‘joked’ that Sirte could be the next Dubai, once the “dead bodies were cleared away”.
He also once said that the former US President Barack Obama was “part-Kenyan” and had an “ancestral dislike” of the UK.
Others drew comparisons between the Garden Bridge, ‘Boris Bridge’ and ‘Boris Island’ airport.
Johnson travelled the length and breadth of the country championing the Thames Estuary Airport. Proposals for the brand new four-runway airport at the Isle of Grain in Kent was dumped by the Airports Commission as bids to expand Britain’s airport capacity by Heathrow and Gatwick were considered more credible