In my job I have to deal with budgets, forecasts and ‘comparisons to actuals’ a lot of the time and, much like everywhere I imagine, the income forecasts get lowballed and the costs get highballed in order that, as the year progresses, the number of high fives can only increase as people beat target after target. It’s a bit like saying 40% is a pass at schools and universities, an exercise in making people feel good rather than actually doing anything valuable.

For the trams project, someone must have got things the wrong way around. The costs appear to have been lowballed and the number of high fives have dropped to zero (although the high salaries will no doubt be continuing, a genuine disgrace).

One probably doesn’t have to explain sunk costs, that what is spent is spent, and that a decision as to what is next for this project has to be taken in the here and now. The temptation to hanker back to the days when trams were a glint in a politician’s eye and the Number 22 ruled Leith Walk should be resisted.

The Scotsman has a great article exploring the various options open to Edinburgh but, for me, at the end of the day, a set of useless tracks cannot remain on Princes St, an empty hull of a tram depot cannot sit at Haymarket and a pockmarked Leith cannot be left with the pain of reduced business without the gain of a product at the end of it. What a bitter blow to Scotland’s Capital’s confidence to have embarked on such an ambitious project only to crawl back in on itself and say it was all too hard, all too difficult. How could we look at those ill-conceived, ill-advised unused tracks without thinking ‘We’re a bit rubbish really’?

The original reasons for these trams need to be focused on too. With parts of Edinburgh dangerously close to breaching the EU’s CO2 levels, the cost of fuel only set to increase and commuters demonstrably more likely to use trams than buses, the tram can be a golden bullet solution for several problems and that prize remains in place, albeit on a higher and higher plinth. Given that, the Scottish Government can no longer wash its hands of the whole affair, despite a pledge not to spend ‘not a penny more’ than the £500m it allocated in the last parliamentary term. The most attractive option does appear to be some sort of Tax Incremental Funding which the SNP Government would facilitate, if the desire to keep private sector involvement at bay holds firm.

So whether it’s a partial completion up to the top of Leith Walk or even just the Airport-Haymarket section, we need a finished product and, crucially, one that has a clear option to extend out to The Shore and Granton in the not-too-distant future. It’ll be even more difficult than before but, with Scotland’s reputation and confidence on the line, Edinburgh Council needs to rewrite its forecasts, finish the job and I am certain that high fives will be coming down the track as a direct result.

I don’t have a car, I have a wardrobe full of wintry garb and I still hold onto a childlike wonder when the ground is suddenly covered in a white blanket. Consequently, it’s been a good weekend for me but it would of course be a different story if I was camping out in an airport without a pillow or a blanket (white or otherwise) to keep me comfortable throughout the night, as many have been doing overnight from Gatwick up to Aberdeen.

The lack of information coming from the airports is making the headlines but problems exist at a lower level up and down the country across buses, undergrounds, motorways and town streets. Could more have been done? Is there a Government strategy for this entirely foreseeable scenario or is ‘do nothing and bear it’ as good as it gets?

It is difficult to avoid drawing comparisons with the events that let up to the Scottish Government’s Transport Secretary having to resign last week – a short, sharp wintry burst and transport suddenly slipping into meltdown (if you can forgive the double pun). Now, there are potential differences between what is happening in the UK this week and what happened in Scotland last week, ignored reports and looked over weather forecasts for example. However, it is perfectly reasonable to point the finger at Stewart Stevenson’s equivalent in the coalition Government, Lib Dem Minister Norman Baker, and ask what it is that he is doing. A quick Google search has shown that his name isn’t in any of the main news articles on this snowy Sunday. Is Norman going for that ‘do nothing and bear it’ laissez-faire strategy that contributed to Stewart Stevenson’s undoing? Hopefully he is just too busy for his office to send out a press release.

Remarkably, the BBC are questioning Scottish correspondents on whether the new Transport Secretary is doing any better in Scotland without even mentioning what the UK Minister is doing for the rest of the UK. Media pressure is, of course, a significant contributing factor in any Ministerial resignation.

I personally believe that the coldest, the snowiest and the iciest December we have seen for many years will inevitably come with travel problems and it is for individuals, not Governments, to take decisions for themselves and then deal with the consequences that follow. There are many reasons to resign from a Government but a fallout from the fickle Mother Nature shouldn’t really be one of them.

That said, Norman Baker threatened to resign over tuition fees, he could have arguably resigned over implementing rail fare rises after campaigning on reducing them and now, if Scotland is anything to go by, he may have to show some true grit to plough his way through this current situation.

Anyway, wellies and mittens on for me and I’m off to build a snowman, or just steal one again…

The fight against Climate Change from a transport perspective is quite simple isn’t it? We need to wean people away from oil-driven cars, out of convenient domestic flights and into trains. Listening to transport champions and making trains greener, cleaner, faster and cheaper must surely be a top priority for a Government that is serious about realising its self-appointed title ‘greenest Government ever’. Infact, I’d say such an objective should be a bare minimum.

It is incredible therefore, genuinely incredible, that train fares are expected to rise by some 30-40% over the course of this coalition’s administration.

Taken from the Liberal Democrats’ own website, the same website that contains the line “Nuclear has a dirty legacy and increases global security risks. We oppose construction of further nuclear power stations.”, we have the following:

“Liberal Democrats believe buses and trains should be affordable and reliable so people can have a real choice about how to travel.”

The Telegraph had them down as specifically pledging to “cut commuter rail fares”.

How does increasing rail fares by a third, rail fares that were already the most expensive in Europe, make travelling by train “affordable”?

Indeed, a damning 2009 quote from current Lib Dem Transport Minister Norman Baker makes this all the more uncomfortable for the Lib Dems:

“….the government has failed train passengers for over a decade. Prices have been allowed to mount to an unacceptable level with British passengers paying the highest train fares in Europe.”

In The Guardian, the generally oafish Lord Sugar talked of the Lib Dems today in a way that I daresay a growing number of Brits agree with:

“”One thing that’s for sure, this coalition thing is an absolute joke. It’s got to be sorted out. It can’t last for long with these Lib Dems and all that. These two people, [Nick] Clegg and [Vince] Cable, in their heart of hearts never thought they would get into power, now it’s as if Leyton Orient suddenly found themselves in the Champions League. Fish out of water! Unbelievable! They don’t know what they are doing! I think Cable should … he should just give it up. They should put him in a field somewhere and give him a bit of hay.”

Nuclear power, tuition fees, rail fares and VAT rises. Nick Clegg must really love the Alternative Vote if he is willing to give up so many principles for this referendum.

Not that the buck stops only with the Lib Dems. The Conservatives are taking this country in an almost diametrically opposite direction from where it needs to move towards if the problems of climate change, inequality and social mobility are to be solved.

Many people live outside of London and other big cities and pay expensive season tickets just to travel into work each day. These increases in fares may well result in many of them deciding to move into the city to cut down on travel costs, a change to how we live that would be a hammer blow for some rural communities and would see cities bursting at the seams.

It’s the lack of joined up thinking that gets me, the myopic approach taken inside each individual Government department area that seems to ignore the whole gamut of problems that need to be addressed in their totality. Chief amongst these is climate change and if all areas of policy are inadequate then the guilty party is the man at the top, David Cameron. Zac Goldsmith must be pulling his beautifully coiffured hair out.

Vote Blue, get Green? What a joke.