What on earth is happening with the Isle of Wight's (not so) good old floating bridge?

We were told by Councillor Phil Jordan back in April that mediation was reaching conclusion regarding the compensation we would be getting from the architects and builders of the not-fit-for-purpose Floating Bridge 6, but it’s all gone rather quiet — have they all fallen asleep at the negotiating table?

I don’t have to remind everyone that ‘Sorting out the Floating Bridge’ was the only actual pledge this alliance council made when they came together in May of last year, and if we don’t get at least £1.6million back of the £3.2m shelled out, I think we would call it a failure; although they will be forgiven in my eyes if they just get rid of the money pit that is FB6 rather than continue to run it at a loss every year.

The Jenny boat which so adequately takes passengers across the Medina every time FB6 is out of action is absolutely ideal for this day and age, and if you need to get across the river with your car, then you can very easily drive — this is 2022, not 1922!

Anyway, the floating bridge isn’t my main topic of thought at the moment.

The subject grabbing all the headlines is the end of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister.

After all the lies and deceit, it was actually the alleged sexual misconduct of an MP that most of us had never heard of that brought Johnson down, although in reality that was just an excuse, the real reason Johnson had to go was the by-election result from Tiverton and Honiton in Devon, which saw the Lib Dems overturn a Tory majority of 24,000.

That disastrous result for the Conservatives rang major alarm bells at Tory HQ and they realised that if they don’t start to get the country back in shape, with a strong leader at the helm, they will get annihilated at the next general election.

The Tories are currently very vulnerable, so if the Isle of Wight Lib Dems had any sense whatsoever, they would be capitalising on the success in Devon, and would go on an immediate attack.

Without delay they should be announcing that their excellent councillor for Parkhurst and Hunnyhill, Andrew Garratt, is to be their Isle of Wight candidate at the next general election, and they should be getting his face and voice everywhere.

Our current Tory MP, Bob Seely, continues to tell us he is banging his drum to get an Island Deal, but banging a drum is just noise — there never was going to be an Island Deal and there never will be.

Poor old naive Capt Bob has been sold down the river, and if the Lib Dems were on their game, they’d be starting the process to sink him.

The Lib Dems really could achieve on the Isle of Wight what they have in Devon, but it is no good announcing a ‘nobody’ candidate four weeks before an election like they usually do, they need to get a PR team together; headed-up by Tracy Mikich, announce Garratt NOW as their candidate for the next election, and get grafting….but have they got it in them to be so forceful? I doubt it.