School cuts are more damaging than potholes

Let’s talk about potholes. Because they are everywhere. If you haven’t personally rattled across a few of them on your latest car ride to anywhere, you can hardly miss (unlike the potholes) all the news on this topic in the press.
 
Yes, newspapers love stories about potholes – or at least the online clicks they generate.
 
Last week, the Asphalt Industry Alliance published a report saying that our roads are at “breaking point” due to potholes, the BBC reported. The government countered by saying that it has pledged to provide £8.3 billion of extra funding over 11 years for road improvements. I’ve no idea whether that is good or bad. It’s just a big figure divided up over lots of years.
 
I don’t think this interest in potholes is just about the damage they do to our cars, or the jolting discomfort to our spines. Potholes also serve as a very visible symbol of decay. They convey the sense that the country has gone to the dogs, that the economy is in decline, that the government has lost control.
 
If I were a minister in this ailing government, I’d be doing everything I could to make sure that people aren’t still crunching over potholes on their way to the polling stations later this year.