When the late Queen was being transported back to London for her state funeral, her remains were kept well clear of the rail network, unlike what happened after the death of her father in 1952, her favourite PM Winshton in 1965, or the Royal party following the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997 (her remains went by road, everyone else took the Royal Train).
Also, the alphabet soup of alleged “think tanks”, in reality Astroturf lobby groups, the IEA, CPS, ASI and TPA, all hate railways, which nowadays mean public investment: this they all deem to be bad by definition. Sunak will no doubt duck and weave when anyone tries to nail him down on the abandonment; he may also talk well, but lie badly. Few will be convinced.
ITV News were first out of the traps: “The Manchester leg of HS2 has been shelved, ITV News understands, meaning the north west will no longer get a high speed rail connection to London. Rishi Sunak has decided instead to allocate billions previously ringfenced for the project to other transport projects in the north … A Number 10 spokesperson said no final decisions had been made but a Treasury spokesperson would not deny the reports”.
There was more. “The Leeds leg had already been cancelled and now all lines beyond Birmingham have been abandoned, meaning Crewe will also miss out on high speed rail. Mr Sunak … says priorities in the north west lie elsewhere”. Ran that one past Andy Burnham, did he? It gets worse.
Do we have that all-important second source for this news? Sure do: Pippa Crerar of the Guardian told “Rishi Sunak set to confirm he is scrapping the Northern leg of HS2 to Manchester at the Tory party conference in the city - very tricky optics for government”. Tricky, as in he and his fellow Tory MPs getting out of the city in one piece, having screwed its future over.
James Chapman, who has worked in Government, was unimpressed. “What a dismal retreat and betrayal of the North. When I worked at the Treasury, we set up the National Infrastructure Commission to try to take the politics out of big projects like this and prevent this sort of short-termism. It didn’t work”.
Adam Bienkov of Byline Times added “So to summarise, the Government has just announced plans to scrap the biggest public transport infrastructure project planned for any Northern city, while taking part in its conference in that same city, which its Chancellor chose to travel to by plane”. While said Chancellor, and his PM, moaned about rail strikes they provoked.
And Simon Kendler cautioned “There you go … Stupid decision by stupid people … And don’t be fooled. There’ll be no re-allocation of funds … You can’t reallocate money that doesn’t exist … This will just cost us more, manyfold, for years to come”. But they’ll be celebrating in Tufton Street, cos after all, it’s only a game, they won, and the rotten leftie provincials lost.
The rest of Europe gets on with high speed, and upgraded, rail links. But the Tories are so much cleverer than that. Which is why the UK is screwed.
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5 comments:
Never believed the "Northern Powerhouse" shite anyway, with or without HS2.
I support HS2 because the rail network requires modernising right across the country. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland too. Privatisation has reduced it to mobile slums little better than cattle cars in many cases.
It was far right toryism that set out to reduce the country outside the M25 ghetto, and it "succeeded" over four decades of organised thievery and socioeconomic thuggery. Expecting that kind of barrow boy mentality to change is akin to thinking rats can change their tails.
It isn't only the rail network that is rotting away. The country is in decay because its political class has become an institutionalised far right kleptocracy who couldn't give a shit about anything except their own bank balance.
They'll get worse too, whoever "wins" the next "election". The rail network is the least of it.
Never mind European high speed rail: Morocco and now Indonesia (!) have their own lines. Even the USa is finally catching up - the brightline service in Florida started the other day. Our infrastructure is like our politics: decrepit, unreliable, unsafe, and expensive.
Clearly, there are no Tory donors involved in HS2, otherwise it would have been backed to the hilt with unlimited funds.
RodJ, Brightline isn't a true "high speed" line in the European sense. It's more like the British "High Speed Train" of 40+ years ago - hauled stock topped and tailed by diesel locomotives.
Nevertheless, the UK's current state is lamentable. It was in 1987 when I made my first European high-speed journey, Paris Gare de Lyon to Chambery, where I changed to a conventional train to Turin, with change of voltage and loco at Modane. Nowadays, TGVs and Frecciarossa sets, with multiple voltage, go straight through. Actually, today they can't, because the Frejus tunnel is blocked by a landslip. To add to the fun of life, the Saint Gotthard base tunnel is only in partial use following a recent derailment. Nevertheless, the European system has enough resilience to let services continue.
Meanwhile, over here, I don't know if I'll still be capable of travel, or even alive, when the wonderful Acton-Aston line opens.
Apropos of nothing, isn't it interesting that the Tory Party conference is being held in the building that used to be terminus station of the Midland Railway?
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