The final insult
Just when you thought they couldn’t be more insulting, the Tories have found a way. Apparently HS2 will be extended so that it can reach Euston station in London, but not past Birmingham.
The Conservatives can find the money to make HS2 into a high speed commuter line into London but not to extend it to the country’s second city. All that time, money and hope and what do they deliver, another massive infrastructure project for the south of England. Levelling down at a cost of tens of billions.
Doubtless we will be told that HS2 will extend beyond Birmingham, but just slowly -a sick joke at the expense of the North.
Also it will be claimed that money will be used instead on cross-northern transport links, between Liverpool and Hull. A group of Tory MPs want to call this the Charles Line after the King, it is more likely to be a Charlie line.
If the government can’t find the money to finish HS2 because it is too expensive, how can it use the same money to build other rail links?
HS2 was first proposed in 2010 and given the go ahead in 2012, it is therefore a total Tory mess. It has cost ten times what a similar line nearly anywhere else would cost, billions has been thrown at placating Tory MP’s through whose constituencies it passes. It has been mismanaged and mishandled. Companies have filled their boots and thousands of people have had their homes re-possessed and lives disrupted.
Foreign investors will be aghast, foreign governments amazed, foreign competitors delighted.
But don’t worry we have shaved 20 minutes off the journey to Brum.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
By Jonty Bloom Media