'Tories have no clue on HS2 - rail unions have played blinder with strike dates'

16 September 2023 , 17:04

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'Tories have no clue on HS2 - rail unions have played blinder with strike dates'

I’m, by nature, fully behind anyone going on strike – especially people on the railway.

But if you ever need a reason to love the rail unions more, they’ve just announced strike action on the first and last days of the Conservative Party conference. Magnificent bit of mischief. Already, people are panicking about getting there (I mean, why would you want to?). “How are you going to get to Manchester?” I asked one staffer. “I don’t think they’ll pay for us to fly. Two words for you: Mega Bus.”

Megabus, as seasoned travellers will know, is one word but he sounded so upset I didn’t have the heart to correct him. Good old Aslef. Anyways, that was not the worst bit of rail news to hit the Tories – and the rest of us – this week. HS2 continues to deliver. It’s kind of gone beyond ineptitude and drifted into the territory of downright insulting. Since it launched, it’s been doomed. Expensive, pointless, all the rest.

As the years have gone on, the need for it has decreased massively. There’s remote working now. People are not commuting. When they are, they are not particularly worried about shaving minutes off their journey time. The real work that needed doing was connecting the North to the North. A high-speed rail corridor on the M62 route, upgrades in the north-east, would have been transformative. For a Government that used to talk about levelling-up a lot, that would have done the trick.

This week, we learned that the Government has refused to commit to the northern section of HS2. They’re looking for savings and could snip £30billion off the budget by scrapping the Manchester to Birmingham line. We need urgent clarity. It’s rare for this column to agree with George Osborne but the former Chancellor labelling it a “tragedy” not to build the northern leg is spot on. He added: “It’s all very well saying cancel this leg and build the other, you cancel this leg that is 13 years of work, preparation, planning in parliament, endless studies.”

HS2 in chaos as Tories won't deny £60bn rail scheme may not run to London Euston

And that’s where we are. Since it was announced in 2009, it’s been rerouted many times and more than doubled in cost from the £33billion pencilled in at the start. Shambles. And another slap in the face for the north. Manchester mayor Andy Burnham says the Government is treating Northerners as second-class citizens. It’s worse than that, I’m afraid. It feels like they’re not treating us like citizens at all. Only way out of this is the next election. Labour said in the spring they would build the whole thing – including the Leeds leg. That, from a purely selfish point of view, would get me out of London and into Whitelock’s Ale House 20 minutes faster. Guaranteed vote-winner.

Keir Mudie