Disbelief at plan to fix London potholes as part of Network North project

The Department for Transport said the government had said all along that money saved from scrapping HS2 would be spent across the country. Photograph: Jorg Greuel/Getty Images

“It’s like a bad Christmas cracker joke,” said one northern leader in England as the government announced its latest Network North transport project: fixing potholes in London.

The punchline, said Kim McGuinness, Labour’s candidate to be the mayor of north-east England, isn’t even funny. It’s “Tories celebrating widening the widening north/south divide”.