Politicians, senior civil servants and HS2 bosses have run what should have been a symbol of national renewal and connectivity into the ground. A decade from now – when London, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds were due to be superconnected by high-speed rail – it may at last to be possible to buy a ticket from a former patch of wasteland in west London to the West Midlands.
The single most damaging act of national self harm was wrought by Rishi Sunak. At the Conservative Party conference in Manchester in 2023, the then-prime minister gleefully announced cancelling the most critical stretch of the line – between Birmingham and Manchester.
