The folly of HS2 is a modern telling of the Seven Deadly Sins

Another week, and further threats to the beleaguered High Speed Rail 2 project. This animated corpse now stirs limply, sustained only by political vanity and vast recesses of public money. The National Audit Office has lambasted ministerial indifference to HS2’S soaring costs. Another (leaked) report predicts a final bill of £106billion, yet says the scheme should continue on the basis that “there are no other shovel-ready projects”. This is an absurd rationale, echoing the politicians’ syllogism from Yes Minister (“Something must be done. This is something. Therefore we must do it.”) Still HS2 trundles on, a morality tale of bad governance, in which the Seven Deadly Sins are readily apparent.

First, Pride. HS2 owes much to politicians’ preference for flashy, legacy projects over more humdrum investments that yield greater returns, such as fixing potholes and upgrading rolling stock. It exemplifies the sunk costs fallacy, a depressingly common view in decision-making, that having spent X billion pounds on a project, we are “too far gone to turn back now”.

Lust and high-speed rail may not seem obvious bedfellows, and yet the seductions of political power have been key to HS2’S existence. Over the years, the likes of George Osborne, West Midlands Mayor Andy Street and the aptly named Lord Adonis, who once described the project as his “third child”, have climaxed in ecstatic agreement. HS2 is the deformed offspring of this technocratic love-in.

Greed comes in abundance through the cronyism and vested interests propelling HS2, the army of executives on vastly inflated salaries. Recent Freedom of Information requests give a taste of the largesse; £260,000 for an HR director, £280,000 for the chief financial officer whose costs are spiralling out of control. CEO Mark Thurston pockets a cool £625,000 a year (for doing what, exactly?).

Gluttony is also visible in the balance sheet. HS2’S staggering overruns reflect a project that no amount of taxpayer funding can satisfy. Only in the public sector would such an obvious failure be allowed to persist.

Envy has weighed heavily. Rail experts eyed French TGVS and Japanese bullet trains, and thought: “If they have one, so must we.” So too has Sloth, visible in MPS’ continued equivocations in the face of mounting evidence, and the sheer lack of accountability. If completed, HS2 could cost £70billion more than originally forecast. Will anyone face consequences for this shocking waste of money? Of course not. By the time the scale of the disaster becomes clear, those responsible will have left office, leaving the taxpayers to pick up the tab.

Finally, Wrath is reserved for the concerned public, invariably dismissed as “Nimbys” by the HS2 cabal. This growing outrage is the project’s one saving grace. If you wanted to teach people to be libertarians, there would be no better case study.

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