WHY WASTE £100BILLION ON A SLOW TRAIN TO THE SUBURBS?

FORGIVE me for wittering on about HS2 but it really does involve billions of pounds of the money we taxpayers have to pour into the kitty for the Establishment to spend – or fritter away. Now, way over budget, it is being curtailed yet again with a spur here and a branch line there being “put on hold”.

That, in the parlance of white elephants, usually means “never to be seen again”.

Starting on a budget of £33billion, it rapidly rose to an estimate of more than £100billion – with other, better causes, screaming for funds – and it is in an attempt to hold to that figure without admitting more overspend that the actual line is being trimmed and trimmed.

Add to that, the idea of its final London terminal being at Euston has also just been vetoed rather than devastate huge tracts of inner London. So its London end will have to terminate at a suburb distant from the true business capital – the City – requiring a commuter journey from disembarkation point to where business executives need to be.

With that extra commute the speed advantage is out of the window. The authorities might as well upgrade the existing line at a fraction of the cost and divert the savings to where they could do most good – beefing up our defences or dropping the ruinous new taxes and charges.

But this is a vanity project so political and bureaucratic “reputations” are now involved. These are so precious that any sacrifices – by others of course – are worth making to preserve them.

It would take a brave and decisive figure high in the Cabinet to do what ought to be done but I fail to see any such figure with his/ her head above the parapet.