Just for a little balance or does this not count. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/co ... 07850.html

Just for a little balance or does this not count. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/co ... 07850.html

I think the families of those that disappeared or died during his dictatorship would disagree and let us not forget she was one of a very few leaders who supported the White South African regime during apartheid.

Levelling up going well.
Us Yorkshire folk will now be left with 20th century "slow" trains, while those in the South have HS2 and the new London Crossrail.

Seems to go right against the "policy£ of trying to move things away from London.

Absolutely grotesque isn't it. This government has done some abominable things but I think this is perhaps individually the worst (so far).

HS2 just for London would never have been signed off in the first place as an economic or transport solution. The whole point was that it was a once-in-a-generation, whole-nation improvement in our railway network, taking the fastest trains off existing lines where local trains currently have to dodge around them and opening up huge opportunities for capacity improvements for local schedules and much more scope to move slower-moving freight along those lines. It was fundamental to the UK's supposed climate promises. To do away with it now is just the most treacherous thing the Tories could ever have done to millions in the north - and is two fingers up to our emissions plans. It simply means in future there will be more car journeys and more lorries on the roads. Any idea what political party the road lobby is heavily invested in?

The Northern independence movement will continue to gain popularity. London is basically a different an entirely different country at this point

Of course the people actually in London don't even vote for the Tories. But the big business and rich people in the areas outside it do and they are the real beneficiaries.

If the section to the North East of HS2 can be duplicated in time saving by using the existing infrastructure why do we need HS2 at all based on that reasoning.

In a word....” Corruption”.
All them hefty kickbacks being trousered by the tories

HS2 is all about sucking the fast, long-distance trains onto one network and freeing up the existing network for improving everything else.
HS2 is all about capacity and segregation. Despite what some people keep saying speed and time savings are a side effect not the core reason.

The reason for HS2 is now irrelevant because it stops for us here in the North East at Birmingham.

Well yes, without both northern legs HS2 itself would never have been approved as the critical mass of benefits came building from all of it, not part.

Surely, it's more fundamental than that.
IF we are this top nation, showing the world how great Britain is, we should strive to have the best infrastructure that we can and just as other leading nations have high speed rail, the UK should be keeping up.
The decision to cull HS2 to the North East is appalling, its just as neccessary up here as it is "down South"