It did not take long for a drenching (albeit not a much-publicised one) from chancellor Rishi Sunak to wash away the transient coating on Boris Johnson's programme announced at the start of the week. Almost ten per cent is to be cut from Network Rail's current five-year budget. Although it seems that the Northern Powerhouse and planned railway re-openings are thankfully to be protected, at the PM's insistence, there must now be a doubt about electrification. Even restoring the coalition's programme, so savagely cut when the Conservatives took sole power, with its benefit of reducing road traffic and therefore also greenhouse gas emissions plus urban pollution, looks doubtful.
Meanwhile, the road programme goes ahead and the prime minister has not rowed back from his campaign to force through the M4 diversion across the Gwent Leverls.
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