HS2 truncation

Dame Cheryl Gillan, thou shouldst be living at this hour.

A selling-point of HS2 was that the high-speed line in being extended to Leeds would speed access from London and provide extra rail capacity at the same time. The case for HS2 was always marginal and many saw it merely an expensive way to increase commuter traffic from the Birmingham area to the capital. With today's announcement by Grant Shapps, that looks increasingly to be the case. One wonders how easy it would have been to pass the original legislation on the basis of today's truncated scheme. This also increases the cost per mile of all the consultants' work commissioned since the start.

Bringing forward improvements in rail connectivity between Lancashire and Yorkshire, as announced by Shapps, is clearly welcome. But why did the long-suffering commuters have to wait this long? These steps could have been taken ten years ago.

Electrifying the Midland Main Line is also welcome. But Shapps was less than honest in blaming Labour for holding this up. True, the Blair/Brown government did virtually nothing for new electrification south of the Border, but it was a Conservative transport minister who put a halt to the coalition's electrification scheme - in the case of the Midland Main Line, disgracefully just after winning an election.

And if the Midland Main Line electrification can be revived, why not Cardiff to Swansea? As I understand it, the required upgrade to the signalling has been completed and the Hitachi service facility in Swansea awaits. (If any of my facts are wrong, I welcome corrections.)