It’s not just Ed Miliband who’s facing pressure over HS2. George Osborne’s famous political antennae must be twitching furiously by now — does he really want to be the last man in England backing this? Alistair Darling’s case (£) reeks of cold logic: he has become the latest public figure to withdraw support for HS2 because the costs now outweigh the benefits. The facts changed; he changed his mind. This is what rational people do. Unless you’re ideologically wedded to the idea of HS2, then there’s now not much grounds for supporting it – as a glance at the latest the Institute for Economic Affairs report attests.
Ross Clark writes in this week’s magazine that funding for a high speed project between Nice and Paris has been frozen – the money is being spent upgrading the network in other places.
My colleague Sebastian Payne is still keen on HS2, and his position is certainly intellectually honest.
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