Senior executives at HS2 Ltd stand accused of having used misleading projections, shredded documents, and forced out whistleblowers to keep money flowing into the project.
Reports suggest that Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt plan both to scrap HS2’s northern link between Birmingham and Manchester and to stop the line from terminating at London Euston.
There is simply no good reason to suppose that public ownership would lead to better management and higher investment when historically it has produced the opposite.
Ultimately, we either believe in free enterprise, and put customers and passengers ahead of fat-cat bosses and bureaucrats, or we don’t.
Privatisation was the wave of the future during the 1990s. Great British Railways risks turning its back on progress.
Also: The new Ulster Unionist leader is right that Northern Ireland suffers for having no government MPs. What will he do about it?
He plans to bring in a Fat Controller – as he seeks to balance the public interest with private sector freedom. This is the second piece in our rail mini-series.
The Railway Industry Association, the trade body for more than 300 rail suppliers, calls for the Government to fast-track important schemes.
How prepared are we for strict social distancing for the forseeable future, compulsory masks, closed leisure facilities – and a semi-functioning economy?
For the good of passengers, taxpayers and the railway, this pre-internet system needs a wholesale reset.
It is capitalising on voters who weren’t born in the era of state monopolies having no idea how much worse these companies were under Corbyn’s dinosaur model.
Sixty years after the Beeching Cuts, Britain’s trains face another defining moment, and the Government must make some vital choices.