Labour defeat Andy Street in the West Midlands

Seismic result, and one to cause Sunak more trouble than most of these dreadful results for the Tories. Street is not the worst of the Tories by a long way, but the bigger battle is more important. They will be asking questions of Sunak now, not least of all around the decision to cancel HS2. Leadership challenge may be imminent - which may provoke Sunak to call the election.

 

Yes, but they managed keep hold of the mega metropolis that is Teesside.

 

Hs2 was a white elephant.

 

Yes, I bet the French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese etc rue the day those high speed efficient rail networks were ever built.

 

It actually wasn't. Talk to any train buff and they'll tell you that the rail network around Birmingham is at capacity. New lines are desperately needed which HS2 would have delivered by diverting some traffic away from the already congested network around Brum.

 

Geology and a small highly populated country prevents us from building railways like they have constructed.

 

That's correct...the London to Birmingham stretch and the WCML do need capacity, but don't worry they'll look after London and its connections. The most important factor for us would be to connect the North together on an East West axis. That's where the Hs2 billions should have been spent.

 

Which is why the necessary upgrades won't happen - it's part of the gradual decline that is endemic in the U.K...

 

I can get from York to London in 1 hour 52 minutes without HS2. 100mph average speed. That's quick enough for me.

 

But it takes the best part of three hours to get to Birmingham, on what's probably going to be an overcrowded four-carriage Voyager. And forget getting to Cardiff or Bristol.

HS2 was never about how quickly you can get to London. Everybody can already get to London reasonably quickly!

 

After a big battle with my conscience I voted conservative for the first, and almost certainly last, time in my life on Thursday, and it was for Andy Street. I see absolutely nothing from Parker to make me think that he's going to do anything whatsoever for the West Midlands. Street was a tory, but I trusted that he had the right ideas to move the region forwards.

Have to admit, despite that, the political geek in me is very much looking forward to the fallout from the result!

 

Why then did they start building it in London and work out?..if the benefit was for the regions they should have started spending the £billions there.

 

Just off the top of my head, because that was the trickiest part in terms of engineering, and the benefits in terms of capacity don't add up without relieving the existing mainlines, of which the WCML south of Birmingham is the most congested. Starting from London and working out makes sense, and wouldn't have been a problem had you lot not got pretty much exactly what you wanted by getting all the good bits cancelled!

With the greatest of respect, we've been through this dozens of times before, and you're well aware that I think you're way off base with it. I'd fully recommend that everybody who's vaguely interested in the case for HS2 reads the original literature and the opinions of real-life railway engineers, rather than taking anything at all from us going back and forth about it on a message board.

 

Sestren, I've been in meetings with Ministers of UK Govt, and got to know Grayling's DfT Advisor Thomas Barry well...I've publicly stated that Sir David Higgins lied to Parliament, and that Hs2 Ltd regularly lied in the press..I've pointed out that virtually all of the pressure groups supporting Hs2 were funded and staffed by the same industry making the billions whilst masquerading as 'independent' groups. I still have my house and they have never taken me to Court. I am absolutely satisfied that I ( and others) would have been forced to retract ..and lost everything had Hs2 had a case.
Hs2 are liars and their case is built on a lie that changes when it needs to...they are little better than the Post Office of the time. They were very enthusiastic in their use of non disclosure orders in my area which hampered independent investigation by the use of fear.
Their literature is often a fantasy story to appeal to the political paymasters.
If people want to check what Rail Engineers say, it's important to check their credentials before accepting the opinion as factual...the vast bulk are employed by the vested interests who were set to make billions.
Having said all that...I agree it's been done to death on here.

 

I think we need to separate HS2 as a concept from HS2 as it is currently incorporated. Your experience of what is currently HS2 as a company does not change the fact that the concept of HS2, or something very similar, is inevitable. It needs to be done, because the railways are their very limits and there's simply no realistic way of relieving them without new mainlines. HS2, as it was planned, replaces long-distance service on all of one (WCML), most of another (ECML), and quite a bit of a third (MML). It's an extremely efficient solution.

This is not at all incompatible with the fact that the organisation that currently manages HS2 has treated you badly!

I also agree that it's important to check peoples' credentials, but let's be real here. I hope you'd agree it's a bit rich to say that the vast bulk of the pro-rail crowd are employed by vested interests when you look at who's opposing them. This isn't a few plucky individuals standing up to the establishment - there's a huge amount of private money sloshing around for those who are willing to stand against public investment of any kind. I'm not saying that's you, but I'd be as wary of your fellow travellers as you are your opposition.

But yeah, done to death. I don't want to say that I'm leaving it there, because I think that's a kind of unpleasant way of not giving the other person the right of reply. But I will say that the plans are all out there, the graphs are available and the people who work on the railways have had their say. Anybody can look any of it up. And, like I say, my basic view is that it will be built eventually, because there's no alternative. The only variable is how much it will cost, and that figure will keep increasing the longer it's delayed.