As speculation intensifies that Rishi Sunak is preparing to scrap the government’s flagship levelling up project, the PM finds himself in an unenviable position: damned if does, damned if he doesn’t.
Sunak refused once again today to commit to the northern leg of HS2. In doing so, he has failed to dispel rumours that a high speed rail line, once envisioned as a new way to link London with Leeds and Manchester, with dreams of one day reaching Scotland, will soon be reduced to – in the words of Tory grandees George Osborne and Michael Heseltine – “little more than a shuttle service from Birmingham to a London suburb.”
