Boris is in danger of committing electoral suicide in the north

PREDICTABLE, really. No sooner do reports emerge that the HS2 link from London via Birmingham to Leeds, Nottingham and Sheffield is set to be scrapped, than another article lands, hailing the use of innovative technology in the construction of the high-speed railway. 

“Giant 3D printer can get HS2 back on track” is the headline on a piece explaining how 3D printing will be deployed to cut costs, disruption and emissions. I looked in vain for the words “Classic Boris” tagged on the end, because this smacked of a familiar tactic adopted by this Prime Minister – every time a negative appears, chuck in a positive. The more it can be made breath-taking and enticing, the better. 

“Reinforced concrete structures installed as part of the 225mph railway will be printed on site by a giant robotic arm to avoid the inconvenience of transporting precast slabs by the road.” 

I don’t know if the order came down to find something diversionary to say or whether HS2 came up with the timing themselves. Perhaps, in Boris-land, these things now occur subliminally. Certainly, the words smacked of a salivating Johnson: “The mobile machine will squirt concrete laced with super-strong graphene through a nozzle”.

This is a Prime Minister who gushes hyperbole, who spews claim after claim.  Talk to those around Number Ten these days and they say that the only subjects he cares about are “les grands projets”. 

Rarely does he dwell on the intricacies of education, social policy, work and pensions. What he likes is buoyant optimism, throwing out impressive numbers. How they’re achieved is a different matter. Best of all he prefers to dwell on banner, flagship schemes concerning the environment (nodding to Mrs Johnson) and especially transport. 

Top of the list is HS2. Criticism of the projected service is simply brushed aside. No matter there is little tangible evidence of the supposed benefits it will bring. No matter that the £106 billion cost, and rising, would yield an awful lot of hospitals, schools and super-quick digital equipment. No matter that the world has changed and the pandemic has shown how people can WFH. No matter, too, that what the North of England really requires, apart from new hospitals, schools and super-quick digital, is a reliable, speedy train service across the region, between towns and cities. Northern Powerhouse, not North-South. 

None of this is allowed to get in the fast link’s relentless progress. It’s nothing short of a vanity project, and on an epic scale – the largest single infrastructure spend in Europe. 

Politically, Johnson could justify the railway by proclaiming it as a vital component of his “levelling up” agenda. It’s all about connecting North and South, at last removing that great divide. Frequent, hurtling trains will bring them closer together, enabling commuters to move seamlessly up and down, allowing businesses and government departments to function easily away from the capital. 

What a legacy, the Premier who united England, who levelled up. Of course, there will be niggles. No one likes to see their pleasant, green fields cut in two by a train line. There is bound to be anguish, as landscapes are dug up and homes and gardens destroyed. Some traditional Tory seats along the route will be put out. Johnson gets that – and in case he doesn’t entirely, the recent Chesham and Amersham by-election upset gave him a jolt. Hence, as well, the claim in relation to the giant robot arm and nozzle that 3D printing will help reduce disruption caused by lorries – his voters will be able to rest more easily. 

Nevertheless, he is in danger of committing a gross betrayal. Running the second phase of HS2 only to Manchester and Liverpool may seem acceptable to those in London – “HS2 light” but still HS2 – but to the Eastern side of the Pennines and Midlands it amounts to treachery. They’re promised something by someone who professes to understand and to care, then it’s taken from them. Worse, in their eyes, Manchester, the city that enjoys the highest profile, that lords it over them, is to get the service. Boris, you’re committing electoral suicide. You can say goodbye to Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and all those seats you won so unexpectedly. They were prepared to give you a chance, to take you at your word, to believe you when you said you were going to “level up”. Not anymore. Now they see you as yet another politician who is “all mouth and no trousers”. 

It won’t even assist him in retaining his new friends in the western half. Manchester and Liverpool will gain, but what they desire, more than shorter times to and from London, is a better network throughout the North. They would like to see journeys from Liverpool to Leeds, Liverpool to Sheffield, Manchester to Wakefield, Manchester to Barnsley, everywhere in the North of England, slashed. They would like, too, to be able to make them in comfort, not to be fobbed off as is often the case, with old rolling stock discarded by the South. 

That Northern Powerhouse ideal, however, is simply not sexy, not to a Southerner – Harrogate to Stockport does not exactly get the Johnson juices flowing. He wants the big ticket, the airport on an island, the bridge across to Northern Ireland, even as he once mooted the bridge to France. His reading of history tells him that’s how empires were built, how their great leaders are remembered. He’s chasing posterity – such a shame about the other, inconvenient stuff. 

He should terminate the beast now. End it, all of it, the whole thing. Excuses will be made that work has already begun. In the context of a 20-year timescale to completion we’re barely underway. It’s not too late. It really isn’t.