Brexit debacle is a model of competence compared to the HS2 disaster

It would be understandable if you thought the Brexit negotiations the most farcical display of incompetence in which the current government could ever indulge; or that the £39bn that Remainer ministers long to lavish upon the undeserving rich of Brussels, notably Jean Claude Juncker’s wine merchant, would be the most extravagant squandering of taxpayers’ money that could ever be imagined. That would be an understandable impression, but it would be wrong.

The Brexit debacle, at its most extreme, is a model of competence and fiscal responsibility, compared to the disaster that is HS2 – a nightmare scenario to which only the brush of Hieronymus Bosch could do justice. The latest news (in the context of HS2 that is a euphemism for scandal) is that a Freedom of Information request by the Bramley Action Group (an anti-HS2 campaigning organisation) has revealed the cost of acquiring land and property for Phase One of HS2 has nearly quintupled – from the 2012 estimate of £1.1bn to a now projected £4.96bn.

That is in tune with the relentless mushrooming of costs for the overall project, originally estimated at £32.7bn but already increased to £56bn. Even that figure is an underestimate since the National Audit Office in 2016 accused HS2 of being £7bn over budget, so that the current figure acknowledged by one government source or another totals £63bn. We should cherish that figure while we can, because the day will come when it will seem a bargain.

A public-sector project that has doubled in cost over eight years, while still in its infancy, and which is not scheduled to complete before 2033 – though meeting that deadline would be unprecedented for a state-sponsored initiative – has the potential to increase its cost exponentially, as politicians throw good money after bad in a desperate face-saving exercise. There is no limit that can credibly be placed on the capacity of HS2 to haemorrhage taxpayers’ money. Sir Terry Morgan, former HS2 chairman, told the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee last month, when asked if the cost figures were correct, that “everybody has their own guesstimate”.

What is HS2 for? Its genesis was recalled in 2009 in an interview with The Independent by Transport Secretary Chris Grayling – an ill-starred minister who is beginning to inspire the same superstitious dread among politicians as does the Scottish Play among thespians – when he related: “Actually, I was the person who – when I was Shadow Transport Secretary – first proposed our alternative policy; a high-speed rail line linking Leeds and Manchester to Birmingham, Heathrow, London, Paris and Brussels.”

The object, now lost in the mists of political expediency, was to avoid building a third runway at Heathrow. The present-day reality was described by Penny Gaines, chair of the Stop HS2 campaign, in reply to a letter written last month by some Northern politicians supporting HS2 and including factual inaccuracies: “But HS2 will not in any way connect us to the rest of Europe or the rest of the world. It doesn’t connect to HS1 and the Channel Tunnel. It doesn’t connect to Heathrow. The HS2 plans do not even include Scotland or Wales. It might be the most expensive project in Europe, but HS2 is very much based on trains to a handful of cities in England.”

To visit the HS2 website is to enter the La La Land of political vanity projects, a Jurassic Park wherein white elephants trample down reality. “HS2 will treat local communities with respect.” Of course it will. If you are lucky, a team of HS2 drop-in community relations staff will talk you through the benefits of the project, perhaps share a cup of tea with you, and then bulldoze your inconveniently situated home.

The HS2 vision can be appreciated through an impressive array of artists’ impressions, from which it incidentally becomes apparent that HS2 will significantly improve the British weather. There is a particularly sensitive pledge regarding the environment. “HS2 will conserve, replace or enhance wildlife habitats and green spaces. It will create a green corridor along its route.” (Cue idyllic Elgar music.) That sounds good, might get Caroline Lucas on board.

Unless, of course, she takes cognizance of environmentalists’ claims that HS2 threatens with destruction 350 unique habitats, 98 irreplaceable ancient woods, 30 river corridors, 24 Sites of Special Scientific Interest and hundreds of other sensitive areas. Even if they come under the “replace” rubric of HS2’s pledge it is difficult to understand how a mediaeval forest can magically be regenerated after being felled. The pledge to “enhance wildlife habitats”, presumably by driving a train through them at 250mph, is a particularly challenging concept.

The design speed of 250mph was the reason for the uncompromising straightness of the HS2 route, which made it so destructive, since curves could not safely be negotiated at that speed. Lately, however, the speed fetish is being played down, as encroaching financial realities have compelled the perpetrators to reduce both the projected speed and the number of trains. Chris Grayling – the gift that just keeps giving – told Andrew Marr as long ago as October 2016: “One of the myths about HS2 is it’s about speed.”

You know, Chris, it’s very helpful that you spelled that out, because many of us uninformed laymen – chaps who never owned a Hornby train set in their deprived childhood – had formed a different impression. Some of us had irresponsibly rushed to the unfounded conclusion that a transport project named High Speed Two might be about – well – celerity. So, what is it about?

In fact, we all know the answer to that. It’s about politicians designing vanity projects on the back of an envelope, with no thought of purpose or cost, since it is not their money that is being flushed down the proverbial. It’s about lobby groups and special interests clamping their gobs onto the public teat. It’s about creating amenities for the richest section of society by demolishing the homes and lives of the lumpen electorate. It’s about incompetence on an industrial scale camouflaged by civil servants and management-speak verbiage.

All post-War governments, since the Festival of Britain, via the Millennium Dome, have had a fixation with ever larger follies masquerading as prestige projects. It is a symptom and a product of the malaise that occurs when the government appropriates an excessive proportion of citizens’ wealth in taxation.

Unless HS2 is cancelled, get down to Ladbrokes and bet the farm (if it has not been bulldozed) on the cost of HS2 exceeding £100bn before the supposed completion of phase one in 2026. Last October Esther McVey, then Work and Pensions Secretary, told her constituents that figure would be exceeded. For your peace of mind, try not to dwell on what might have been the outcome if this money had constructively been used to encourage and support SMEs and as a war chest to assist Britain through the experience of Brexit.

If Project Fear has any substance, why does the Government not use it as a pretext to disembarrass itself of the white elephant that is HS2? It will never have a better opportunity to terminate this ill-conceived, eye-wateringly expensive, socially destructive catastrophe on rails.