Are we asking the wrong questions about HS2?

I am not sure there was much else Rishi could have done to salvage HS2. But I come bearing good news. There is no reason why HS2 cannot still be a great railway, even if it travels along the wrong route at the wrong speed and was constructed in the wrong direction to solve a problem which no longer exists. All you need to do is redefine what the railway is for. Perhaps it can be the right answer to a different question.

A useful precedent for reinvention here might be what was originally called the Millennium Dome. Though hopeless at fulfilling its original purpose, once reinvented as the O2 it has proved an asset to London. Or consider Cunard: when it found its liners outpaced by aircraft, it sold its ships as a destination rather than transportation and in the process largely invented the cruise-ship industry. The ships remained good answers – but to a different question.