And I thought the SNP were destined to win the award for this year’s most pathetic excuse – after Scottish transport minister Jenny Gilruth blamed the party’s failure to dual the A9 on Putin’s war in Ukraine. Then UK transport secretary Mark Harper turns up and tries to use the very same excuse for HS2’s soaring costs. The Birmingham to Manchester section of the high-speed line will be delayed for two years, he said yesterday, because ‘Putin’s war in Ukraine has hiked up inflation, sending supply chain costs rocketing.’
HS2 has turned out to be an extremely expensive turkey because it was misconceived from the start
Much as I despise Vladimir Putin, I’m sorry this just won’t wash. It wasn’t Putin who claimed in 2010 that Britain could build a Y shaped network of high-speed lines between London, Manchester and Leeds for £30 billion – and then kept ratcheting up the costs.
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