No matter how desperate the banana republic, the international airport is always a shimmering palace of perfume and croissants. It is only when you get out onto the dirt roads that you realise where you are.
The government seems determined to take the same approach to our own transport system: all the money gets sucked into vanity projects while transport used by the rest of us remains creaking. Yesterday transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin announced a sharp contraction of a programme which last year the government described as ‘the largest modernisation of the railways since Victorian times’. Election safely over, projects to be dropped from the promised £38.5 billion upgrade include electrification of the Midland mainline and of the TransPennine line from York to Manchester. So much for the Northern Powerhouse.
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