The go-slow route to High Speed 2 may turn the Tories against the flagship modernisation project

Earlier this week the Major Projects Authority gave High Speed 2 an amber-red flag, informing the government that the project (along with the MoD’s two new aircraft carriers) is looking ‘unachievable’. To its detractors, the warning confirms HS2 remains little more than a pipe dream. In last week’s Spectator, Rory Sutherland bemoaned the 20-year time frame as reason enough to abandon the project and focus our energies somewhere more immediate.

But it didn’t have to be like this. HS2 remains in the doldrums thanks to a lamentable amount of faffing by the government. When the coalition came to power, most of the plans for HS2 were ready to roll. The planning powers to build the line — the crucial Hybrid Bill announce in this year’s Queen’s Speech — were not yet passed but there was little apparent cause for a three-year delay.