HS2: Government accused of ‘betraying’ North and Midlands over scrapped rail extension

There is no doubt that today’s announcement marks a scaling back of the original plans for HS2.

But the government says the new plan is in fact the “green signal” for a network of modern high speed rail. Boris Johnson called the package “fantastic, monumental”.

His transport secretary pronounced it “one of the biggest single acts of levelling up of any government in history”.

Unsurprisingly that was dismissed not just as hyperbole, but as wrong by the opposition, with Labour calling it a “betrayal” of the North and the Midlands.