Nobody will mourn HS2 if the PM can come up with a proper transport strategy
Hole lot more
WE’RE all for a Prime Minister championing drivers instead of using them as cash cows.
But a blitz on potholes is not quite the massive transport upgrade we had in mind for the North if the HS2 leg to Manchester gets axed.
Don’t get us wrong. For all the sneers of London lefties who don’t drive, potholes are a nightmare.
But Rishi Sunak needs more than that.
He needs a proper plan to spend some of the vast HS2 savings bringing northern rail and bus networks up to the standard of those in the capital.
A colossal investment, for example, in rail links across the region, including Northern Powerhouse Rail from Liverpool across to Hull.
Even in the video-conferencing era, there’s a case for those — unlike the sole HS2 line from outer London to Birmingham.
Mr Sunak says cars are by far the most common transport outside the capital. True.
Partly because public transport is so sporadic and unreliable.
Unveil a strategy to fix that and few will mind HS2 finally being binned.
Khan chaos
CRIME-ravaged London deserves better than its woeful Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Criticise him over the epidemic of violence, including the horrific murder of Elianne Andam, and you’re “using her as a political football”.
Ask him about its causes and you get the usual left-wing excuses:
“Deprivation, alienation, lack of opportunity, inequalities” and, of course, Tory “austerity”.
But there’s one cause Khan never apparently considers:
The dismal leadership of a Labour Mayor devoted less to stopping the bloodshed than to taxing the lowest-paid off the roads on dubious eco grounds.
Class clowns
WE’RE sure teachers are delighted to hear that Sir Keir Starmer thinks our state schools are “appalling”.
Perhaps his view is coloured by having gone to a posh school himself.
Global league tables prove him wrong.
The most recent PISA results for 15-year-olds had the UK jumping nine places to 18th in maths, up eight to 14th in reading and up again to 14th in science.
Another worldwide ranking puts our primary age kids fourth for reading.
Our schools can always improve. And there is still a gap between the private and state sectors.
But Labour’s idea to close that divide is already a fiasco.
They planned to strip private schools of charity status. Not any more.
We suspect they will U-turn over putting VAT on fees too once they finally realise their sums don’t add up . . .
And that left-leaning, middle-class, fee-paying parents won’t vote Labour to become poorer overnight.