Sunak kills the Northern Powerhouse.

If we're looking at Great Btitain, then Manchester is down south as it's about 50 miles south of the centre.

I am beginning to think Starmer should say that, although the Conservatives have said they will not go ahead with HS2, Labour will look at each part of it, in consultation with the affected Combined Authority Mayors.

He should add that if any land, etc., is needed under future plans is sold Labour taking over it will be take it back under compulsory purchase orders. That should stop sales being attractive now.

Totally off topic, but I also hope that Starmer pushes the election of Combined Aurthotity Mayors for all areas, giving us something like 1 in Northern Ireland, 2 in Wales, 3 in Scotland and 10/12 in England. I also hope he intends to devolve all local decision making to them and cut the size of Parliament which would then look after purely national issues.

Then he could deal with the Lords.

DaisyAnneReturns

Totally off topic, but I also hope that Starmer pushes the election of Combined Aurthotity Mayors for all areas, giving us something like 1 in Northern Ireland, 2 in Wales, 3 in Scotland and 10/12 in England. I also hope he intends to devolve all local decision making to them and cut the size of Parliament which would then look after purely national issues.

Then he could deal with the Lords.

I think that has been a Labour policy for a while now, DAR. More devolution to the regions.

Mmm. I haven't seen any detail of how this will be organised - which part responsible for what when the change is completed Maisie. Nor have I seen ideas/plans about how they plan to make the H o C smaller. Mind you, I wouldn't have expected to at this point.

HS2 has slipped a long way down the list, I know, but some may find this interesting.

Just to clarify, this is not a channel I usually watch. It popped up after something else I was watching. I looks as if it is extreme-left generally - just so you know its bias.

It's a BBC interview being critiqued by the lady down in the bottom right corner. I would like to see more of this technique, perhaps on BBC verify.

What it seems to show is that the government is taking the savings from the ending of the leg to Birminham and the North East and giving it to Conservative voting areas. This may explain why Andy Street went so quiet after an initial burst of outrage.

The lady in the corner also suggests that the money on offer may not actually exist. I seems to be investments attached and promised for HS2, that will simply disappear.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWtiq9I2QoE

The lady in the corner also suggests that the money on offer may not actually exist. I seems to be investments attached and promised for HS2, that will simply disappear.

The lady in the corner is correct. The money never has 'existed'. It has no physical form and I strongly doubt that it is in any government account anywhere. It will only 'exist' if it is actually spent.

Like the £350million pw for the NHS ...

I'm so glad you came on Maisie. I can see that without the government "seeding" the build, the investors would withdraw. No money!

It sounds even more despicable than it did to start with.

I have no idea how the initial investment was financed. Were there private investors?

What I am surmising is that there was no lump sum originally allocated to a government account called 'HS2 finance' (or something similar). All the state/government committed to was paying the bills for HS2 when presented to them. I don't know if there was a limit imposed beyond which they would stop paying; it doesn't appear that there was.

So, in that case, unlike a household account in which money were put aside for, say, 'home improvement', the money for HS2 most probably wasn't 'put aside. There probably isn't an actual balance saved by cancelling it that can be spent elsewhere, just a theoretical balance.

I might be wrong , this is just a strong suspicion on my part