Great Western Coffee Shop

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/liverpool-manchester-rail-plan-announced-will-cut-journey-time-in-half/ar-BB1mRg1X?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=e9b674589b52419e91b231570aaf1600&ei=13

Using funds from the scrapping of HS2

Smart way to get the wheels in motion - Starmer and Reeves can't publicly contradict it without losing votes, or grab glory without looking like opportunists. For Sunak it shows the power of devolution and that he was right on HS2 P2 cancellation.

The nice thing is that it potentially fixes one of HS2's biggest Achilles' heels - namely that to work properly, there needs to be a proper north/south/east/west HS2 interchange station in Manchester, not just a "Waterloo International"-style white elephant tacked onto Piccadilly.

Excellent. That just leaves the small matter of getting between Birmingham and Manchester...

There are plenty of bigger Achilles’ heels now that Phase 2a has been cancelled.

Of course, if this was China, we’d have all of the above and the Phase 2b eastern leg to Leeds…and it would all be open by now.

Isn't it different money though?  HS2 is as I understand it (and I'm no economist, but those who are and are critical of the partial cancellation have plenty of explanations elsewhere online) funded by borrowing, to be repaid over time, effectively thanks to the economic success it is expected to bring about.  This scheme will have to be justified in its own right, and could well have been financially viable whether or not HS2 was built in full.

I recommend watching this interview (and thanks to Western Pathfinder for drawing my attention to this podcast channel): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjX_JqCL7y4&t=1802s

...but if you can't spare an hour or so to watch it, the essence is that as far as the Treasury is concerned it's all just money - they don't distinguish between CapEx  and OpEx, so they don't really care if money is reallocated from investment to revenue spend. Which seems ludicrous to me, but I'm an engineer not a finance expert.

Perhaps (with another recently started election themed thread in mind!) you should stand for the Chinese Communist Party in the upcoming General Election with the speedy and total construction of HS2 as your manifesto?

May face some tricky questions about human/workers rights, environmental issues, Health and Safety etc but it'd certainly make for some entertaining campaign speeches!

Who knows, you may achieve a Great Leap Forward?  ;D

No, ta!  ;)