In recent days people have been told by their nationalised Network Rail not to use the train services unless it is essential. Three hot days led to trouble on the tracks. Meanwhile the Minister after a two year wait produced updated budget forecasts for the costs of fully nationalised HS 2. These showed the cost has shot up to over £87bn for less than half the railway line originally planned. Even with construction contracts let and work underway there is a £14 bn variation in the forecasts with an upper figure of £102 bn.
Worse still are the delays. A new trainline first planned by the Labour government of 1997-2010 might be able to pick up its first passengers in 2040 or they might need to wait another three years til 2043. How come successive UK governments and their highly paid Chief Executives of HS2 have so failed? How can it take three decades to build a single rail line? Why do costs escalate beyond belief? Why have none of the senior managers responsible lost their jobs or even in some cases sacrificed their bonuses?
This dreadful performance makes nationalisation a hard sell. It also makes more nationalisation unaffordable for taxpayers. Taxpayers have been mugged by HS2. Why look for other ventures where the same might happen?
June 27, 2026
It’s beyond belief. Your last para is the killer lesson: “This dreadful performance makes nationalisation a hard sell. It also makes more nationalisation unaffordable for taxpayers”.
I’d extend this, though. We need less government, and less government interference in our lives. “The best government is the one that governs least”. I think that’s obvious, but a very large number of UK citizens disagree with me. What can we do to persuade them otherwise, when something like HS2 does not convince them?
June 27, 2026
HS2 is the classic gravy train
(Pun intended). It’s only taxpayers money so and endless supply. Like all government projects staff are rewarded for failure and moved sideways rather than being dismissed.
For a country which gave the world railways and so much more we are an embarrassment. Brunei must be very restless.
June 27, 2026
@Wanderer – we have a Parliament engrossed in fighting the People, so fighting for the People doesn’t even figure. Parliaments chosen Government is dire because Parliament likes it that way
June 27, 2026
There are delays and cancellations on rail for all sorts of reasons these days – leaves on the line, the wrong type of snow, subsidence along the track and heat. Why are other countries railways so much better?
We have a skivers’ charter on the railway and we are turning into a ‘nation of melts’ as an article in one tabloid put it.
HS2 is another example of government waste. Defence procurement is the same – paying vast sums of money for stuff that does not work while costs spiral.
However rail privatisation was the cause of many issues – not nationalisation.
Set up a daft fragmented system to replace a joined-up network and pay the consequences. Maintenance is now outsourced to companies without the long term xskills of previous British Rail.
The government brake up of British Rail was a failure. Now they are trying to pin the blame on the newly renationalised Network Rail. Privatisation caused the problem in the first place, for doctrinaire reasons that don’t work in real life.
Reply What a stupid analysis. HS 2 has been nationalised throughout!
June 27, 2026
There is a difference between the old British Rail which was privatised and HS2 which was a government attempt to add a completely new rail line.
HS2 is just more government waste and inefficiency.
British Rail was a joined-up railway system with affordable fares that was far better than the expensive, fragmented hotchpotch that currently operates.
Reply Dream on. National BR slashed lines, cut services, sacked employees on a huge scale 1950-80.
June 27, 2026
Dr Beeching slashed lines.
Even with cuts and reduced employees, my station still had toilets, a waiting room, a station master and three trains an hour( now two) until midnight before privatisation.
June 27, 2026
The Government (with Marples’ friends in the roads business) decided they had to reduce the loss making railways. So the decision to investigate how lead to Beeching becoming chair of BR. His report on infrastructure reduction was accepted, at the behest of the Government.
June 27, 2026
The Beaching Axe as the (wrong on almost everything) BBC like to call it perhaps the best know. I wonder how much tax payers money was saved by these Beaching cuts (to the heavy loss making train lines) from the sixties through to today over 60 years. Alas the various governments will have doubless wasted all the money on other daft wars, climate alarmism or “investments” as they would call them.
Investment in train lines makes even less sense now that driverless cars, vans and taxis are coming. HS trains rarely make sense over the UK short distances and over longer distances aircraft usually make more sense as you only need two strips of concrete at each end and can fly over the sea and mountains and in a direct line. Driverless taxis might bring taxi costs down to as low as 50p per mile given no driver costs. So London to Manchester door to door £100 for up to seven people. Perhaps as much as £1,400 for seven or £200 even for one plus the taxis at each end.
High speed can only really be high speed if you have few or zero stops. But then if you have few stops the end connections have to be longer and the door to door times thus longer anyway.
With driverless cars and taxis you will be able to work too and can call off on route, do diversion and work as you go (as you can on trains).
Reply The incoming Labour government did not reverse any of the Beeching cuts though could have done so. The nationalised rail industry could not even be bother to put in a short spur line from Gt Western mainline to Heathrow, one of world’s busiest airports!
June 27, 2026
What is needed is a new runway at both Heathrow and Gatwick and a rapid link between the two so we get a decent hub airport with five runways. Schiphol Amsterdam has 6 runways. Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG): 4 and Orly 3. The UK just takes 30 years dithering!
June 27, 2026
You can also travel at any time even in the small hours as needed by car or driverless cars and taxis.
June 27, 2026
Well the UK government are useless (and often corrupt) at building or subcontracting or regulating anything. It usually costs £ billion before you even put a spade in the ground. Any project is likely to need £million bat tunnels or fish discos due to English Nature and endless legal challenges. Any agenda supported by nearly all the political parties like Nat Zero, the Covid Lockdowns, HS2, renewable energy, the dire NHS structures, aircraft carrier and defence procurement, the attacks on free speech, HIP packs (initially), the EU, energy performance certificates, over restrictive planning and building regulations is likely to be particularly insane.
So perhaps £200 billion for a railway of perhaps £10 billion value at best (less the costs of all the vast disruption and inconvenience caused). Still Boris and Sunak borrowed and spent £600 billion on Covid (dangerous and ineffective) “Vaccines” and Covid lockdowns which all did vast net harms as is clear for the data. Which is why they are still refusing to release full honest data.
June 27, 2026
@Lifelogic – Natural England, a government Quango out of control looking for work but demanding taxpayer money. Who is just giving them taxpayer money? All £318 million a year. The Bat tunnel, Ebsfleet new Town & housing blocked because of spiders, centuries old Dartmoor Ponies to be slaughtered because they(Natural England) are pissed on power, desperate to find a purpose and a Parliament who gives them our money wont take responsibility.
Magnify that around 40 other pointless Quangos tells you everything you need to know about this Parliament.
June 27, 2026
+1
June 27, 2026
For £200 billion we could have build about £2 million small houses. This using less land too. Might that not have been rather more use than a pointless HS train track? Reducing taxes and borrowings by £200 billion would have been an investment at least 200 times better than HS2.
June 27, 2026
If HS2 is ever finished then on reasonable projections each single on way ticket sold will have been subsidised by about £1000 (this just in finance cost and depreciation not including disruption during construction costs or running costs). How many people would have been prepared to pay the true costs of these ticket? You can take up to seven people London to Birmingham in a car (and this door to door with heavy luggage) for about £50.
Yet all the parties supported this lunacy as they did with Net Zero, Covid “vaccines” and lockdowns, renewables, defence procurement lunacy and opposed extra runways or drilling in the North Sea or Fracking or decent Nuclear, or a sensible industry policy.
June 27, 2026
Built 2 million small houses – rather!
June 27, 2026
I’m sure that wants the so called king of the north is made PM he’ll invest more money into the failed HS2 to complete what it was intended for but I won’t hold my breath
June 27, 2026
HS2 acts as a permanent monument showing the world why doing economic business in Britain is no longer possible.
The overarching demands from H&S from Eco rules and regulations, from DEI policy and Net Zero limitations and costs,the U.K. has become impossible to operate in.
June 27, 2026
Hs2 is a rail line. It may be a vanity project. Whatever it is, it’s not essential to life on this island.
Water is essential. We in the South of England have been failed over and over again, by the private companies that run our supplies. A step change in how water is managed is now vital. The private companies will not do what is necessary. Water needs to return to public ownership.
I know you disagree Lord JR. Please don’t just rehash your opinions of previous nationalised failure but explain another way forward.
June 27, 2026
It doesn’t need public ownership, just a better regulator.
Private companies don’t put the investment in because they want to give out dividends to shareholders.
Government doesn’t put the investment in because they have conflicting demands on money, plus the workforce go on strike because they feel they can hold the government to ransom.
Private companies with a public regulator holding them to account means the investment is put in and the workforce don’t have the direct link to government. The problems we see are due to poor regulation and rules.
June 27, 2026
The sunk cost fallacy still rules. The current crop of MPs know they’ll never be held to account for the HS2 abomination.
June 27, 2026
Nor will all the MPs, government scientific/medical experts & vaccine regulators who coerced the net harm multiple Covid Vaccines and lockdowns in/on to people at a cost of circa £600 billon. Boris & Sunak still seem to think (or like to pretend) they saved net lives but the stats are clear (despite the government trying to hide them.
Nor will the appalling evil pushers of the Climate Alarmist/Net Zero exaggerated religion (funds wasted and damage done well over a few £1 trillion just for the UK.
June 27, 2026
The privatisation of UK strategic infrastructure since 1979 has radically reshaped the nation’s economy, transferring vital state monopolies directly into private hands. Across key sectors – water, energy, telecommunications, transport, mail – total dividend payouts to shareholders and unjustified senior management bonuses have exceeded £315 billion, with the major proportion flowing out of the United Kingdom to foreign sovereign wealth funds, private equity firms, and multinational corporations. The sell-off brought a total of approximately £67 billion into the Treasury
Simultaneously, these industries have been heavily loaded with over £150 billion in corporate debt. The water sector, sold entirely debt-free in 1989, perfectly exemplifies this shift; it has accumulated over £73 billion in net debt while paying out £88.4 billion in dividends. Critics argue this financial leverage was used to finance shareholder returns rather than updating the infrastructure. In telecommunications, BT Group has distributed over £55 billion in dividends since 1984, while currently holding a net debt of nearly £20 billion.
In contrast, heavy manufacturing sectors like British Steel and British Shipbuilders did not follow this pattern of high debt and dividend extraction. Privatised in the late 1980s, these industries faced stiff global market competition rather than operating as guaranteed utility monopolies. Instead of funnelling reliable profit streams abroad, they suffered from systemic underinvestment and rapid decline, eventually being liquidated, closed, or absorbed by international conglomerates like China’s Jingye Group.
Ultimately, utility privatisation created predictable, debt-leveraged revenue streams for foreign investors, paid for by British consumers who faced ever increasing costs for worse services provided.
Reply The key to success was the introduction of competition. This was done in energy and telecoms and delivered innovation , growth and good service until net zero policy messed up energy. Water did not allow competition so the privatised industry is almost as bad as the nationalised on sewage discharges and inadequate reservoir capacity. Privatisation did however get all the water costs out of public spending where they competed with NHS and schools for limited budgets.
June 27, 2026
The blame lies with governments allowing foreign take-overs, replacing Sid, and even more so the regulators who have done a dreadful job, particularly with water by allowing massive corporate debts and underinvestment in reservoirs and treatment plants despite a massive increase in population size through immigration. But then this was likely to happen given that the unelected, un-removable regulators have succumbed to Robert Conquest’s 2nd law of politics.
June 27, 2026
SG,
‘ Ultimately, utility privatisation created predictable, debt-leveraged revenue streams for foreign investors, paid for by British consumers who faced ever increasing costs for worse services provided.’
Correct.
Telecoms was a success with the advent of mobile phones and the replacement of strowger exchanges – nothing to do with privatisation.
With energy and water British consumers know all about ‘good service. They also know all about ‘costs’.
Reply It took privatisation to harness the capital and innovation to modernise our clapped out old fashioned capacity constrained nationalised telephone monopoly.
June 27, 2026
Reply to reply: what about the water sector? You should be able to give us a knowledgeable comment given that you seem to have been instrumental in convincing Mrs Thatcher to go for its privatisation (bbc.co.uk 19/04/2013 ‘Redwood on convincing Thatcher’).
And what about when there appears to be a revolving door between heads of OfWat and CEOs of water companies?
theguardian.com 02/07/2023 ‘UK water giants recruit top staff from regulator OfWat’.
pressreader.com 09/07/2023 ‘10 key watchdog staff took up senior jobs in water companies’.
theyworkforyou.com 09/01/2025 Lord Tim Farron during the ‘Water (Special measures) bill
(the full debate in the HoL appears as ‘Clause 1 – Rules about remuneration and governance’ with 10+ participants to the debate).
utilityweek,co.uk 11/03/2025 ‘Revolving door between regulator and water companies has advantages’ !!!
Reply. Yes I have written a piece re water. It is with a newspaper who want to publish it, but that has been subject to delay. I have it waiting for possible publication here on tuesday.
June 27, 2026
“The key to success was the introduction of competition”.
Indeed and freedom of choice for people to spend their own money. Plus fair and unrigged markets in for examples Health Care, schools, universities (with soft loans often not repaid) , banking, transport, energy, broadcasting (the BBC licence free), employment, housing…
But not even Thatcher did much about this. Though you did get tax relief on private medical insurance and paid no IPT then either. Now with education VAT and healthcare you pay four times over in these hugely state sector rigged markets. For most people there is no choice at all.
June 27, 2026
The thing is that nationalisation is unjustifiable economically – we know it happens only for ideological reasons. It’s all part of the big state and that means HMG being in control of all our resources, not because they can do a better job – clearly not, but because failed socialism requires nationalisation as part of the price for voting in Labour.
So the country suffers all ways – first the taxpayers are robbed blind to support budgets for white elephants that would never have been approved if an honest and true figure had been used at the start, secondly fare paying passengers are imposed on with poor service and excessive fare costs.
We know that our government hasn’t been effective or even efficient since the mid/late 90’s, the tale becomes even more pathetic when we see that the same incompetence infests our ministries and the civil service.
June 27, 2026
‘ The thing is that nationalisation is unjustifiable economically – we know it happens only for ideological reasons.’
I could make a similar statement replacing ‘nationalisation’ with ‘privatisation.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
If you are still determined to fix it, make sure you a proper job.
June 27, 2026
Actually, privatisation brings in a lot of money to the treasury, for a start, as opposed to nationalisation which drains our taxes.
June 27, 2026
On reflection, I remember HS2 is a EU project directive. Then also take on board the UK Parliament was and is still against leaving the control of the unelected unaccountable EU bureaucrat. We have a weak Parliament that refuses to manage and govern for the UK, destruction and weakening is still the overriding priority to construct a permissive Marxist state within the EU.
So failure and weakness are the UK Parliaments priorities. Even Parliament’s leader in waiting is hyping up the need to weaken the people, take away their means, motivation & money. There isn’t a movement in this UK Parliament that will work with the People to ‘grow’ and fund, its all about removal and submission.
HS2 does nothing, maybe perhaps it will save 10mins for those in inner London to get to Birmingham if that’s. what they want to do. £102 billion spent on defence, the safety and security of the UK would be what would happen if we had a honest UK Parliament working for the UK and its people.
June 27, 2026
Yes a real Money Pit, why, because it was always a vanity project which made no commercial sense at all.
High speed rail is only sensible/viable over very long distances and when built on open stable ground, add in tunnels, unstable ground, and new unproven technology, and you end up with what we are going to get, which is a railway that will cost £1 billion a mile to funnel more people into London.
Why would Birmingham be a pull factor for people living in expensive London ?
Just think how better that money could have been spent on a real modernisation of our existing, trains and tracks !
June 27, 2026
Our military interdiction on 14 June – where 42 Commando and the National Crime Agency boarded and detained the Cameroon-flagged vessel Smyrtos – was designed to act as a major deterrent. While ship-tracking intelligence reveals it had a significant immediate impact, Russian tankers are continuing to test the UK’s resolve.
Within 80 minutes of the Royal Marines boarding the Smyrtos, at least six sanctioned Russian tankers aborted their journeys, performing sharp U-turns back toward Scandinavia or diverting widely around Ireland.
Despite that initial panic, maritime intelligence tracking (via “The Insider”) confirms that at least 11 tankers tied to Russia’s shadow fleet have safely transited through the English Channel since the raid. While the UK and allies like France – which recently seized a fourth shadow tanker – are stepping up enforcement, the sheer volume of Russia’s 700-ship shadow fleet means dozens of vessels are still attempting to route around Western bans
High-profile vessels like the Russian-flagged crude carrier Progress have openly sailed straight through the Channel to see if British forces would launch another high-risk boarding operation. Three additional shadow fleet tankers are currently tracked heading toward the Channel. The only thing Russians respect is strength. We should seize another Russian ship to reinforce respect for our resolve. Anyway, the extra crude would be appreciated at Grangemouth.
Source; Ukdefencejournal.org.uk
June 27, 2026
“…another high-risk boarding operation”
High risk? This should be a bread and butter operation for the Royal Marines – boarding a civilian vessel travelling at 10-12 knots with very little likelhood the crew (Indian nationals?) are armed or even going to resist.
Of course if you throw in a civilain camera crew and a few HSE executives, things might get more hairy. There is also the cost of helicopter fuel to consider. These days it’s possible the RMs can only afford to get out to the tankers and don’t have enough budget to get back afterwards?
June 27, 2026
With all these Russian vessels lurking around our coast the government’s plan to electrify our energy and rely for our electricity on thousands of fixed and floating wind turbines spread out over half the North Sea, together with all cabling necessary to bring it onshore and south to where it is needed, is looking a very insecure energy policy. Especially when coupled with no plans for grid-scale storage of electricity and making us totally dependent upon China, a state our security services describe as ”hostile”, for all our renewable infrastructure and devices.
June 27, 2026
PS: If I were Putin I would wait until my UK operatives had achieved our goal to make the UK entirely dependent upon electricity – generated by renewables and with no grid-scale storage – for all its energy requirements for defence, industry, communications, transport and heating and then launch our ready and waiting hundreds of thousands of air and undersea drones to destroy the sitting duck targets of unmissable solar farms and exposed North Sea wind turbines and undersea cables to send the UK back to the stone age. If possible I would obtain from China the codes for all the kill switches they have installed in the electrical and electronic devices they have supplied the UK from batteries to transformers to evs and fridges to make sure absolutely nothing works.
June 28, 2026
Dependent not only on China for essential components, but on the goodwill of Russia not to damage the seabed power lines. If I were Putin I would think it a benign act to sever all the North Sea power lines, without any human casualties in order to bring Britain to its senses before Britain commits Net Zero Suicide.
June 27, 2026
Why did the Conservatives not see HS2 for what it is and stop it? Successive Chancellors, starting with Osbourne, could have done so, but just spent more and more on it.
Reply Osborne wanted it for northern revival. I and some others voted against the scheme. Post Osborne Ministers cancelled the northern legs but carried on with Birmingham/London contracts which were already let.
June 27, 2026
HS2 should have been built from the north down, freeing up capacity (the real reason it is needed) on the West Coast main line where it is most needed. However, like so many things in our over-centralised country, it was built “London first” because too many decisions are taken in Westminster and Whitehall rather than in the regions and areas affected.
June 27, 2026
HS2 should have been a high capacity, high frequency train at low prices to enable there to be really cheap travel up and down the country. A jumbo jet service (double train height and double track width) and not a Concorde for the elites.
June 27, 2026
Of course “HS2 is running even later and dearer”. Socialism depends upon making and keeping people poor and high, wasteful spending is designed to justify high taxation. So HS2 is simply another way to keep the spending high although it pales in comparison to mass immigration and of course, Net Zero, the “solution” to a problem which would not exist if it did not lead to high, wasteful spending.
June 27, 2026
If we cannot cancel the line, can we not at least cancel the high speed trains and at least save money on the trains and their very expensive maintenance? If the first passengers are not expected until 2040-2043 then surely these trains have not yet been built?
June 27, 2026
What a shambles and sadly no heads will roll and of course the Establish can expect any moans from the voters being kicked into the long crass with yet another enquiry. On the upside It does of course go towards our GDP.
June 27, 2026
If it wasn’t for Count Binface in politics, I’d probably go mad with the way politicians can come up with HS2 and the billion and billions it costs to travel a bit faster to … Birmingham. Crazy
‘”I will turn HS2 into FFS1 and reroute it … through rail executives’ homes’ – Count Binface
June 27, 2026
HS2 is an appalling waste. Originated by Labour the frustrating thing is the 14 years of coalition and Conservative governments just continued it. so whilst we can rightly blame the current govt for letting this white elephant get ever more costly, its difficult to score too many political points given the abject failure of the Conservative PMs to kill it off. As pointed out in a post above, driverless cars will likely make rail obsolete within one or two decades.
Reply I am not trying to make a party political point. I am engaged on warning this government that nationalisation makes things worse. Here we have a fully nationalised railway with huge sums of taxpayer money and still no trains.,
June 28, 2026
In a socialist state, Lord Redwood, money doesn’t mean anything. The point is that many people are employed on state contracts and are better off than if they were on benefits.