Canny Northerners see through swanky Starmer's posturing

EVEN IN our modern age of synthetic outrage there is something notably hysterical about the left-wing chorus of protest over the Government’s new plan to invest more than £90billion in rail links across the north of England.

- Patrick O’Flynn

Boris Johnson stands accused of betraying northerners and abandoning his levelling-up mission thanks to decisions not to proceed with an HS2 extension from Birmingham to Leeds and to curtail another flagship scheme for a high-speed line between Manchester and Leeds, via Bradford.

In the Commons, Labour’s transport spokesman Jim McMahon said the new plan amounted to the Government expecting the north to accept “crumbs off the table”. “What we’ve been given is the Great Train Robbery,” he shrieked. Labour leader Keir Starmer alleged that Johnson had “derailed” plans for better connectivity, which is a bit rich considering he campaigned for HS2 to be abandoned altogether.

It is pretty obvious what is happening here: a Labour Party that was trounced in its long-neglected “Red Wall” heartlands at the last election is seeking to breathe life into a caricature of the Conservatives as posh southerners who couldn’t care a fig about life north of Watford Gap services.