HS2 could transform Britain — why do we refuse to think big?

AS he prepares for what may be his last party conference as Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak is. working on a truly unpleasant gift for Manchester, host city to the gathering that opens on Sunday. Though ministers insist that no final decision has been taken, they have conspicuously declined to deny reports that the Birmingham-Manchester section of HS2 is set to be scrapped or delayed to the point that it is an objective only on paper.

- Matthew d'Ancona

It is also increasingly likely that the London terminus of the high-speed rail-link will be Old Oak Common, six miles west of Euston, as originally planned. If Sunak proceeds on this basis, HS2 will amount to no more than a 140-mile connection between two inconveniently situated stations in London and Birmingham.

It is not hard to see why a fiscal conservative such as Sunak is fretful. Estimated to cost £32 billion in 2009, HS2 is now heading towards a total cost more than three times that original figure. Time to slam on the brakes, surely? How can a financially straitened nation possibly afford to pursue such a plan? Look at the whole board and you will see that we cannot possibly afford not to. The weakest argument for proceeding as originally planned is the so-called "sunk-cost fallacy": namely, that one should not abandon a strategy that has already consumed significant resources.