Rishi’s war on waste has defeated HS2. Now he must scrap Net Zero

To use a speech in Manchester to announce that you are cancelling a high speed rail line to that very city might sound like bad politics, bad manners even. But Rishi Sunak has shown that it is he, not his detractors, who understand the needs of the regions. No, today’s announcement on HS2 does not mean the end of levelling-up. On the contrary, it means £36 billion will no longer be sucked out of other infrastructure and thrown into a bottomless pit of waste and extravagance; some of it, at least