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I can’t help laughing, I really can’t! Those of us who’ve observed the formerly occasional London Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson for years have known that you can’t trust him as far as you can throw him. HS2 antis however, have always been good at grasping any straw. So much so they could have thatched the dome of the O2 arena with them by now.
Today, the predictable has happened. The Birmingham Mail has carried an exclusive story from the Tory leadership hustings in Birmingham. Written by Johnathan Walker, the piece reports that Mr Johnson said: “I have already asked provisionally Douglas Oakervee, who was the original chair of Crossrail, to have a look at the business case for HS2 and to think about whether and how we proceed.”
Chair of Crossrail eh? Hang on a minute, Oakervee was ALSO HS2 Ltd Chairman between Apr 2012 – Dec 2013! Does anyone honestly think Oakervee, a man who’s been building major civil engineering projects (including railways) around the world for decades, and who’s seen their transformational impacts, is going to say “HS2? Nah, scrap it”.
Furthermore, Johnson is also quoted as saying “I worry about cancelling a big national project of that scale without anything else to replace it.” Now, given Johnson’s penchant for large infrastructure projects that he can put his not inconsiderable ego – sorry – name to, does anyone seriously think he’s going to cancel HS2?
Even some HS2 antis are beginning to realise that they’re on to a loser as Johnson isn’t the only Tory leadership hopeful to row back from opposition to HS2. I predict further wailing and gnashing of teeth from what’s left of the StopHs2 camp as it’s clear the political support of regional leaders like Birmingham’s Mayor Andy Street (a fellow Tory to Johnson) and Labour Mayors in the North is firmly behind HS2. If he manages to become PM, Johnson’s going to need some good news pretty fast – and cancelling HS2 isn’t it. It might satisfy a tiny bunch of Nimbys and the lobbyists of 55 Tufton St, but the political shit-storm it would unleash in the Midlands and the North (not to mention in London) is the last thing Johnson would need.
UPDATE.
My old friend Alan Marshall has been in touch to remind me of something…
“Despite Boris seemingly (or reportedly) being very anti-HS2, in fact when he was Mayor of London he was very much for it . . . so much so that in 2015 he set up the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation to exploit the opportunities arising from the OOC interchange with the new Crossrail station to be built on the GWML. What’s more, he made himself the first chairman of the OOPRDC”.
No HS2 = no OOPRDC = no 24,000 new homes and no 55,000 jobs…
Paul Bigland 
My prediction, always a dangerous game I know, is that Phase 1 goes ahead under Goverment sponsorship as it’s enacted in Law and would require further primary legislation with a 2/3 vote to cancel it now. Phase 2A will also probably carry on as is due to its current position in the Parliamentary process, but with a bigger input from NPR. Phase 2B I would guess will be folded into NPR under their sponsorship. Either way it’s coming and the costs and impacts will be roughly the same overall.
Ssh! Wait till he’s completed the U-turn first!
Boris has, many times, proved to everyone that he is about as reliable as the current weather. He’s an habitual liar who changes tales to suit his own needs and seemingly has no interest whatsoever in the populace he purports to represent. How can he be trusted to hold any government office, let alone PM.?
Virtually every day, someone on Twitter “announces” that HS2 is “about to be cancelled” by the Government and/or incoming PM. Most Sundays, some alleged “journalist” publishes the weekly hatchet job in the newspapers.
Yet the work continues. As well as the enabling works under way, one of the contractors has stated it has ordered their TBM’s (brave if they are backing that with their own money prior to NTP,) another states piling for the Euston Station box is due to commence in October 2019.
And of course the number of signatures to the petitions on the Government web site are pitiful and reveal StopHS2 as a NIMBY campaign, as Mr Bigland has explored in previous blogs.
Last week Mr Rukin (on Twitter) put out a call for protestors to join him on a walking tour of the HS2 work sites in his patch. Judging by the video he posted subsequently, literally nobody turned up. Good job he took his selfie stick with him or there would have been no-one to hold his camera.
To me, it doesn’t sound like HS2 is about to be cancelled any time soon and doesn’t sound like the masses object to it, despite ten years of spin by the UK media.
It’s interesting to observe that all but the most ardent NIMBYS’s are, however grudgingly, tacitly accepting the phase1 is unstoppable and are holding out hope for the pyrrhic victory of getting something – anything – cancelled “oop North” despite it making no difference to the works near them.
I hope I live long to witness it, but ten years after HS2 opens, I’m sure most people will be wondering what all the fuss was about.