We’re less than 24 hours from Sunak’s appalling speech to the Tory party conference and things are already falling apart for him. But that’s the problem when you tell lies, they’re often so easy to expose when honest folk start to do some investigating.

Remember the Sunak’s claim that, right up to the last moment ‘no decision’ had been made on HS2? He lied. Not only was that obvious when the ‘Network North’ document and fantasy shopping list was slipped out (which had clearly been cobbled together days before) but he also made a video for social media. ITV had a look at it – especially the background, and revealed it was made at least a week before conference. You can see their report here. This morning Transport Minister Mark Harper (another conference liar) has been touring the TV studios, essentially saying ‘so what’? Yeah, who cares that we have yet another Tory Prime Minister who lies so glibly?

Now the wheels are coming off some of the ridiculous claims of what projects the imaginary £36bn of ‘savings’ from scrapping Hs2 phase 2 will fund. Some of the projects are utterly batshit. The whole list seems to have been cobbled together by someone Googling old transport schemes or people’s aspirations without any consultation with people who know about transport. Hence the addition of two absolute howlers.

Apparently, Network North will build an extension of Manchester Metrolink to Manchester airport. There’s only one problem. That was completed in 2014. Another completed project included in the wish-list was highlighted by Nottingham MP Lilian Greenwood.

Another list of projects has mysteriously disappeared, as local BBC reporter Dan Holland has found.

The fact that most of these schemes are little more than vaporware is given away by a footnote on page 24, which says “As usual, individual projects referenced in this document will be subject to the approval of business cases“.

But, as many of them are basket cases, not business cases, they’ll never happen. Some would never get through Network Rail’s GRIP process (Governance for Railway Investment Projects), like the idea to electrify the Hope valley line between Manchester and Sheffield. Whose daft idea was it to prioritise that? We’ll never know as no-one’s putting their name to this list of fantasies. Certainly, no-one in the rail industry was consulted, or Northern Mayors. Back in 2015 the Northern Electrification Task Force (set up by the Transport Minister reported on the priorities for electrification in the North. Number 1 on the list of 12 routes was the Calder Valley (Leeds to Manchester and Preston via Bradford and Brighouse). I blogged about it at the time. You can find the full list here. Hope Valley came in tier 2, so why’s it been mentioned in this report ahead of all the others? How many marginal Tory constituencies are on the route I wonder, or on the route of some of the other invented schemes?

Here’s the list of tier 1 routes. Guess how many have been electrified since 2015? Not a single one!

• Calder Valley (Leeds to Manchester and Preston via Bradford and Brighouse)
• Liverpool to Manchester via Warrington Central
• Southport/Kirkby to Salford Crescent
• Chester to Stockport
• Northallerton to Middlesbrough
• Leeds to York via Harrogate
• Selby to Hull
• Sheffield (Meadowhall) to Leeds via Barnsley / Castleford & connections
• Bolton to Clitheroe
• Sheffield to Doncaster/Wakefield Westgate (Dearne Valley)
• Hazel Grove to Buxton
• Warrington to Chester

How many are on the fantasy list? Just one (Sheffield to Leeds) with no funding agreed.

The truth is – ‘Network North’ is a con, which is why the ‘North’ now includes the South-East and Devon and Cornwall! Just look at the map! It’s the whole of England (and a bit of Scotland)! Oh, and why is Manchester now where Preston is?

Money has been diverted from the North to imaginary schemes right across England. Worse, money that was building a new green railway now will (supposedly) built motorways and dual-carriageways, sometime in the future, maybe – ish. And fill in potholes. So much for ‘net zero’ – and so much for ambition.

Can you start seeing the size of the con yet?

We’re going from spades in the ground actually building something that’s been 15 years in planning to a series of schemes (some resurrected, others just dreamed-up) where the vast majority of them will never happen – but they will look good on election pamphlets in marginal constituencies in 2024.

One of the great ironies of all these is one of Sunak’s main justifications for scrapping HS2 phase 2 which is the fact it’s been repeatedly delayed. Yes, and whose bloody fault is that? His Governments! If the Tories hadn’t continually dithered and delayed, changed their minds and kept interfering in the plans, Phase 1 and 2a of HS2 would have opened in 2026 and 2027.

Now we see the Tories doing their damndest to sabotage the future through a scorched earth policy of selling off land earmarked for HS2 as quickly as possible to make it as difficult (and expensive) as possible for Labour to re-instate what’s been scrapped. It’s political cynicism and economic destructiveness at its worst.

There’s another problem too. Credibility. Who in the financial markets of business sectors will trust the word of this bunch of liars again? Why would anyone take the risk of investing in the UK when a government acts this way? Over the past few years the Tories have proved they simply can’t be trusted to keep their word, be it international agreements they admit they’d willingly renege on (brexit) to HS2.

A final problem. This is government by diktat. No-one was consulted about this. This is Sunak usurping power and ignoring the democratic process. Ignoring the will of Parliament, ignoring regional elected political leaders and ignoring the institutions of state such as bodies tasked to run the transport needs of the country. It’s profoundly undemocratic. We don’t even know who drew up this daft list of projects. All we know is no-one who matters was consulted – apart from the Tory Mayor of Birmingham, Andy Street, who was stopped from resigning (if the threat was ever real) by being fobbed of with the promise of a rail scheme he’s been fobbed off with in the past and which still hasn’t been delivered.

The whole of the UK not just the North should be appalled at what’s occurred. This is no way to plan anything – much less the economic wellbeing of a country. But that stopped mattering to the Tories years ago. Now all that matters is trying to cling to power.

It’s been said that what the Tory party conference was really about was a battle for the soul of the Conservative party. What that conference proved was that they don’t have one.

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