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  • will happily spout right wing NIMBY talking points in opposition to HS2.

    What are the specifically "right wing" NIMBY talking points? As far as I can see the main arguments against, other than spiralling costs, are environmental damage and the counterproductiveness of linking northern cities ever more closely to London in terms of stimulating growth specifically in the North.

  • Maybe ‘populist’ would be more accurate than ‘right wing’, on reflection.

    But basically, the argument that it’s ‘just a commuter train to London’ feeds into the whole ‘London elites in cahoots with the banksters’ trope and completely overlooks the intention of the project to free up capacity elsewhere on the network:

    https://www.midlandsconnect.uk/publications/hs2-released-capacity/

    Which means capacity to do all those local services that people are arguing the money should be spent on instead, without the massive disruption over many years that would be required to increase that capacity without HS2.

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