It's official. It's magic. If it sounds too good to be true ...

HS1 was £54 m/Km when it opened in 2007.

HS2 is, so far, £191 m/Km over its full 555 Kms, at £106 billion. 

Quite some difference!  Nearly 4 times more expensive per Km to construct today than HS1, when it opened 14 years ago.

This, below, is from the official HS2 website and my correction/rebuttal is in glorious bold blue!  My research shows that HMG/HS2 and its promoters are exaggerating so seriously with their misleading spin that they are lying.  READ ON as to why I say that and tell me what you think, please.  Am I wrong/mistaken?   Tim

How HS2 creates more rail capacity

As a brand new railway line, HS2 is the best option for taking the pressure off the existing network. It takes the pressure off the existing intercity lines by flying past all the stations travellers on the intercity trains want to stop at.  It adds extra capacity where it is needed most. To benefit London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, ONLY.  Building HS2 frees up a massive amount of space on the existing railway by placing long distance services on their own pair of tracks. But you still have to have the same level of service for those same long distance services.  Nothing is gained!  Once HS2 is operating, services can run much closer together, meaning there can be more rush hour trains, helping to relieve overcrowding.  Only if the existing intercity trains are slowed.  And that gives the intercity stations a worst service.

Once the full network is operational we expect HS2 trains to carry over 300,000 passengers a day. HS1 to Europe has 6,000 passengers a day.  HS2 is future proofed, by making sure the network can grow with increased demand.  High Scandal 2 is a scam, a deception and nicely accelerates the runaway greenhouse effect for our ultimate downfall.

Two fun thoughts! Which is the better joke?

JOKE 1

Over the decades, only a handful if that, of people have said or written to me that they agree with me over finishing the ready-built, 120 Kms (74 mls) Black Country Railway - finishing it with TRAINS!

JOKE 2

For forty years, this year, our elected representatives have been busily keeping trains off urban railway lines and, instead, putting everything but the kitchen sink on them.  In fact, the great joke is that with our railways with trams going on them, it is just like the experts wanting to put London Underground trains on the HS1, London to Paris Eurostar!

The West is Best - or is it the Worst?

SELF:  Not a word of protest or objection or dismay was expressed by the West when, in 2014, 50 civilians were killed in Kiev and an elected, pro Russian government was overthrown and a pro Western government installed.  That worked well for the West because only 50 people were killed and it was quickly over within the week.

Overthrowing the Syrian government, however, has gone horribly wrong for the West over these last seven years.  In addition, Assad was an ophthalmologist in London for a time.  Was he given a state visit to London on one occasion?  Is this man another monster of our own making?  He came from the West, it seems.  Is the West a glowing, good and righteous example to the rest of the world in any respects at all?

​"​Ukraine gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and has since veered between seeking closer integration with Western Europe and being drawn into the orbit of Russia, which sees its interests as threatened by a Western-leaning Ukraine.​"​    BBC News​

Take Crimea for instance.  More than half of its 2 million people are Russian, and Russia still maintains a naval base there. In fact, the region was part of Russia until 1954, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine as a present. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Crimea became part of an independent Ukraine.

Pro Russian Viktor Yanukovych overthrown in 2014; Pro Western Petro Poroshenko installed.

Why Ukraine Is Such A Big Deal For Russia   February 21, 2014 11:52 AM ET

KRISHNADEV CALAMUR

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/02/21/280684831/why-ukraine-is-such-a-big-deal-for-russia

gives:

Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to stem his country's decline in global influence: Moscow's leverage in places like Ukraine is one way to preserve that influence. But there are other reasons why Ukraine is of deep interest to Russia — reasons that have more to do with history, faith, economics and culture.

A Special Relationship

Matthew Rojansky, director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center, says the two countries "are joined at the hip": They share language; Russian media are popular in Ukraine; there are family ties; many Ukrainians work in Russia; and Russians have billions of dollars invested in Ukraine.

"Their relationship is like the U.S.-U.K. special relationship," Rojansky says.

Historically, those ties date back to before the Soviet Union — and even before the days of the Russian empire that began in the 18th century.

Many consider Ukraine to be the birthplace of the region's Orthodox Christianity. Ukraine then became part of the Russian empire, and later part of the Soviet Union, where Ukrainian men were pivotal in the Soviet defeat of the German army in World War II. (Ukraine was perhaps the most important Soviet republic after Russia).

Linguistic And Economic Ties

Linguistically, as we've told you before, most Ukrainians speak both Ukrainian and Russian. But it's the eastern and southern parts of the country where Russian speakers dominate, and where Russia still holds influence.

Take Crimea, for instance. More than half of its 2 million people are Russian, and Russia still maintains a naval base there. In fact, the region was part of Russia until 1954, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine as a present. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Crimea became part of an independent Ukraine.

Millions of Ukrainians work in Russia, and according to the EU-funded Migration Policy Centre, the Russia-Ukraine border is the second-largest migration corridor in the world. (The U.S.-Mexico border is the largest.) The center says that in 2011, more than one-third of all Ukrainian migration was to Russia.

Russian companies are one of the largest investors in Ukraine, accounting for 7 percent of total foreign investment in 2013, according to official Ukrainian statistics. And when Yanukovych walked away from the deal on closer economic and political ties with the EU, Russia said it would buy $15 billion worth of Ukrainian bonds, giving Kiev an economic lifeline. (But on Friday Moscow said it was taking a wait-and-see approach to the events unfolding across the border.)

Ukraine is also a key component of Russia's plans for a Eurasian customs union with some other former Soviet states. But as Steven Pifer, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told NPR's Robert Siegel, "for many Ukrainians, and I even think for President Yanukovych, that's not where they want to go."

Seeds Of Discord

The crisis in Ukraine is, in many ways, a conflict about the former Soviet republic's future direction: Should it look westward toward the EU or maintain close ties with Russia?

Until recently, this wasn't an either/or question, says Stephen Sestanovich, a professor of international diplomacy at Columbia University.

"For 20-odd years, it has been possible for the Ukrainians to kind of have it both ways," Sestanovich told NPR's Siegel. "What is now the troubling issue on the agenda is the perception of a lot of people that you do have to choose, and that is producing violence across Ukraine."

There are historical reasons for some of the antipathy — especially in the western part of Ukraine that borders Poland, where the protests against Yanukovych have been the loudest. This area was once part of Poland and Austro-Hungary, and became part of Ukraine only when World War II began.

Ukraine was the victim of the 1932-33 famine induced by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Later, it was among the Soviet republics that bore the brunt of the Chernobyl disaster.

Those events undoubtedly resonated in the public memory for years: Ukraine was one of the first Soviet republics to vote for independence from the USSR. It did so overwhelmingly in 1991. The Soviet Union fell apart soon after that.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-05/the-west-backed-the-wrong-man-in-ukraine

gives:

"Poroshenko, who had briefly served as Ukraine's foreign minister, looked worldlier than his predecessor, the deposed Viktor Yanukovych, and spoke passable English. He and his first prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, knew what the U.S. State Department and Vice President Joe Biden, who acted as the Obama administration's point man on Ukraine, wanted to hear. So, as Ukraine emerged from the revolutionary chaos of January and February 2014, the U.S., and with it the EU, backed Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk as Ukraine's next leaders. Armed with this support, not least with promises of major technical aid and International Monetary Fund loans, they won elections, posing as Westernizers who would lead Ukraine into Europe. But their agendas turned out to be more self-serving."

Scotland's independence might just cut England down to size - but I doubt it!!

Scotland: Stop subsidising England's excesses.  Get your independence, Scotland!

I know that, from the opinion polls, Scotland distancing itself further from England seems a hopeless cause.  However, for what it's worth, these are my:  interesting/alternative/tendentious/horrifying/warped (delete as you wish)
thoughts on why I think Scotland would be sensible to separate from England and be its own sovereign nation within the EU and UN instead of the UK.

The big-hearted Scots* are subsidising London as the hub of the UK with continuing plans for Heathrow expansion, the very expensive Cross Rail and Thames Link project that opens in 2019 and, last year's London Olympics.

After more than one hundred years of an "essentially a Victorian rail network" (Chief Executive of Network Rail, Sir David Higgins on 8 January 2013 on the 'Today' programme), England has decided, rather late in the day, to modernise it, with the Scottish taxpayer helping to foot the bill.  Does Scotland have even one Victorian signal box?  England has 500 dating back to Queen Victoria and 300 are 1960s vintage! (same interview)

The Scots subsidised HS1 and, now, they generously help us out with HS2 that, again, gets nowhere near Scotland, even when fully completed.

Scotland should be most upset at subsidising England's armed conflicts on 23 nations since 1945 (Radio 4's 'Thought for the Day' slot in the 'Today' programme.  Repeated, on another occasion, without disagreement from the other team members, by the Green Party panellist on Radio 4's 'Any Questions').**

No doubt, there are some in the English Defence League calling for pre-emptive, unmanned drone attacks of self defence on the Muslim militant extremists before they kill another of our brave soldier heroes.  Heroes home in barracks, on leave from protecting the people of Afghanistan from the real killers.  Scotland should disassociate itself from this barbarity by no longer funding England's unappreciated occupation of, and drone attacks on, foreign lands (a total of thirteen years, in punishment for 9/11, when we finally leave Afghanistan in 2014).

Scotland provides a most convenient haven for England's submarines carrying its independent nuclear deterrent. The Clyde Trident workers might be redeployed in future proofing your nation from the accelerating, enhanced greenhouse effect and the exhaustion of the planet's oil and gas reserves. The subs and nuclear missiles might be sent off to Barrow to give employment to the English, who will be left with digging a little deeper into their pockets with the Scottish taxpayer no longer bailing them out.

With independence, Scotland would no longer be contributing to the very many billions of pounds for the replacement for the Trident subs. Preliminary work on the replacement began when either Tony Blair or Gordon Brown was PM.

Scotland's power from water, wind and sun could be used just for themselves or sold to the English at great expense! A golden chance for you Scots to become Great Scot - instead of the phrase being used simply as an exclamation! Great Britain, minus Scotland, would be just a little less 'Great' and a little less able to act, in tandem with the US, as the continuing great power and policeman around the world to get its way.

We English, have such an over-inflated view of our importance to the nations of the world, that we cannot possibly do without Scotland to enhance our prestige and weight! Without Scotland, how can we possibly continue to punch above our weight in the world?  Even more crucially, the US might not regard us quite so highly with only little Wales and littler N Ireland in tow.  Our special relationship might be that little less special without Scotland.

For us English, all this independence malarkey is diminishing our size and greatness. Great Scot, it might even threaten our place as a permanent member of the Security Council. We certainly can't have that!

Let Scotland raise its own taxation for its own spending - that is all independence is - like the fifty other countries that have gained their independence from London since 1945 "and not one has expressed an interest in coming back under London's control." Alex Salmond on 21 May 2013 on 'Today'.

I think, Scotland's taxation is essential for England to continue to fund her excesses; it also makes her also responsible for the UK's most unfortunate, aggressive, domineering and provocative foreign policy in Muslim lands.  That certainly is an excess, to put it mildly!

Tim Weller

* "Over the last thirty years, in every single one of these last thirty years, Scotland per head contributed more in taxation than the UK average.  So that does indicate the financial and the potential financial strength goes over a long period of time."  Alex Salmond interview on the 'Today' programme, 21 May 2013.

** "Since 1946, the UK has engaged in more armed conflict than any other country with a total of 23 if you include Libya.  Do we conclude from this that we are a nation of warmongers or, a country that values peace and justice?"  Rhiddian Brook on Thought for the Day on 25 March 2011.