I have a relative working on HS2. During the pandemic he was on zoom calls with five thousand people, none of whom were 'navvies'. He is car dependent, never uses the train and that money spent on HS2 to hire him has been spent on German cars and airline flights.

If I was in charge of HS2 I would get the thousands that shuffle spreadsheets to get pickaxes out and build the whole thing going all the way to Birmingham and beyond to Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow.