Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Not Nick Kingsley or William Barter (who are rail heavyweights, and the latter a thoroughly pissed off Tory local councillor), but Samuel Hughes, who hacks for the CPS, mainly on housing but gives us the benefit of his rail knowledge too.

All that time and money people spend looking at HS2 and other projects! And all along we could have rebuilt Welwyn Viaduct and solved the capacity problems! And he wants to stick new towns by railway lines too. Might have been better to have more rail capacity if you wanted to do that.

Policy Exchange.

"Go after the non-voters (doubtless with the implication they sat it out because the Tories weren't Tory-Reform enough)". Unfortunately, non-voters tend don't look different to voters. And though everybody would like free voters, it's very difficult to just get the non-voting ones who would vote for you. See Corbyn J. One man's "now they're proper Labour/Tory, I'm going to vote for them" is another man's "I wasn't going to bother, but now the Tories/Labour have made me vote for the other lot".

Sam Bowman actually says some sensible things at times. But as with lots of people, he comes a cropper on railways.

That's not Crossrail 2. That's what we have now, except with a tunnel from Victoria to Euston, and a new bit of track from Seven Sisters to Tottenham Hale. "Upgrade existing lines" makes an appearance.