High speed rail: no fast track fix

The Transport Secretary, writing in the Telegraph to mark the end of the public consultation, claims that high speed rail is "the fast track fix for bridging the North-South divide". A clever, but completely misleading, headline. The article itself is more tempered ('tackling a divide that has lasted for generations is no easy task') but still makes big claims for the potential impact of high speed rail. I remain to be convinced, so this seems a good moment to rehearse the arguments.