Health over speed (From York Press)

We don't need it Ken but improve what we have with more British made rolling stock.
HS2 is just 'keeping up with the Jones'

You mention the NHS but unfortunately successive governments have tried to run it like a business and you know what targets have done to health care. (Same thing with this CO2 renewable business, that appears unstoppable until lots of influential folks undertake brain surgery to correct their problem)

So, you can get to London 20 minutes faster at an unaffordable cost.
Who pays? Are we all in it together?

Bring back the stagecoach. We are local people. We don't want any of that newfangled progress around here.

Since when was wasting money we haven't even got, progress, Paul?

It's as much about capacity and reliability as journey time, e.g. allowing the East and West Coast Main Lines to be used for more freight and stopping passenger services.

That said, I would prefer the money spent on upgrading the existing network nationwide, plus links like Cambridge-Oxford.

Errrrmmmm, where exactly does it say that over the next 20 years there will be no money spent on upgrading existing infastructure and rolling stock??

We've recently had Holgate Junction expanded to 4 track to improve approach speeds and capacity around York, there's the Hitchin flyover being built, and there's several other schemes that will take place along the ECML to improve capacity.
If you go to the NRM you will see that carriage builders Eversholt have a mockup of a current Intercity 225 carriage in various different layouts - the electric rolling stock that is currently used by East Coast will be refurbished to this proposed standard over the next 2-3 years whilst the Class 91 locomotives will either receive a complete overhaul or will be replaced (both will result in faster trains and better reliability); the Intercity 125's are going to be replaced by Intercity Express trains, which will make their debut in 2018 as I recall; Transpennine Express will have a 4th fast train per hour between York and Manchester from next spring (this going on to Liverpool and will be about 30 minutes faster than the current Liverpool service), whilst the TP route will be electrified by 2018 and will as a result of this receive brand new (and longer) trains....
All the above IS happening, and is happening irrespective of HS2.
Anybody saying there won't be investment in other routes whilst HS2 is being built is just using this remark to get people to join their true cause: to not get the line built anywhere near their homes/buisnesses.