So it’s a new rail link to the North via Birmingham and then on to Manchester. London to Birmingham rail journey time of 119 miles will be cut from 84 to 49 minutes and the London to Manchester 181 Miles trip cut from 128 minutes to 80 minutes. This just Eventually we get a link to Sheffield and Leeds via Birmingham, great. Can’t see that improving journey times from Edinburgh to London (about 4 hours currently) and surely it is capital city to capital city that should be the fastest.

Is this the start of a devolved view of England that means we totally disregard border countries and just please ourselves what we do? If it is I don’t like it.

Anyway the biggest part of any journey I used to have to make was getting to and from the stations, not travelling on trains. I really believe we should be working on an integrated public transport, speeding up the peripheral journey times rather than the main ones.

That said, I feel saddest that yet again with a sitting Labour MP of 18 years, no rail link and no jobs come even close to York. Look at those that have gone in the last 18 years: British Rail Engineering, Army Northern Command, Terry’s, Glassworks, etc.

This all happens in a place where a huge chunk of our rates (call them what they are) are siphoned off and sent to other “needy” places. Isn’t that what central rather than local taxation should be used for? We will continue to lose out until our economy collapses and the government suddenly realise “oh no, we took too much away from them didn’t we”. You only have to look at the empty shops, the rates rising above inflation, the poor or missing public facilities (toilets, swimming pools, public entertainment venues, sporting track and field facilities, clean and tidy verges, to name a few) to see what is happening.

I feel sorry for Hugh who does seem to try, as it seems that a constituency where the Labour MP gets in regularly isn’t a place for central government to worry about. So nothing is given to help make his constituents smile. Will he get in next time?