Politics at the moment seems to be like a game of chance where all the dice have been thrown up in the air and we are waiting to see where they land: whether there will be Brexit soon, a new Government soon with or without a general election, or another referendum.
What does seem to be happening are a lot of speeches by politicians saying what they would do if they were in power.
Today, having accused Boris Johnson of using the Queen’s Speech (due next week) as a “pre-election party political broadcast”, Jeremy Corbyn has also made a pre-election party political broadcast of his own in a speech in Northampton earlier.
Corbyn said that Labour would bring fresh growth to “every town, city, region and nation” through a £250bn “National Transformation Fund” for investment in energy, housing and transport.
Crucially though, the speech made no mention of HS2, with Corbyn saying:
“And a Labour government will take the railways back into public ownership too. We’ll invest in public transport including Crossrail for the North, from Liverpool to Hull and up to Newcastle.”
Of course, whilst £250bn sounds like a lot of money, if HS2 went ahead in its current form, it would take up a third of that spending. And even if it was in the budget, numerous reports have shown there would be lots of places losing out if Hs2 went ahead.