Hip, hip hooray – another big fat promise by a Tory rail minister​​​​​​​

Hip, hip hooray! Rail Minister Huw Merriman has announced that yet another £3.9bn will be spent on upgrading the full-to-capacity railway line between York and Manchester.
The Yorkshire Post
By The Yorkshire Post
Published 5th Dec 2023, 05:00 BST
Conservative MP and Rail Minister Huw Merriman is the latest in a long line of Conservative Transport Secretaries to make a promise to Yorkshire and the north - will he keep his promise, or be out on his ear like the last one, and the one before that, and the one before that?Conservative MP and Rail Minister Huw Merriman is the latest in a long line of Conservative Transport Secretaries to make a promise to Yorkshire and the north - will he keep his promise, or be out on his ear like the last one, and the one before that, and the one before that?
Conservative MP and Rail Minister Huw Merriman is the latest in a long line of Conservative Transport Secretaries to make a promise to Yorkshire and the north - will he keep his promise, or be out on his ear like the last one, and the one before that, and the one before that?

Yesterday he told this newspaper that should his plan come to fruition, an extra eight trains per hour would run along the 76-mile stretch, cutting journey times and adding available seats to the service.

And the good news doesn’t stop there; Mr Merriman – the latest Transport Secretary on the merry-go-round of ministers in charge of the portfolio – said that engineers would set to electrifying the line, building new tracks, installing digital signalling equipment and upgrading stations.

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It all sounds so promising, doesn’t it? Yet, at the same time, all too familiar. As Mr Merriman sought to put the cherry on the choo-choo-chewy cake he’d baked, he was keen to add that in addition to the festive gifts he bears, this latest promise was part of an £11.5bn commitment that will – read, probably will not – be fulfilled by 2033.

Yet, aficionados of either the railway in the north, or of public transport per se in the region, this aforementioned cake is nothing but a reheated pudding, microwaved incessantly since it was mooted in 2011 by none other than now-Foreign Secretary David Cameron.

Mr Cameron, infamously captured off-guard speaking into a live microphone that he had assumed was off, once said of Yorkshire and its people that – according to him – not only do we hate everyone outside of the county boundary, but that we appeared to him to hate one another, too.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth: Yorkshire is a friendly, welcoming place. That we hate liars who promise the earth and deliver much less is, though, factual. Since 2015, work on the trans-Pennine Route Upgrade has wasted £190m. Go figure.

Related topics:David CameronYorkshireYorkManchester