Mr Johnson has told The Yorkshire Post that the Government does not yet know “the right answer” of how to get HS2 services to Leeds while he has also accepted a major redevelopment of the city station will be required to deliver the IRP’s proposals for improvements such as faster journey times to Bradford.

It is worth taking a step back to examine how we have reached this point. For a decade, a vast amount of prime development land in Leeds city centre has been set aside for the expected arrival of HS2 - with a new T-shaped railway station to deal with both high-speed services and existing local trains at the heart of redevelopment proposals for the city’s South Bank.

In November, the IRP curtailed the HS2 line from reaching Leeds in favour of a £100m study that will examine other options for its trains to get to the city.

Almost six months on, that study has not yet officially started and now the Prime Minister himself has confirmed that it will take some time to come to its conclusions.

But in many respects, the situation is simple - there is an existing solution to the capacity problems at Leeds station and also how to get HS2 trains to the city; build the Eastern leg as planned.

That indeed may yet prove to be the outcome. In February, Rail Minister Andrew Stephenson said the study may well conclude that returning to the Eastern leg is the best way forward.

It would certainly be “amazing” - in a rather different sense of the word to the one used by Mr Johnson - if a study commissioned as a result of the IRP eventually ends up overturning one of its key proposals.

PM's admission he does not know to bring HS2 to Leeds shows he should revert to initial plan - The Yorkshire Post says