After giving HS2 the go-ahead, Boris Johnson can never again say there’s no money | Simon Jenkins

If a few businessmen can claim 100bn of public money for a dud project, how can he refuse a new hospital or school?

Britain’s greatest white elephant, HS2, was always a dud railway. It has grazed for 10 years on the Treasury lawn, and has now has been told it can stay, more dud than ever. It was symbolic this week that Boris Johnson launched HS2 not in the north but in a giant patch of Birmingham mud. Next to him stood his chancellor, Sajid Javid. They already looked like executioner and...