Instead of killing HS2 bit by bit, ministers should just put it out of its misery | Simon Jenkins

The latest delays to this colossal folly offer a golden opportunity to cry halt – and use railway money where it’s really needed

It is death by gangrene. No government seems to have the guts to kill HS2, Britain’s biggest and craziest infrastructure project, so each merely lops off another limb. In 2021, it was Leeds. Now the opening of the Birmingham-to-Manchester and Acton-to-Euston lines has been delayed.

This railway is a southern project on which the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is blowing a stag...